Grrl Power #439 – Valve hasn’t announced Portal Tree yet
Sydney was excitable – some might say injury prone – before she knew that the world contained the many potential wonders of things only possible due to super powers. She knew supers existed, but there’s a big difference between knowing something exists and having it feature heavily in your day to day life. Now that that’s the case for her… well, she runs headlong into trees with surprising confidence.
The question must be asked, what would someone put on a sign that would actually keep you out? Any sign trying too hard (much like this one) would only invite curiosity. If this comic was slightly more serious I think biohazard symbols and something about airborne infectious agents. Some sort of explosive hemorrhagic fever that promises to burst your eyes last so you can watch the rest of your body melt first… Nope, see, that’s trying too hard again.
Maybe “Warning: Worlds 7th most boring tunnel.” Cause of course, the most boring tunnel can’t even exist by virtue of it’s own internal paradox. Maybe just a sign about raw sewage?
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Back when I was a radar tech in the army, there was a bus bar that wasn’t really well protected that was the feed for ultra high voltage for the transmitter side of the radar. I’m not sure if it was added locally or was factory default, but it said “If you have not turned off power you will die of you touch this”
lol. gotta love the army. x]
except when theyre making you hurry up and wait….
That’s also true of television sets (the big CRT sets), and the power supplies of desktop computers* (and a lot of other consumer electronics, too). There are capacitors in those things that carry enough electrical charge to kill you, even after the device has been unplugged for weeks.
* If you’ve ever looked at a computer’s power supply and wondered why it was obviously not designed to be opened, that is why. They don’t want to be sued if you touch something and get the shit shocked out of you.
The switching power supply used in current-day desktop computers does not use huge capacitors or huge Transformers like the ones of 30 years ago or so.
The gold box in the Apple II was among the first switching power supplies in a home computer.
However yes. High voltage inside.
Not coincidentally, the last one I opened was about 30 years ago. It was one of those Commodore 64 “brick” power supplies, the ones that were prone to developing thermal flaws due to overheating. No surprise, really… the PCB was surrounded by a solid brick of epoxy, which was itself surrounded by the black plastic shell. Can you say “no ventilation”?
I got tired of buying new power supplies all the time. So, I removed the PCB to a new case that I had fabricated. It took a lot of man-hours to remove all that epoxy, though, since I had to be careful not to damage anything. Never had a problem with it since. In fact, it still works.
Of course, if I knew then what I know now, I probably would’ve cobbled something together out of a couple of wall warts (all you need is 9V AC @ 1 amp and 5V AC @ 2 amps, the DIN connector off a Commodore PSU, and some rudimentary soldering skill.)
Yeah… bit misleading there… MAYBE 16 years ago that would be true for SOME PC power supplies (even back then most would either loose charge if you hit the power button a couple times with the power switch off, or just left them sit for 30min or so) and only kinda true for the big CRT pc monitors of that time too, most wouldn’t last more then a day, and doing the whole hitting the power button a couple times with power switch off would drain most of them too.
These days, most consumer electronics loose charge anywhere between 1min and 5min, with maybe a few exceptions (thats WITHOUT doing the whole hitting the power button with the wall socket disconnected), hell even my monster 1500W PSU in my PC looses all charge in less then 2min.
I have my PC, monitor, laptop, router, heck even my bedside lamp all protected by continuous power supply units! Although the power supply is OK here, most of the time, you can get periodic black-outs and brown-outs. Far better to protect everything, than to loose CPUs and power supply units to such vagaries!
The lamp is just handy for being able to smirk at the rest of the village being in a black-out. It is handy being able to prepare for such conditions in a leisurely fashion. No grasping around for the wind-up lantern, or candles, in the dark.
It is particularly nice to get several minutes to wind down activity on the internet, and make apologies to anyone I am speaking with. Fortunately my ISP seems to be as well protected against such conditions as I am. And, even better, the power is often restored before my computer’s CPS starts to warn me that its power is running low (I have several minutes worth of buffer).
Anyone else notice the black guy’s eyes? Either he had a stroke, or one of them is fake.
Not necessarily. Likely, but not necessarily. There are other medical conditions that can cause that effect. Strabismus*, for example. (Specifically, the variant where the eye turns inwards, which is called esotropia.)
* Strabismus is often associated with crossed eyes, but all it really means is that both eyes do not look in the same direction at the same time. One eye can turn inward (esotropia), outward (exotropia), upward (hypertropia) or downward (hypotropia).
