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911 Is Not a Joke · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Do do do do. Attention Pacific Northwest, both the Canadian
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: side and the American side. Stuff you Should Know is
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: coming to you live. That's right. And this combined with
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Seattle in San Francisco, which we have just completed, will
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: be our I would say, our only true West Coast
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: dates this year. So true. So if you are anywhere
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: near Portland or Vancouver, then come on out and see us. Yep.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: So we're going to be in Vancouver at the Chain
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Center on Sunday, March twenty nine, and then the next
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: night we're going to go on down to Portland, and
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: this time we're going to be at the Arlene Schnitzer
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Concert Hall, which is a beautiful room, will be there
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: for the first time, and that's going to be on
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Monday March. That's right. We have stepped it up in
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: viny side. So don't make fools of us, please, right,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: So you can go get tickets and all the info
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: you need at s y s K live dot com.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, welcome to the podcast.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: there's guest producer Josh t rocking it out and this
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: is stuff you should know. Take to a dish. Yeah,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: one of the rare second takes. We lost a whole
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: fourteen seconds of try number one. Right. It wasn't any
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: good anyway, that's what it was. Josh turned into like
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Elvis Custel was like, no, no, stop, stop, I don't
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: look at that reference SNL call back. Yeah it was nice.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: So um, as you can tell, Chuck, I'm pretty excited
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: about this episode, which is kind of surprising because talking
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: about nine one one seems like it might be the
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: most boring thing we could talk about. You think, untrue
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: what with all the people dying and well cats stuck
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: in trees? Sure, what else? That should name everything you
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: shouldn't call nine one one four? Let's see neighbors playing
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: his music too loud? That one exactly. Uh Yeah, there's
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: a bunch of stuff you shouldn't call nine one one four,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: which we'll talk about. But um one thing, like I
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: am familiar with nine one one. I remember growing up
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: as a child in the eighties and I was like,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: I remember hearing about this new system that was coming
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: around when I was growing up in Toledo and I
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: was like, that doesn't make any sense because nine one one,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: it turns out, has been around at least since nineteen
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: sixty eight in the US. It's been around way longer
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: than parts in UK. True, but I like to think
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: of Toledo is kind of a happening spot. Toledo didn't
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: get a fully functional nine one one system until nineteen nine.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Did you look it up? Yeah? So you you guys
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: resorted to the previous method, which was run down the
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: street screaming for neighbors, just swinging a cat by tail. Yeah,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: that was siren. Yeah. I seem to remember. I don't
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: know exactly when we got it, but I think I
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: remember it happening like because if I if I remember correctly,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: when I was a kid, we had one of those
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: little cards next to the kitchen phone that had police
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: fire and whatever else. So that had to have been
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: pre nine one one or else we wouldn't have had
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: that dumb thing, right, Yeah, that would just confuse the children.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Call these numbers first, right, and if they don't answer,
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: then did the super easy thing that will rout it
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: to the correct person child. Your parents have just taken
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: out a substantial life insurance policy on you. Yeah, for
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: that's a long that's a long game, right, there is
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: so chuck as new as nine one one as even
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: though it seems old, right, especially for younger listeners, I
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: would guess that it seems pretty They probably think it's
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: been around since you know, of course some buggy days. Yeah,
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: since rotary phone days. Yeah right. So um, as as
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: as old as it is or as new as it is,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: it's gotten pretty uh robust, very robust. Yeah, every year.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: These are some stats that are Buddy Dave Russe helped
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: us compile two hundred forty million calls in the US.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: That is six hundred and fifty thousand calls a day. Yeah,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: that's like nine hundred thousand calls a minute. No, sure,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: I just did that back of the m uh. And
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: another important thing here is that of calls these days
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: are from your wireless phone. That's a big deal, it is,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: which we'll get to. But um, that changed things. Yeah.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: The big spoiler is is that the nine one one
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: system that we currently currently use in the United States
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: is hopelessly antiquated, and they're working on improving it. And
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: nothing that we should say about how antiquated is should
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: keep you from calling nine one one is still generally works,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: but it's having troubler. It's had trouble traditionally keeping pace
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: with the massive sweeping changes in telecommunications. Yeah, has has
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: gone on in the last couple of decades. Yeah, because
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: telecom is always trying to move forward and they don't
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: think like, but maybe we should slid the pace for
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: nine one one, right, exactly know and plus I mean
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: nine one one was we'll see those systems are built
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: alongside the other system, so when the other system leads forward,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: they have to go through and rebuild this this system
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: that's just for nine one one, because you can't get
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: rid of an old system because people, well we'll get
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: to that stuff. We'll get to that. Let's not spoil it.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: But uh, we were laughing earlier about things that you
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: should and should not call for. Um, some of these
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: are debatable, I think, Oh yeah, I think so, says
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: who says me, We'll get to the last one really
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: is the only one that's debatable. But obviously, if if
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: there's a fire or smoke that you think is a fire,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: where there's smoke, there's fire, medical emergency and you can't
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: you know, obviously getting an ambulance or get in a
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: get in your car and run some one of the
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: emergency room if you can. If it's quicker and you
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: can do so safely, it's quicker and cheaper cost the
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: gas maybe a couple of tolls, who knows, compared to
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: like an ambulance ride. No, that's a that's a good point.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: But I mean imagine if your home just loaded and
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: your kid gets hurt, you should probably call nine one one,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Call nine one Uh. Car accidents, of course, um, if
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: they are major enough and like have injuries, yeah, called
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: call nine one one. You should be able to tell,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: like if somebody's like, oh, that kind of hurt my neck,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: you don't have to call nine one one. You could
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: call Here's the other thing. If we're saying don't call
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: nine on one, that doesn't mean like don't alert anybody.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: But there are there's a your police have their own
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: phone number, Your local police have their own phone number.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Look it up and call that the non emergency number, right. Uh.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: And then obviously the last category is some sort of
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: crime being committed, violence being committed, call nine one one. Yeah.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: So that's like no one's going to argue with that,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: I think. So Okay, there are plenty of instances where
