another application I could envision would be amateur prospecting. But smartphones know your location, so same problem.

So? The smart phone will report it's location at the time that you analyse your specimen. Which will probably be in the hotel/ motel that you go to when you get back to something resembling civilisation.

You think that you'll have a mobile phone signal out in the field at your prospect? Damned all chance of that, because mobile phone companies don't put transmission towers where they don't have customers, and if there are any significant numbers of people in an area then it has probably been gone over already by mineral prospectors.

I'm an amateur mountaineer and professional geologist. I don't normally have signal on my mobile when I'm out on the hill. Likewise when I do onshore jobs in the deserts of Arabia or the tundra of Russia. And when I'm 100km out at sea, again, no signal.

Look at this map ; get out into unpopulated areas and you've got little chance of getting a signal. If you're in a populated area, then it's almost certainly already been prospected.

The lithology of the encasing rock and age of the specimen (the report I had didn't go into details ; I'd assume micropalaeontology - it usually is) suggests that the specimen came from the Crato formation of Brazil. But Brazil has had a blanket ban on export of fossils since the 1940s. So, how did the fossil get to appear in a small museum in southern Germany? (By coincidence, I've actually been to that museum.)

and probably this is not a snake but a specimen from some extinct group.

One of the specific characteristics that they use to deduce that this is more closely related to modern snakes than to an other group is that the body (between the pelvic and pectoral girdles) is considerably elongated compared to other vertebrates. This lengthening is achieved by increasing the number of vertebrae and ribs, not by lengthening the vertebrae (which is the strategy that giraffes use, for example). There is also a hint (though it is admittedly unclear and the specimen isn't well enough preserved to tell) that the ventral surface of the body (i.e. the belly) has a single scale running across the full width.

Snake-y enough for you?

A known type of problem, which is why raw radiocarbon dates need careful interpretation to get back to absolute dates.

If you have already been rejected once, you are obviously NOT an "ideal candidate".

For the first job. For the second, third, fourth opening ...

Pen and paper?

OK. I think I can top that.

My workplace left the shipyard in 2012 and is currently in another shipyard having some modifications done which include extending an Archimedian Screw system so debris can be taken to offloading stations at port or starboard.

That's 3000 year old tech, or pretty close.

Paper (papyrus) probably wins, but "pens" as in quill pens are I think somewhat younger.

"Reptile" is a taxonomic bucket list. Best avoided.

Mammals are more closely related to the archosaurs than the lizards.

Troofers believe in a whole bunch of things [...] that their psychic abilities aren't psychotic episodes,

Very nicely rude. Class insult. Well done.

But for pay, I'm prepared to take the risk.

I could just walk over to the sound to get sea water that could be easily distilled

I think it would be very instructive for you to try putting that plan through a trial run. Distilling water takes a hell of a lot of fuel. A hell of a lot.

(I used to run alcohol sills on various occasions.)