Replies

1. 
   Sphere | Dec 17, 2003 05:10pm | #1

   whoa DeJa vu...

2. 
   CombatRescue | Dec 17, 2003 05:10pm | #2

   These pictures were posted ealier in another topic on the forums here.  No one seemed to know where they came from, but many believed they are faked pictures - created in photoshop.

3. 
   BossHog | Dec 17, 2003 05:35pm | #3

   First off - Those pics are WAY to big for folks on dial-up accounts. About 800X600 is about the max reasonable size - Thould give you a fiel somewhere around 100K.

   Second - Those pics were already discussed:

   http://forums.taunton.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=tp-breaktime&msg=37450.1

   I think the consensus was that they had been digitally modified.

   If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

1. 
   glatt | Dec 17, 2003 06:50pm | #4

   The "driveway1.jpg" picture is a new one.  It was not posted in the earlier thread.  It is a picture of the same driveway in the other thread, but taken at a different angle.  Comparing the two pictures of the same driveway, one from this thread, and one from the old thread, I'm not so sure it's a fake driveway.  If it is a fake, they did a fantastic job. They changed the perspective of the allegedly fake driveway while keeping the details the same.  It looks like the picture in this thread was taken at least a day or two later than the picture in the other thread, because the driveway has been extended to the street in this one.  The details are amazing.  Look at the board lying on the sidewalk and leaning against the base of the driveway.  It's exactly the same in both pictures, but from a different perspective.

   I don't have photoshop, so I can't look at the pictures in different color channels.  Perhaps with this new, larger image, someone like Luka or Wrecked Angle can take a closer look in photoshop to see if these are manipulated.

1. 
   Luka | Dec 17, 2003 11:49pm | #5

   Driveway 2 is exactly the same picture as one that was in the first thread.

   Drive 1 is indeed the same drive from another angle.

   This is why I like bigger pictures. Things get lost in a smaller pic. For instance, in the drive 2 pic, the one in the other thread is so small that you almost completely lose the clues to the fact that the drive was indeed finished to the street already. For all intents and purposes, in the smaller version, the drive does NOT extend to the road. Not even when you blow the smaller version back up again. It simply loses those details. In the bigger version of the same pic, you can see two indicators that show the drive already there, complete to the road.

   As much as I was convinced I was right, I have to say I was completely wrong. It looks like the real thing, folks.

   You show me the smaller pics again, and I would probably have to come to the same conclusions. But the larger ones tell more of the truth. There are still some small things that I think could have been fudged, but the overall could not have been faked as well as that.

   Bottom line, I'll be taking even my own opinions on pics, with a large grain of salt from now on.

   Live, Love, Forgive and Forget

   quittintime

1. 
   finishcarp | Dec 18, 2003 03:54am | #6

   I'd like to see that driveway covered in snow / ice like it is up here in the Great White for 4 months!!!  LOL !!My DW says I'm a tool head with a sawdust brain !!

2. 
   glatt | Dec 18, 2003 05:22pm | #11

   Thanks for taking a closer look at these large resolution pics.  They are amazing, and it's much more enjoyable to beleive they are real than to think they are fake.

   Thanks again.

1. 
   jamiecase | Dec 18, 2003 06:07pm | #12

   A friend e-mailed the pics to me, I'm checking with him on where he got them from, but who knows how far they have travelled over then internet. In the early thread concerning these pictures, didn't someone say they were taken in Houston? Is there any validity to that? Sorry about the size of the pictures, it was how they were sent to me. I would have shrunk them, but I didn't want to lose any of the quality. Thanks for responding!

2. 
   pickings | Dec 18, 2003 06:21pm | #13

   I think they are REAL. I believe the builder used to work for "hot wheels" making yellow tracks in the 70's.

   PS. There is a driveway around the corner from me in NJ that is about as steep as those in your photos (30-35 degrees). Leads me to believe they are real. Wonder what the floor in the garage looks like. Hell of a hump to drive over.

3. 
   sbakeis | Dec 18, 2003 06:34pm | #14

   What is really interesting to me is in the second picture, look at the very top of the driveway of the house next to the really bad one.  It looks to me that they have gone to the effort to transition from the drive to the garage with a bit of an arc, not a sharp angle between the drive and the garage floor.  If you assume the picture is a fake, why would you go to the trouble of adding this on one driveway and not the other?  If it's a real picture, the arc makes "some" sense.

