meows mini museings

I used to work for a call center and I was doing a political survey and I called this number that was randomly generated for me and the way our system worked was voice-activated so when the other person said hello you’d get connected to them, so I just launch right into my “Harvard University and NPR blah blah blah” thing and then there’s this long pause and I think the person’s hung up even though I didn’t hear a click

And then I hear “you shouldn’t be able to call this number.”

So I apologize and go into the preset spiel about because we aren’t selling anything, etc. etc. and the answer I get is

“No, I know that. What I mean is that it should be impossible for you to call this number, and I need to know how you got it.”

I explain that it’s randomly generated and I’m very sorry for bothering him, and go to hang up. And before I can click terminate, I hear:

“Ma’am, this is a matter of national security.”

I accidentally called the director of the FBI.

There was no MS Dos involved. Instead, there was a proprietary type-based OS and an actually-uses-transistors refrigerator-sized computer with switches I had to trip at certain times during the night as I watched the data flow from six pm to six AM on Fridays and weekends. If things got stuck, I reset the server. 

The company handled everything from low-end data (hotel and car reservations) to flight plans and tower information. I was weighed every time I came in to make sure it was me. Areas of the building had retina scanners on doors. 

During training. they took us through all the procedures. Including the procedures for the red phone. There was, literally, a red phone on the shelf above my desk. “This is a holdover from the cold war.” They said. “It isn’t going to come up, but here’s the deal. In case of nuclear war or other nation-wide disaster, the phone will ring. Pick up the phone, state your name and station, and await instructions. Do whatever you are told.”

So my third night there, it’s around 2am and there’s a ringing sound. 

I look up, slowly. The Red phone is ringing.

So I reach out, I pick up the phone. I give my name and station number. And I hear every station head in the building do the exact same. One after another, voices giving names and numbers. Then silence for the space of two breaths. Silence broken by…

“Uh… Is Shantavia there?”

It turns out that every toll free, 1-900 or priority number has a corresponding local number that it routs to at its actual destination. Some poor teenage girl was trying to dial a friend of hers, mixed up the numbers, and got the atomic attack alert line for a major air-travel corporation’s command center in the mid-west United States.

There’s another pause, and the guys over in the main data room are cracking up. The overnight site head is saying “I think you have the wrong number, ma’am.” and I’m standing there having faced the specter of nuclear annihilation before I was old enough to legally drink.

Seriously, this is legit.

In December 1955, Sears decided to run a Santa hotline.  Here’s the ad they posted.

Only problem is, they misprinted the number.  And the number they printed?  It went straight through to fucking NORAD.  This was in the middle of the Cold War, when early warning radar was the only thing keeping nuclear annihilation at bay.  NORAD was the front line.

And it wasn’t just any number at NORAD.  Oh no no no.

Terri remembers her dad had two phones on his desk, including a red one. “Only a four-star general at the Pentagon and my dad had the number,” she says.

“This was the ‘50s, this was the Cold War, and he would have been the first one to know if there was an attack on the United States,” Rick says.

The red phone rang one day in December 1955, and Shoup answered it, Pam says. “And then there was a small voice that just asked, ‘Is this Santa Claus?’ ”

His children remember Shoup as straight-laced and disciplined, and he was annoyed and upset by the call and thought it was a joke — but then, Terri says, the little voice started crying.

“And Dad realized that it wasn’t a joke,” her sister says. “So he talked to him, ho-ho-ho’d and asked if he had been a good boy and, ‘May I talk to your mother?’ And the mother got on and said, ‘You haven’t seen the paper yet? There’s a phone number to call Santa. It’s in the Sears ad.’ Dad looked it up, and there it was, his red phone number. And they had children calling one after another, so he put a couple of airmen on the phones to act like Santa Claus.”

“It got to be a big joke at the command center. You know, ‘The old man’s really flipped his lid this time. We’re answering Santa calls,’ ” Terri says.

And then, it got better.

“The airmen had this big glass board with the United States on it and Canada, and when airplanes would come in they would track them,” Pam says.

“And Christmas Eve of 1955, when Dad walked in, there was a drawing of a sleigh with eight reindeer coming over the North Pole,” Rick says.

“Dad said, ‘What is that?’ They say, ‘Colonel, we’re sorry. We were just making a joke. Do you want us to take that down?’ Dad looked at it for a while, and next thing you know, Dad had called the radio station and had said, ‘This is the commander at the Combat Alert Center, and we have an unidentified flying object. Why, it looks like a sleigh.’ Well, the radio stations would call him like every hour and say, ‘Where’s Santa now?’ ” Terri says.

For real.

“And later in life he got letters from all over the world, people saying, ‘Thank you, Colonel,’ for having, you know, this sense of humor. And in his 90s, he would carry those letters around with him in a briefcase that had a lock on it like it was top-secret information,” she says. “You know, he was an important guy, but this is the thing he’s known for.”

“Yeah,” Rick [his son] says, “it’s probably the thing he was proudest of, too.”

So yeah.  I think that might be the best wrong number of all time.

I’ve finally finished making all 50 of these tiny dolls so they will be going into retirement. My other old doll molds will also be retired at the end of the year to make room for new ones! So for the rest of the year everything in my etsy shop will be on sale.

