Re: Broiling

Joe Touch (touch@ISI.EDU)
Mon, 11 Jan 1999 09:20:27 -0800 (PST)


> Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1999 11:43:12 -0800
> From: Gregory Alan Bolcer <gbolcer@endeavors.org>
> To: FoRK <fork@xent.ICS.uci.edu>
> Subject: Broiling
>
> Seafood Broiler in Orange City walk is awesome.
...
> Parking sucks, however. After dinner Kris's dad forgot where
> he was parked and bolstered by two anchor steams, I proceeded to
> tell him all about how technology will solve his problem.
>
> Solution 1: GPS key chain with a nifty key receiver. Press the button
> when you leave your car, press the button again when you go back out
> to the parking lot, you'll never lose it. The problem is that people
> are stupid and they'll never expect to lose their car, so they'll
> never press the button. So, you have to tie it to the door locks or
> something. While I believe that GPS chips will be in everything in
> the next 5 years, it's still too expensive a solution.

Good observation. Why not fix it so it's failsafe? I.e., forget
locking the doors or a button; just sense when the engine shuts, and
store the GPS then. A simple contact pad on the key will suffice. My
car already has one - for a resistor pellet that increases the 'keyspace'.

PS - a $100 GPS is noise on a $10K car.

Joe