Just to expand on this post about calling 911 and asking for a pizza to secretly ask for help:
The post is based on a Super Bowl commercial, which itself was based on a Reddit post that’s never been verified as true.
There is no actual pizza code with toppings and shit that dispatchers are trained in. If you come across someone who has heard of the commercial, they might understand. If you come across someone who’s never heard of it, they might think it’s a prank call and hang up on you.
A piece of actual advice to help you in this situation is to dial 911, then hang up without speaking, then turn the phone off. 911 will attempt to call you back, and when they’re unable to reach you, they’ll dispatch a unit to your location under the assumption that you need help and your call was interrupted. This will work 100% of the time, whereas the pizza trick will only work if the dispatcher has heard of the commercial/urban legend.
Also, the toppings thing was a complete and total fabrication and whoever wrote that should be ashamed of themselves, tbh.
as a dispatcher, i need to correct you here, because calling 911, hanging up, and then turning off your phone will, in fact, work 0% of the time.
in my center, when we receive a 911 call from a cell phone, we do not automatically know your exact location. it doesn’t work like that, contrary to popular belief. the only thing we know for sure is the address of the cell phone tower your phone is connected to. cell phone towers cover huge areas, you could be anywhere in that huge area. if you absolutely can’t talk at all, if you can’t even hold the phone to your face, enable the speakerphone and start crying, or yelling, or even whispering, if you can.
also, as i said in my last reblog, most 911 centers in the US these days have text-to-911 capability. can’t call 911? text 911! it’s as simple as that. just be sure to include your address/location in the first text you send, because if you can’t send any more texts after the first one, at least we’ll know where to send help.
OP is correct, however, about the pizza thing. there is no “secret pizza code” or anything like that among dispatchers. i wasn’t trained on anything like that, none of my coworkers were trained on anything like that. it doesn’t exist. if you call 911 and say you need to order a pizza, our very next question will be, “you called 911. did you mean to call 911?” and if your answer is yes, the next question will be, “do you need help?” or “are you in trouble?” pretending to order a pizza is a good way to give us your address, because when you call 911, an address is the most important thing to give us. we can’t help you if we don’t know where you are.
i’ll just say that again.
we cannot help you if we don’t know where you are.
we are trained professionals, but we’re not psychic.
If you get one of those unpleasant injuries that’s the top couple of layers of skin off and it hurts ‘cos you keep bumping it on things, get canker sore treatment gel. It covers over a canker sore to stop it from being sore, and it’s safe on open cuts. Put it over the injury, wait a little bit for it to set, and voila, protection.
First off, this is not a political post. This is a scam awareness post. Hopefully people help spread the message, considering this is US Voter Registration Day according to today’s Google doodle. You also don’t have to spread this entire post to be helpful, just the two links at the end. I apologize it’s long, it could be as short as “don’t use TurboVote, they give your information to multiple partners who bolster their company value with it, FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST, IGNORE THE TWITTER NOTIFICATION YOU WILL RECEIVE.”
But I also don’t want it to appear as some low-effort grab for attention. This is the kind of thing that needs lots of proof and explanation. People are exploiting the current political environment to scam young Internet users into giving away swathes of personal information to access services that shouldn’t require anything more than a ZIP code.
This one is particularly bad.
Because it will affect millions.
This evening, I got an odd sponsored post on my Twitter feed. It appeared as so:
I’ve seen sponsored links like this before. A large corporation like Twitter would create expedited guides to help their users participate in their national elections, but would also collect this information for figuring out voter behavior and trends. These would then be offered to the political parties so they know where to focus their efforts better. It’s a pretty basic business.
But the thing that caught my attention was that upon following the link, I was immediately asked to fill out personal information.
The landing page takes you here:
“After all, we’re going to be friends.”
Somebody actually approved that copy. Because that’s not creepy or anything.
Already, they are asking for your first and last name. Note that online registration for voting is legal in 39 states, so the first check should be to confirm if the user is even able to utilize the service. Also, to help direct me to a verified site that would be able to process my voting application, it wouldn’t need to know my first or last name, it would just need to know what State I resided in.
The next page gets worse.
I cropped out a lot of text in between, but basically, the next page doesn’t waste any time asking for even more personal direct methods of contacting me. Probably for “special offers” and “updates” from sponsored candidates and action committees buying their way into my inbox.
They’ll surely ask for my State to get the actual process underway, yes?
Nope. Next page is just me confirming that I am a live and active recipient of their “services.” Note they already have my name and Email/phone number, so selecting “Yes” would automatically put me on their recipient list to be pestered. But what’s interesting is if you select “No/I’m Not Sure”…
Hey, there’s the State pull-down menu! But it’s with…ehh, a lot of very personal information that’s definitely not needed to verify if I’m eligible to vote, or to redirect me to an official government source to actually register.
Let’s put in some fake credentials. Note I’ve been using a browser with cleared cache and incognito mode, so it can’t siphon off my browsing history to circumvent my trickery. I am also using a VPN, so they can’t figure out my location either.
Now I’m very concerned.
So I’m not filling in an application at all. As speculated. I’m just giving a whole bunch of extraneous information, and after giving them my name, my phone number, my Email, my street address, and my current voting status, I’m simply provided with links to the actual government resources and registration page.
I’ll register online.
I get kicked back to the landing page. The link does not work. Everything I sent in just returns me to a “null” subdomain.
Alright so this is very suspicious. Who the heck even are these guys? Let’s check the privacy policy.
Confirmation that they do store all the information you sent them. However, they assure that it’s not sold.
They also claim that their partners do not sell the information either, and they are only given that information simply to perform the services they use.
Unfortunately…
What curious findings have we here?
