This is just fun I think.
Being a big fan of pretty much anything solar powered, I spotted this fellow on the side of the road and had to come back and examine it more closely.
(click on pics for bigger pics)
Pretty cool.
No, I won't go into where, No reason. But first things first, what the heck is it?
Well, the gizmo up on top of the tower:
Looks like a camera to me. Looks like a very nice camera at that.
This thingee is sitting on the corner of a couple of low traffic roads. A prototype maybe.
Traffic surveys? Traffic Surveillance maybe? Who knows?
So, , , Nice trailer, fresh and shiny new. Four 110 watt solar panels. 2 battery boxes, each holding good sized batteries. 1 tool chest, all secured properly secured with padlocks. And 1 -what appears to be an- electronics cabinet (the large-ish black diamond plate box) secured with an electronic cypher lock.
But I suppose what I found most striking was the lack of a license plate. Not only that, but the lack of a place to even mount a license plate. Close examination of the entire assembly showed no serial numbers, no manifest plate (except of course, the trailer manufacturers serial number plate). There was no name, no contact information to be found anywhere. Which I found pretty disappointing. I wanted to know more about it. I did wave at the camera. "We're friendly!".
I'm of the look but don't touch school of the creeping curious type. It would be a big mistake I expect to tamper with such a device, or even worse, attempt to steal it. I expect it knows how to call home, further;
That looks a whole lot like one of them Millenium GPS Autotracker gizmos, and so I expect not only does this thing know how to call home, it also knows how to tell Mom where it is, where it's been and all that.
Folks talk a lot about 'the machines becoming self-aware. Well, it's been my position that self-awareness is relative. Machines -these days- exhibit all kinds of various levels of self-awareness.
Solar powered autonomous remote sensing stuff fascinates me. One of my more favorite pipe dream time wasters. I think this gizmo is an excellent example.
Pretty cool.
I should have had my tinhat on when i took these pics though. No doubt it has RF mind-control capacity as well.
Thoughts?
4 comments:
I see those along-side I-35E on my regular trips Dallas->San Antonio. I believe they are, as you suspect, traffic surveillance cameras. I've found they usually pop-up right around the time construction is about to start. I think they use it to survey the best time to do work, as well as gauge speeds on the roads.
Might be different in your area, depending on construction companies etc. Maybe look out for local grants recently issued to construction companies.
Interesting.
Yeah, that corner where this one sits does indeed seem like it's just about to pop with construction.
There are actually some woods left, and developers seem to have an aversion to standing timber.
There have been a lot of spurts of development in the immediate area. All those recently built buildings are standing mostly vacant, and have been since they were built, (including the corner where this thing sits). But that doesn't seem to matter. Strange.
does this take pictures of cars that do illegal turns?
does this take pictures of cars doing illegal turns?
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