Wandering around Verone last week made me think of various things and the picture below reminded me of Thesis 75 in "Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing".

"About all that we can properly ask for is that our technology be designed in such a way that it is conservative of face: that ubiquitous systems must not act in such a manner as would unduly embarrass or humiliate users, or expose them to ridicule or social opprobrium, in the course of normal operations (...) But we are not talking about doing away with shame. The issue at hand is preventing ubiquitous computing systems from presenting our actions to one another in too perfect a fidelity - in too high resolution, as it were - and therefore keeping us from maintaining the beneficial illusions that allow us to live as a community."

Artifacts from the past like those scale on the street (rarely seen now, or they're often here for ages) is intriguing for that matter.