Tell crackheads that there's 50 pounds of copper and two catalytic converters in these things.
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These things are so fucking dystopian.
They really are. I visit a location with one of these regularly and a pleasant loudspeaker says "Welcome to [shopping area], please report any disturbances" and I immediately feel like I'm in Half-Life, or another dystopian video game...
The ones by me play loud classical music at night to keep homeless from setting up camp. Nothing makes me feel more safe at night than loud classical music. Just kidding it always makes me feel like a slasher movie killer is just a few feet behind me.
Probably the most dystopian thing I've ever experienced IRL.
The mini game dictates you properly dispose of your excrement. Civil Enforcement is concerned.
"Welcome to Walmart 17...thousand. You have chosen, or been chosen, to shop at one of our finest remaining retail plazas."
the aperture laboratories vibes, i get those when i visit old power plants for work, just by the looks
It costs less than 10 dollars to disable them.
It also costs about negative 1200 to steal them.
It costs infinitely more to do nothing.
What even are these? I'm not American, we don't torture (or have) crackheads here. I mean we do have bums, but hard drugs are too expensive and hard to find for then I think. Booze is easy.
Anyway, in case anyone here is thinking of their local community's wellbeing, idk what it's like in the US with tariffs and all, but I know that in general it's like 30 bucks off Aliexpress to get a cordless angle grinder that works with Makita batteries. Maybe 50 with a battery and charger included. Yes, they work.
It's like portable CCTV. Police cameras. They can move them to wherever the crime is basically.
take off the whole pole, i think someone did it recently, it probably cost them more to reinstall it.
Has anyone told the crackheads how much copper is in that thing?
"If you can see this, you shouldn't be shopping here."
I sold my old car to a crackhead. He had way more chill than any kind of AI surveillance.
Was your old car made out of crack?
Did you ride along on the test drive?
WARNING CITIZEN! THIS AREA IS UNDER SURVEILLANCE! YOUR FACE HAS BEEN SCANNED AND ADDED TO A DATABASE!
The first time I saw one of these was at a Fourth of July gathering in a public park. I saw the high blue lights and I figured it was marking some kind of portable police resource center. I had imagined some basic first aid and some officers ready for emergency assistance. I had imagined something that was partly a service and partly community outreach. I had imagined something with positive features.
I was so disappointed to find out it was just cameras. Quite an emotional trip in my head there, from "We're here to help!" to "We're watching you, fuckers" in the space of a moment.
But I guess the cops in my suburb are no better than the cops in any other suburb.
"We’re here to help!” and "cops" in the same thought is wild lol
Sometimes the first thought is what the propaganda you grew up with said
This. This attitude right here. Stop it.
"This. This attitude right here. Stop it."
Yeah, so long as the police system in the US is corrupt as hell and intent on militarization and spying on the population: lol no.
What? That cops are dangerous? They are. Your chances of dying go way up whenever you are in the presence of a cop. That's why I vacate the premises whenever one walks in. You never know if he just got chewed out by his wife, or his boss, or someone else, and he's looking for someone to take it out on.
Nothing good can come out of being in the presence of a cop.
Wait, stop the attitude of thinking can't help, or stop the attitude of thinking cops can?
Hate it. It's so annoying. The stores in the area hate it because it pisses people off and they complain to the stores and them the stores are like we hate them as well but the cops put them there.
I once had the lovely privilege of listening to a police higher up (lieutenant or something?) happily crow about setting these things up. I was just trying not to scoff as he said it was super effective, and yet his little slideshow showed absolutely diddly squat in any changes in the metrics they were using.
the stores are like we hate them as well but the cops put them there.
If they're on a store's parkinglot, they're trespassing if they're there without the store's consent. That means they can be removed.
Most stores are tenants of a landlord. Even those Walmart warehouses are leased, often both in land and structure.
Even if they are tenants to a lease, the doctrine of quiet enjoyment would prohibit a landlord from being able to freely agree to having police property sitting on the store's parking lot if their lease covers the parking lot. It's kinda like renting a house with a yard: your lease is for the house and the yard surrounding the house. A landlord cannot just come on top the lawn and start ripping it up without the tenant's permission.
