New Orleans water meters may be of interest. https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/14/ce/c5/14cec5c62...

This strikes me as a great way to increase architectural awareness and also as an MVP.

That is, if the market is big enough, I could see upgrading the process to employ more technical methods to scan the streetwork and using the captured data to silkscreen textiles.

Of course, part of the attraction of this is also that it's a very manual/analog process, so maybe different products for each market.

In any case, this is a very cool way to document the details of urban infrastructure.

EDIT: add missing "way" to last sentence.

So does the paint wash away with water? If so it makes it kind of pointless if you can't wash your clothes.

If not it means you're being a jerk painting over stuff that at worst are historic or architecturally important pieces and at best just defacing our landscape.

Metal and cotton are different materials with different properties. Cotton doesn't rust easily. Iron doesn't get tie-dyed easily.

Third option (ignoring your disputable conclusions of vandalism): it does wash away and you just don't 'get it'.

Even if it was permanent (it isnt). Why would painting dirty/rusty/messed up stuff with a coat of black ink be "defacing our landscape"? If anything the black ink would cover up the dirt, rust, blemishes, etc with an even coating of black. To my eyes this would be much better looking than disabused and dirty.

people stand on it, and probably spit, animals pee or poo on it, some paint wouldn't damage it, it would probably protect it. You are so negative, cheer up.

It doesn't wash away. They use some expensive paint for the purpose. It takes a while to dry.

And it's not defacing anything that could be defaced, it's mostly steel that hundreds of people step on every day.

"eco-friendly water-based paint"

Tempest in a teacup, much?

Even if the paint didn't wash away (it does), a couple of orange manhole covers are hardly a big deal.

This reminds me of the old practice of "rubbings". Take a sheet of paper and a crayon. Place the sheet on a nice surface like a bad-relief or a tombstone. Rub the other side with the crayon to copy the texture. Quite fun.

This is ancient 'news'.

Something something submission guidelines. Something something this is intellectually stimulating, and I haven't seen it before.

I think it might have been on HN before, or was it Boing Boing? Actually I was glad to see it again. It attracted a different kind of comment this time, lots of concern about defacing the manhole covers!