Possibly my favorite hack to come out of the TechCrunch Disrupt hackathon is solving a so very San Francisco problem. Meter Maid Monitor uses high tech cloud magic to automate the game of dodging meter maids when you’re parked in the 2-hour resident bays around the city.
“I live in the Castro,” says John Naulty, the brains behind the hack. “I work from home a lot, but the roads outside my house are all 2-hour bays. The thing is, you only get caught if the meter maids spot that you’ve been parked in one place for longer than two hours. In effect, the clock doesn’t start ticking from when you park your car, but from the first time they come by and spot your car.”
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Of course, if a bunch of people use this same technique, there will never be an open spot for him to park in.