Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Security camera signs

[Lion Kuntz (lionkuntz]

Lyle, you demonstrate that requisite talent exists already in
the CoHo community.

What would you charge for a solution which could be resold ten
times, and charged at 1/10th the total to each CoHo site? Who
else is there who might offer such a service? Is there a chance
you could resell such a thing 25 times?

How many cameras does it take to let a shut-in partipate in
outdoor activities with the neighbors, or neigbors to watch over
a visit a shut-in with a picture-phone chat?

Four cameras is insufficient for security for a whole community
-- the product is designed for a single  household. It doesn't
represent itself as expandable. Picture phones are out -- not
enough cameras enabled at this price.

It's not all about security, although that is cause enough to
want something that works. It's possibly a new communication
medium. It's neighborhood cable TV with anybody having a home
studio and everybody else able to change to 100 other channels.

If the system permits enough cameras to be added then you can
watch the car, watch the baby napping in the nursery, watch the
kids playing in the yard, see the mail is being delivered, all
while having a picturephone conversation with friends on this
list 1000 miles away.

When I wanted a computer last time I went to the store and
bought a motherboard, HDD, keyboard, mouse, case & power supply,
CPU & fan, memory chips, floppy, and CD-burner. There were
cheaper systems on the left of me and more expensive ones to the
right, and I had to weave all through them to find everything I
needed.

The store I went to obviously expects lots of people like me
because they had lots of choices of all of those parts for sale,
both cheaper and more expensive parts.

I can't remember ever making a dime on electronics hardware,
even though I spent $20k getting the education know-how to do
so. My degree was already obsolete by the time PCs started being
sold with hard drives already installed in them. I've been
groping my way through the never-ending progress now for
decades.

I still like to think about that stuff as fun, not work. And I
like to think about ways it can be used to make life better, not
me richer. I think LIFE = BETTER = RICHER, and money only
sometimes has something to do with all that.

A major bummer is waking up to a car break-in. There's hours
consumed there that never gets cost-accounted for in dollars =
time. How many cameras would it take to cover all your cars in
the community? It costs $100 to fix a side window glass PLUS two
hours of somebody's time. How many hours of pooled thought does
it take to head off that bummer?


... Lion K


--- Lyle Scheer <wonko [at] monkeyhouse.org> wrote:



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