A landlord cannot just come on top the lawn and start ripping it up without the tenant's permission.
On one hand, yes. On the other hand that's only as enforceable as a tenant can fight it.
In practice it happens. Unless the tenant has the resources or there's a legal advocacy group dedicated to that specific issue, owners tend to be able to do whatever they want so long as they use the argument of 'protecting my property'.
The settlement and restitution just ends up something like the owner keeps their stuff there and maybe you get to terminate your lease tomorrow without being forced to pay out the whole eight remaining months of the lease. But that's anecdotal.
Regardless it's the people working at the store who don't like it. The owner class loves this shit and hate poor people.
I'm assuming the higher ups for one of the more corp stores allows them there. The people actually working the stores hate them.
I guess that kinda depends on the business structure. Are they fully owned and operated by the main corporation? Or are they licensees of the store's name and brand? If it's the first one, some humdrum middle manager could do what you said. If it's the later, those surveillance things could be trespassing.
I feel safer around crackheads than around cops
is this the perfect example where men can finally understand why women chose the bear?
edit: I'm greatly amused that six cucks disliked this comment.
There's one of these in a shopping center around me. I flip it off every time I see it.
I mean, I deliberately drive near it, stop, roll down my window, put my arm out, and flip it off very intentionally.
I don't care if it knows me. I've made no secret of my hatred for authoritarianism throughout my life. I've gone to more protests than I can count. Besides, if authorities really wanted to do something to me, they'd readily make things up anyway. They don't need an excuse, so I might as well express myself.
This shit is dystopian as fuck and every time I see it or it blasts out its message about us being watched, it boils my blood.
Fuck it all. This is not okay.
. . .flip it off very intentionally.
Heehee I'm kinda glad I'm not alone here. I walk my neighborhood and people install those STUPID cameras facing the sidewalk to catch EVERYONE walking by, that whistle at you, or say "you are being recorded!"
I give it the finger without looking at it basically as a reflex now. I've never even flipped someone off in traffic, I've been told I have the patience of a saint.
But surveillance capitalism and stupid paranoid suburbanites satisfying their nosy-neighbor compulsions is definitely a line.
We've got those stupid towers all over the place here too. Construction sites, parking lots.
Freaking absurd. I'm upset that it's the best crime deterrent they can come up with, because I suppose skulky fellows lurking around dark parking lots aren't preferable either.
Specifically engineered to keep out "undesirables".
What the hell is that thing anyway
Solar powered, wireless, remote, battery-powered, GPS tracked, overly-designed mobile CCTV/loudspeaker/strobe light trailer. This one in particular is manufactured by a company called LVT, who are one of the major manufacturers of these. They can go about 5 days with no sunshine before the batteries are depleted.
I've only ever seen them in Walgreens, CVS, and McDonald's parking lots. Blinking away with the brightest blue LED all fucking night.
They're all over Colorado
Seen in Kentucky at gas stations.
They are kind of almost somewhat reasonable on those job sites where they’re almost done building the apartment complex, but maybe only because it’s so temporary
This is an insane comment. There is absolutely nothing temporary about these. They may be in that lot temporarily, but it won't move more than 100 meters before it meets its destination.
These are valuable. Deface and steal them.
They are in every single shopping mall parking lot by me. Need to go to Home Depot, one of these. Target, you guessed it, another one. Maybe you need to go to the grocery store, there’s another one there for you. Every single place near me has them.
I think I've seen these in LA.
Always wondered whats the use case. If I see these in the parking lot, no deals inside are pulling me there enough to stop by.
I've only seen them in retail parking lots. Cameras. They can play audio.
I was ready to be like nah that's just a traffic obs camera or someshit, but I looked it up and it really is a total shitheadomatic-5000
Yeah we've got a bunch of these in our neighborhood. It's a rundown area but this just makes it worse. I'd love nothing more than to mask up and smash this shit
Oroville, California's police department pays $45,000 per year for one LVT trailer
That is what's really insane.
I for one think it's quite generous of the surveillance state to provide free off-grid solar systems for the taking
No worries, a few years of surveillance state and everybody becomes a crackhead one way or the other!
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