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: you shouldn't call nine one one, and yet people reliably
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: call nine one one for stuff like this, And I
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: think that's because it's been drilled into everyone's head. It's
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: kind of a double edged sword. You can't drill that
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: into everyone's head. One one one, one one one. All
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: you gotta do is call nine one one and then
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: not expect to get some cats stuck in the tree calls.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: You keep going back to that, Well, we actually had
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: did that when I was a kid. Did you call
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: nine one one for that? Well, you know the funny story.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: It's not very funny, my dad, but we had a
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: cat stuck in a tree. My dad went up and
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: he got stuck in the tree and he just climbed
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: up too high. Yeah, and you got freaked out, I
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: think so. I mean, I was a kid, so you
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: know they weren't saying your father is very afraid and
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: he's screwed up. I was just a kid kind of like, well,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: now dad's up there, and now there's fireman here helping
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: my dad out of a tree. Cats and Dad's get
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: stuck in tree. Yeah, And looking back, I think that's
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: totally probably what happened. He got way up there. It
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: was freaked out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's cute. I have
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: to ask him about that one day. Um. Okay, so
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: your dad's stuck in a tree, I would say, that's
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: call nine one on cats stuck in a tree. Now,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: unless you live in Pleasantville, don't call nine one one
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: for that. Um. If you have a question about the
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: speeding ticket you got the other day, that's not a
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: call that you would place through nine on one Again,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: you can just call there's even a number on the
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: back of the ticket. Dumb. Okay, hey, bringing that back
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: just for that second. Okay, what else? Oh, of course,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: anything dealing with your animals unless well, I'm not gonna
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: even gonna say that. I was gonna say, if there's
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: an animal attacking someone, yeah, you would call tell nine
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: one one for that. Come out and shoot this dog.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Basically it could be rabid. It's terrible call. Heckt hat out? Uh.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: But otherwise, if the cat in the tree, lost, animals, injured, animals,
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: noisy neighbors, I love that day. Puts power outage in
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: here and in parentheses, call your power company, right, It's
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: that last one I think is a little it kind
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: of opens a can of worms, and that is the
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: suspicious person thing, because uh, you know, they they say
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: to call for suspicious activity, which theoretically is a suspicious person.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: I think the distinction is uh and what we see
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: and we'll get into this later racial biases. You know,
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: people in neighborhoods calling the cops on someone because they're
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: black and walking down my street, which happens, that is
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: not a suspicious person um even I mean, if there's
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: nothing going on, I know, people try to justify it.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: But then local police say, you know, hey, always call
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: us if you think something might be going on. And
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: that's where it gets dodgy, because that comes down to
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: a human beings perception. So it can be very tilted.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: As Dave put it. He put it a couple of
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: ways I thought were pretty smart. He said, people aren't suspicious.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Behavior is suspicious. Yeah, and they say specifically to call
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: nine one for suspicious activities. But again, these are people,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: so it's just such a weird fine line you're walking there.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: The other little litmus tests that I've seen is stop
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: just for a second, because this is suspicious behavior. You
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: see somebody like breaking into a car, like assaulting somebody
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: that's that's beyond suspicious. That's like the act. That's the
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: act um, that's a crime being committed. So you have
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: a second when you see a suspicious person to stop
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: and think, like what I what I call nine on one?
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: If this person were white, or if you're a black
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: person doing this, say what I called nim one with
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: this person were black, And if the answers no, then
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: maybe you shouldn't call. Maybe they're not acting that suspiciously. Yeah,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: it's just interesting. On these Facebook neighborhood pages, it's kind
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: of evenly divided between people saying, uh, don't call nine
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: one one for this, This is just a guy going
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: door to door perhaps other people saying, no, you know what,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: it's it's nine or ten o'clock at night and someone's
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: knocking on your door in our neighborhood. Semious, maybe you
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: should call the cops and let them work it out.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: And for the cops, they say, you know, call us.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: That doesn't mean we're going to dispatch eight cars to
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: your home, but we might work you through the situation
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: and it's all going to be fine. Yes, But this
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: is the only one where I thought was a little
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: bit like you shouldn't just say, like, don't call nine
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: one one when you see a suspicious person. No, you
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: certainly shouldn't say that. At the same time that, I
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: think one of the big hesitations for calling nine one
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: one these days is like the either the increase or
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: the increase in reporting of people innocent people who had
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: nine one one called on him being killed by the cops.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: That and that death would not have happened. Their death
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have happened had a person been suspicious of them
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: and called nine one one. And the fact, you know,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: when when news of something like that gets out, it
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: will make you second guess that kind of thing, like
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: you're for sure you're It makes you realize you're bringing
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: like people who are armed and jumpy out to a
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: situation where it's just somebody walking around or whatever. And
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: when you look at it from that respect, it can
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: make you second guess the whole thing. Yeah, And things
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: can look it can look like potential malfeasance that's not
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: you know, like a lot of people, you see a
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: lot of people saying, well, I think someone's chasing my house, um,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: because a car pulled it into my driveway and sat
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: there for two minutes. They asked me if I wanted
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: to know more about syrac or someone stopped and was
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: taking pictures of my house, Like, you never know, somebody
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: might be taking picture of the oak tree that they're
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: trying to learn about, or or just looking up something
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: on their phone and standing in the direction of your house.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Nine times out of ten they're trying to figure out
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: at the oak tree near your house. I'm trying to
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: give people the benefit of the doubt, you know. No,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: I'm with you anyway. It's just that's where it gets
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: a little dodgy and what we'll have statistics later on
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: about actual racial bias, because it's real. Okay, moving on,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: you want to take a little break after that. It
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: seems like a good spot. I think I do. Okay, well, everybody,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: we're taking a rare Josh break and we'll be right back. Okay,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: we're back. That Josh break was invigorating. I wasn't doing anything.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: I was just taking a picture of oak tree. We'd
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: get off my back. What kind of oak is that, sir?