Looking forward to making new dolls in the future!

new dolly! actually I’ve had this one around for awhile but keep forgetting to photograph her.

Things that aren’t rocks for months you weren’t born in!

January: Magnesium Chloride

February: Glass

April: Concrete

May: Graphite

June: Petrified Wood

July: Meth

August: Charcoal Briquettes

September: Uranium

October: Teeth

November: Lithops

I care about net neutrality a lot, yet I haven’t reblogged any posts about it yet. You may be wondering why and simply put, the misinformation on this site is pissing me off.

Many of you may have seen posts going around with pictures like these:

They’re very scary and compelling. They illustrate a dystopian future where websites are sold like cable packages.

The problem is they have jack shit to do with net neutrality and what the FCC is trying to do, and frankly it makes those of us trying to protect net neutrality look completely ignorant.

So, what’s actually going on? Sorry, but it’s not as interesting as the pictures convey. If you don’t read between the lines it’s going to seem like boring shit. Sorry, guys, but the way that scary as fuck legislation gets passed in this country is by hiding it in a mundane, boring package that no one cares about or pays attention to.

So, what is the net neutrality that’s in jeopardy? Back in 2015, broadband providers became reclassified as common carriers under Title II. The FCC actually pushed for this Title II reclassification at the time so they could come up with stronger Net Neutrality rules. Basically, the FCC has legal authority to keep companies like Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon from interfering with web traffic in any way under Title II.

So what’s happening now? Trump’s FCC chairman and Verizon’s bitch, Ajit Pai, wants to reclassify broadband providers as Title I, and let the internet providers, companies like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon, do whatever they want to control web traffic. This includes slowing down service by means of bandwidth throttling.

What does this mean for the internet and how we use it?

1. Companies will have to pay extra money to the internet providers, so their web traffic isn’t interfered with. This will seriously harm up and coming websites. If Google was invented post net neutrality they never would have been able to flourish in the way they have. They likely never would have gotten off the ground which is why even big companies like Google and Facebook support net neutrality.

2. The internet could turn into an oligopoly with only the big companies like Google able to pay enough to keep web traffic flowing. If broadband providers are able to interfere with web traffic to smaller sites there will be no competition on the internet as a marketplace. Oh, you’d love a version of Amazon that doesn’t treat it’s workers like shit and actually cares about mitigating its environmental impact. Too bad, the website is slow as shit if it even loads at all.

3. Any websites the internet providers disagree with will have their web traffic interfered with. This includes important social justice movements like BLM, LGBTQ pride websites, antifa and so on.

Yesterday afternoon the House subcommittee that provides Congressional oversight for the FCC held an important hearing about the agency’s current plans, including current Chairman (and former Verizon lawyer) Ajit Pai’s move to gut Title II net neutrality protections that prevent ISPs from controlling what we do online with throttling, censorship, and extra fees.

With Capitol Hill’s attention now on the FCC, and Pai’s final plan to gut net neutrality protections expected in the coming weeks, it’s extra important that Congress gets flooded with phone calls from Internet users telling them to stand up and defend the open Internet.

We’re also hearing there are key members of Congress considering whether to step in and force Pai to slow down. This means best chance to stop the FCC from breaking the fundamental principle that makes the Internet awesome is to pound Congress with phone calls right now.

You can call your reps easily with just one click here: battleforthenet.com

You’ll see a script on your screen, or you can say something like this:

“I support Title Two net neutrality rules and I urge you to oppose the FCC’s plan to repeal them. Specifically, I’d like you to contact the FCC Chairman and demand he abandon his current plan.”

You can also just call this number directly and enter your zipcode to get connected to your legislators: 202-930-8550.

If you run a website, blog, tumblr, or forum, help spread the word by putting up a sticky post, or use one of these widgets, ads, or banners: https://www.battleforthenet.com/#join

Ajit Pai is expected to circulate the text of his rule killing net neutrality on November 22, the day before Thanksgiving. Once that happens, it will move to a vote at the FCC’s open meeting in December, and it will become much much harder to stop him.

Intergalactreat Enamel Pins by From Jae on Etsy

Two? Nope. You have FIVE, minimum.

You take the apple

You take the orange

You take both

You take nothing

You take something else

And this works EVERYWHERE. 

“Are you with us or with them?”

I’m with you!

I’m with them!

You both have good points!

You’re all insane!

I’m going with that other group over there!

“You need to vote Democrat or Republican!”

Democrat!

Republican!

I switch depending on the leader and the issues!

I don’t vote! 

I vote for a third-party!

“Are you Christian or Muslim??”  

I’m Christian

I’m Muslim

I think God is one and the same and follow good doctrines of both

I’m atheist

I’m Jewish

And it’s often more subtle

Like a salesperson handing you two products and pressuring you to buy one of them, making you forget that 

You don’t have to buy anything if you don’t want to

You can leave the store and buy something elsewhere

And sometimes it can be as important as

“Are you gay or are you straight?”

I’m gay

I’m straight

I’m both? So Bi?

I like no one, I’m ace. 

I’m anything else, really, this is a spectrum and I define my own orientation.