There are times it’s reasonable for an officer to turn their camera off. E.g. some people might be willing to share information, but not go to court over it. Turning off their camera to get information unofficially then makes sense.

That said, a malfunctioning body camera should be seen in the same light as destruction of evidence. It is assumed to be the worst case, unless proven otherwise, or reasonably explained.

FYI, apparently a lot of UK police love the body cams. It makes their paperwork so much easier. It’s also apparently quite satisfying to watch a hungover idiot realise exactly how rude they were to the officer trying to defuse things outside a pub.

A friend of mine (sadly now passed) was a chronic alcoholic. It got to the point where the doctors told him to stop trying to quit. Each time he did, he would have liver issues and turn Simpson yellow.

Welcome to life. I can’t get you out of it, all I can do is make it that bit better, in the hope that you can build on that further.

Each step up is still an improvement, in absolute terms. Most of human development has been finding out how to move up the hole.

I’m happy if I can leave things for our children even slightly better than we received it. It’s the ultimate relay race.

The goal isn’t to get out, just improving things is a win. Even when we backslide, reclimbing an existing path, or forging a new one, based on the lessons of a failed path is an improvement.

We claw at the walls of the hole, till our fingers are bloody, knowing we won’t achieve much. However, with enough time and effort, those scrapes will become the footholds for future generations to climb that much higher out of hell. Just as we stand braced by the effort of our ancestors.

It’s not an easy climb, but each attempt makes the next one that bit easier.

I was camping at an event. I had recently finished recharging a large lipo battery (3S 9000mah). The battery went from normal to nuclear in a second or 2.

Thankfully I had it clear of flammables and in a lipo bag. Even so, it started 3 grass fires in the time it took to get it out of the marquee and wet enough to extinguish it. The event volunteers were there within 40 seconds, with fire extinguishers. Thankfully we already had it under control by then.

Lesson learnt, always use a fire resistant container to charge in e.g. an ammo can or a cooking pot. Also assume it can turn into a fireball with absolutely no warning, and plan accordingly.

First off, good on you from the rescue!

As a parent, I get both sides. It’s absolutely horrifying, but so easy to lose focus. You can start chatting, and not realise you’re not tracking the child. You can also both assume the other has eyes on them.

It’s better to assume problems like this as systematic, rather than personal failures. If a small child has access to the water, they should be explicitly monitored. If you can’t (as a group) do that, then they shouldn’t have easy access to the water. You can also train children in water safety from a young age. Babies can be taught self rescue from around when they can crawl.

It’s so easy to lose focus. It requires constant concentration, at a time when your life has been turned upside down, and you are often suffering from sleep deprivation. A (apparently) calm ‘normal’ situation and your brain can relax back and switch off from parenting mode.

I think superfoil is the generic name (or possibly another brand).

I used suction cups, with thumb screw threads to attach them. Just poke a hole and push it through on each corner. It also holds it slightly clear of the glass. Suction cups also mean you can apply it either inside the glass, or outside (better, but harder).

Sometimes you want to keep ALL the energy out. The films also act to trap thermal energy in too.

I’ve personally used superfoil, it keeps all the light energy out. 42°C outside, in a double glazed UK home, and I still didn’t need the Aircon until mid afternoon.

Ulefone armor 27T pro

It’s a bit of a brick, but is ruggedised to hell and has a stupidly large battery. It also has thermal and night vision cameras. The only weaknesses I’ve found are the camera being less good than the top end pixel phones, and it’s heavy.

Some relatives of mine were in that very boat, in Spain. It required some admin, and annoying coordination of appointments (they weren’t there all the time), but wasn’t THAT difficult.

It’s been obvious for years now that British living in Europe would need to deal with the loss of EU access. Most EU countries made it as easy as they could to comply.

I would hope that the host country would still show some flexibility. However, I can also see a retired Ex-pat ranting at the official, and so burning any goodwill that would have got them any rule bending to dig them out of the hole they made.

I just said f*** it, and got a waterproof phone. It actually has an awesome underwater photography mode.

As for the speaker. There are sound generators that blast the speakers clear of water. You preferably don’t want to just let it air dry in the future. A build up of crap on the speaker could mess with sound generation.

Confidence and flux. A lot of cheap solder skimps on the flux. It strips the corrosion of the contacts, and lets the solder flow smoothly. Rosin is also used for violin strings, and it’s the same stuff, but far cheaper than “proper” flux.

As for the confidence. When soldering, you apply heat and solder until it joins, or you back off completely. The worst thing to do is the tap tap tap method. The heat spreads to surrounding material and components, but is never concentrated enough to actually do the job.

Those 2 will get you VERY far. The other things to improve is hand position (brace your wrist on the work surface) and lighting. Office lighting is no good. You want as many lumens as you can, preferably daylight levels on the board. It lets your pupils close down, and increases your depth of vision.

Expats generally have no intention of integrating into the host society. It also generally excludes students. Basically living there indefinitely, without true intent to remain permanently.

Beyond that, it’s so slightly racist. English in Spain are expats. Spaniards in Britain, immigrants.

It’s real, but viewed from the wrong perspective. The overton window is the set of ideas that The general public will find acceptable.

The right have been dragging it right in America (along with the rest of the world). They’ve done this by joking about various topics, then backing off. Individually, it doesn’t make much difference. With the media machine the right have, and a few decades, and we ended up here.

The left chooses to be constrained by it, rather than trying to push it back to counter the fascists.

Could you use a long rifle as a stick for a protest sign?

To everyone else, dwarf food seems bland. Since the dwarf cooking it couldn’t add any of there normal spices. “Can humans eat rocks? I don’t think so, better skip them.” (Then skips the salt)

It definitely helped that we had both completely compromised the German spy network in Britain, as well as cracking their codes.

The spies let the British feed critical bits of false intelligence to the germans, in a stream of good, if slightly useless or out of date, intelligence.

The breaking of enigma then meant we could monitor, in near real time, how the Germans reacted to it. Limiting the intelligence just enough to make them feel they worked for it, but not so much they missed it.

The culmination was on D-day. Agent Garbo actually messaged the Germans warning them that the landings were on their way to Normandy, before they arrived. However, the British knew exactly how long it would take to actually reach the people that mattered. It arrived just after reports of the landings happening. It was then followed by a panicked warning. The Normandy landings were a diversion, and the main force was leaving for Calais! This kept the German tanks tied up for a critical 3 days.

From what I gathered. It’s mostly a bunch of decrees coming down from central government. “Cost savings” from people who don’t have day to day interactions with the police ok the street.

E.g. buying a dedicated forensics vehicle, in one hit was not allowed. They cost too much. However, contracting for 1, on a case by case basis is fine. Despite the average cost being 1-2x the cost of a new one per year (they apparently last at least 10 years).

Wage pressure also makes them choose between more officers or paying the existing ones better. When there is a hard limit of the number of officers needed, the officers get screwed.