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The headline is misleading. It turns out that the Google Streetview pic was staged. From the blogpost:

In case you're wondering, it seems we're looking at LARP ("live action role play"), which is sort of like Dungeons & Dragons. Except instead of sitting around in someone's basement with dice, you dress up in faux medieval armor and attack people with tinfoil swords.

All of which reiterates what we've always felt about Google Street View: Amazingly cool, but also kind of unnerving. Next time, head into the deep woods, fellas.

UPDATE: A commenter lets us know our supposed LARPers are actually part of an art project to bring fantastic scenes to Google Maps.

  Someone using Google’s Street View map may be
  surprised when looking down Pittsburgh’s
  Sampsonia Way.

  In May, artists Ben Kinsley and Robin Hewlett
  staged outlandish scenes, including a 17th
  century sword fight, and an escape from a
  building using knotted sheets, to be captured
  when a Google car equipped with cameras was
  sent down Sampsonia Way.

  The artists wanted to explore the boundaries
  between virtual and real worlds.

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