My mom used to tell me to write CHECK ID in the signature block. Someone only ever asked me once. It's probably been like 10 years since I've signed the back of a new card. An older woman at an antique shop actually checked for a signature and made me sign it in front of her.
If you look at the credit card agreement, a card isn’t (or at least wasn’t) authorized for use unless it had an actual signature. “Check ID” and such are cute, but really only mean that the card is unsigned and thus invalid.
The fact that a signature is, to date, a legally binding form of identification is baffling to me to be honest. More and more is digital these days, but still.
(my "signature" is just a squiggle based on my initials and I can't reproduce it consistently)
It's not too hard to slip a new wire into a laced bundle. In the places that still use lacing (aerospace), they use tefzel insulated wires that have the benefit of being super slippery against each other. This makes it easy to slip one in but it also helps reduce stiffness in the bundle because the insulation isn't sticking to itself as much as other things like vinyl.
Almost always my back sweat from wearing a backpack shows up on the body scanner. Then a TSA agent has to put their gloved hand on my sweaty back. What a shit job lol.
Whenever my backpack has been pulled aside for various reasons (large metal tools, too many loose wires, water bottle), I'll often get the bomb sniffer wipe.
I am a white male and have TSA pre-check and after walking through the metal detector, maybe one out of several times I get randomly selected for the body scanner. I've never gotten the dreaded SSSS though. I've very rarely traveled alone not on a work trip and never alone on a one way ticket so maybe that helps.
I get it not infrequently when travelling from europe. It's annoying that they pretend that "oh this is random" .. I'm even going up to the airport employees at hte gate and telling them "I'm told I'm here to make new friends today"
Hardware dongles are incredibly rare now. Even on airgapped machines, you'll see a local Flex license server running. This is especially true when you have a small network of multiple machines that may require the use of a network license. Dongles are just too delicate, they get lost or break. Or you end up with overzealous security software that decides to block anything that isn't a mouse or keyboard. There are plenty of modern day solutions for a transferable license.
In my small corner of technology (AV) I regularly use three products with physical USB license keys: Crestron VC-4, Scala Digital Signage, and Dataton Watchout. Two of them have a "virtual license key" option that costs extra, intended for use with a VM. I wish they were more rare...
We use Flex license server for so many pieces of software. It works well as long as everything is up and running. Several years ago, we merged with another company and slowly began to consolidate IT infrastructure. The license server was moved many times without giving proper notification to users until it eventually settled at the main DC we use. Then came the issue of renewing the license. Previously, license renewal was managed at the department level which means the users only need to go to their boss if there's an issue and only had to send one email to our local IT to apply a new license. Funding for licenses came out of a special budget so department heads didn't have to beg. Very simple and it worked fine for years. Now, everything is centralized which sounds great except that the people that manage the license server are so far removed from where we are that it can take months for a license renewal. You're not talking to people you have an email address for, you're submitting tickets to our central system where they forward it onto the license group somewhere. It used to be incredibly painful but has gotten better now that the license group is more aware of the entire division of employees that now require their services too.
The one thing a real doctor can do is actually touch the patient and run tests, even simple things like using a stethoscope. At best, an AI "doctor" is just comparing patient-provided symptoms to a lookup table of conditions. No better than what WebMD used to (still does?) when you would answer a questionnaire and be provided with a list of conditions ranging from a cold to the bubonic plague. AI loves taking everything you say at face value, it doesn't know how to think critically. Whole doctors shouldn't think of a patient as an adversary, they often lie or unintentionally obscure symptoms or the severity of symptoms. Even the most junior doctor can provide a more thorough examination over the phone or through chat than an AI that believes everything it hears.
I remember trying to talk to WebMD when I had pain in my side and appendicitis was near the bottom of the list, the top stuff was either nothing serious or highly improbable. The pain didn't seem as bad as what the appendicitis pain should have been based on descriptions. My mother got her doctor to call me and he walked me through some touching and said "you likely have appendicitis, don't talk to WebMD next time." I went to the hospital that night and that doctor told me I was likely hours away from a burst appendix. I can only imagine what nonsense ChatGPT would have told me.
Just like with most professions, the real world is nothing like the textbook. Being able to pass a medical exam doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be a good doctor. Most of the exam is taken during med school and the final portion is only taken after the first year of residency. They still have another few years at least of residency after passing USMLE and that's with supervision under an attending doctor. Being able to pass the USMLE is not equivalent to being successful doctor with years of experience.
I spent about 15 minutes trying to determine where this photo was taken. The focal length used really obscures how far away the plane and the building behind it actually are. Eventually I figured it out based on the snippet of taxiway you can see touching the runway and verified it against your LinkedIn.
I used to have an office slightly offset from the final approach path of the local airport with a window that gave an amazing view. I'd leave my airband scanner on as background noise while I worked in a very quiet, mid-covid office.
It takes a whole minute for the entire data frame to be transmitted. While 1 bps is great for propagation, WWVB (and it's kin) is a really weak signal to pickup using the tiny antennas these kinds of clocks have. There's a relationship between received power, modulation type, data rate, error correction, and error rate so changing one will change others. Thus it can sometimes take at least several minutes for all of the timing data to be gathered as there is no error correction included in the data frame. Also the HF spectrum is incredibly noisy as switch-mode power supplies (pretty much in everything these days) produce a ton of interference so taking a battery powered clock outside can help greatly.
WWVB clocks are great but aren't so good these days. NTP is pretty much as good as anyone will ever need in their home but this has the downside of usually requiring internet access. GPS clocks have been the standard for 30+ years for anyone needing precision timing.
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