“Amway salesman convention”
“Church of Scientology orientation”
“Honey, let’s talk about our feelings”
Of all the suggestions, these got the most laughter out of me.
It’s a Small World
Enter Here
I would be interested in checking out the planet It. Earth is just too big and troublesome, after all. But a small world, could be fun to
rule… ahh… explore.That depends on which Earth you’re talking about.
There’s a place called Earth, Texas. It’s a small town with a population of just under 1,100 and is only 1.2 square miles (3.1 square kilometers). I don’t think it’d take long to explore it. ;-)
Sounds like it could cause a bit of friction if I were to plant my flag, and claim sovereignty over all of Earth though.
But, that said, 1100 subjects does sound like a manageable number. OK, I accept your implied offer, to cede Earth to me. First order of business will be to establish a robust Yorpie Snax™ Industry.
It would have been somewhat easier to claim Earth (Texas) back in the middle 1950s. The population back then was only about 150. The only fast-food establishment was Dairy Queen, which had (and I think it still does have) free coffee on Sunday.
So, to aid your takeover effort, if you have the capability of time travel, you might want to schedule your invasion for Sunday at 12:30 pm in 1956. I can tell you exactly where “the entire population of Earth” will be! XD
But then you have to constantly clean the volcanoes and pull up baobabs–and you can’t even have a sheep, ’cause it’ll eat your rose…
Nice The Little Prince reference.
No wi-fi would do it for me.
I recently encountered a similar place that did not have a sign, yet effectively kept me out.
Rather than a sign that says “Raw Sewage”, it simply provided the smell of raw sewage.
“But you can’t trust the trees”
It’s just a tree get over it.
“that’s what they want you to think.”
Reminds me of some of the trees in the Spellsinger novels, by Alan Dean Foster. If it hadn’t been for Mudge, Jon-Tom might have lost a foot by kicking a pine cone. Some pine cones are just pine cones, but in that world, some of them were missing the top ring of scales… in which case they were explosive. (Oh, and the trees would sometimes drop them on you deliberately. As Mudge points out, “ever heard one of those stories about people who go into the woods to cut some firewood, and never return? That’s why.”)
There are some trees IRL that can kill you, entirely by accident. The Coulter Pine can grow as tall as 80 feet, and its pine cones can weigh up to 10 pounds. You do not want one of those to accidentally fall on your unprotected skull from 80 feet. You’ll be lucky if a depressed skull fracture (which is usually deadly) is all that happens.
Australian Eucalyptus trees have highly flammable sap. They have been known to explode when exposed to a bush fire, or sometimes even spontaneously on a really hot day. (There is a good reason they are sometimes called a “gasoline tree”.) Australia also has the Gympie Gympie tree, or the “Australian stinging tree”. Its sting is potent enough to kill humans, dogs, and horses.
The sandbox tree is probably the closest to those pine cones in Spellsinger… the fruit of the tree is a large pod that basically turns into shrapnel when it hits the ground, catapulting seeds at speeds of up to 160 miles per hour (257 kph) over a distance of 150 feet (45 meters) or more. In Tanzania, it is an invasive species… because who wants to get close enough to stop it?
Australia, where even the darn *trees* can kill you.
That is a beautiful continent full of amazing vistas and populated by friendly and interesting people. Everything *except* the people is constantly trying to kill you.
See also the bunya pine (not actually a species of pine). The nut is positively terrifying. Tasty though.
I wouldn’t want one of those falling on my head from a distance of 100-150 feet (30 to 45 meters) either!
Ever heard of the manchineel tree? It’s a nasty piece of work. It’s native to central America as far north as Florida and Texas. Every single thing about this tree will kill you. Wood, leaves, bark, fruit. Worse part? The fruit looks, smells, and even tastes like a tart little apple. Until your throat closes up and you start bleeding from your eyes.
Oh, yes. The tree contains 12-deoxy-5-hydroxyphorbol-6-gamma-7-alpha-oxide, hippomanins, mancinellin, and sapogenin; the leaves contain phloracetophenone-2,4-dimethylether; the fruits contain physostigmine; and the active ingredient in the sap is phorbol.
“What does that mean? In English, please?” – well, phorbol produces strong allergic dermatitis. This means that just standing under the tree during a rain can cause ulcerous skin blisters, and and the raw sap can damage the paint on cars.* The physostigmine in the fruit is an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor. Or, to put it in very simple language, “it kills bugs dead, and it ain’t too healthy for humans, either.”**
The sap was also used by the Carib Indians to poison their arrows. It was one of these arrows that killed the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León. They also poisoned the water supplies of their enemies with the leaves. As Keneth says, there is no part of this plant that is not dangerous. Even the Guiness Book of World Records lists it officially as the “World’s Most Dangerous Tree”.