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: There's only one kind of oak. I know, there's a
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: bunch of different oaks. Everyone in Ireland's like, no, that's
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: not true. Uh, while we're mentioning calling one though, um,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: you can get arrested. It is a crime to prank
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: call nine one one. Yeah, you don't want to do that.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Or to swat. It's called swatting. That's a I think
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: that deserves its own podcast. Maybe because there was some
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: some guy got killed right from a swatting incident. Yeah,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: I think it's happened more than once. Yeah, that's serious stuff.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: If you don't know it's swatting as well, just give
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: you the four one one on this abuse of nine
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: one one man, I love myself something great. Um. So,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: swatting is where you are a hacker, right, and you
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: can disguise the number that you're coming you're calling from, uh,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: to make it look like you're calling from a house
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: that you want the cops to go to, and you
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: basically say like, I'm in this house and I'm holding
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: hostages and what are you going to do about it?
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Johnny law? And the law comes out and usually swat
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: that I shouldn't say. Usually in some cases the swat
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: team will actually enter this house where people who have
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: no idea what's going on are and maybe the the
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: people who have been swatted, you know, said something mean
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: to the to the guy who you know, called the
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: swat team out on them. But it's basically it's not
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: like saying, like there's a I think there's a hostage
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: situation in this house. It's I'm the guy holding the hostages.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: And here's where I mean, like and swat teams stick
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: right exactly, the swat teams like we're gonna go kill
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: that guy. I'll bet you would never in a million
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: years bring your swat team out, and whatever you do,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: don't come in guns blazing, right, which we're joking about
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: something that's really happened. Sure, So like I really think
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: we need to talk at least the short we'll look
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: into it a little first, one on swatting and one
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: on dockx inga two weird new things that people do now, right,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: But but swatting is definitely a crime. Yes, okay. Also
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: so that you don't make nine on one feel like
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: I think this is great. This is almost like a
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: public service announcement that we're in the midstup. So you, um,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: you don't get in trouble with the nine one one,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: so they don't think that you're pranking them when you're not.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: If you ever call nine one one accidentally, or say
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: your kid does or whatever. You do not want to
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: hang up the phone. Yeah, I did that a few
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: years ago. I feel like I accidentally called nine one
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: one because I think cell phones have a feature that
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: it enacted like an automatic call by accident. And I
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: saw it and I went, oh crap, and I hung
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: up right and I got a call back, like in
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: a second. That's great. Ideally you should. Yeah. Umi has
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: a great story from when she was a kid. She
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: um got scared. Uh, I can't remember something about her
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: grandmother who was perfectly fine, but she called nine on
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: one and I got scared with nine on one answer
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: and hung up and they kept calling back and she
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: kept hanging up. They came out to the cast a
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: little welfare check. Yeah, basically, Um, but you don't want
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: to do that. Don't follow the Umi model of nine
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: on one, Like just stay on the phone and be like,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: I'm really sorry. This is an act sentental call and
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: I'm definitely not the bad guy pretending that this is
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: an accidental call. Make sure you say that to. My
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: name is Timmy, I'm five, It's all good. My name
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: is little boy with brown hair. So I think the
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: history is fairly interesting. Um because England started nine, not
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: nine one one, but their version, which is way back
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: in n seven in London. I didn't know it either,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: but they they were the first city in the world
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: that created the three digit model. Apparently, as the story goes,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: there was a fire in downtown London and people tried
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: to get through the fire department and they were put
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: on hold and switched around, and so they said. The
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: town crier came out and said nine is the answer, yeah,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: which so easy to remember. Um, I guess no one
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: else was using at the time. But this is back
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: in the day of rotary phones, right. Oh yeah, well,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: so that that's actually that was. It was a burden
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: to dial with a rotary dial. One should have been
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: for sure. I just thought that was kind of clumsy
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: of them, a little bit clumsy of the Brits. But
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: let me see here. I think it was a twelve
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: mile radius around London at first after World War Two
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: and went wider. Uh And because you know, Britain like
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: to do a little world conquering. You can find in
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: cities all over the world where London has or where
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: England has left there. Uh. Imprint that's a way to
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: put it, for sure. Yeah. Um. And the US of
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: course said, well, we're not gonna let the Brits outdo us.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: You're you're gonna do brexit. Hold my beer. Yeah, we're
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: gonna wait twenty something years and do it ourselves, right exactly. So, um,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: I think in nineteen fifty seven, the Fire Chiefs Association, sorry,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: the National Association of Fire Chiefs I was way off. Um.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: They said, hey, we should come up with an easy
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: to remember three digit number for people to report fires.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: And other people said, hey, that's a great idea. We'll we'll,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: we'll do that to report emergencies, and the Fire Teach's
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Association said no, just fires, right. Luckily no one listened
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: to them. Well, they didn't listen to the just firepart,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: that's right. Um. And then a couple of years after
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: that or maybe uh yeah, a few years later, the
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: National Academy of Scizees said, this is actually a really
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: good idea. We should do this for calling ambulances to
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: And then finally, um Presidential Commission on Law Enforcement and
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: the Administration of Justice said no, all emergencies should have
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: a three digit, easy to remember number. That's right. So
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: the FCC says, who should be get in touch with here?
