Supposed to be square paper, too. Not sure EJO was using square paper…
(Not getting where the origami reference comes in - just the mention of tape?)
The character’s name is Gaff.
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This is why I always lock my bike to some other random bike in the rack.
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THANKS BoingBoing for telling me all about this new and creative way for me to make money in my spare time!
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A ridiculously apt metaphor for the situation between the FBI and Apple.
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Be sure to check out the angle grinders on sale for 29% off in the Boing Boing Store. 
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How about
CItizens lock bike on bike rack that has tape or stickers,
wait with friends till thief arrives and takes bike,
administer baseball bat justice to thief.
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They could get lucky and get a few electric bikes. Those things aren’t cheap.
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One would think they could at least spring for black gaffer tape. These thieves have no class!
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How about…
citizens lie in wait near bike rack that has tape or stickers and citizens in wait,
wait with friends till thief arrives and is violently attacked by vigilantes.
administer justice to vigilantes using slightly more powerful weapons.
Bonus points if you manage to save the bike thief’s life without killing the vigilantes.
I usually don’t bother with actually locking my bike to a rack. There are usually too many bikes around anyway. Theft is just a fact of life that I get insurance against while my bike is new and worth something. My bike usually spends 8 hours a day locked to nothing but itself near a bike rack in public, but I only ever had one bike stolen, about 15 years ago.
I did properly lock my bike to bike racks during the time I studied in Canada, though. This had two reasons: First, there were hardly any bikes and always a free bike rack. But more importantly, campus police were threatening to stealremove any bikes not properly locked to the bike racks.
I never was able to figure out the purpose of that rule.
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I think the “make your bike look shitty” strategy is flawed.
The professional thief isn’t going to be fooled.
The crackhead thief is more likely to go for what looks like a battered old Huffy than some $$$ brand new carbon fiber racing bike, because the owner of the Huffy isn’t going to file a police report or come around looking for it, and for crackhead purposes they’re pretty much the same bike anyway. He’s not looking for something to take to the velodrome, he’s looking for something to get around town on until he can trade it.
Every single time I see that headline, I keep reading “saw through” as meaning that the thieves were not fooled by the illusion of bike racks, i.e., they understood that, try as we might, there is no true/foolproof security in this world…
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Cory, magician here — the thieves’ ploy is NOTHING like the Tenyo trick you have said it is like, except in effect. Granted, there are other tricks that it is like, but not that one. Just sayin’. No hidden cut on that one as both the sword and ring are solid. It’s why you can use a borrowed ring in it. I own two and sold it for years.
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Easy solution for the city to implement - drill some large holes through each pole, so 1 or 2 bikes can be locked on with the lock going through the hole. Sucker poles don’t work so well when the bike is directly attached to the pole; otherwise the thief would have to ride down the road with the pole at an awkward angle attached to the bike.
artisanal bike thieves
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Explanation #1: Photoshop
Explanation #2: S&S couplings
Explanation #3: Friendly with a team of concrete workers who are subcontracted with the city
Explanation #4: Sentient being who lives and functions in 4D-space
I personally like #4.
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You missed the most obvious option:
They sawed through the bike frame, and covered the cut with tape.
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Not as fun to ponder as (3) and (4), though.
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Explanation #5: Bike was left unattended long enough for an unusually straight Paper Birch tree to grow into maturity on that particular spot.
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