My wife got suckered into one a few days ago (though hung up before anything bad happened). We ordered a replacement pair of glasses for my daughter, and the store said they would call when the glasses came in so we could pick them up.
Flash forward a few days, and she gets an automated called saying something akin to "Your delivery is on hold, please press 1", so she did, and got connected to an "agent" who she started talking with. In her conversation it became obvious to me it was a scammer, so I told her to hang up, but not before she got overly concerned at me.
She's pretty aware of these things, but it was just a right place at the right time kind of thing that caught her off guard even though there were plenty of warning signs.
> it was just a right place at the right time kind of thing
Scammers abuse this principle by sending out texts to the tune of "Your package is on hold until you pay.". The chances a random person is expecting a package at any given time are pretty good.
And confirmation bias is strong. The above commenter didn't even have a package being delivered -- they were going to pick up the glasses from the store. But you sometimes hear what you expect to hear, rather than what was actually said.
Did it come and "go", though? A lot of that money was earmarked for local and state government programs, and at least from what I'm seeing, a lot of those projects haven't even taken place yet. Our local city hall, for example, is still trying to spend some of the money, which they will be reimbursed for after the projects are complete.
I have a good friend now who went in for his third class medical in October 2021, the doctor flagged a prescription he had previously been taking (but was no longer taking), and wanted clarification from the FAA. Now in April, it's still in the "review queue". Meanwhile he's grounded, with no end in sight as to when the answer will be returned.
Not only that, but once it's cleared, the medical date will be retroactive to October, so the renewal clock is ticking the whole time he can't be flying.
'The FAA generally requires at least one-year of post-marketing experience with a new drug before consideration for aeromedical certification purposes.'
That seems like a great example of the FFA getting out of the way of the necessary. Pandemic times are when rules need to be more flexible since we're responding to non-standard conditions.
If that rule wasn't waved pilots would need to chose between being more vulnerable to the pandemic vs. getting to draw an income for a year - that seems a lot worse than some rules being temporarily ignored.
First off given that we're in the middle of a pandemic and the vaccine was promoted to keep everyone safe - please stop spreading misinformation about vaccination.
Secondly, regardless of efficacy, most people thought it was necessary for their health and the health of others - so you're placing most level headed people in a position where they would need to chose between declining a completely beneficial treatment or else lose their livelihood.
Lastly, I don't know how it works where you live but up here in Canada I feel distinctly unowned by anyone.
I have been an avid collector of scientific studies about COVID, COVID vaccination, repurposed therapeutics, and PCR test accuracy since 2020. Would you like me to share some of this "misinformation"? You might find it enlightening.
So do we as a society prefer to have no flights for a year probably including cargo planes - while providing income relief/subsidies to those pilots or do we expect those pilots to go without vaccination and force them to endure a higher mortality rate from COVID?
Cardiac problems with the vaccines are being discovered and cause sudden issues. I would prefer following written rules or changing the rules, instead of ignoring rules.
My previous role was at a public facing ecommerce site. One day I started noticing a lot of public traffic to internal administrative endpoints that were failing - likely bots, but also to URLs that bots would have never known existed. Urls that only someone internal to the company would even know existed, due to the complex way they were crafted. It was very concerning.
We spent a LOT of time tracking down, and finally realized that the "bot" traffic was coming about 30 minutes after one of our employees legitimated visited the site. We found that user was using grammarly. Once we deactivated grammarly, all of the bot traffic stopped.
As best as I could tell, every URL that particular person went to in their browsers, grammarly had a service about 30 minutes later that would try and hit the url directly and ascertain what was there.
Haven't been on the crusade against it ever since.
Because of the proven URL visiting bot, they don't have to. Everyone understands it's not an idle threat that Grammarly snoops on everything you write.
Are you writing blog posts or message board comments? Are you on social media? Writing to one person or many? Are you writing for financial, health, tourist industries, or for your academic qualifications? To entertain, persuade or inform? A screenshot of the page can be reviewed and classified later.
All to improve the service, of course. You know, what they say in the privacy policy.
I mostly wonder how? Is it an extension or program? I thought it was just a website where you can paste in a text-box for proof reading, and that sort of website shouldn't be able to track you everywhere afterwards, right?
Don't underestimate the large number of people who are also completely scared of doctors and needles. Being able to get something they can pickup at a pharmacy and take in their own home is a win.
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While I agree, I've witnessed first hand a local newspaper repeatedly going after a local political office holder because the publisher simply didn't like her and was in support of an opponent. There still has to be some accountability to the press as well.
I think for a politician, the best way to counter bad press is with good press. Give interviews to sympathetic journalists. And if nobody in town cares to write sympathetic things about you, then maybe think about amending your behavior.
Flash forward a few days, and she gets an automated called saying something akin to "Your delivery is on hold, please press 1", so she did, and got connected to an "agent" who she started talking with. In her conversation it became obvious to me it was a scammer, so I told her to hang up, but not before she got overly concerned at me.
She's pretty aware of these things, but it was just a right place at the right time kind of thing that caught her off guard even though there were plenty of warning signs.