can't believe i'm quoting a transformers fanfic but here we are...

“Hang on,” Wheeljack said, “I’d worry about passive systems, not active. This mech wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about where he was going. I’d bet on some kind of system he wouldn’t be able to control at all—better yet, something that doesn’t rely on power or signal at all. Something he couldn’t rip out, or block by hiding—”

Hook and Scrapper had come over. “Exterior composition,” Scrapper said instantly. “I’ve thought of doing something of the sort for transport containers—stripe the cladding with varying amounts of a neutrino-scan-visible material for tracking, even underground. Megatron, if that’s the method they’ve used, we don’t have enough appropriate materials to block it. They’ll be able to locate him with satellite scanners, and they’re certainly sweeping for us already. We’ve got to dispose of him at once. Ideally, by melting him down.”

“Hey!” Ratchet stood up. “How about we don’t jump to slagging one of my patients!”

Hook stared at him as if he was insane. “What melodramatic nonsense. You’ve never even spoken to him!”

“He’s on my table, he’s my patient!” Ratchet said.

“Enough,” Megatron said. “Offer me a rational alternative, or shut up.”

Great, that wasn’t pressure or anything. “Fine, how about this: destroying him is stupid,” Ratchet said. “We still don’t know basically anything about this planet, we’ve nearly been taken down twice already, and now they know for sure we’ll be trying for the Excelsior, which means they’re going to be waiting for us there with everything they’ve got. We need intel, and he’s probably got it.” Megatron’s face didn’t change, but he kept listening, at least. “And we don’t need to cover him head to toe with palladium sheathing. We just need to make sure he doesn’t match the pattern they’re scanning for.”

“Well?” Megatron said to Scrapper.

“We’d have to isolate the material they used… but I suppose Mixmaster could analyze a panel of his frame,” Scrapper said grudgingly. “We could disguise him…”

“Except then they will find a pattern here that doesn’t match anything in their database,” Hook said.

“Yeah, but they can’t have a negative-match process,” Wheeljack put in. “They’re not energy-bound, right? They’re materials-bound. That’s why they—recycle instead of smelt down. Any one of their mechs is probably carrying a dozen old parts, and you’d get a negative match any place two patterns overlap. They probably just make sure each new mech gets at least some parts in a unique pattern, and that’s what they’ll be looking for.”

but if there's also cameras everywhere then every time a negative match comes out then it just triggers the cameras to pick out those cars. best bet would be collectively agreeing to use one set of specific id for everyone, not a randomized id and thus unique id's

Eh, I'll pass

I always thought "jury-rig" was a nautical term that fell out of use centuries ago and has only reappeared because some people who heard the phrase "jerry-rigged" and were not familiar with the word "jerry" thought they must have said "jury". Meh, wouldn't be the first time I didn't know what I was talking about.

If my memory serves well, it is configurable. I say X seconds because it can be 5, 10, 30, but of course also 60, 120... This is my programmer brain talking :)

Thanks for the comment though. Much more complete than mine.

i suspected there was some near our area, considered the speed cameras are suspiciously placed on an area that doesnt have much traffic to begin with.

One thing missing from the list is disguising your gait/walk. I don't know how far along they are with reconciling databases about it, but the technology to identify you by the way you walk already exists. I hear adding a pebble in your shoe helps.

Props to the camera person for showing the message.

Every small resistance counts ✊

Damn I knew I forgot something. Good point. I've also heard of wearing a different shoe on each foot, like sneaker on one foot and hiking boot on the other, both to fuss up you gate and leave even more conflicting prints.

They vary by enough, and have unique identifiers. And there are four of them per car, which makes it easier to build a profile for each car. This car has these four identifiers, this other car has these four, etc. Couple that with info from license plate cameras and you can track a car without seeing it's plate.

The flock cameras local to me only face one direction, which makes it a little easier. Still better mask up.

Every time I see one I get curious about the solar panel. Wonder how much non-nazi stuff it could run?

I don't take any particular downvote personally, I just have a problem with the whole unregulated concept of downvoting is, and I think there's a reason why the same networks that brought it into popularity over the predecessors that didn't have are also the ones rampant today toxicity, cult-on-demand bubbles, circlejerks, and the like. Lemmy is the one platform where downvoting really isn't worth anything - well, at least unless the piefed guys have a say in it, from my understanding. If it ever became popular to try to act like the upvote/downvote ratio means something in Lemmy, it would be far easier to manipulate and take advantage in contrast to non-federated platforms, and I already commonly see accounts with almost no comment or post participation since a few months just being used to slap upvotes and downvotes on an hourly basis.

It would just be so simple to improve, but people just keep trying to clone the same flawed systems that made them leave other platforms.

I didn't know that, and I have used liters of the stuff. Learn something every day.

Is it just Dot3? Dot4 is more common these days.

BTW, kids, we are talking about brake fluid, so don't go spraying it on your camera lenses!

Was away for a few days and just saw this reply. Yeah, brake fluid is super corrosive, especially on glass. The DOT rating (3, 4, 5, etc.) doesn't play a role in how corrosive it is, it's more about the different additives and composition of the specific fluid and what it's service life is. The more you know...

Yeah, Ive been working on engines (mostly my own, for fun) for decades, and I never knew about brake fluid and glass.