WHO IS STEALING AT BURNING MAN??

[cabro]

Burning Man 2005 has not even officially started yet and 2 bicycles were stolen from Mind Shaft Society's camp last night. Supposedly, only theme camps and staff are allowed in at this point. If anyone spots someone on a bright red "Jeep" bicycle with green bow and white front basket please notify us at Mind Shaft Society or contact the Black Rock Rangers. We are located on the perimeter of Center Camp between Camp Artica (ice) and Black Rock Arts Foundation. This stealing has got to stop! Ideas, anyone?

[sputnik]

Lock up your valuables and stop treating burning man like some hippy uber lovefest?

[Eric]

This stealing has got to stop! Ideas, anyone?

I agree with the quote above.

Lock up your bikes- in camp to a car, an RV, a piece of rebar that's been pounded into the playa; when you're out and about, bring your lock and lock your tires to your frame.

Bike stealing (or drunken taking) has been a problem for years. BM is still the real world, like it or not. Secure your camps, secure your bike, and stress as little as possible.

I would look for your missing bikes now, however. In a day or two they'll be impossible to find.

[the fire elf]

Ideas, anyone?

give away all your stuff

[Eric]

Ideas, anyone?

give away all your stuff

BYAHAHAHAHAHA

I think I love you.

[ZaphodBurner]

Lock up your valuables and stop treating burning man like some hippy uber lovefest?

Yeah. And piss on the ground and leave your empty beer cans on top of people's car, just like the real world.

Sounds great. Sounds like Spring Break. The bitch deserved to be raped 'cause she flaunted her ass like that, etc. Stupid uber-lovefest hippie shoulda known better. It's not the criminals' fault, it's the victims'.

Yeesh.

-c

[cabro]

Thank you, ZaphodBurner. My sentiments exactly. I guess we now have some idea of who the hell would come to Burning Man to steal.

[d6]

apparently they are "master criminals" - the bike stolen from our camp was the only one that was actually worth $$$ - seems as though they sorted through the crappy "art bikes" to find the $1000 version (the only "nice" bike in the entire camp) on sunday morning, while we were picking up camp and getting ready to leave, no less.

that'll learn us to tear down shade structures and domes and video screens and robots and sound equipment and showers and kitchens and grey water evap tanks and recycling and garbage and pick-up moop and be personally responsible
INSTEAD OF:
sitting around with a "stick" waiting for the fuckwads to steal something...
(actually we did that saturday night, but no crimelords showed)
*
d6,
robotronia - 2:45 / bi-polar

wait a minute,
*that was all a lie, after arriving friday night at 8p.m. we "borrowed freely" from anyone/anywhere, pissed on the esplanade and in theme camps, called art "gay", all other males "queer" - (while flicking our cigarette butts at them), pushed little kids out of our way to get to the portas to throw our PBR cans in the
sh!tters, screamed "SPRING BREAK 2005 // SHOW US YER TITT-OWS! // i'm just here to PAARRRTTTAAAYYYY, BRA'......WHOOOOO", grabbed anything that looked like a sexy (fe)male-we were blotto, so who knows, then punched people in the head for wearing "costumes" with blinky lights and glowsticks and el wire..passed-out halfway breakin in to yer ride, which i also pooped in, after pulling off the windshield wipers.........
sunday around noon
we just heaved our shit on the roadside after we cut-off all you fucking slowpokes trying to leave brc, still drunk, and ogling anything with "tits, bro!"

[Spastic]

Personal opinion ~ as a new Burner ~ a huge part of the whole thing is to be able to NOT deal with the stuff that happens in the 'real world'. In other words.... to feel safe and be able to do things without having to have the 'rules' (ie. laws) that are unfortunately necessary everywhere else. :?

As a 100lb female I am familiar with feeling vulnerable. And as this was my first Burning Man.... I was nervous. :( My girl friend and I showed up late at night and were not able to find my friends. We walked around and were immediately offered 'cocktail, sex, mushrooms, sex, acid, sex, sex and more sex'. Here we were in jeans ! Yet in the next 24 hours I would realize how safe I really was ;-) :D

So what does that have to do with anything?

Personally, I think it is that we should not have to deal with people taking things at Burning Man. Believing in the goodness of other people (appears to me) to be a huge part of the whole thing. :D

I personally had something taken as well....

