I'm not making wild supposition about my police department. I'd show the numbers if I weren't one of the 11 people that work for the city that isn't a cop. I work in the same building and park next to their cruisers every day. I attend the meetings where they get their infinite budgets for flahbangs, tear gas, and new cars while I have to figure out how to squeeze enough money from the budget to replace my permit tech's keyboard.

When I have dozens or hundreds of applications to sift through, why should I look at yours if you can't be bothered to complete it when others have?

I know what an assault rifle is. I used to work in the firearm industry and own over 50 personal guns. The police have select-fire rifles built on the Armalite platform. They're assault rifles. The guns used by our department don't have an M designation because they're not US military spec or military issue. It's like the difference between an M9 and a 92FS.

They have riot shields, tear gas, etc in the cruisers. They carry the heavy body armor and the weapons back and forth because they are sized/kitted out to the officer's size and preferences and they share cruisers between shifts.

Patrol officers shouldn't all be SWAT. That's a specialist designation that should be reserved for extreme cases.

When everyone is outfitted and trained as a militarized unit, they treat more situations like a military exercise. When someone has a warrant because they forgot to pay a speeding ticket, they shouldn't be breeching doors. When someone threatens to kill themselves, they shouldn't respond with armored vehicles and sniper rifles.

That's what the militarization of beat cops has done. They're trained and equipped in a manner that causes them to take extreme measures that do not serve the needs of the public. Essentially, every police call is now an activation of SWAT, which is overkill 99.99% of the time.

We've actually needed a militarized response zero times in the history of our department, but they devote massive amounts of resources to the ability. Those resources would be better spent on fire prevention, infrastructure maintenance, and municipal projects while relying on our already-existing mutual aid interlocal agreements for heavy police response in the event it's ever needed.

As for timing, right now if there were an emergency, our police would travel to go to a scene, gear up behind the cars, and make plans for a response, then engage. A SWAT team from a nearby agency would gear up and make plans while en route in the back of the van and be ready to engage just as quickly while being better trained for the job.

I work in the same building with them. Every officer takes an AR and body armor to the squad car when heading out to man their speed trap and bring it back at the end of the shift to store in their air-conditioned locker (not just the locker room - the actual interior of each locker itself has its own thermostat and air supply).

All that being said, there is a need for specialized units. But the big change the US has seen over the past 25 years or so has been giving SWAT-style weaponry and resources to everyone. The traffic cops pullings people over for speeding in a school zone don't all need riot gear and an AR in the trunk. Detectives performing investigations don't need access to tear gas and flashbangs. But for major cities with thousands of occifers, having a few dozen specialists makes sense.

Small towns used to just call the state or nearby major city for assistance if they needed heavier equipment or tactical units. Now they all have the heavy equipment, and when they have it they'll find an excuse to use it.

A nearby town had a mental health crisis recently with a kid threatening to kill himself. The police had just gotten a new-to-them MRAP, and instead of talking to the kid or just using the key the parents had given them, they drove a tank through the front of the house, deployed flashbangs, and tackled the kid.

So the kid now has more mental health issues AND the family lost their house.

Ahh.

The sound was also very different with the later modems. I started on a 9600 baud, and moved to 14400, 28800, and eventually 56k, and they all had different sounds.

That configuration is a bit of a deal though.

A big part of it is discovery. I discover a lot of movies and TV shows by browsing what's avaliable. With Jellyfin I need to plan ahead instead of pushing the magic button and doomscrolling until I pick something.

I can understand having dial-up 15 years ago, but not having a more modern modem is wild.

Whooshed a bit there, eh?

They're saying policing should go back to what it was a few decades ago before the extreme militarization of police that's happened in the last few years.

The city I work in has a population of less than 4,000 and we border a major metro area. There's no reason for us to have 25 police officers, all of which are outfitted with assault weapons and riot gear. We shouldn't even have a SWAT team. If we ever need one we can call for help from the city next door.

They want enough cruisers that they have a backup for every single vehicle, and are now asking for an MRAP. And police get whatever they want while we have to fight for a goddamned printer.

Why should the customer also be paying the $3.40?

I get that Sweeny doesn't like to gargle Gabe's billionaire balls as much as a lot of the users here, but Epic officially supporting Linux is a good thing.

But they also drink a shocking amount of nectar despite fighting over it. We put out 6 1-liter feeders and they'll drain them in like 2 days. It looks like the Battle of Midway around the porch.

I don't know how reliable that is with lens distortion fucking up the vanishing point on real images.

If you've got some comfort with tinkering:

https://www.diybookscanner.org/

But Americans use way less than half the English language.

Checkmate.

I'm so white that ghosts consider me pale, but I've never eaten food at a restaurant that's too spicy for me, and it annoys me every time I try a new place and I ask for "level 5 spicy" or whatever they call it on the menu and they're like "Okay - we start you out with a 2".

I know what I'm about. I want to burp in 2 hours and have my tongue start burning. Later this evening, I want to regret my life choices on the toilet.

Hell - If you left today you'd only need to be moving at like 1.2% the speed of light.

They don't want people buying products cheaper in Canada then bringing them home.

Don't worry - this fix is just temporary ^(unless it works)

The screenshot is from April. We're experiencing the predictable results.