Spyke
cobysevreply
lemmy.world

I enjoy the Desire Paths community here on Lemmy. It's so interesting to see what paths people take contrary to what paths are laid out for them.

119
Ethalisreply
jlai.lu

I didn't know I needed this in my life but this strikes a chord in me

21

So, I'm a year late here, but I want to point out what an incredible (unintentional?) pun you made here.

A chord of a circle is a straight-line path that crosses through part of a circle without passing through the center. In a way, it's like a "shortcut" between to points on the circumference.

A desire path through a circular obstacle (assuming it doesn't go straight through the middle) would be a chord.

1

I created a desire path by biking to school every day in high school. After I left a sidewalk popped up covering it inch for inch. Mission accomplished

14
lemmy.world

I've heard a story about a college campus that didn't install any paths, waited for natural dirt paths to form in the grass, then installed paths there. Neat idea.

115
SkyezOpenreply
lemmy.world

Makes sense for a college campus where everyone has a different schedule. Just draw a line between every building and there's your pathways.

11

And then some people just like walking in grass instead of cement

4

nah it's just a three-dude-wide strip between the bus stop and the bedroom

3
lemmy.world

In my junior high days (mid 80s) My friends and I found a machete in one of their dad’s stuff. We spent a weekend bushwhacking paths around some city-owned but undeveloped land near a lake. We ended up wearing them down pretty good into bike paths with some jumps and cool whoops. A few years later, the city turned it into a park and paved our paths.

83
lemm.ee

I have a hobby of doing the opposite: making undesirepaths.

During large snowfalls, I often need to bring out the shovel and make a path, both from my house and in front of it towards the main road. I like to add turns and bends, just enough to confuse and lightly annoy, but not enough for people to consider stepping into deep snow or making their own path.

80
lemmy.world

I like how the path curves behind the bench after the bench goes up like people are choosing not to walk in front of people sitting on the bench.

67

Until the fuckers added another 2m/6ft to the walk by putting in the trashcan...

32
lemmy.world

A full bench!? I miss benches that made sense instead of the hostile architecture ones popping up.

53
lemmy.world

I heard Finnish municipalities do studies when it's newly snowed to check where the desired footpath goes by looking at tracks in the snow. It avoids that issue in the image

52
Gorkreply
lemm.ee

That certainly speeds up the process so they can Finnish early.

51
lemm.ee

University of Maryland did this with their walkways for a while. They let the kids beat down paths for the year to make the sidewalks.

32
naught101reply
lemmy.world

Makes heaps of sense, when you can. Still need something for people in wheelchairs and stuff early on though.

I've often thought painting lines across paths and then observing the paint wear off could tell you a lot about which paths could be removed, or where corners could be rounded off better.

14

They had regular sidewalks that the campus planners made. But they took a year to see what the students walking paths looked like.

13
sopuli.xyz

My takeaway from this is that I can spawn park benches and greenery by walking on the grass.

25
notabotreply
lemm.ee

That's why there are all those "keep off the grass" signs. If people just walked all over the grass willy-nilly we'd soon be knee deep in benches and bins, and nobody wants that.

25
Klearreply
lemmy.world

we’d soon be knee deep in benches and bins

33

If you lie on a sheltered concrete slab, they'll install 20cm spikes, too

3
lemmy.dbzer0.com

Local discounter had something like this, they just installed a hedge AND a fence. Really disenchanting. Not going there anymore.

Well I moved. But they cheated.

25
mPonyreply
lemmy.world

a bit of an extreme reaction to a hedge AND a fence, but I'll allow it.

11

Fences don't always work, I saw one go up and soon had a hole in it. Turns out deer are pretty persistent and willing to break them. Paths are not just used by people.

3

a hedge AND a fence

Cordless power tools are really good these days.

3

All I see here is people tricking the government into putting in a nice little micropark.

24
lemmy.world

We were looking after someones dog for a week and we have a big yard for our dogs. This dog and one of ours got on so well they would chase each around the yard for hours, so much that after a week there was a desire path race track formed with noticeable banks around the corners and everything.

19

Apparently when they were building the death star, they couldn't figure out where to put the vents, so they just turned off the gravity and threw a bunch of womp rats in the center and built out pipes along the vectors of where they died.

11
lemmynsfw.com

There's been locations in the past where the decision was made to initially just build the minimum paths for handicap access and etc and then wait for the desire paths to form to decide where to put the rest of them. Great idea really. The apartment complex started plowing the one that goes from my building to the gas station.

11

No, but that's the joke.

Humans will always take the perceived shortcut, regardless of whatever proper path is available.

34

The desire path curved towards the road crossing, they paved a straight path pointing away from the crossing, new curved desire path formed by people crossing the road

2
lemmy.world

For the life of me, I can't figure out what changes between panel 10 and 11.

9
lemmy.world

Correct. Couldn't see it at first. Just thought it was a pause for dramatic effect. Felt fine as a clone.

11

I figured that was just the pause before the punchline. Like, the city almost got it, but they still fucked it up a bit.

5
tetris11reply
lemmy.ml

You can't really see it that way, it's better push it against your tongue and taste the difference

3

I especially like when people do this in the snow and make big holes that I can easily step into

8

it's almost like humans don't move like a rook (car)

8

This gives me huge canvas vibes because that was happening a lot there. Haha (It was called canvas, right? The event where you place a pixel every so often.)

5

If that's a popular place to cut through, that hedge would also get wrecked from kids trying to see if they can jump it.

Source: the hedge surrounding part of the property of my childhood home. (I could jump it!)

3

No way there is no desire path Delta at the end of the main path where it officially meets the pavement.

3

So he's an asshole assaulting children for fun, which is also almost certainly illegal

If told this I'm sure the cunt would say "muh propertay tho"

-1
lemmy.world

Those fuckers. Maybe instead of the bush fence, it should have been a wrought iron fence. With spikes on top.

3
lemmy.world

You don't want turrets when you can send out the flamethrower drones once the proximity sensors are triggered.

3

That's a great point. And come to think about it, the flamethrower drones may work better alongside the attack dogs.

2

Image where the bush fence appears, there should be a faint path near the road, those who don't want to hop over/wreck the bush but it should be gone once the path through the bush is open.

2