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now drawing for one event in Japan…
Reblogged
HERE’S THE THING THOUGH
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.
My job got investigated because a computer randomly spit out a number to the Pentagon.
kuroba101
This is my new favourite story.
When I was in college I got a job working for a company that manages major air-travel data. It was a temp gig working their out of date system while they moved over to a new one, since my knowing MS Dos apparently made me qualified.
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.
The red phone never rang again while I was there, so the people doing my training were only slightly wrong in their estimation of how often the doomsday phone would ring.
Every time I try to find this story, I end up having to search google with a variety of terms that I’m sure have gotten me flagged by some watchlist, so I’m reblogging it again where I swear I’ve reblogged it before.
But none of these stories even come close to the best one of them all; a wrong number is how the NORAD Santa Tracker got started.
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.
OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS.
I’ve seen the first post a bunch of times, but never the story of How The Santa Tracker Started.
Oh, I LOVE these stories but, most especially, the last one. But, um, does anyone know if that was NORAD in Canada (North Bay) or NORAD in Colorado (inside the mountain - you know, where the Star Gate was purported to be because, yeah, US NORAD outside Colorado Springs really was/is inside the mountain.
The NPR article says it’s Colorado Springs! So there’s your Stargate connection too. :D
Reblogged mainecoon76
Your Father’s Raiment ♥
((Patreon))
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Fraudster in a fandom
I want to warn people about user http://colorfulmilkshakebear.tumblr.com/ (City guy, Guy_from_Brooklyn, Rene Baratheon, Rene Ueda…)
In Russian fandom that person is known for fraud which is currently investigated. They ask their friends and followers to send them money (for cancer treatment or other emergency, or promise to help with accommodation and work in Britain, promise to send some craft) and don’t return the money.
That person also:
- uses photos from IG of real people as their own - tries to sell art and craft made by other people as their own - breaks e-mails and other accounts to ask for money - threatens people
Actual information and proofs are gathered there: https://holywarsoo.net/viewtopic.php?id=1807
UPDATE That person is probably a very well known women, who has served her time in jail for the same crimes already.
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Dworin Week 2017 Wrap-Up Post!
Dear Dworin friends, I apologize for the delay (RL continued to be turbulent for a while and I had no energy left for fandom), but finally, let me present the official Dworin Week 2017 wrap-up post!
(Note that all of these may contain violence, major character death and/or nsfw content.)
This is what we created this year:
Mon, Jul 10th: Despair - Hope
@esthreerus (Esthree on AO3): A Poem
@heartoferebor (Saetha on AO3): A Flame
@joyfullynervouscreator (Raiyana on AO3): Despair & Hope
@stand-up-and-fight-daleks (Kuiske on AO3): Perhaps even Silver
@mainecoon76 (same name on AO3): Hope - Despair
Tue, Jul 11th: Meeting - Parting
heartoferebor: A Clasp
joyfullynervouscreator: The Chaos of War
Wed, Jul 12th: Bad Times - Good Times
heartoferebor: A Harp
joyfullynervouscreator: Cookie Raids
joyfullynervouscreator: Warmth
Thu, Jul 13th: Body - Mind (how did I guess this was going to be popular xD)
heartoferebor: A Scar
joyfullynervouscreator: Reminders
joyfullynervouscreator: Dreams
esthreerus: Body-Mind
stand-up-and-fight-daleks: Body, Mind and Soul
mainecoon76: Body - Mind
Fri, Jul 14th: Youth - Old Age
heartoferebor: A Silver Hair
joyfullynervouscreator: When Itendum beckons
Sat, Jul 15th: Illness - Health
heartoferebor: A Dog
joyfullynervouscreator: Illness - Health
Sun, Jul 16th: Flaws - Strengths
heartoferebor: A Weapon
@umetakenoko Flaws and Strengths (fanart, nsfw :) )
And then we had several works that were not related to the prompts:
joyfullynervouscreator: In Preparation for Dworin Week
@kappathealien: two sketches, here and here
joyfullynervouscreator: When Thorin Rants (inspired by the second of Kappa’s sketches)
and @onecardshort made a lovely thank-you post to everybody at the end of the week!
That’s it! Group hugs and virtual chocolate for all of you who created, commented, kudos’d, reblogged and cheered! You all help to keep the ship afloat. I’m very happy to see the fest is still active even in the fourth year running.
… and speaking of that, special headbutts to @heartoferebor, AKA Dworin Mum, and joyfullynervouscreator (Raiyana, tumblr won’t let me tag you!) for posting every single day, sometimes more than one work! You saved the week, pals.
If I missed something, please tell me. The tags still don’t work properly for me.
For all who are new(ish) to our little corner of the fandom and want more, the wrap-up posts of the past years are here: 2014, 2015 and 2016. There’s also an AO3 Collection, so don’t forget to add your works. Enjoy!
And to give this a proper ending, here’s one of Esthree’s lovely banners again.
Reblogged heartoferebor
Flaws - Strength
Dworin week!
Gorgeous! I wish I knew what’s written here...
Dworin week - day 1, Hope - Despair
It was written long ago, but since I hadn’t posted it, I suppose it would fit. Sorry, if it sounds weird in English, my knowledge of the language is rather limited.
If I was there by your side My back against your back Could it have been so that you lived To see a new day break The King onto his rightful throne The crown upon your brow In our homeland renewed And standing strong and proud If I was there by your side My axe to match your sword Could it have been so that we fell Outnumbered by the horde And enter both side by side Our Maker’s greatest Halls To meet our kin and praise the world Until the day it falls And wait together for the last Of battles to come and pass If I was there by your side I wasn’t there, alas
Reblogged nelioe
Steampunk Dwalin
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Putting the cast in Castlevania.
There are too many terrific contributors to this series, not the least of whom are these wonderful, freshly-announced actors:
Graham McTavish is Dracula Richard Armitage is Trevor Belmont James Callis is Alucard Alejandra Reynoso is Sypha Belnades Emily Swallow is Lisa Matt Frewer is The Bishop Tony Amendola is The Elder
Castelvania premieres on Netflix next Friday, 7/7/17.
Reblogged heartoferebor
kiss