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: How about a T and T? Because these were the
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: days of phone monopolies, right or phone monopoly it's just
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: one right? Uh No, I think when did they break
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: up the phone cup niece. I think it was before this,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: because they broke them up into the different bells, right, yeah,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: where they were all the different bells part of one
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: big phone company. That's right? Which one? I just said,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: two different things? Liberty Bell, the Southern Belle bell from
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: Pacific Bell, Pacific Bell, the bell from Beauty and the Beast,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: all the bells, Albuquerque Bell. Sure, why not? You can
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: ring my bell. That's a good one. That's a good song.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: It's a good one. But I think more and more
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: and more by Andrea true connection is far better. What's that?
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Virtually the same thing, but just a better, better song. Okay,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: they got in touch with a T and T and
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: they said, can you help us out with this? Apparently
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: a T and T is the one that chose because
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: it hadn't been used yet, which is kind of the
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: first stumbling block again. The rotary dial. Rotary dial that
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: was nine one ones a lot better way. It's it's
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: two words better. It is, sure, it's better and it
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: was easy to remember. And you know, I think they
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: had set up at this point already four one one
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: in a lot of areas, so they just kind of
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: extended that idea of the something one one right. So, um,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: the first this really surprised me. The first um on
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: one call that was ever placed in the United States.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: New York City. You would think, so, Washington, d C, Chicago,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: what else you got? Chicago? You already said that one. Okay,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know. What about Los Angeles? Yeah, why not?
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: What about Albuquerque? They're doing fun? Okay, No, none of
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: those are correct. Haileyville, Alabama was the site of the
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: very first nine one one call. Yeah, that's a good
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: little tribute question. I think that pedal to the metal.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: By the way, I recently watched I had recorded all
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: those Jeopardy shows with the Ken Jennings on there. The
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Champion run some of the better TV I've seen in
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: a while, really good stuff. Yeah. Well, I mean, if
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: you're a Jeopardy fan that it was as good as
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: it gets, like the smartest competitors and like big time
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: drama because they you know, they had to bring it
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: on those daily doubles. It wasn't like a regular show
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: like they were daily doubling on like twenty dollars and
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: stuff like. It was really tense, good drama. Yeah, so
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: cool because I think Kid knew that other guy, the
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: whole Celtzer guy was a as a gambler and he
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: made his name for really just going all in, and
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Ken knew this, so he had to do the same
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: in order to beat these chumps. If you're playing a gambler,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: you get dragged into gambling, whether you want to gamble
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: or not. Get in there. You know. That's good stuff. Anyway,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: good trivia question. It's probably been on Jeopardy. Hayley Bill
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Alabama did it was It was kind of a publicity stunt.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: It sounds like they so the little uh, the little
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: phone company there, the Alabama Telephone he co um basically said,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: it's pretty a T and T is is about to
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: do this. We're about to launch this nine one one system.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: We want to jump on it and adopt it first.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: So we're going to set this up as fast as
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: we can. Because here's the thing. We'll find out more
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: about this in a minute, but there's no national nine
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: one one system all everywhere in the United States. Nine
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: one one reaches an emergency dispatcher or an emergency operator,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: but each system is local, regional at best. Um so
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: hailey Ville, Alabama could jump on this and set up
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: their own system and get started. And that's exactly what
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: they did. That's right. February they had a state senator
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: named Rank and fight he dialede as a you know, obviously,
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: is this like a photo op or video op? In
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: other words, there wasn't an emergency. It's like, man, what
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: a coincidence that the state senator had the first emergency
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: and happened to be standing next to the special phone.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: That's right. They had a special bat phone, a red phone,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: and I think an Alabama congressman was on the other
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: end at the police station, Congressman Tom Bevill, known as
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: the pork King really not just the Alabama pork King,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: the poor King of Congress. And the state senator said,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: what are you, pork King? What are you doing at
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: the police station? I've got an emergency? And he said,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: are we really going to do this? Bit? I would
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: force whoever is on the other line to do it.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: So yeah, it was all just a big show to say, hey,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: we did it first. Uh, they did it a week later.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: They still have a big festival every year too, a
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: nine one one festival. I wonder if they re enacted
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: this famous phone man, if we could play those two parts,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: I'm the pork King. How great would that be? Forget
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: drunk history. Just put us up there. That's cool, um.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: And when I say forget drunk history, I mean we
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: very much want to be on it. Are we still
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: pursuing that? No, I mean just by occasionally yelling out
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: of my window every now and then. Why not the
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: crickets are deafening. Yeah, I'm surprised no one said like, hey,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: this is a natural fit. These guys are great storytellers
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: about history. They can get drunk with the best of them.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: And we've been saying this for years. So uh No.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: M Alaska about a week later did the same thing,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: and we're the second city. And then throughout the seventies
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: and eighties it kind of started rolling out. But it
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: takes a while to get this kind of thing going.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: It does because again, it's a local again at best,
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: regional system okay, and your local um city might not
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: have the money to put in a new telecommunications system
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: to be used for emergency services. UM and at first,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: you know, cities that were a little more flush with
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: cash because they had a larger tax base had the
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: money to roll these out. So as expected, aside from
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: hailey Ville and Nome, it was mostly like large metropolitan
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: areas that were starting to roll out there the nine
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: the earliest nine one one systems, but the Robert Wood
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Johnson Foundation, which was the foundation based on Johnson and
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: Johnson's company, UM, they took early interest in this and
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: started handing out grants to rural areas to set up
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: their own nine one one systems. So ironically, hailey Ville, Alabama,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: had it not jumped on it probably still wouldn't have
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: a nine one one system where it not for the
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation doling out grants to like, you know,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: small towns around the country for their own Yeah, because
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: they're like you know what people call nine one one,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: they go to the hospital. We're using Johnson and Johnson products. Yeah,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: I'm not being overly cynical. I'm sure that you know,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: nine one one is probably good for the band aid business,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: I would guess so. And baby shampoo, Yeah, because if
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: you can't get if you can't get an ambulance to
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: that person, they're gonna croak. But if you get the
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: ambulance to them, right, you don't need band aids when
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: you're dead, No, that's it's just like a fact of death.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: But if you survive, you're gonna need a lot of
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: band aids depending on what you've done to yourself. That's right.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: Here's some stats for you. By nineteen seventy six, when
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: I was five years old, only seventent of the US
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: had nine one one. You want to know a surprising fact.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Nineteen seventy six, I was just born, Well, you probably
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: weren't covered by nine one one. Again, not until nine Well,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: by seven, only fifty percent of the country, which is uh,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: that's kind of that's pretty late. I would have thought
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: we would have had a lot more of the country
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: cover by then, for sure, you would think so. And
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: it wasn't until ninety nine, actually, chuck that um the
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: that nine one one officially became the emergency number for
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: everywhere in America. Bill Clinton said, let's do this. He said,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: what about nine nine nine? And they went, Bill, please,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: wrong country, Canada. Speaking of wrong countries, they are very
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: much the right country because they got on board within
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: one as well. That's absolutely true, because they were like, why,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: why make things too difficult? You know, that's a great
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: question Canada, And I think the answer to that is
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: you shouldn't make things too difficult, just kind of go
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: with the flow, should do some more stuff. Here, I
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: was thinking, maybe another break. Okay, are you okay with that?
