Two bikes briefly stolen

[mattlistener.livejournal.com]

Overnight our two bicycles were stolen from our front porch on Prichard Ave (south of Ball Square). We recovered them in the driveway next door -- presumably they were ditched when the Kryptonite locks locking the front tires to the frame were discovered.

The fact that both were taken at once suggests to me that this was an operation by at least two people to sweep up unsecured bikes in the area.

Comments

[artic-monkeys.livejournal.com]

Anyone know where I can find any ot those camera traps that cryptozoologists use?

[xuth.livejournal.com]

Many SLR's will do "trap shooting" where it will trip the shutter as soon as something comes into focus (some you have to trick into doing this (like most of the canon dslrs) but it's possible to do). Probably a saner solution would be to use a web cam and run software that only saves sections of time when something significantly changes in the frame. The webcam is cheap and there's software to do it for free.

[artic-monkeys.livejournal.com]

great! what about one with night vision or do have to consider providing a light source?

[srakkt.livejournal.com]

all webcams have night vision; the trick is that there's an infrared filter installed which must be removed. Then you have to illuminate the scene with infrared. It looks dark to thieves, but it is as bright as day for the webcam.

(for fun, cheap webcams can be used this way to make personal 'nightvision goggles')

[marmota.livejournal.com]

a cheap webcam and GNU Motion (http://www.lavrsen.dk/twiki/bin/view/Motion/WebHome)
would do the trick. There are plenty of webcams designed for the home security and baby monitor markets that include IR lighting for night vision.

I have no idea if the pics you could get would be admissable evidence, though.

[artic-monkeys.livejournal.com]

I don't know, if the cops know the kids, they will probably just beat the truth out of em....Well not really 'beat' but somehow convince them that they can't lie their way out of it this time.

While cameras alone probably won't help too much with crime, some of you in this blog were talking about Jane Jacobs and the "eyes on the streets" and "self policing" new urbanisms?.... Well, with their picture posted all over my neighborhood, emailed to all my neighbors and posted to the various Internet communities they might decide to stay away from my house and neighborhood... The possibilities abound.

Unless there is some easy cheap camera solution presents itself I will probably just continue talking about it though...

[artic-monkeys.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that link BTW, I just started checking it out.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

My husband's coworker set up a webcam to catch someone who had been taking money from his house (a dogwalker or someone like that, who had access). When he went to the cops with the tape they pretty much said "Dude! Thank you for doing our job for us!" and were eager to help him out with it.