4. 
   pickings | Dec 18, 2003 07:05pm | #16

   Maybe the "arc" came from subs repeatedly driving into the garage, and wearing the sharp edge off.

   Personally, not too worried about real/retouched. I can retouch a photo with corel photo-paint to look as real as these and I already know of a driveway as steep, so my feeling is...... "Why would any sane person want a driveway as steep as this?"

   Maybe they are buying the home with proceeds won at the X games.

   What a perfect "launcher" for kids to shoot into the street on scooters, big wheels, skates, skateboards, bicycles, etc etc or worse yet.... even baby strollers . Maybe I should ask the guy around the corner.

3. 
   GoldenWreckedAngle | Dec 18, 2003 07:33pm | #17

   I have to agree with Luka on this one - I was wrong too. The big advantage of this thread over the last one is the fact that the identical drive is shot from two close but different angles. That allows you to map details between the images to see if everything matches.

   In the attached pic, I overlaid the two photos with arrows pointing to several details that match perfectly between them. There is just too much detail in the right places for both of these photos to be fabricated.

   Lord help the occupants! The house isn't even finished yet and it looks like the point where the drive attaches to the house has already started washing out. I wouldn't be surprised if the varmints have already started moving into that hole...Kevin Halliburton

   "I believe that architecture is a pragmatic art. To become art it must be built on a foundation of necessity."  - I.M. Pei -

   
1. 
   aimless | Dec 18, 2003 08:13pm | #18

   Is that Osama I see peeking out?

2. 
   HammerHarry | Dec 18, 2003 08:19pm | #19

   My thoughts exactly.  Now we know where obl is; we just have to figure out where the picture was taken!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

3. 
   Sphere | Dec 18, 2003 09:07pm | #20

   Georgia I tell ya Georgia..I've seen him with bigfoot down there. Kevin.. , ZOOM up those car tags..gotta be Georgia

4. 
   BillHartmann | Dec 19, 2003 05:19am | #25

   I think that I know what happened.

   They excevated for an 8ft basement.

   Then the forms guy came by and mis-read the prints and set the forms up for an 8 cubits basment.

5. 
   CapnMac | Dec 19, 2003 09:03am | #27

   Then the forms guy came by and mis-read the prints

   Another tragedy of misusing the black diamonds . . . Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)

6. 
   BungalowJeff | Dec 19, 2003 04:00pm | #28

   They shouldn't have used drywall screws to hold the basement forms together....that's not a mistake, it's rustic

7. 
   tenpenny | Dec 19, 2003 06:51pm | #29

   Those aren't drywall screws, they're

   PiffinScrews!!!

8. 
   rez | Dec 19, 2003 10:36pm | #30

   Just another example of modern housing gone wild.

   I do remember way back in the early days when running around frisco and marveling at the intense slopes on the roads and driveways. Law said you had to cut your front wheels tight when parking so if the car slipped back it would hit the curb.

   They had to build like that out there. Those pics just look like some builder was in there looking for the bucks and damnthe practicality.

   Now we know why god created SUV's.

   What we need is a thread on 'Common Sense'.

    

    

   Edited 12/19/2003 2:37:40 PM ET by rez

9. 
   CapnMac | Dec 20, 2003 02:34am | #32

   No, Piffin Patent Self Finding Screws would not build to such an unreasonable angle.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)

10. 
    JerraldHayes | Dec 20, 2003 05:46am | #36

    Ya know I concurred with Kevin (Wrecked Angle) that these photos were faked but I've got to say now looking at the Hi-res versions that they are genuinne. If they are faked the artist who did them is doing CIA quality work and should really be working on drawings putting Saddam in a pink dress. I think the outrageousness of the construction along with what looked like blurring of certain areas of the smaller photos sold us on it being faked.

    For Kevin Luka and the other artists who like to play around with photoshop. Is this one real or touched up?

    View Image

    Click for an even larger version

    View Image

    ParadigmProjects.com | Paradigm-360.com | Mac4Construction.com

    Edited 12/19/2003 9:57:28 PM ET by Jerrald Hayes

4. 
   Gabe | Dec 20, 2003 04:24am | #33

   I don't know what was done to these photos but they are fake. The angle of attack prevents any vehicle from being able to enter the garage. No code would allow this type of entry to a garage.