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Are you sure? Yes? What about you listeners? Well, we'll
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: be right back, Okay, Chuck, Let's talk about how it
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: actually works. Yeah, in the early days, obviously it was
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: all landline telephones. So when your call got routed to
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: the switchboard, which was one switchboard that kidded to that,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: they would patch you across phone lines that were dedicated
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: to nine one one to what's called a peace app
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: a public safety answering point. And at the time they
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: were a lot of times like in the fire department
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: or in the police station. Right, so they could just
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: turn their chair and be like, Sarge, dispatch some people
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: to this address. We've got a suspicious person staring at
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: oak trees right again? Right? And um, like originally, like today,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: at nine on one, dispatcher is a highly trained, highly
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: skilled person. There's a lot of stuff going on. It's
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: like a flight attendant. Remember when we've learned like flight
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: attendants are actually trained to save your life in an emergency,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: and they just hand out peanuts is like a side thing. Um,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: this is basically the same thing with the nine eleven
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: operator call taker. They know how to do a lot
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: of stuff, but the earliest ones just knew how to
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: answer the phone, take down your info and then turn
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: around and send it off to the fire department or
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: the police department or you know, the paramedics or something
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: like that. You know, they'd be like, okay, I gotta
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: go all right, I'll see you buy right, and then
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: they would get off the phone, and that of all
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: to the call center. Um. That evolved to what was
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: called enhanced nine one one, which was in the nineteen seventies,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: again driven by telecom advancing with A T and T
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: with new technologies. They developed a N I and a
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: L I automatic number identification and location identification A and
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: I just caller I D. That's what everybody calls caller
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: I D. Yeah. Remember those cute little boxes that you
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: can plug your phone line into it on your little
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: table show you in some little terrible readout. Basically dot
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: matrix readout yep, who was calling? Pretty neat and then
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: it was on your handheld cordless phone. Right, you could
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: look at it, and that was like, whoa, we're living
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: in the future, rich or the answering machine now is digital.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: We don't need those tiny tapes. Yeah, it's true. That
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: was like a big revolution too. That was huge, amazing
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: because you could leave as long a message as you
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: wanted now, but you couldn't get that clever nobody's home.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: Nobody's home. Sure, you're still recording your outgoing message, right,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: you could sing it, but they actually had that tape
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: you could buy that you could put. Yeah, there was
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: one that was like a whole mixtape of them, just
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: like gag answers. Boy, you don't remember that, not really.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: There was a very famous ad that ran. It was
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: like delight your friends basically yeah, wow, yeah, it's pretty funny. Um.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: So this enhanced nine in one system, the automatic number
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: and the automatic locator. That was a big deal because
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: now all of a sudden, if you were a call
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: taker for and a call came up on your little
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: computer screen, it said what the number was and what
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: the address was, and because everybody was calling from land lines,
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: you knew exactly where that person was who needed help.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: It's right, saved a bunch of time. It was a
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: very huge life saving measure. Yeah. I mean when you
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: think about people in an emergency, could be everything from
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: crippling fear keeping you from even knowing where you are too,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: haven't been hit on the head and not being able
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: to say where you are yeah, or you just can't
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: speak yeah. And so that really imagined that they spend
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: a lot of time sometimes just trying to get through
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: that first step of where are you right? So this
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: was an enormous leap forward, and in the seventies and
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: eighties it really kind of cemented how helpful in life
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: saving this nine one one system could be. And then
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: cell phones came along and the rest of us kind
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: of leapfrogged right over nine one one because the cell
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: phone carriers didn't have an I and a L I
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: when when you call nine one one still to this
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: day from a cell phone, it does not come up
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: what your number is or where you are in any
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: specific way. And so Congress, or at least that c
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: C said, um, hey, we need you guys to do
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: something like there's got to be something that you just
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: can't be like, you know, you have no idea where
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: this person is in the country. Because part of the
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: other thing about the automatic locator uh that that they
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: had originally with nine one one in the seventies and
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: eighties is it would route you to the closest um
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: public safety answering point, right, So that would be saving
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: time too, because the person you're talking to is in
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: the same area as you and knows the area you're
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: talking about and can more quickly dispatch people cell phones.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: Is not the case. Yeah, And Dave makes a good point.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Even if they could have located like where your cell
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: phone plan was or your phone was activated, you don't
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: have to live in the city where that is, right.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: You can friends to have l A numbers that work
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: in the film industry here just because that stupid l
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: A three one O or three to three makes them
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: look like a more legitimate higher just so cool. It's
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: so cool and so dumb. But yeah, it would be
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: like you're in Atlanta, says you're in Los Angeles. Is
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: this a prank? Are you swatting me? Yeah? So um,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: the so the FCC said, Okay, you guys need to
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: do something. So what they did was they came up
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: with UM, a triangulation where the closest cell phone towers
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: address comes up when you call. It's a start, it
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: is a good start. But if you're out in the sticks,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: the closest cell phone tower might be miles and miles
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: and miles away. And even if it's not miles away,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: let's say it's a football field a way. Well, if
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: you're in a dense um densely populated area and you're
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: bleeding out, sure it doesn't help. It does not help
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: at all, but it gets you a little bit closer,
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: and it helps to to transfer your collar to rout
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: your call to the closest peace app Okay, And then
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: the other thing that they have them do now, Phase
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: two of this enhanced wireless, enhanced nine on one is UM.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: It gives your GPS coordinates, which is so nineties it's
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: ridiculous and it's like map quest. When who's ever waited
