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Comment by TylerE | Hacker News Reader

Animated billboards should be illegal.

Hell, make billboards illegal period, as a few New Wngland states do.

Living in Maine (and, well, rarely leaving...) I forget that they even exist! Funny how we get used to the norms around us.

For whatever reason I find billboard sized advertisements (printed) at street level unobtrusive, but the ones raised up to be quite obnoxious.

Some states set limits on how frequently the image on a billboard can change, which eliminates animations, but still can be jarring, especially at night, if the switch between ads creates a large difference in light intensity.

I probably should have been clear. I count "show a different ad every 30 seconds" as animation. Basically anything that isn't a static image. Only allowance I would make is "one and done" updates, like a gas station sign with prices on it.

Grocery stores here use eink for prices. It appears sharp, need to look closely to observe. It kind of did not occur to me this could lead to dishonest behavior. Not sure why they use them even. Those Waveshare ones are cheap esp in bulk.

Oh yeah, when I first encountered them, my mind went to a Black Mirror-esque future where security cameras identify me as a high spender or stressed buyer and jack up listed prices according to what some neural net figures I'm willing to pay. It already happens online, now it can happen offline too.

I think it's baaaarely in the realm of science fiction right now, but I'm sure someone is working on it.

They're illegal in Alaska :-)

vt does this and it's so much better

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