I left my jacket on the bar of a theme camp for only a few moments.... I had a single pill in a ziplock baggie in my pocket. There were only a few people in the whole bar, yet when I retrieved my jacket - it was gone ! :shock: (btw ~ it was Ambien a sleep aid)

So do you guys really want to mess up the whole event with an attitude of 'well, it's just going to happen'? Or do you want to help be part of the answer?

Yes, I can see bikes getting 'drunkenly displaced' (happened to our gang) - but having one deliberately taken is out of control.

Anyone caught 'taking' should be permanently banned

[Davoid]

I stole some dreams out of thin air (sorry if they were destined for others); I also stole some peoples' thunder via creative heckling.

My non-mutated, overly-nice-for-BRC bike was stolen my first year. It sucked majorly, but had the benefit of forcing me to get over all negativity and enjoy the remaining 4 days. But benefits notwithstanding, I've been vigilant about locking up ever since, even at my camp out in the walk-in zone.

Yeah, it's a pain to do it every time you go to the potty, etc. Yeah, you don't want to have suspicious thoughts pollute your otherworldly mindset. Tough crap. Do it, or chance getting pissed at yourself as much as at the blaspheming fuckwad.

And bring more than one lock, in case you lose a key or whatever. Need not be fancy, just enough to make 'em move on.

Or maybe get a unicyle. A heavy one.

[Magikal]

Ya know, in some European country (not sure which one, suspect Switzerland *natch*) they have "community bikes", which are bicycles owned and maintained by the city, and anyone who needs it is free to take it, and ride it to where they need to go, and then just leave it there for the next guy to take. Of course, this could not possibly happen in the real (default) world, where s**tbags are looking to steal as much as they can get their hands on. But it is a nice fantasy, that people can look out for each other... Natch, could never happen in the real world...

[Eric]

Lock up your valuables and stop treating burning man like some hippy uber lovefest?

Yeah. And piss on the ground and leave your empty beer cans on top of people's car, just like the real world.

Sounds great. Sounds like Spring Break. The bitch deserved to be raped 'cause she flaunted her ass like that, etc. Stupid uber-lovefest hippie shoulda known better. It's not the criminals' fault, it's the victims'.

Yeesh.

-c

So you should just bury your head in the sand and pretend theft doesn't happen? I don't see how locking up your bikes and taking responsibility for your valuables equals pissing on the playa and tossing garbage around. It's great to live with some blissed out dream of BRC in your head- but the reality is different, like it or not.

Theft happening is a fact. As a matter of fact, rape happening is a fact this year. You can either adjust to the reality and prepare accordingly, or you can pretend it doesn't happen and whine when you lose your (bike-jacket-camera-necklace....) that you left sitting out in the open while you wandered off for 20 minutes. It sucks, it really does, but it is what is happening now.

Personally I think it's a bit more "radically self-reliant" to be aware that the real world is creeping into ours than to assume that everyone who comes shares the same high ideals as many of us. We are a the seventh largest city in Nevada for a week- and we probably have one of the lowest crime rates for a city of our size for a comparable period of time. But that doesn't mean we are crime free. Even if 99% of the citizens were as idealistic as we could wish, that still leaves several hundred with less than perfect motives for being there. And guess what? There are a lot of people out there who treat it like Spring Break- except with free bars, easier sex, better clubs and, oh yeah, a bike always in reach to get you to the next party. I was finding beer cans and bottles on the open playa on Tuesday. Welcome to growing pains.

As for who's fault it is- if you know things are being stolen but do nothing to protect yours, you do hold some responsibility for your stuff getting jacked (this does not in away way apply to rape- that is never the victims fault). The criminal is obviously in the wrong- but if you took the time to lock up, you would certainly made it harder for them and they would probably move on. I've never heard anyone in SF assume that they could just run into the store without locking up their bike and not have it disappear- the same thing should be assumed when you're dancing at Xara. I lock up my bike just to run into the porta-potty. People even mock me when I do it- but my bike is still there when I come out, unlike the poor girl I saw on Friday night.

None of this means I cower in camp and think constantly about bad things happening- I feel much safer at BRC than I do almost anywhere else. My guard is way down compared to what it is walking around SF. I do things I would never think about doing in the streets of SF- I just take resonable precautions with anything of value that I bring.

(edited to clear up a point on responsibility)

[ZaphodBurner]

...Yeesh.

