WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS all work in airplane mode. You have to manually re-enable WiFi and Bluetooth after enabling airplane mode.
I took a United flight recently that offered video on your device. I didn’t count them, but I’m sure there were well over 100 movies offered. Way more than I would normally have stored on my phone. Although arguably you just need one or two for most flights, so you could download a couple that you want to see. But the inflight movies are free.
The amount of audio & video entertainment onboard for free streaming to your device is simply boggling. Many thousand hours; there’s almost certainly something for every taste.
If you pay for the off-plane internet access via satellite you can even visit the Dope inflight.
It’s now extremely common and therefore “acceptable” but the reason it is allowed is that the aircraft have designed-in shielding from electromagnetic interference and have undergone testing on their specific configuration to demonstrate that it is tolerant to the signals generated by personal electronic devices. More or less every new aircraft configuration (new in flight entertainment system, more seats than originally tested, avionics upgrades) need to be challenged against those signals for compliance. The industry has more or less caught up in North America, and newer planes are designed with this in mind, but acceptability on a 737 Max 8 absolutely does not translate to acceptability on a 737 classic or vice versa.
United Airlines recently shut down their Starlink service due to static interference on their communication systems. This absolutely should have been designed out and tested for before approval and installation. The issue is minor and not a big safety impact, but it shouldn’t have happened at all.
I remember when airlines used the pneumatic headsets so you had to use theirs, provided free of cost and collected at the end of the flight so they could sanitize them and use them again.
More a mistake on my part. They were 737 Max 8. I just smushed it all together.
When I flew to Iceland/Glasgow last August on IcelendAir r=that’s what they did. They came in a nice case.
As a side note, I got go listen to music from various Icelandic artists.
One thing to be aware of if you’re planning on using your own device and bringing a power bank to keep it charged or to recharge it.
Lithium ion (rechargeable) batteries are limited to a rating of 100 watt-hours (Wh) per battery. The TSA (I’ve been told, haven’t flown recently) are sometimes checking for a label on your power bank that tells its rating in watt-hours. If it doesn’t have that particular information available, TSA can refuse to let the device through. (As they can with just about anything.)
(Info from FAA website at https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/packsafe/lithium-batteries)
Also regarding lithium ion power banks, they of course are not allowed in checked luggage and on some airlines not allowed in the overhead bins.
And to take that even further, Southwest requires that the power bank be in plain sight while in use. (i.e.: you can’t plug your phone into it then put it in your overhead luggage.)
I’m tall. My head remembers them too.
In fact, that’s what I did on my last flight!
Washington Post just updated their games layouts. Instead of nice simple grids for Sudoku and the crossword puzzles, they prettified it with garish colors, little diamonds between the grids, and distracting checks on correct answers. The crossword puzzle has an entire column on the right side with the list of clues, squeezing the keyboard into the remaining area. It makes making entries just so much harder. I wonder whose brain fart that was, or if anyone likes it.
GM has entered the game. $100K corvettes can catch on fire while refueling.
Oh, this talk of cars reminds of a Toyota that I had maybe around 1990. It had a weird motorized seat belt with one end attached to an anchor point in front of the driver’s door. When you got in and started the car, the anchor point would zip along a track backwards along the door frame and stop slightly behind your left shoulder, automatically putting your seat belt on for you. I think this was to meet some regulatory requirement for a “passive restraint” system.
The problem was that if you had the sun visor turned to the left to block the driver’s side window, the mounting point would zip backwards, grab the sun visor, and rip it out of its mount. Ask me how I know this. I called Toyota and they said that they would repair it for free ONCE. Apparently it was a common event, but they expected the driver to learn from the experience not to leave the visor in that position.
I once told this story to my manager at a tech company, and he said “I guess the seat belt team wasn’t communicating with the sun visor team.”
I’m currently based at a research institute. We have a shiny new building, with all modern systems and lots of high-tech equipment.
A lot of biology research happens on site, which means we need fume hoods, for the extremely toxic stuff some people use in experiments. Some of these chemicals basically stay in the fume cabinets, as it’s really not safe to store elsewhere.
For safety, we also have an elaborate built-in emergency system for fires and suchlike, which, as well as sounding the alarm and auto-closing fire doors, cuts power to equipment that could cause extra danger during fires. This system is tested once a week.
It took a while after moving into the shiny new building to discover that the fume hoods turn off while the fire alarm system goes off, including once a week when it gets tested.
Speaking of which, I almost stabbed myself in my left eye a few days back trying to open a packet of Wal-Mart Great Value trail mix; it happened because Wal-Mart has apparently made the plastic packaging such that it can no longer be torn open, and must be cut open. Long story short, when I had that close call, my stomach was in a lurch for a long time to come thinking about what would have happened if the scissors had connected.
You don’t have to tell us, but how is it that the scissors were anywhere near your eye?
I can’t see it happening with scissors being used as scissors . But I can absolutely see it happening with a utility knife that gets stuck and isn’t cutting - until suddenly it tears through. So I guess it could happen if you stabbed the package with one blade of the scissors and tried to tear it open with just the one blade.
Impatience, using inadequate or dull tools, or misusing tools are all great ways to hurt oneself. And all are common when dealing with unwanted packaging.
Which, sadly, I have done on numerous occasions. Not smart, but I was in a hurry, dammit!