On Mon, 20 Jul 2009, Dan Armbrust wrote: > On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 11:00 AM, Andrew S. Zbikowski<andyzib at gmail.com> wrote: > >> While technology is great and all, it's no replacement for doing the >> simple things like rolling up the windows, locking the doors, and not >> leaving your keys in the ignition. I swear that someday I'm going to go >> over to my parent's house and drive their cars a block down the road >> just to prove a point... > > Heh, depends where you live. Where some of my former co-workers live in > Minneapolis, they finally learned after about 4 broken windows that it > is much easier to just leave the car unlocked, and with no valuables > inside. That way, most of the miscreants won't break the windows when > they come by - they just check the car, and move on to the next one.... A friend of mine had his window broken twice so he left the car unlocked to avoid more broken windows. It didn't work. His thieves were so stupid that they broke his window even though the car doors were unlocked! > What would be really cool is if you could integrate some motion detector > software into the linux system observing the camera, and then have it > take some sort of action - blast something over a loudspeaker, turn on a > water hose, aim and fire a turret mounted paintball gun, etc. The > possibilities are endless :) Sure, but be careful of how you do this. You don't want to shoot a paintball into your postman's eye. Strangely, you also don't want to injure a thief: I have heard of cases, and I think they were true stories, where thieves were injured by booby traps, so they sued the home owners and won damage awards. Mike