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Fixing the Portobello Police Station Clock

548 points · 116 comments · avidly

  1. grahamburger · · focus · HN ↗
    How fun! Once, after climbing around in a dusty old church attic like this, I had to head straight to the airport for a flight. Barely made it on because something in the dust kept flagging as dangerous. They were using a test strip on my backpack and clothing and analyzing it in some kind of machine. Stressful as I was already pressed for time! Finally got a clean test and they let me through.
    1. ndr · · focus · HN ↗
      Is the solution to a positive swab really to keep swabbing until negative?
      1. dekhn · · focus · HN ↗
        Or to assume it's a false positive.

        Shortly after 9/11 I was flying out of Hawaii back to the mainland and I watched the screen when they swabbed my bag. It reported as positive for every single type of explosive (to the best of my knowledge, I was not carrying anything even remotely explosive). The tech looked at the results, said "that can't possibly be right" and waved me on.

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