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: on a ride share, uh that thought you were down
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: the street from where you were knows how accurate that
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: GPS can be. Well, still, it's still great, but that's
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: way more accurate than what nine one ones working with. Well,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: they're just working with longitude and latitude points. Right. Yeah.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: One of the big, one of the big qualities. A
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: quality to have as a nine one one operator is
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: to be able to quickly translate longitude and latitude coordinates
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: GPS coordinates into like Google Maps to get an address
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: really fast and it smooth, sexy voice like Berry White
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: with fingers of fury, or like halle Berry with fingers
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: she uh. Did you see that movie The Call? She
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: played a call uh specialist in a movie, a thriller.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: It was good, It wasn't great. Yeah, it was good. Okay.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Brad Anderson directed it. He's like a really quality director. Yeah,
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: I know that name, and it seems like this sort
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: of from what you're gonna call me out on that.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: I didn't hear you from what? From where? Oh, I
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: don't get what you mean from what? Like what other
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: what other movies is he directed? He directed a scary
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: movie called Session nine. Oh yes, okay, well, then this
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: guy is one of my favorites of all time. That's what.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: It's one of the best horror movies ever made. Yeah,
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: I'm a fan of Brad Anderson because he has a
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: range of genres. Like one of his early movies is
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: this kind of spacey rom com called Happy Accidents. That
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: was great. Happy Accident, Yeah, really good with Mercy Thoma
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: and Vincent dina Frio. But it had This was a
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: rom com with a sort of a bit of a
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: sci fi twist to it. And he did Trans Siberian.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: He's he's done. He did Next Stop. Wonderland was one
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: of his first little indies. But yeah, he does. It's
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: unusual for a director to tackle all these weird are
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: different genres, it's disparate genres. Well, you have me at
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: Session nine. Yeah. The Call Is is a good, you know,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: Puckcorn movie. I highly recommend it. Okay, I'll check it out.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: Halle Berry is a call center person. No, no, that's
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: all I'll say. Hey, she's quality quality actress. She is.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: But the fact that I had never even heard of
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: this movie really made me suspicious. It did pretty well.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: It wasn't a massive hit, but it did like sixty
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: million bucks. But that's really surprising. Like I'm very aware
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: of movies, like I'll know what the movie is about,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: and I have never seen it, not a preview. I'll
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: just kind of no, So I'm I'm surprised. Okay, I
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: recommend it I'll check it out. Yeah, I mean it's
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: no black coat's daughter, but that's a good one too.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: So where are we now? We are now at texting
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: to oh wait, hold on, I wanted to drive this
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: home real quick. Okay, okay, drive it home. The FCC
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: rule that says you have to have a cell phone tower,
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: tell one it's address, the closest one to your cell phone,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: and then give the GPS coordinates for wherever that cell
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: phone they think the cell phone is. That's the nine
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: one one system that's in place nationwide today. That's why
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: they ask you from a cell phone, who are you
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: and where are you, just like they did in the
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: early days, right, And this is a problem because, like
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: you said earlier, of nine one one calls in the
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: United States are made from cell phones, and nine one
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: one does not know where you are unless you tell them. Yeah,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: but it's also um balanced out by the fact that
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: you have they want to help, well, you have that
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: cell phone right there and immediately. So yeah, yeah that
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: remember the old days, You're like, let me find a
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: pay phone, let me go knock on someone's door and
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: be and ask about their oak tree, and hopefully I
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: won't get shot Um, so people are calling right away,
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: So I would think that kind of counterbalances the clumsiness,
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: yes of location. I think you're right, Chuck. We'll see,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: well you really swooped in there, I say, we'll see
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: as if there's some report coming out. And the thing is, though,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: is there there people have figured out the people, the
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: powers that be who are concerned with nine one one
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: in its system are well aware of this major flaw,
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: and our work have figured out how to how to
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: update it. It's just now we're in the process of
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: rolling out updates. Well, and then privacy advocates are going
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: to be like, what you're gonna like locate every single
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: person with the cell phone and know where they are
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: at all times. And Amazon and Apple are like, dude,
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: we already know that. It's just one is the only
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: one who doesn't know where you are at all top,
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: which is a problem. It's funny. I saw um a
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: Wired article from that was like wringing its hands, like, oh,
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: you know, privacy advocates are worried that they may be
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: able to track the movement of cell phone users based
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: on this information that now yeah, they're like, maybe I
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: don't know, we'll have to see the future holds. Yeah,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: so texting the one is the latest technology about ten
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: years ago, eleven years ago in Iowa in black Hawk,
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: they were the first jurisdiction to offer this service and
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: it's still kind of coming out. I think. Um, a
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: couple of years ago they all fifty states had text capability,
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: but UM, it's not everywhere in each state. Yeah, exactly,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: and it's just text. I love day points out you
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: can't send emojis. Um, I can need help emogi, but
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: you can't send text and video and that kind of
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: thing would be super helpful, I think. Right, So this
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: is where we are in the next generation. It's literally
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: called next generation, and it's where nine one one finally
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: catches up to every other UM telecom company and device
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: manufacturer already is. And it basically uses all the information
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: from the Internet of Things that lets people know exactly
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: where you are, not just like what your addresses, what
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: floor of a building you happen to be sitting on
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: right now. UM, all of that information is now going
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: to be funnel to nine one one when you call,
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: because ninmon one is finally abandoning land lines landline telecom.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: That's what they they're dealing with Currently they're going over
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: to v O I P so nine one will be
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: using a secure internet connection in the near future. And
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: when they get to that point, um, they will be
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: able to accept video photos like this is the guy
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: that's that's attacking the lady, hurry up, that kind of thing.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: And then they'll also be able to because they're setting