Basically, the company is not going to delete its databases of user information if they’re purchased by another entity. Not even the entire company, just a “division or subsidiary” of the company, like the “database of their collected addresses and user names” division.
Don’t be fooled.
TurboVote is exploiting National Voter Registration Day to data mine you. They claim neither they nor their partners sell user information, but they do collect it, store it, and they will hand it over if an interested party decides to purchase it. Not TurboVote directly, but their “partners” will. They accumulate it, all the while saying they aren’t selling it, and what’s deceptive is they’re telling the truth, it’s not being sold. That is…until they put themselves up for sale, and use that gigantic address book to bolster their company value through the roof.
You don’t have to do this. They do not need your home address to relay you to your registration form. They don’t need to keep your information stored on file. They don’t need your name, your voting eligibility, your party affiliation…any of that information. DO NOT give your personal information to third-party “voter assistance” scams like this. It’s absolutely abhorrent that Twitter is sending mass notifications to people to use this data mining service, when there are plenty of simple non-committal websites already in existence to provide you the services you need.
And remember. Please vote. If you’re confused about ballot measures and local election information without the hyperbolic nonsense blasting out of the TV ads, and wish there was some sort of Ballot-type Wikipedia site out there, Ballotopedia is a fantastic source that lays out all the information you need for every ballot out there. Even you, Mr. Ezekiel Zebadiah Abraham of Muttonbutt County, Kentuckabama, they’ll even have comprehensive guides to help justify re-electing Officer Fuzzwhistle The Cat for his fifth term as mayor.
Again, I’m fully aware this is such a long post. Hopefully this helps you guys figure out how to get involved in the legislative process, and moreso, provides you the links necessary to give actual help to others without compromising their security. You don’t have to send them this post (please don’t, it’s gigantic), just the alternate site suggested at the end.
Thanks.
Hey, Twitter, this is how the Russians get their info.
I am not a fan of the Empire or the First Order. They are a bunch of fascist space racists (or racist space fascists, however you prefer to order it), who willingly committed genocide several times over. I have always been on the side of scrappy rebels, especially scrappy rebels named ‘Leia’ or ‘Rey.’ (Or ‘Chewbacca.’)
However.
(There had to be a ‘however,’ didn’t there?)
There is one, small, tiny scrap of sympathy I have for the Empire/First Order, and that is this: they keep building a very efficient, smoothly-running empire, and then people keep jamming whackaloons with magical powers in the highest ranks of that empire willy-nilly.
Like? Motti, Tarkin, Hux, Phasma. Bad people, let me be clear. But they keep having their orderly little (or big) empire screwed up because someone at the top was unstable and had weird visions and could rearrange the entire battle strategy around those weird visions. To their detriment, becasue the scrappy rebels had better weird visions.
As a sympathizer with the scrappy rebels, I am glad of this. But I can’t help but imagine Phasma repeatedly banging her head against her desk, going, “not agaaaaaain.”
Some regular military tactician, manipulating ships in the miniature 3D hologram of a battlefield; “So, as you can see, it should be quite a simple affair. Our intelligence reports tell us that the enemy has only a single squadron in this system, and most of them hidden in the asteroid belt. If we array our forces like so…”
Tarkin, approvingly; “Yes, you are quite correct, Lieutenant.”
Darth Fuckin Vader, sweeping Dramatically into the room, probably using the Force to get his cloak to billow Just So for Maximum Drama; “You are most incorrect, Lieutenant. The Rebellion has set you a trap. I have Seen it in the Force. You would not know, as you do not know the ways of the Force.”
Tarkin, mentally screaming to himself that he does not get paid enough to deal with motherfucking goddamn fucking space wizards this is the fourteenth fucking goddamn fucking time he has done this just this goddamn fucking month the absolute wanker. *forces a smile* “Are you certain, Lord Vader? Our spies were quite certain…”
Vader, dismissively. “Your spies are of no consequence compared to the power of the Force, Admiral.”
Tarkin, throwing up hands; “Then please enlighten me, Lord Vader, what the point of having me send spies in the first place was???!?”
Vader; “I find your discomfiture amusing, Admiral.”
CLEANER WRASSE CAN RECOGNIZE ITSELF IN A MIRROR, BUT IS THIS ENOUGH?
The cleaner wrasse (Labroides dimidiatus)
is a small fish, averaging 10 cm long, and has become the first fish ever to pass the mirror test, a behavioural technique to determine whether a non-human animal possesses the ability of visual self-recognition.
Until now, only charismatic mammals and birds have passed the test, also in 2016, two captive manta rays were filmed checking out their reflections in a mirror, suggesting self recognition in fishes.
The mirror test is bassically a mirror with a dot or a mark, researchers can observe if the animal investigates or interacts with the mark on its own body. Passing the mirror test suggests an animal understands of that the marked reflection is a representation of its own marked body, and not just another member of its species. But, is the mirror test enough to find self-awareness in this small fish?
Self-awareness involves having a working knowledge of your own mental states, like thoughts and emotions, along with an understanding of how you physically appear; self-recognition, in contrast, is limited to knowing the latter. It’s unclear how much self-recognition implies self-awareness and more studies are needed in order to find more prove of cognitive abilities in animals.
Handy dandy tip to answer 98% of questions regarding your pet:
Is your animal in immediate danger?
Congrats, if you meet any of this criteria the answer is GO TO THE VET GOD DAMMIT WHY ARE YOU ASKING PEOPLE ON TUMBLR ABOUT THIS
Additional questions:
2: do you think your animal is in immediate danger?
3: is your animal noticeably in pain?
If the answer to either of those is yes, FUCKING GO TO A VET or, bare minimum, CALL ONE. It is free to make a phone call to a vet and ask them questions. Vets will not falsely tell you that an animal needs medical care, they’re busy enough as is.
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