July 13, 2006

We Interrupt Your Communication Systems With This Important Announcement. "The government will soon be sending warnings of national emergencies on wireless phones, Web sites and hand-held computers." Heck, Nixon wanted a special device to turn on your TV and wake you up if he had something important to say. View the Emergency Broadcast papers wherein "The FCC was preparing broadcast stations for all-out atomic warfare in which millions of people might have been killed and the telephone system would be used only for high-priority messages."
posted by petebest 18 years ago
  • "we're hoping that your cell phone will go off saying something bad is happening, and you need to get to a TV or radio to find out what's going on"
  • Hasn't it become common practise to shut down wireless phone systems in many emergencies - as was done most recently in Mumbai?
  • Once more I will be denied the ability to panic appropriately for lack of the latest technology.
  • And during major emergencies, such as last year's subway bombings in London, don't we usually see that cell networks become overloaded with people trying to reach their loved ones, to the point where most people can't get through at all?
  • Mord, give me your zip code, and I'll send up a smoke signal. er... Anyway, if you see smoke, panICK!
  • Perhaps they could send the signal by telegraph, and it could be yelled out by the cryer in the town square!
  • When in panic, fear, or doubt, run in circles and scream and shout! -my family has run from some of the biggest battles in history! --family crest is a headless chicken runnin in circles ---slashie impaired
  • At the risk of thread jacking, why am i slashie impaired? I tried to use slashie but when i type it a search bar appears on the bottom of the screen?! Anybody know what this is? And how to get rid of it? I sometimes think Monkeyfilter has ghosts in the machine. One night i was trying to post and everything i typed appeared onscree backwards. Then there is the spelling ghost
  • I sometimes think Monkeyfilter has ghosts in the machine. Well, there's that annoying ghost in the Killer Kangaroo thread. Where the heck did HE come from? And when are getting a damn preview button?!?
  • In Soviet Russia, website previews YOU!
  • \note to self - open no emails from Berek/
  • Back on topic -- slightly. 20+ years ago, in one of my past lives, I was a small-market radio guy in the American midwest. As a relic of the cold war, we had - and many will recall this - the Emergency Broadcast System. A canard if there ever was one. I was required to memorize the text, I think I still have it: This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. This is only a test. (20 second beep of a particular frequency, intended to wake up electronic devices that were monitoring) This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. The broadcasters of your area in voluntary cooperation with the FCC and other Federal, State and local authorities have developed this system to keep you informed in the event of an emergency. If this had been an actual emergency, the Attention Signal you just heard would have been followed by news and official information. This station serves the (whatever the fuck) area. This concludes this test of the Emergency Broadcast System." This whole process was total bullshit from start to finish. As a 20-year old radio DJ, I would read this in my most solemn voice, knowing full well that both I and all federal state and local authorities had no fucking clue as to what to do if something evil this way came. Or if they did, they never gave me the first idea of what I was to do after I hit the magic 20-second tone. So, now we have Terror Alert Level Orange. Not much changes.
  • "This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System" - sampled by so many DJ-mix records in the late 80's... They had to get the message out to your local security guard or mall cop, so they could finally get to load their gun and shoot 'looters'.
  • RTD et. al., follow the last link - it's got verbatim good stuff just like that announcement for tests, and for the actual attack. Mmm scripted goodness. Also please note that today's nuclear attack may interrupt the fluff cycle.
  • So...if the feds push the panic button, people in the loop panic, people out of the loop experience and undifferentiated fear/panic because they see others panicking, people get stepped on, driven over, etc. etc. and - nothing happens - who do I sue? Come to think of it, even if something does happen - who do I sue? How is someone sitting at a desk a thousand miles away smarter than me when I see a threat first hand? Why the hell would a sane man relinquish local decision making to a distant authority when it’s only the technology that makes that authority seem omnipresent? Oh, I’m well aware of the cases where someone calls on the phone representing some authority and gets someone to do something (e.g. the fast food strip search thing) but there was at least some custodianship of those mouth breathers. Does no one recognize that if you stampede the herd you can lose a lot of them? Or are they too damned far removed now to care or be affected? Because I don’t buy for a minute that they are too stupid to see the ramifications. I want a cop on the scene and I’m willing to pay for that. I don’t want a technological surrogate authority. Especially one not on the scene who can’t be affected by it. /end rant
  • /I should say - custodianship - earlier, pre-this kind of tech/attitude thing. Granting betrayals of people by power - e.g. villians ye are and villlians ye remain sort of ex-populist user - there was at least some symbiosis with the controling parisitism. Now, not so much. ...sorry, too uptight to slow down thought processes for smoother communication. ugh.
  • *adjusts "Squelch" knob on Smedleyman channel*
  • F*ucking Fox media.