* However, despite the properties of the sap, the wood of the tree has been used by Caribbean carpenters for centuries. The wood must be cut and left in the sun to completely dry out the sap before it can be used.
** Not surprisingly, in very small amounts, physostigmine could, theoretically, be used therapeutically to treat cognitive symptoms of some neurological disorders, such as autism, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s. The amount in the fruit, however, can produce severe gastroenteritis with bleeding, shock, bacterial superinfection, and airway compromise due to edema.
Some worlds have even more dangerous trees. Even if you are being chased by a shark, do not climb one of those!
And here’s where I start singing:
Heading out to Eden
Yeah, Brother
Heading out to Eden
Yeah, Brother
Gonna live like a king on whatever I find
Eat all the fruit and throw away the rind
Yeah, Brother
Indeed. I don’t know if you’ve played the Mass Effect games, but there’s a race called the Krogan. The long-short is, they pretty much have redundant everything (two hearts, two nervous systems, two livers, four testicles, etc.) and could live for over a thousand years, though most of them die a violent death much younger.
Anyway, in Mass Effect 3, one of them (Wrex or Wreav, depending on whether or not Wrex survived the first game) comments “… and I want this place called Australia.”
Based on the message boards, the response was “We welcome our toadshark friends to live among us… as long as they can survive.” xD
I think I trust TwoUnfortunateMinds‘s opinion more on this matter.
Oh, and [sarcasm] thanks [/sarcasm]. Every time I raise my hind leg now, I will be too afraid to pee against a tree!
Mind the ivy…
In the islands of the South Pacific, more people die due to falling coconuts than due to shark attacks.
Well, let’s face it, sharks are not (statistically) the deadliest animals on Earth.
In fact, cows are deadlier. More people die from being accidentally trampled by a herd of cows, than by shark attack.
The deadliest animal on the planet? The humble mosquito, which kills more than two million people a year (due to the diseases that it can be a carrier of).
Now combine a mosquito and a coconut and you get this nightmare of creation! And, no, that is not a prop from some new Alien movie, coconut crabs are real.
Facehuggers are real. Giant facehuggers!: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_spider_crab
Is that crab attempting to mate with that coconut? o_O
Deer are the deadliest mammal in my neck of the woods.
or drunk humans, depending on the year…
Putting aside humans (who are actually very nice around these parts, in the overwhelming majority of cases) the most deadly here are furry piggies. I will quite happily jump into a bed of thorns (and have done so), if on a path, that they are angrily contesting.
Anybody who, foolishly, thinks that wolves are the danger here, I put straight. A 300lb sow, protecting her piglets, is far more likely to kill you.
I can see that–fortunately we don’t have those here–there apparently weren’t any boar-hunters about at the time they imported boxcars full of non-native deer for sport hunts, else we’d have them wandering the highways and byways as well.
Last year, more people died by paying insufficient attention to their surroundings because they were busy taking a selfie than died due to shark attacks.
Anyone else remember the Roger Moore era of James Bond films? His flickLive And Let Die had a good keep out sign that read “Trespassers Will Be Eaten.” Mind you, it was on the front gate of an alligator farm, so . . .
Or maybe a sign in front of a chicken farm, “Any trespassers will be assumed to be chickens & slaughtered for KFC sandwiches.”
That’ll keep out the Vegetarians, for sure.
Actual sign on an actual little “zoo” at an actual air boat rental place in Florida.
“Caution: The alligators you see are NOT part of the exhibits.”
Said sign is placed on the ONLY thin land bridge that connects the island where the animals are to the main area where the shop is. There is no fence preventing access to the water, only a small incline. And there is usually several large gators on both sides of the path.
Oh yeah, the best part? The sign is visible on the RETURN walk to the shop, when it’s already too late to say “Nope!” You already walked across, now do it again.
Man, I hated Florida.
But what did the signs say about the alligators you don’t see?
“…Dude, can I keep your car?”
yep, and I’m sure that the first time somebody get injured/killed because of the lack of signs, that place will get sued into oblivion… because the operator’s of the place KNOW the gator’s are there, yet they don’t have obvious signage saying so BEFORE you get to that area or even a bridge to prevent public contact with the gators… yeah, definitely NOT up to “code” for whatever that means in the area, as I’m sure there are legal requirements for signs and/or fences, a bridge, etc., stuff like that.
