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Using GPS to Track Teens
jmoloug1 writes An article at CBSNews that describes a new service available to parents. It uses cell phone GPS to track how fast the teens are driving and then automatically sends an alert back to the parents when a certain limit has been exceeded. Bad idea for stupid parents who are going to be outwitted by their kids just turning off the phones? Best of all, it's endorsed by our former chief of military ops in Iraq!"
Cornering is only useful if you live in a state where the roads have bends in them. I grew up in Pennsylvania and the longest straight stretch of road in the entire state was about 25 feat long. We used to joke about the "flatlanders" from Ohio because they didn't know what a steering wheel was used for. The guys in PA had Corvettes that would make the curviest road seem straight. The guys from Ohio had bad-a55 Mustang muscle cars that could do the quarter mile in 3-4 seconds, but couldn't handle for 5hit. I always found this interesting that a few miles separation could have so drastic an effect on something like what kind of car people drive.
Why doesn't anything interesting happen when I have mod points?
Here in Norway, we've got Location Services (often referred to as POS). Any content provider receives the following information connected to an end users location: latitude, longitude, start- and end-angel, inner and outer radius, region, municipal-number and county.
The system works up to 300m accurate in city centres, but might be as much as 35km accurate in rural areas (since there are less antennas that can be used in triangulating the signal).
Information about the end user is not available content providers, since those content providers receive only a unique static id for each customer that orders a Location Service.
A service using POS would be a lot better than a service where you rely on a specific kind of cellphone being on, not in use and equipped with a specific Java application (of which you have no clue what it in fact does, since it was installed for you).
The best thing of all: with POS users have to specifically approve requests for any content provider. So no sneaky applications that parents can install on mobile phones.
The invasion of privacy "offered" by the Teens Arrive Alive system should scare any sane American away from the system, assuming that the fact that it comes recommended by the former chief of military ops in Iraq wasn't enough to make you scream and run for your life.
In God We Trust, Others We Monitor
Just ship it overnight to across the country, to one of your friends, go over to a neighbors, for the night, and have them imeddiatly ship it back to you overnight. That should demonstrate how stupid the whole idea is.
"Gee, Dad, the GPS feature on my phone must not work in the car."
No electrons were harmed creating this post, though some may have been subjected to electrical and/or magnetic fields.
To achieve an appearance of speed, you move physical matter? Your Geek-fu is sadly lacking, young padawan.
Copy data to clone the phone to people nationwide, and you can flip nodes on and off to simulate cell-boundary crossing. With prearrangement, you could make the phone appear to break lightspeed.
I worked for a cell phone company (GSM) and I once visited the main network control room and the operators showed me a software that allowed them to triangulate the position of any of their costumer by simply using the antennas of the network.
Also if I wanted to log the speed of a car when someone is using it, I'll think of a better idea. I'll hide a training/running watch with GPS in the trunk; Nobody can turn it off, no monthly subscription, you will be able to export the data on a computer and you will be the only one who can access the data.
Yahh, hiii haaaaa! -Major Kong, from Dr. Strangelove
Anyone who has used GPS knows it won't work with a layer of sheet metal between it and the GPS satellites.
Just keep the cell phone near the center of the car up near the roof. It will be blocked from GPS signals but still get cellular signals because they come in horizontally through the windows.
I predict a market for headliner mounted cell phone holders will develop.
First, let me say that I have been paying attention to Boortz since the days when his biggest cause was the Noise Abatement policy at the PDK airport in Atlanta, early 90's I guess. Lately though, I sometimes find myself thinking I am listening to Limbaugh. sigh I have heard him speak about this issue on his radio program. First is the premise that if teens want adult rights, then with them come adult responsibilites and sentencing guidlines. To me, this begs the question of WHY the State should grant this right in the first place, when it clearly sees a 16 year old as something less than an adult in many other areas. Like voting, alcohol and liability. A 16 year old kid can't vote, and therefore has no one representing him and his place on the roads he travels on, the usage of which he is taxed for every time he fills up the tank. The Colonists had a term for this curiously unfair situation, but I can't remember what it was. What if the law were changed to allow children to drive at the age of six? "And remember young man, you will be treated as an adult and will go to big kid prison if you do something stupid!" That sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? I think so too, even for a sixteen year old. Adolescence is a form of mental illness, this is well documented. We put some of the most deranged people around out on the roads and then complain about how they perform? Kids don't respond to the threat of possible future punishment nearly as well as they repsond to seeing nothing but good examples all around them. I live in the Atlanta area, like Neal, and this is no laid back putt putt on down the road at your own pace kind of driving scene we are sporting here. It is fast, it is rude and very often - it is amazingly stupid. What example does a kid learning to drive in Atlanta see? He sees Speed Limit signs every 1/2 mile, and drivers violating that Limit every 11 feet. When John Law comes rolling up from behind, they do slow down, to 75mph, still 20mph over the limit. What does this tell our young Buck about the Law? Turn signals are entirely optional from what I can tell. I can't imagine the non-use of them being ticketed in this city. It's like speeding, where would they start? Every year, they should just mail a 100.00 ticket to every driver in the Atlanta area. The only people who seem to obey the speed limit in this town are the elderly and foreigners. Most good people have sense not to scream at elderly drivers, on a good day at least. But the foreigners doing 55 in the right lane are lambasted. They are following the letter of the Law. The Law in their country might have them stripped to the waist at the head of an exit ramp for all to see. Forced to wear a Mercury hat while enduring the torture of a good caning, they pay the ultimate price for their "heinous alactrity". And that's just for 1kmph over in Singapore. I'll bet they don't have alot of teen driving problems in Singapore. We need Traffic Law reform. Nobody likes the Speed Limits, even at these newer, more heinous levels. That much is obvious. If the entire country is speeding, who exactly, in the drippin' gonorhea is being represented when the Speed Limits get set? We need Drivers License Requirement Reform. I hold a Private Pilot's license, as, again, does Neal (pee shiver). I never did much with my ticket after I got it, I enrolled in Flight School with the hopes of assuaging an hysterical fear of commercial airtravel. It didn't work. I did, however, learn one thing: speed is directly proportional to the rate at which "factors" can accelerate you towards your doom. Factors such as experience, weather, equipment and fatigue can converge in the most insidious of ways in the world of aviation. And on the road. Driver Education should require controlled four point drifts while Jet Li punches your head through the moonroof, not just the cursory glance to make sure that Applicant does indeed have a face. You can't have a Driver's License without a face after all. Adults, quit bemoaning Teens, you are involved and the cause of most fatal accidents, and yet you aren't excused by your youth.
Having a 4 year old boy and 2 year old girl, I have been worried about what *I* did and could have done at young ages that my mother knew nothing about, and given that I am big on letting my children see the Internet in all it's glory, I do NOT want them seeing some things (like beheadings, scat porn, etc). I also, however, have been comforted by the belief that by the time they get old enough for all that, there will be all kinds of ways to preemptively prevent them from seeing certain things, as well as monitor what they have seen in perfect clarity. (I still am worried about what they will see at friends' houses). Anyway, one thing I thought about in regards to going out and about when they are 14 to 17 was indeed a cell phone that go unanswered or the GPS is disabled, after a review of the cause, then non-emotional restrictions will apply.
While I won't have a bumper sticker on their cars, I will welcome the GPS that not only tells me their speed, but as well where they are at any given moment, or where they were at any given time.
"Artificial Intelligence usually beats real stupidity."