---
id: road-sign-math-2021
title: Road Sign Math (2021)
summary: Road Sign Math as a simple blog of the signs my family found from 2021 to 2025, first at roadsignmath.thingelstad.com and from 2023 on Micro.blog at roadsignmath.xyz.
collection: Games and communities
status: retired
url: https://web.archive.org/web/20260909070315/https://www.roadsignmath.xyz/
started: 2021-03
ended: 2026-10-30
topics:
  - play
  - open-web
sources:
  - kind: website
    url: https://web.archive.org/web/20260909070315/https://www.roadsignmath.xyz/
    role: archive
  - kind: website
    url: https://weekly.thingelstad.com/archive/177/
    role: reference
  - kind: website
    url: https://www.thingelstad.com/2023/10/21/road-sign-math.html
    role: reference
  - kind: website
    url: https://www.thingelstad.com/2025/09/01/it-always-makes-me-smile.html
    role: reference
  - kind: github
    repository: jthingelstad/rsm.thingelstad.com
    role: historical
connections:
  - to: road-sign-math-2026
    label: was succeeded by
    detail: In October 2026 the 16 signs on the blog became the first signs in the Road Sign Math iPhone app, and the new roadsignmath.xyz replaced the blog.
    source: https://github.com/jthingelstad/roadsignmath.xyz/pull/2
    kind: lineage
story:
  color: "#287454"
  introduction: Just my signs.
  engineering:
    - The blog runs on Micro.blog, with one post per sign, its photo, and the math typeset with MathJax from TeX in the post.
    - The 2021 posts keep their 2021 dates on Micro.blog, though their photos were uploaded there in 2023.
  stack:
    - Micro.blog
    - MathJax
  related:
    - road-sign-math
    - road-sign-math-2026
  questions:
    - Why did Road Sign Math come back as a blog without scores?
    - Which signs were posted on the Road Sign Math blog?
  source: https://web.archive.org/web/20260909070315/https://www.roadsignmath.xyz/
  sourceLabel: See the blog in the Internet Archive
  started: Posted from 2021 to 2025
bundles:
  - id: the-blog
    title: The blog
    caption: What was left of the blog when the new roadsignmath.xyz replaced it on October 30, 2026.
artifacts:
  - file: front-page-2026-10.jpg
    title: The front page
    caption: The blog’s front page on October 20, 2026, ten days before it was replaced, with its newest sign, the one Tyler found driving up I-35W, its math typeset under the post.
    date: 2026-10-20
    bundle: the-blog
    url: https://thingelstad.xyz/things/road-sign-math-2021/artifacts/front-page-2026-10.jpg
  - file: posts-2021-2025.json
    title: Every post, as Micro.blog exported it
    caption: All 16 posts from March 2021 to September 2025 as a JSON Feed, with each post’s words, its math in TeX, the name of its photo and its date. Thirteen are my signs, two are Tyler’s and one is Tammy’s, in six states.
    date: 2026-10-30
    bundle: the-blog
    url: https://thingelstad.xyz/things/road-sign-math-2021/artifacts/posts-2021-2025.json
page: https://thingelstad.xyz/things/road-sign-math-2021/
---

# Road Sign Math (2021)

Road Sign Math as a simple blog of the signs my family found from 2021 to 2025, first at roadsignmath.thingelstad.com and from 2023 on Micro.blog at roadsignmath.xyz.

I let Road Sign Math’s first site go in 2016. In 2017 I started a Jekyll site for the signs, [rsm.thingelstad.com](https://github.com/jthingelstad/rsm.thingelstad.com), on a stock theme. It never got past the theme’s sample posts. In March 2021 a sign Tammy found near Phoenix gave Road Sign Math “a breath of new life” at roadsignmath.thingelstad.com ([Weekly Thing 177](https://weekly.thingelstad.com/archive/177/)), and that summer we found ten more on a [Vermont road trip](https://www.thingelstad.com/2021/08/15/varmont-road-trip.html).

I registered roadsignmath.xyz in 2021, and in October 2023 I [rebooted](https://www.thingelstad.com/2023/10/21/road-sign-math.html) Road Sign Math a second time, as a simple blog on Micro.blog: “Just my signs. No scoring system or leaderboards.” New signs kept turning up, like one in [September 2025](https://www.thingelstad.com/2025/09/01/it-always-makes-me-smile.html), the last of 16.

On October 30, 2026, the new roadsignmath.xyz replaced the blog, and its 16 signs became the first signs in the Road Sign Math iPhone app. The blog did its job. It kept the game alive until I was ready to build the real thing.