This was only a few years ago, so I am legit surprised they have not been sued. Still, it was an out-of-the-way, dirt path in the Everglades sort of establishment, so no telling when the last time an inspector or sheriff not related somehow to the owner stopped by.
In all honesty, the people were great, the whole experience was pretty fun, and I am pretty sure they take all reasonable precautions they can(maybe?). I mean, I did come about four inches from losing some of the fingers on my left hand, but I was the idiot trailing my fingers in the water on the side of the boat, and if my brother hadn’t spotted the four foot gator lazily floating towards my digits, I’d be a much worse guitar player than I am now.
….I don’t play guitar. That was the joke.
Dave, you owe me a new flat panel monitor and a new keyboard, plus a new cup of Cafe a chocolat.
I need to stop reading this comic early in the morning while I’m having my coffee. I LITERALLY did a spit take when Syd headsmacked that tree!
…Make this be a lesson unto you…
Never have food or drink in your mouth until AFTER you’ve read the comic.
fwiw, I used to work in the nuclear industry, which has been wrangling with the “how to reeally keep people out” question for decades — how to keep distant generations safe from our spent fuel and other nuclear waste even if society collapses and the language changes.
The conclusion is, it can’t be done. Our monkey brains just HAVE to have a look.
fwible, is what happens to monkey brains exposed to too much radiation.
It also gives them superpowers. Being raised on old comics have thaught me that.
Only if you have the metagene. Statistically, being struck by lightening while taking a chemical bath with a radioactive spider will tend to kill most other people.
A sign saying ‘Everything Is Fine’. Who’s going to investigate that? Who’d even hang around? Why is this sign saying that everything is fine? Am I in some kind of danger standing here? Just let the mark’s imagination do the work for you.
But I’d next level that sign and recognize it’s trying to next level me into leaving
Obvious ploy is obvious.
Warning, Political Poop-storm Within.
That would quickly make internet trolls mass migrate to the area.
…Easier to get rid of them all at once, gathering them together like that. Pretty efficient planing, If I say so myself…
Yup, genocide would not go down well with politicians.
I second the motion.
I like to think they would kill each other.
Only figuratively I’m afraid. They’re internet trolls, not actual pranksters or murderors.
Depends on the politicians… :D
https://www.genocideman.com
But a place where everything is fine sounds just like the place you do want to be at.
Aww, and here I thought Sydney would start feverishly pressing tree knots ala ‘Princess Bride’
Well that would just be bound to work. Maxima would be all “what the heck, I never knew that was there!”
“Guide my orb. Guide my orb.” She starts weaving back and forth, as her orbs spin haphazardly, then POP! One of them smacks into a tree knot.
“Dangit, I was really hoping that would work.”
Usually anything to do with biological or radiation hazards will make people back off. When I worked at the US Postal Service I needed to send a glass bottle of barbeque sauce to a friend across the country. But working there I knew how gently packages are handled, especially anything marked FRAGILE, and I wanted the sauce to get there intact. So I too one of the biohazard/infectious agent labels and put it on the outside of the box. In the spot where it you write in what the biohazard is I wrote something and smudged it so badly it was illegible. Then I sent it off. The box arrived at my friend’s house in pristine shape.
It was very good sauce. Don’t judge me. :)
I like the way you think. For something less extreme though, try “pathological samples”, noone wants lizard poop on them.
You are aware that emergency crews and the such like are required to treat all bio-hazards and radiation warning labels as valid. And I was under the impression that the USPS didn’t allow bio-hazards to be shipped.
Given the scare that we had last year, about a US laboratory that had been shipping live diseases (when they thought they were inert samples) to other laboratories, around the world, I suspect that they do. A particularly nasty flavour too. Plus if Pit Friend used to work for them, and had labels for such packaging, the evidence does start to add up.
Not that I am going to type “sending bio-hazards by the US postal service” into a search engine, to check. I do not particularly want to be anally probed, the next time I cross an international border!
You would be suprised what gets sent, or at least used to 20 years ago when I worked there. Blood cultures, stool samples, and dead animals weren’t terribly unusual. At the distribution center where I worked we actually had a Bee Room where packages of live bees were kept while in transit. Yes, apparently beekeepers mail entire colonies of bees to each other so we kept them in a sealed room in case they got loose.
Were they afraid they were rabid bees? Couldn’t they make them bee
hivehave?They anally probe dogs crossing borders now?
I guess the Brexiters were right about Europe….