   Gabe

1. 
   Sphere | Dec 20, 2003 04:32am | #34

   Do  not take this wrong, but does any code specify a car must be able to get in, or that it even has to be a "garage"?..On the same thought it is too steep to be a wheel chair ramp, but maybe a better egress than stairs? I am all for the fake out theory and you got me thinkin about the gray areas of "code". I can't find anything any where that says it has to contain a car.

2. 
   Gabe | Dec 20, 2003 05:02am | #35

   Egress is the key word if you want to search for code violations.

   I'm looking at the concrete finishing and for forming marks that would support the picture's credibility and something is not right. The lines of the sidewalk are irregular but the ramp appears to be perfect, too perfect.

   Gabe

   The scale seems wrong too. The garage door is not right either. Not wide enough for a car and the ramp appears to taper.

   Edited 12/19/2003 9:13:00 PM ET by GABE_MARTEL

4. 
   reinvent | Dec 18, 2003 04:05am | #7

   Jamie, out of curiosity where did you get these pics?

5. 
   EricPaulson | Dec 18, 2003 04:14am | #8

   Please post larger files next time...............I love sitting here waiting for something to happen.

6. 
   user-439211 | Dec 18, 2003 04:52am | #9

   no problem with drinage here!

1. 
   CapnMac | Dec 18, 2003 07:53am | #10

   I'm with Reinvent here, I want to know where the photos were taken.

   Luka brought a healthy grain of salt to the photos, and Kevin spen more time than I was willing to invest in checking them for trickery--I remain on the fence, undecided either way.  Knowing the source for the photos would really help.

   My first thought was, "Wow, the Thread That Would Not Die."  I've seen some of the digital 'trash' that the photo-ware on the drugstore-made CD will toss into a jpeg to kill "red eye," or to correct contrast.

   I've seen jobsites in Austin that were 30-40" above street grade, and only setback 25' from the curb, too (including a 3' parkway and a 3' sidewalk, for a BoS to garage of only 19').  This would be only a couple or three feet more--well within the uncaring range of some of the big national builders.

   It's also just the thing for some wag to cobble up, too.

   We need facts.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)

1. 
   Stuart | Dec 18, 2003 09:29pm | #21

   I was the guy who posted the pictures on the first thread. The person I got them from (they were posted on another board) is an architect in Houston, and claimed these houses were somewhere nearby. He was going to post additional information but I never saw anything more.

   It doesn't look like Houston to me, but I've only been there once so I'm no expert on the local geography.

1. 
   CapnMac | Dec 19, 2003 12:23am | #22

   but I've only been there once so I'm no expert on the local geography.

   I've been (too many times).  That sort of elevation change is only common up around the rivers a good ways north.  The dirt would be a close match for some parts of the San Jacinto up around Montogmery County (which, with Plantersville, is where the latest "getting away from the big city" communities are going in).

   Could be in Liberty County near the Trinity or one of its tributaries, but that seems less likely.  I'll have to go look at the license plates again, we have about 2 dozen specialty plates in Texas.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)

1. 
   Treetalk | Dec 19, 2003 04:02am | #23

   Man I liked to meet those concrete finishers..they must be fast! Howd they get it up there from the truck without it ending up in the road or back into the truck.

   Poor lil johhnie is going to have one hell of a trike ride!

   You couldnt drive anything longer than a VW bug up there with out tearing the undercarriage off.Maybe its for the Gravity games.

2. 
   CapnMac | Dec 19, 2003 08:59am | #26

   Howd they get it up there from the truck

   They ordered 3" slump 3500 concrete, and used every chute on the truck.  Then, Chico pocito stood on the chute with a shovel, and they gooped the mud in from top down.  That's why the side aprons in pic 2 look so rough, that's what came off when they screeded the forms . . . Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)

3. 
   reinvent | Dec 20, 2003 02:29am | #31

   Your missing the obvious. They cast the driveway on FLAT ground and after it cured they lifted it and placed it with a crane against a tamped earth slope.

7. 
   Sphere | Dec 18, 2003 06:40pm | #15

   Two things I caught sort of..Looks a LOT like Georgia red clay, and in "EXHIBIT 1" for the jury..the car tags seem similar to Georgia..

1. 
   sportinwood | Dec 19, 2003 04:10am | #24

   It does look like the red s--t I stomped through on Ft Benning for the better part of a year.  My guess is Georgia also!