-c

So you should just bury your head in the sand and pretend theft doesn't happen? I don't see how locking up your bikes and taking responsibility for your valuables equals pissing on the playa and tossing garbage around.
(edited to clear up a point on responsibility)

I don't think I articulated my thought clearly because I was bouncing off the "hippie love-fest" remark. It's not the fault of the person who leaves their shit unsecured, but the thief's. Having said that, the only way to combat the problem IS to take basic security measures.

I never locked up my bike (it had a lock on it), but it was unique...took a couple of hours to make it so. We didn't lock up our vehicle (our camp used it regularly) except during the burns when we KNEW predators would be prowling while the city was gathered on the playa.

The night the phone disappeared was the only time we didn't secure the root beer saloon when we left, and he had it charging in case he had an emergency on the way home. Ironically, somebody remained in our camp that night. Every night in which our camp was dark and vacant, nothing disappeared. T'was the one night we left the genny running and had somebody in camp that it happened.

BM IS a love-fest...love of art, love of music, love of humanity. I love it all. I'm the type of person who will pound someone or slash their tires if I catch 'em stealing or hurting another person, so I'm no hippie.

-c

[Petalford]

All I have to say to the two little fuckers whom I personally busted going through my stuff in my tent Wednesday night and stealing all my "goodies". I hope you fucking get what you deserve... as a matter of fact... "I wish for you all that you deserve, nothing more and nothing less" You little fuckers!

[Eric]

Having said that, the only way to combat the problem IS to take basic security measures.

I think we're on the same page.

We were lucky and didn't have anything disappear from our camp, but we also had great neighbors (BRC Hardware, Recycling Camp & the Bike Gods) and everyone seemed to keep there eyes open for strangness.

[d6]

belligerent fucktards with a sense of entitlement in no way make me cower in my camp,
nor do I wax unrealistically about the many types of crimes committed EVERY year at BM.
we've been since 96', and some of the change has included the necessity of posting a sentry, and chains and locks for valuables, which when attached to a 4ft cement stake work pretty well.

my previous rant on this thread was directed at the stereotype who usually resembles what most of us kick out of our camps when they're caught rummaging-or observed stumbling down the street, i was ""quoting"", after all.

as for my anger at the the amount of increased trash, obviously thrown onto the ground,into the portas, onto the roads, -----not merely a result of poorly tied down bags on trailers---
i was taking my moop queue from an angry young woman on saturday yelling :"dont forget your moop, fuckers!", while she was picking it up around her.........i 'heart' her sentiments.......

nope, i wont apologize for being incensed at BM irresponsibility, or basic unresponsible behavior, period, irregardless of setting.

i applauded Extra Action for beating down some fuckwit trying to tag the contessa, just as i would gladly help anyone trying to protect themselves, or their possessions, from a spineless fuckhole caught in the act.
(i've had to do that more times than i would have liked)
so,
theres just no fucking excuse to take what isnt yours, even though it happens everyday, in every-fucking-place where humans dwell, and sometimes it makes my urge-to-kill rise to unsafe levels.


d6,
properly placed on "bi-polar" for obvious reasons,

www.robotronia.com

[the fire elf]

do your thing...

[HughMungus]

Well, I have a positive story to tell. A friend's bike was stolen. A few nights later he was tripping on acid and taking a short cut through a camp and found his bike, got on it, and rode home. Miracles do happen.

[regynalonglank]

we had two bike incidents in our camp this year. one on sunday before the event where my camp mate went to the porta potties and came out to find her bike gone and another, crappier, less nicely decorated bike left in its place. then on wednesday another camp mate came out of the potties to find someone begining to ride away on her bike. when she called out after her this person threw the bike down and ran away.

i do not lock my piece of shit bike or my van in black rock city. of course i don't have much of value either. and i am actually such a trusting soul (read fucking moron) that i loaned out my bike to a total stranger one night just because he showed up at my burn barrel in the middle of the night in shorts and a t-shirt and needed to get back to his camp all the way across town...he promised he would have it back in my camp by morning. and what do you know, he actually did. so thanks kid, you're all right. i got to tell that story in camp, and it helped to restore our faith in burners after all.

fucking bike theives suck though. seriously. get your own fucking ten dollar bike you rat ass beer suckers. or we'll start installing exploding seats. HA! i got yer flame thrower right here asshole :)

[mars]

Funny Story...I was out riding around with friends and we stopped at an art installation and when we returned to our bikes we stood around drinking water and talking a bit. Then we got on our bikes to go and I noticed that my seat felt funny. Then I realized i was having trouble reaching my pedals and I looked down and saw I was not on my bike. I looked behind me to see my boyfriend, back where I had started, standing next to my bike with his arms crossed and a smile on his face. He just decided to wait and see how long it would be before I noticed that I had "stolen" his bike.