Actually I was thinking of the American border. I just did not say it, as I could only afford to do that if I won the lottery. They are going to be suspicious enough with me, if they put through their latest plan, and request travellers to provide details of the social media they participate in.
Given that I will check the box marked “None of your damned business” (albeit hand-written underneath the one typed “
I would prefer not to say“t).Especially if they challenge me on that, and find out that I do not participate in any. Any further interrogation and they will find out that one of my favourite, compulsive, hobbies is teasing Americans. At which point, they will be reaching for the rubber gloves!
Too right, mate–I find it troubling that it’s easier to leave my country in either direction, than it is to get back in…
and yah, don’t tease the borderers–I hear they have their humour surgically removed.
“Mosquito, Flea,Tick, Chigoe, Ringworm, Tapeworm, Hookworm, Giant Wolf Spider, Centipede, and Biting Horsefly conservation area. No spraying. $500 fine.”
Suspiciously long list.
Try this at the next meeting of an obsessive compulsive support group. Put a sign on the door saying ‘look behind you’. Then on the opposite wall put another sign saying ‘look behind you’.
I suspect that the best “keep out” sign is one that says “Danger; High Voltage” on a mesh/chain link gate with obvious, and rather thick, power wires running behind it.
You forget the copper thiefs. Those guys are not afraid of anything. A sign saying “No copper here” may work against them but then again that sounds like a suspiciously specific denial.
“High Voltage: Aluminum Wires”
perhaps?
I’m a fan of the Biohazard or Radiation signs. Nothing else, no explaination. Just one of those two, in slightly rusted, peeling paint.
that wouldn’t work, they’d take those as well. as well as the fact that putting a sign that specifically says “no copper here” is an instant trigger to search FOR copper, because, well… just because…
Anyone stealing police is going to end up in jail!
Mind you only the dumb thieves would fall for that entrapment.
But the “No copper here” sign should disencourage those that want to take cops without paying right? Then again it would encourage pretty much all other kind of thieves so maybe that was not a good idea after all.
Did you hear about the police station where thieves stole the plumbing from the bathroom?
When asked about solving the crime the police chief said “At the moment we have nothing to go on.”
Heh, nothing like copper-bottomed toilet humour.
…Somebody should really get some soap to wash out that potty-mouth…
+1
Any sign about the 7th most boring tunnel would make me go in, just to see what the 7th most boring tunnel looked like. What makes it more boring than number 8 but less boring than number 6?
Was my first thought too. Anything so specific must be worth investigating.
I dont know what’s worse, cat dander or no wifi.
Seriously, I’d take the rabid bees over either.
Trespassers will be violated.
That would just encourage the masochists.
…And draw in the sadists looking to fill out a job application…
“Please be quiet. Math test in progress.”
That ought to keep people out.
Ooh, I wanna see! Can he resist boobies being flashed at him, after all his internet practice? I hope it is either Peggy or Sydney doing the flashing mind.
Considering how dirty imagination some people (like me) have I think any kind of warning signs can be counter productive.
“Warning: Biohazard. Type: Burst Sewage Pipe”
Also, is anyone else having flashbacks to The Unit, the episode where Bob Brown is introduced to the moonshine facility slash hidden vault of secret stolen assets stockpiled by Unit members in case they ever need to go on the run?
Free Darwin Awards issued, followed by free cremation on site. One per Trespasser.
A better adjective for hitting the tree would have been ‘Predictabonk’ :P
‘The princess is in another castle.’
:)
Ooh, untended jewels…
… is what a less-romantic and more larcenous individual than myself might think.
Welcome ElderSpa Volunteers!
Massage Area, this way —>
<— Rest Room Assistance
“Beware of Ding-Dong-Ditchers.”
“Wrong tree. Feel free to try again. Repeatedly.”
IRS Memorabilia
“Learn how to make $2000 dollars a day in 3 easy steps! Come inside and ask how!!!” Make it look as much like a computer banner ad as possible as well.
That way you can be certain only the absolute stupidest people will open the door and noone will believe them because like the 50 chain letters they forward every week, the email notifying the world about the secret base would get deleted instantly without even looking.
The best sign is no sign. It’s better to let people think there is nothing there at all worth noticing. Signs draw attention.
“Nothing interesting here.”
Then you get random explorers who like getting into ‘blocked’ areas.
My first thought:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTVfPNA09bQ
Most effective “keep out sign”:
https://freefall.purrsia.com/ff100/fv00014.htm
just update the organization name accordingly as needed..
