A billionaire enters a gas station. Seeing the "Leave a penny, take a penny" dish on the counter, he scoops up all of the coins and pockets them.
"I'm a genius," he says to the protesting clerk. "I earned this money. Anybody could have taken it, but only I had the vision to see what was possible."
@maxleibman when I was a student, and you can tell from the prices of coffee how long ago that was, I used to buy a cup of coffee at the station every morning on the way in to university. A black coffee cost £1, a coffee with milk cost £1.20. You'd pay at the counter and everyone no matter what they ordered got handed a black coffee, then you added your own milk from a jug by the door on your way out on an honesty system.
One morning a guy in a fancy suit pushed into line in front of me, which annoyed me enough to make me pay attention to him. He ordered and paid for a black coffee then added milk to it. And this guy singlehandedly taught me a lot about the sort of people running the world.
@maxleibman The honesty system worked better for everyone. The people serving didn't have to worry about handing out different types of coffee so everything went faster and everyone got the amount of milk they wanted. I would never have dreamed of cheating like this, not just because it wouldn't be fair to the independent cafe owners but because if everyone did that they would have had to move away from the honestly system. But I bet this guy thought he was cleverer than everyone else for having figured out a way to save himself 20p, and in his mind the rest of us were clearly only following the rules because we were stupid enough to think they were enforced not because we realised they made things work better for everyone.
I think about that man a lot. He's probably running a company by now.
people like him are why there is CCTV everywhere nowadays and I bet his company has Hikvision AI cameras everywhere, even inside the offices - he's probably got them *inside* his own family house too.
This something which seems surprisingly common amongst middle class folk worldwide as you can even see it on "funny dog/cat videos" from the camera position and timestamps on the footage - these aren't the pet cameras you can get, but actual CCTV in the corner of the living areas..
you can build a catcam that doesn't send the data anywhere other than your own network which still has secure remote access (although takes a bit of tech skill and changing router settings), but in many of the videos what I'm clearly seeing is the output of a general CCTV system which has been put there for security reasons. (I occasionally install and maintain these as part of my job)
I can even understand having them outside to guard cars/bikes that may be in the garden, but why *inside* the living room?
That hints at someone who is *really* paranoid..
@zombiecide indeed, although some abusers have even been caught (and sent to jail) due to footage obtained from their *own* CCTV systems.
unfortunately its often only *after* they've murdered their partner and the CCTV (even if attempts have been made to erase footage or relocate internal cameras) still shows clues and evidence of their movements and activities - on many occasions it seems they still don't want to turn off outside cams that are guarding their vehicles/property. these of course show the movements of the vehicles in and out of the building!
A lot of other criminals such as hard drugs dealers have also been caught this way..
@afewbugs @maxleibman it was not my poor friends who stole stuff from sporting goods stores and thrift stores alike, it was our wealthy acquaintances who were not exactly invited but always managed to find out where we were hanging out.
It astonished me that they thought so little of just openly telling us they boosted all the camping gear they brought for bonfire nights.
And somebody could put in EXTRA if they felt like it, too. Imagine that sort of person.
(gets harder and harder to imagine, doesn't it, when the other guy already made sure everyone in the damn coffee shop is sleep-deprived and desperate)
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