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: up a separate wireless broadband network just for first responders
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: called first net. Yeah, that's going to be a big deal,
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: and so nine one one will be able to say, hey,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: here's a photo of the guy that there that you're
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: looking for. Um, And they can't do that now is
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: mind boggling as it is. They cannot do that. Yeah,
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, just to have a dedicated wireless network cuts
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: down on I imagine interference and potential hacking. Plus in
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: a disaster, if you're out there in the field, you
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: are using your own wireless device that's on the public
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: broadband right now. And so if the public broadband goes
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: down because there's so many people trying to use it
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: to find out what's going on in like an earthquake
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: or something like, the first responders suffer from that too.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: So this separate broadband network just for first responders won't
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: crash in the event of a disaster. Yeah, And speaking
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: of first responders, uh, I think it's kind of time
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: we join certain people and saying call center employees are
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: first responders, are people saying they're not well. I don't
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: think they're generally thought of as first responders if you
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: work at a call center, because they just sit around maybe,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: but they are literally the first and most important first
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: thing that happens in an emergency. And like you said earlier,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: they are trained to and walk people through epr Heimlich,
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: how to deliver a baby, how to handle an active shooter, uh, suicide,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: domestic abuse, um, if you're a kid and you're scared
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: because grandma fell over, like how to handle children? Like
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: they're really skilled. And I think it's a shame that,
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: Like I feel like the only time you hear about
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: call center responders is when there's a bad one and
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: you release those calls and everyone's horrified, you know, and
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: it is, it's awful. But those are clearly like the standouts,
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: I guess not standouts. The standouts are all the good employees.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: There have been some doozies, for sure. Yeah, I've read
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: about one where somebody called in um of wildfire in Oregon, Oregon,
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: sorry Oregon, and uh, the nine one one operator said,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: what you're seeing is probably just the play of light
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: on sunlight on the fog. It was like, how would
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: you even know that you're in a all center. I'm
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: looking right at this thing. It's a wildfire, and like
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: they didn't dispatch anybody, and um, like a half hour
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: twenty minutes later, somebody else called it in and by
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: this time it was like raging. Um. There was the
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: one lady drowning in her car too. That one was horrific.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: I didn't hear about that one. She was in her
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: car that was going down and I think I don't
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: remember exactly what happened, but she was freaking out, and
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: I think the person was just sort of dismissive and
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: it was really kind of rude even But you know,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: that makes the news, not the six and fifty thousand
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: calls a day that go through and our lives are saved. Like, no, no, absolutely,
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: it's absolutely true. It's a great point. Um. There are
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: plenty of stories of people like of them just like
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: straight up doing hero stuff, going above and beyond. You
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: should see halle Berry in this movie. One of the
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: things that can happen is as hard as much as
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: your trained to not let it happen. UH, you can
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: become emotionally invested in a call totally. And I've read
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: that some some operators are just find it leaving it
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: at the door, at least appearing to leave it at
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: the door. But others can suffer UM burnout PTSD UM.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: And one of the big things that I saw that's
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: a huge psychological problem for nine one operators is that
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: there can very frequently be no resolution. They can be
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: on the phone with somebody who is like holding someone hostage,
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: and they're trying to talk them down, and all of
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: a sudden, the cops come in. The line goes dead.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: They if they're not good friends with the cops who
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: came in, UM, they may never find out what happened,
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: like no idea. UM, they're talking someone through who's been
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: shot or whatever to try to keep them alive and conscious.
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: They have no idea what happened to that person. They
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: have to take the next call, and that's a huge problem.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: There's no closure. And then sometimes there is closure, like
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: if you're a nine one one operator, you probably have
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: been on the phone with somebody when they took their
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: last breath, when they were murdered, when they died, very
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: very scared. That kind of stuff takes its toll on people,
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: and that's a big It could be a big problem,
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: and there could be pretty frequent turnover among dispatchers' halle
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: Berry movie, Oh yeah, I'm it's all there. Uh yeah,
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: because even if they don't get closure on the work site,
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: they could see it on the news that night be like, man,
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: that I took that call of this murder or whatever.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: Pretty bad. Sure, not a job for me. I don't
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: think I could hack it either. And then practically speaking,
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: there's like you have to be able to type really
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: really fast with a high level of accuracy while somebody's
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: telling you other information, like you might be taking info
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: in and you have to be chatting with you know,
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: a cop on I am who you're sending out while
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: you're also taking the description from the other person who's
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: going back and forth. Yeah, you gotta be able to
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: compartmentalize and multitask all. None of those things are my
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: special team though. If you're wondering, you pay for one.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: If you have a phone bill cell phone bills included.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: It's a little little surcharge there. So Uh, that's outrageous
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: to scream socialism everybody. Uh. And as far as those
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: statistics we talked about earlier about the racial bias, Um,
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: of course, if you were a fan of Public Enemy,
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: you remember the Great Great Song is a joke. Flavor flavor. Uh.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: There was a study done by the a c l
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: U in two thousand thirteen, residents of Grand Crossing this
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: is Chicago study, Uh, African American neighborhood on the South
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: Side waited eleven minutes for a cop to come after
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: a priority call. Um two and a half minutes for
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: the predominantly white neighborhood of Jefferson Park. Um in response
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: times in that were four and a half time slower
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: in the black community. And there's you know, like I
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: mentioned earlier with the people calling on one on you know,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: just an African American person living their life. There have
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: been cases where people ended up dead because of that
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: after escalation, and that's just like a pure tragedy for sure. Um.