…And in another fine example of misdirection, Max brought Sydney here to meet with the rest of the group for…
….Wait for it….
………An actual poker game.
Good old reverse psychology.
My vote goes with isolating her so they can bring out… THE NERVE WEASELS!!!!! Its all been a trick! Sydney is going to have to escape from maxima and this lab where they will try to remove her control over the orbs.
Oh my god, I can stop laughing XD
I’m glad to hear that. It must be terrible to not be able to stop laughing.
Hey, there is at least one recorded case of someone dying because they couldn’t stop laughing. Of course, he suffered from “Long QT syndrome”, an affliction in which the heart is prone to experiencing long pauses between heart beats, especially after instances of excitement or exertion. Usually the heart resets itself after a beats, but obviously not this time.
So, not being able to stop laughing… is no laughing matter. XD
yep, and they still haven’t figured out why: in 1518, in Strasbourg, France hundreds of people were DANCING until they dropped, some of them dropped dead from heart failure, etc… they ended up calling it “The Dance Plague“. so I’m sure that the medical condition of laughing until you drop dead is just another mysterious disease that we have yet to figure out.
Mmm, interesting. Something that weird deserves some wild speculation. There are various species of parasites which can mind-control their hosts. Most affect lower order animals, but some can control rats. Additionally diseases (and presumably parasites) can sometimes make the transition from one species to another.
When such species-hopping mutations occur, they are often much more deadly, but not necessarily as contagious, as the original strain. Simply because it is in a pathogen’s interest to keep its host alive long enough for it to reproduce. But in a new host species its adaptations, to achieve that, are less likely to be optimal.
So such outbreaks can burn themselves out fast, if the new strain does is not successful in its new environment. Which sounds like what is being described in that article. Some reservoir (in my hypothesis rats) is keeping the base parasite going, and every now and then it adapts to jump to humans.
Now whilst rats are pretty similar to humans (you both have shifty eyes), one area where there are big differences is in the brain. So a parasite which is attempting to encourage its host to, say, seek out cats, parade up and down, in front of them, may have those instructions interpreted very differently in the bigger brain. Perhaps this comes out (to the subconscious mind of the victims) as “dance in front of cats”?
Given the prevalence of cats in urban areas, this would amount to an instinct to dance and keep dancing, until you drop. Which very much suits the parasite, as it is hoping that you will be eaten by its next-stage host!
A simple Quarantine sign would do it. Maybe even an ‘official’ notice about an Ebola or black plague outbreak or radioactive waste spill that cannot be cleaned, only left to recover naturally, which would take centuries. And the security around it for the idiots who think quarantine zones are places you want to go. An established known danger that isn’t really that interesting, but keeps all but a few idiots away. The security taking care of the few idiots.
I think The Evil Overlord List #65 is appropriate here: If I must have computer systems with publically available terminals, the maps they display of my complex will have a room clearly marked as the Main Control Room. That room will be the Execution Chamber. The actual main control room will be marked as Sewage Overflow Containment.
I think “Sewage lift station #3. WARNING: Hydrogen sulfide gas.” with appropriate safety placards would do. Any NFPA safety diamond with two 4s, that also smells atrocious, is a good discourager. The trick is to find something plausible, and hydrogen sulfide is a good one.
“Mandatory Windows upgrade beyond this point”
Well, that explains the lack of Wi-Fi.
”AOL download required”
Around my area, “Keep out. Private Property. Trespassers will be shot, and survivors prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” tends to do it.
Doing field survey training, one of first things that got drilled into us was to avoid such places. And to contact local police/state troopers (or unofficially, the NRA rep) to help negotiate access, but expect “no” as the answer.
If they really want to keep out all potential intruders, they need to put a sign on the door saying:
Tonight: Elementary School band recital.
Except for Holmes and Watson.
Honestly, just put a sign there that says “Rest stop 1 mile east.” If there’s no sign that’s a little suspicious, but a sign like that says to the reader, “This place is so unimportant that the sign on it is talking about a different place, because we assume you’re lost.”
I like the way you think.
I like the idea of making the steel door hollow, and filling up the inside with some horrible stench producing chemical. Nontoxic, just really smelly. It escapes outside through an open panel, but cant get inside the actual building. Very few people are going to be willing to get close enough to the door to even find out its locked, let alone be willing to break it open and see whats inside, when its clearly something awful.
…Maybe a big container behind the door that will spill its contents all over whoever opens it? Something like: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/01/0107_020107TVstinkbomb.html