{"id":1041,"date":"2005-08-21T11:01:07","date_gmt":"2005-08-21T06:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emilychang.com\/blog\/?p=1041"},"modified":"2009-07-26T11:05:33","modified_gmt":"2009-07-26T06:05:33","slug":"symbols-and-synchronicity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emilychang.com\/blog\/2005\/08\/symbols-and-synchronicity\/","title":{"rendered":"Symbols and Synchronicity"},"content":{"rendered":"

I mentioned how I like it when synchronicities<\/a> pop up at different times in an earlier post last week<\/a>, but I have to mention another odd coincidence because 1) it\u2019s cool and 2) I need your help to find out what this symbol is.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d already been thinking about starting a small project to take photos of signs and symbols seen around San Francisco.\u00a0 Yesterday, I took two photos of this symbol on the back of our building.\u00a0 I\u2019d seen it many times before as things like this always catch my eye.<\/p>\n

\"082005-symbol-1\"<\/p>\n

\"082005-symbol-2\"<\/p>\n

Then as we walked down Harrison to Whole Foods, I took another photo of the great Qube autobody shop from across the street instead of under it as I did in this photo from last Wednesday<\/a>.\u00a0 When I got home and uploaded the photos to my laptop and saw the shot at full screen, there was the symbol again on the door under the number 765.<\/p>\n

\"082005-symbol-qube\"<\/p>\n

Today, I got up and checked a few of my blog readers, made a post about gVisit<\/a>, the visitor mapping site using Google maps, went to Technorati to search for \u201cgVisit\u201d see if my tagging worked out, and there, just a few entries down in the search results was a variation of the symbol – this time as Dan Cameron\u2019s<\/a> icon.\u00a0 It has a green square, slightly different shades, and isn\u2019t turned on a point, but it\u2019s pretty close.<\/p>\n

\"082005-symbol-dcameron\"<\/p>\n

Compelled to find out what this symbol is, I googled for all sorts of words and phrases but couldn\u2019t quite find the words to describe it:<\/p>\n

symbols seen on buildings = rather general but surprisingly, this yields all sorts of returns having to do with the occult – freaky.<\/p>\n

graphical symbols seen on buildings = thought I might have found it with electrical and electronic symbols but those were all line symbols in black and white; health and safety symbols.. nope<\/p>\n

graphic signage on buildings = all university signage programs<\/p>\n

graphic mechanical symbols = logs of CAD symbols for architecture<\/p>\n

graphic safety symbols = warmer?\u00a0 Lots of safety symbols.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s interesting with all the power of Google, it\u2019s still of course a language-based search, making it difficult to search for a visual topic.\u00a0 I wish Google had the \u201cfind topic by uploading an image\u201d feature that some font services have.\u00a0 Anyway, I tend to think it\u2019s an electrical symbol of some kind, but I\u2019m not sure.\u00a0 I\u2019ll have to ask the building owner if I see him this week.\u00a0 Or, maybe you know?<\/p>\n

Great answers archived here:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. This is very intriguing.\u00a0 I\u2019ve blogged your picture from flickr, in the hope that someone can give us an answer.\n
    Posted by Garry<\/a> on\u00a0 08\/23 \u00a0at\u00a0 05:26 AM<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  2. http:\/\/www.cavatica.net\/333.html<\/a>Your photo triggered my emmory of one I took in the East Bay.\n
    Posted by luminant studio<\/a> on\u00a0 08\/23 \u00a0at\u00a0 06:37 AM<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  3. my pre-coffee typographical slip reveals what city the building is in, but other than that I don\u2019t know what kind of building it is, or what goes on inside.\n
    Posted by luminant studio<\/a> on\u00a0 08\/23 \u00a0at\u00a0 07:05 AM<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  4. that\u2019s a hazmat logo – the colors stand for biological, chemical, radioactive, and lethal contaminents.\n
    Posted by Bill Tallmadge \u00a0on\u00a0 08\/23 \u00a0at\u00a0 11:42 AM<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  5. I googled \u201chazmat logo\u201d: here\u2019s a fine example -http:\/\/iahmr.com\/_borders\/INDIANA_HAZMAT_LOGO1.gifI\u2019ve learned something today \"smile\"\n
    Posted by Garry<\/a> on\u00a0 08\/23 \u00a0at\u00a0 12:32 PM<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  6. Wow, thanks, all!\u00a0 That solves the mystery for me.\u00a0 Now I need to find out why that\u2019s on the back of our building. Seeing the hazmat logo on the autobody shop door seems normal enough, but our building is totally residential.\u00a0 I suppose there are biological, chemical, radioactive, and lethal contaminents all around us that we know so little about.\n
    Posted by emily chang<\/a> on\u00a0 08\/23 \u00a0at\u00a0 03:52 PM<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  7. Emily,As I recall:\n

    They put numbers into the boxes if there is a specific threat.\u00a0 A 4 in any of the boxes would be a large danger, 1 a danger, no number means little or no danger.<\/p>\n

    The white box is for specific dangers and is seldom used.<\/p>\n

    Perhaps your city code requires each large or multi-use builing to have the boxes?<\/p>\n

    It would be handy for emergency crews to be able to review before entry.<\/p>\n

    Allan<\/p>\n

    Posted by Allan Wallace<\/a> on\u00a0 08\/24 \u00a0at\u00a0 12:05 PM<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  8. I think this site should clear every thing up for you.http:\/\/safety.science.tamu.edu\/nfpa.html<\/a>\n

    Being a Hazmat Tech and having my CDL\u2019s I am all too formiliar with this placard..
    \nBut did you know that one of the most dangerous trucks diving your city streets has Wal-Mart on the side of it. Just think of all the things that you can buy at this store, and then stop and think \u201cHow it got there?\u201d<\/p>\n

    Posted by David Mahaffey \u00a0on\u00a0 11\/02 \u00a0at\u00a0 11:13 PM<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  9. NFPA 704 DiamondFlamability – Red
    \nReactivity – Yellow
    \nHealth – Blue
    \nSpecial Consideration – White<\/p>\n
    Posted by Kent \u00a0on\u00a0 05\/01 \u00a0at\u00a0 01:54 PM<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I mentioned how I like it when synchronicities pop up at different times in an earlier post last week, but I have to mention another odd coincidence because 1) it\u2019s cool and 2) I need your help to find out what this symbol is. I\u2019d already been thinking about starting a small project to take…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1043,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[354,353],"class_list":["post-1041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-living","tag-sychronicity","tag-symbols"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilychang.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilychang.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilychang.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilychang.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilychang.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/emilychang.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilychang.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emilychang.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilychang.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emilychang.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}