There's a scene in Demolition Man — the goofball 1993 action film starring Sylvester Stalone as a violent police officer and Taco Bell as the only restaurant in America — in which a machine emerges from a grass-covered lawn in front of a Los Angeles government building. The machine sprays "LIFE IS HELL" in colorfully exaggerated graffiti text on a sterile-looking concrete sign labeled "Ethical Plaza." Whatever might the city do to scrub this defacement from its facade? Well, this is the future, remember — Demolition Man takes place in 2032 — and graffiti is apparently no longer a big deal. The sterile-looking concrete sign knows it's been defaced, somehow, and wipes itself clean — a sort of automated building code enforcer. T... Continue reading
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