Only unrealistic part is Human sniper and the warning.
It'll be a drone the moment a drone could make the shot with 50.1% odds. can make the shot in sufficiently few shots that cost of ammo & electricity beats wages for a sniper.
I've probably complained about this on here before. But my local supermarket put these wide, low newsstands by the doors. It causes a bottleneck by the exit. I assume it's a loss prevention measure.
Maybe it works? It didn't prevent losing me as a customer. I can't be bothered navigating all the people who don't look up between the till and the obstacle, walk right up to it, and then struggle to fit through the gap.
The next place I went to stopped me twice at the self checkout store scanning thing saying that I was 'randomly' checked. (Mask on, sunglasses, hood up was almost certainly the issue. Either that or because I only go every three weeks, so my trolley is overflowing more than most people's.) I said if it happens again I won't come back.
Third time, it didn't happen but the alarm buzzed as I left and two security guys wanted to see my receipt. While they were looking at the longest receipt they'd ever seen and saying they didn't know how they were going to check everything, I explained that this was the third time I'd been inconvenienced on my way out and if it happened again, I wouldn't be back. It hasn't happened since. I suspect that someone was watching me enter with that mask, the glasses, and the hood, and pressing a big red 'dodgy' button as I got near the exit.
Same get up, different store, different day, I was accosted for using my own very wide open hard-to-hide-anything-in bag as a basket because the store's baskets are rubbish and it's hard to tell whether I'll over fill my bag if I use the basket; and if I over fill my bag, I ain't buying it, as I have a long walk home.
Someone comes over. Was I going to pay for that? This stuff that I haven't yet paid for? That's how it usually works. He clicks the walkie talkie. It crackles. He says, they say they're going to pay for it. He tells me to make sure I do. Vaguely threatening. I needed what I went in for so I bought it but I haven't been back. I probably should go back to give them someone to watch while people dressed incognito are stealing from another aisle and getting away with it.
I suspect this is one of the real reasons behind all the anti-mask stuff—it was getting too hard to surveil us; all that tech they had been sold as security-capable became practically useless overnight.
Maybe it's just me but when companies make it harder to spend my money, I simply oblige them. I am a begrudging shopper at the best of times. Most people seem eager, idk.
it's funny how for a while there was the whole narrative about China being scary because they do mass surveillance, I notice western media has been largely avoiding mentioning surveillance lately
I've heard them talk about it a lot. It's always in the context of government surveillance. They make sure to point out that the bad guy countries have mass surveillance run by the government. When private corporations are watching people's every move it's just freedom in action.
Honestly, at this point the only China/USSR bad talking pointthat comes to mind that I haven't also found in the USA is bread lines... in no small part because the government here doesn't care if you starve. If you want help jump through the hoops and be used as part of scarry statistics to demonize the poor.
I've worked with people in asset protection in retail. You would be surprised how many of the cameras are fake, or are there for show. Only entrances, exits, and highly important areas are usually covered.
I got a write-up for sitting on an SCO machine for all of 2 minutes when it was a ghost town in the store. Got called into the manager's office and they showed me the footage.
It was surreal. Creepy as fuck. A reminder: we're watching you.
Sometimes I stand around and look at the cameras, point at them even. I'm watching, too.
Costco likes to improve your shopping experience by forcing you to wait in line to leave the fucking store after you already paid for your shit so they can pretend to check what you bought is accurate on your receipt... for your convenience of course
i have asked them on multiple occasions.. they say it's to make sure you weren't overcharged or charged for things you don't possess. I don't buy that for a second. I assume it's to dissuade shoplifting more than anything.
It seems like a lot of big chains (cough walmart) would rather spend thousands and thousands on dubiously successful loss prevention schemes and security equipment rather than just hiring more staff to work tills instead of having 95% self checkouts. I’m no business genius but I can’t imagine the math there works out.
Companies very much prefer one time costs (bunch of equipment) rather than recurring ones (wages). One time costs (1) look better on the balance sheet and (2) are easier to justify to shareholders as they don’t eat into future profits. Businesses basically never base their decisions on math ever.