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: There is there like when you have something this massive
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: and huge and it's involves people at like their worst
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: moment of their life. A lot of stuff is going
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: to kind of come out of it. There's a lot
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: to nine one one, a lot of legends and myths
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: and everything. But one of the things I saw that
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: everyone seems to know about is that if you call
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: nine one one and pretend you're ordering a pizza, they
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: will understand that you were in a position where you
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: can't talk, and they'll dispatch the police. Supposedly that's a myth,
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: but it makes total sense. Doesn't you've heard that before?
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: I was just just thinking of die Hard. Oh, I
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: don't remember that. There was that line where he's calling
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: the nine one one dispatcher. Well, I guess I don't
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: even think it was. I think it was an actual
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: cop on the other end, and she's like, calm down, sir,
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: and you know, it's not an emergency whatever, And he said,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: what do you think I'm doing ordering a pizza? Yeah,
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: And that might have been a reference to that maybe,
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: So so what are you saying again? The urban legend
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: is that if you like, let's say there's there's somebody
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: who's got a gun on you, if you can somehow
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: get it to the point where you're like, hey, let's
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: order a pizza, right, now you call nine on one
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: say hey, I'd like to order a pizzas my address
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: and then yeah, and then nine one one will get
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: what's going on and send the cops out. Apparently that's
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: not true, okay, but there there is. There's another. There
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: was an urban legend I saw in the UK with
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: that if you um call and you don't say anything,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: that they will send someone out, and I think that
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: is kind of widely believed over here in the US too.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: Apparently in the UK that is true, but it's going
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: to send you through a series of prompts if you
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: don't respond um, and if you press five five it
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: will you will be confirming that yes, you there's an
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: emergency and you just can't talk right now, and they
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: will send people out. If you don't press five five,
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: then they won't. It'll just take it as like an
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: accidental call. Well, and that's the big benefit. I don't
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: even think we kind of brought up about texting to
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: nine one because you might think, like because because people
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: want to text, But there are plenty of cases where
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: you can't talk. You're maybe in a domestic dispute, or
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: if you're hearing you're hiding in a closet, or if
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: you're hearing impaired, or if you've been kidnapped and don't
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: want to use your voice out loud, or you're scared
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: child like, plenty of great cases to be made for texting.
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: And since text to nine one one isn't everywhere, the
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: FEC has a law that if you're telecom carrier doesn't
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: UM doesn't have text nine one one, they have an
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: immediate bounce back that says like, you can't do that,
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: you have to call nine one. Yeah, which is that's
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: pretty valuable. It is. And one last thing, if you
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: find an old phone that has a charge in it,
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: even if it hasn't been had service for twenty years,
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: you can dial nine one you will be connected. That
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: is pretty cool. Every single phone that is that is
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: in operation dials nine and one for free. Yeah. I
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: like that. I do too, man, I love nine one one.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: I think Kurvanni gets said there's no uh, no greater
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: display of humanity than seeing a fire truck go down
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: the street with its sirens blazing. Really it sounds like
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: something it's interesting. Uh. Well, if you want to know
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: more about curvanning get you can just type that into
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: the search bar how stuff works and who knows what
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: that will bring up. Uh. And since I said that,
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: it's time for a listener. Man, this is a response.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: When we asked for examples of racism in today's military,
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: and we heard from a range of people. I have
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: to say, from this guy who the other guy to
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: the other guy. This guy said, I'll just tell you
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: what this guy said a minute. But other people have
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: said that, yeah, they've seen some pretty bad racist stuff
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: in the military, but they're isolated incidences, just like in
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: the real world. But this is what Matthew apple White says. Uh.
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: Start off, I'm a white guy. I can't speak on
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: everyone's experience while in the service, but during my four
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: years I saw more camaraderie between a mix of races
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: than I ever see in my real life. It seems
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: like this is the response that we got the most
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: the most. I think you're right. They thought us. Oh,
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: they taught us from the start in boot camp Marine
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: Corps that you're all nothing and you will all become Marines.
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: And with that in common, it gives the common ground
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: between any race or nationality. Uh. They might often refer
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: to African American Marines as dark green implying, yes, they
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: may have a different skin tone, but they're still green.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: And over the years, in and out of training, you
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: learned that everyone endures the suck and the hard times together. Uh,
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: and no one is above another. In the end, you
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: learn to trust the man to my left and right
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: with my life, no matter what his skin color. And
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: ladies too, there are female marines. Uh. I'm glad you
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: said that. Yeah. Now saying all this, some some prejudice
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: from other people's upbringing do still remain, but most of
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: the time it is shot down very fast with harsh repercussions,
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: and it has kept to a minimum. I made many
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: friends from all walks of life that I would have
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: never even imagined being so close to. Without the common
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: ground we stood on are the hard times that we
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: endured together. And that is from an avid listener named
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: Matthew apple White. Thanks a lot, Matthew. Um, we appreciate
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: you letting us know. Thanks to everybody who wrote in
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: to let us know. Virtually the same thing. Yeah, except
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: for the couple of standouts. Yeah. Um. Well, if you
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: want to get in touch with us, like Matthew did,
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: you can go on to stuff you should know dot com.
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: And I think our social links are there. Who knows,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: but you can always get in touch with us via
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: email at stuff podcast at i heart radio dot com.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of i Heeart
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
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  Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows. M h m hm