Since my bike is insanely painted and decorated and basically can't be missed, it was quite a lesson in how easy it is to accidentally take the wrong bike.

Not that I'm giving excuse to thieves or drunken borrowers, but I"m saying to watch out for us really spacey folk--and keep your bikes away from me!

[d6]

space travelers are a different breed, and usually self-effacing when "reality" temporarily sets back in,
although now i thinks
"RAT ASS BEER DRUNKARD BEATDOWN CAMP '06"
will start a pledge drive, with the captured folks punishment initiation being 93 minutes on the worst stationary "bike" design possible, surrounded by "spectator camp" hecklers.........

thanks for the inspired partial tagline, longlanks.

d6,
robotica interruptus

[el alacrán]

It all depends on how much work you want to do to secure your bike every time you take it out. People in our camp generally only lock up at the burns and sometimes at center camp but even then we often don't. This year we weathered the burn just fine, but after that we rode off to go look at some art out on the playa- after no more than FIVE MINUTES at the second place we went, we turned around and one of our friends' bike was gone. An opportunistic thief in for the weekend? A tired and bikeless burner fed up with walking? Some wasted fool whose capacity for recognizing identifying details was, er, diminished at the moment? Who knows... It sucks to lock up every place you go, and we don't even have locks for every bike. We'd never had a problem before and suddenly when we least expect it, pow. Unless you insist on locking up everywhere, at every camp you visit, every piece of art you go see, every thing being destroyed, and even every time you stop out on the playa to pee, it's a crap shoot. Go with your comfort level and be ready to accept a loss. It's really hard to catch thieves out there.

[olivia]

My camp mate had his bike stolen while he was on volunteer shift for the café. Like anywhere else, people are thieves - could be the drugs, could be the alcohol, could be the base level of morality. Either way, I locked up everything I wanted to keep this year,even though I'd had nothing stolen before. It's the only guaranteed way of keeping your shit.

[Martiansky]

I admit I didn't lock my bike up for my short trips to the portos but looking back I will next time I go. I don't want my ten buck ride stolen either since without it you are hoofing it around since the place is huge!

[Rabbi Dali Rick]

I locked my bike everytime I got off of it. I looked around for a recognizable landmark to guide me back to my trusty steed.



I Trust in God, all others pay cash.

totally,
the rebbi

[the fire elf]

i like playing pirate...

you can have all my stuff...

fu@# me lots...

[falk]

Ideas, anyone?

What's the range of an RFID tag?

Tag a few 'bait' bikes. Walk around the event with a scanner. Put a scanner at the exit gates. Odds are, you bust someone with a stolen bike, you'll recover several more stolen bikes with it.

[Kinetic IV]

What is the read range for a typical RFID tag?
The read range of passive tags (tags without batteries) depends on many factors: the frequency of operation, the power of the reader, interference from metal objects or other RF devices. In general, low-frequency tags are read from a foot or less. High frequency tags are read from about three feet and UHF tags are read from 10 to 20 feet. Where longer ranges are needed, such as for tracking railway cars, active tags use batteries to boost read ranges to 300 feet or more.

Cite: http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/arti ... What-30189

I've been tinkering with RFID tags of late, this is from a reference site I've linked to.

[the fire elf]

if your so fuckused on bikes, why not come back for clean up?

you'd be rolling in abandoned bikes...

[minch_ontheplaya]

I think a way to stop bicycle theft is to enable our citizens to self-police ourselves. How do we do that?

Let's just make it a rule: Bring a bike, you have to have a pair of matching artistic mementos (figurines, stuffed animals, some kind of small tokens, etc). One is attached to the bike at all times. One is attached to your person at all times. If a Ranger, or anyone, sees someone roll by on a bike and they don't have the matching "key," and they can't prove the bike is theirs... bike is confiscated, person is ejected.

By cannon.

Okay, but I'm serious about the matching token part.