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A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

news.umich.edu

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Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valets HATE this one weird trick

Huh, never considered valet parking to actually be a real thing. Isn't it annoying having to wait for someone to drive your car? I'd almost pay more not to have to do it.

It’s fairly common in the US at hotels and some parking garages, especially in bigger cities.

It can be nice if you’re in a hurry or worried about walking alone in a parking garage at night.

But yes, it can be annoying, especially because you’re expected to tip them in the US too.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#212
post #84

1.2 million grant for this? Now I’ve seen grift, but come on. I want to hire their grant writer. Literally a relay in the starter lead. This looks like one of my afternoon projects, and I’m not even joking. I have a 1990s montero diesel and it leaks power, and I often forget to disconnect the terminal. So I bought a relay from AliExpress (same one shown in this photo but one size up) and hooked it up with an esp32 an…

This is a frustrating yet common sort of take. Yes, this is simple, as the article clearly points out. Yes it is obvious in retrospect. But did you do anything with your brilliant work besides bodge your terrible car a few more miles down the road? There is value to developing the entire system... to ensuring the keypad mechanism is reasonably robust and tamper proof. There is value to understanding the vehicle as a…

It is obvious in retrospect because this concept has been around for 30 years. A common killswitch mechanism that I remember being implemented in the early 90's was a system that tied into accessory devices. On my friends car you had to put the key to ACC, then turn the cruise control on and off, and then engage and disengage the parking brake before the car would start. No other obvious lights, buttons, switches, etc. And you could install the killswitch device to tie into basically any 2 systems that used battery power.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#214
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That amount of money is absolutely nothing compared to the waste that goes on in the startup industry. Remember the $445 million self driving pizza oven delivery van?

If you could get that robot-cooks-as-you-drive idea right, even without the self-driving bit, you can out-compete Dominos by saving half the trips (back to store from delivery address). The technology was immature but the fundamentals were there, and they'd save a not-insignificant amount of gas.

I really can't imagine that. So you save some driver time. They're usually idle before delivery already, there's no driver shortage, and drivers/delivery isn't expensive. So there's only a small amount to undercut. For the profit to become interesting, you'd need a massive volume, but then you'd be forced to maintain a large fleet of mobile ovens. There's no automated driving, so you'd need drivers anyway. You'd have to pay everything from their idle return time, including the increased energy consumption.

Back-of-the-napkin says no.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Startup waste is generally funded from investors though. This seems like it might be funded by government grants which are funded by taxes.

Investors using 0% interest loans funded by taxpayers.

Are you referring to quantitative easing/ZIRP or specific government programs that give favorable loans to specific industries?

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another reason you have locks is to show intent to keep others out. You can't shoot someone that walks into your home through an open door. You can shoot someone that rams your door to open it.

WTF? Do you mean that you can't shoot someone without legal consequence in some US jurisdiction if you have an open door? You can still shoot them... >You can shoot someone that rams your door to open it. So somebody destroys a door and that entitles you to take their life? I think in both situations you should just refrain from shooting at all. Seems to work in most of the rest of the world..

No, you can't legally shoot someone that walks in through an open door. You can ask them to leave, but youre going to have big problems if you shoot them and all they did up to that point was not leave instantly when asked, if they walked through an open door.

If the door is locked, and they break in, you are not shooting them because they broke a lock. You are shooting them because theyve shown criminal intent by forcibly making their way through a locked door.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#218
Whatever is posted online, thieves will soon learn and figure out how to circumvent.

What you want is to be original. You just need to think like a thief.

What thieves don't like? Surprises.

Just do something surprising that will make the thieve think it is just too risky to try and they will go for an easier alternative.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#219
post #84

1.2 million grant for this? Now I’ve seen grift, but come on. I want to hire their grant writer. Literally a relay in the starter lead. This looks like one of my afternoon projects, and I’m not even joking. I have a 1990s montero diesel and it leaks power, and I often forget to disconnect the terminal. So I bought a relay from AliExpress (same one shown in this photo but one size up) and hooked it up with an esp32 an…

Huh, the house I'm living in was built with a $300k NSF grant. Though I bought it for $2k at auction (it's 220sqft). Funnily enough, also from U of M

Crazy to think you could build at least 4 of these with the same amount of grant money.

Re: A surprisingly simple way to foil car thieves

#220
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you get criminals to obey this nice rule?

By making it hard to obtain weapons. The US thinking to me seams to go along the lines of handing out nuclear weapons to everybody so forces are balanced...

What do you do if two criminals break into your house and you don't have a gun?
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