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Should Know is coming to you live.

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true. So if you are anywhere near

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K live dot com.

0:55

Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production

0:57

of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,

1:05

welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.

1:08

There's Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there, there's

1:10

guest producer Josh t rocking

1:13

it out and

1:16

this is stuff you should know. Take

1:18

to a dish. Yeah, one of

1:20

the rare second takes. We

1:23

lost a whole fourteen seconds of try

1:27

number one. Right. It wasn't

1:29

any good anyway, that's what it was.

1:31

Josh turned into like Elvis Custel was like,

1:33

no, no, stop, stop, I don't look at

1:36

that reference SNL

1:39

call back. Yeah it was nice. So

1:42

um, as you can tell, Chuck, I'm pretty excited

1:44

about this episode, which is kind of surprising

1:47

because talking about nine one one seems

1:49

like it might be the most boring

1:51

thing we could talk about. You think, untrue

1:53

what with all the people dying

1:56

and well cats stuck in trees?

1:58

Sure, what else? That

2:01

should name everything you shouldn't call nine one one four?

2:03

Let's see neighbors playing his music

2:05

too loud? That one exactly. Uh

2:09

Yeah, there's a bunch of stuff you shouldn't call

2:11

nine one one four, which we'll talk about. But

2:14

um one thing, like I am

2:16

familiar with nine one one. I remember growing up as

2:19

a child in the eighties and I was like, I

2:21

remember hearing about this new

2:23

system that was coming around when I was growing up

2:25

in Toledo and I was

2:27

like, that doesn't make any sense because nine one one,

2:29

it turns out, has been around at least since nineteen

2:32

sixty eight in the US. It's been

2:34

around way longer than parts in

2:36

UK. True,

2:38

but I like to think of Toledo is kind of a happening

2:41

spot. Toledo didn't get

2:43

a fully functional nine one one

2:45

system until nineteen nine. Did

2:47

you look it up? Yeah? So

2:50

you you guys resorted to the previous

2:52

method, which was run down the street

2:55

screaming for neighbors, just

2:57

swinging a cat by tail. Yeah,

2:59

that was siren. Yeah. I seem to

3:01

remember. I don't know exactly when we

3:03

got it, but I think I remember

3:06

it happening like because if I if

3:08

I remember correctly, when I was a kid, we had

3:10

one of those little cards next to the kitchen phone that

3:12

had police fire and

3:14

whatever else. So that had to have been pre

3:16

nine one one or else we wouldn't have had that dumb thing, right,

3:19

Yeah, that would just confuse the children. Call

3:22

these numbers first, right, and if they don't answer,

3:25

then did the super easy thing that will rout it to the correct

3:28

person child. Your parents

3:30

have just taken out a substantial life insurance

3:32

policy on you. Yeah,

3:34

for that's a long that's a long

3:36

game, right, there is so chuck as

3:39

new as nine one one as even though

3:41

it seems old, right, especially

3:44

for younger listeners, I would guess that it seems

3:46

pretty They probably think it's been around since

3:48

you know, of course some buggy days. Yeah, since

3:50

rotary phone days. Yeah right. So

3:53

um, as as as

3:56

old as it is or as new as it is, it's

3:59

gotten pretty uh robust,

4:01

very robust. Yeah,

4:03

every year. These are some stats

4:05

that are Buddy Dave Russe helped us compile

4:08

two hundred forty million calls in

4:10

the US. That is six hundred

4:13

and fifty thousand calls a day.

4:15

Yeah, that's like nine hundred thousand

4:17

calls a minute. No,

4:21

sure, I just did that back of the

4:23

m uh.

4:26

And another important thing here is that

4:29

of calls these days are from your wireless

4:31

phone. That's a big deal, it is, which

4:34

we'll get to. But um, that changed things.

4:36

Yeah. The big spoiler is is that the

4:38

nine one one system that we currently currently

4:41

use in the United States is

4:43

hopelessly antiquated, and

4:45

they're working on improving it. And nothing

4:48

that we should say about how antiquated

4:50

is should keep you from calling nine one one is still

4:52

generally works, but it's

4:54

having troubler. It's had trouble traditionally

4:57

keeping pace with the massive

5:00

sweeping changes in telecommunications.

5:02

Yeah, has has gone on

5:04

in the last couple of decades. Yeah, because telecom

5:06

is always trying to move forward and they don't think like,

5:09

but maybe we should slid the pace for nine one one,

5:11

right, exactly know and plus I mean nine

5:13

one one was we'll see those systems are built

5:16

alongside the other system, so

5:18

when the other system leads forward, they have to go through

5:20

and rebuild this this

5:22

system that's just for nine one one,

5:25

because you can't get rid of an old system because people,

5:27

well we'll get to that stuff. We'll get to that. Let's not

5:29

spoil it. But uh, we

5:32

were laughing earlier about things that you should

5:34

and should not call for. Um,

5:36

some of these are debatable, I think, Oh

5:38

yeah, I think so, says who

5:41

says me, We'll get to the last

5:43

one really is the only one that's debatable. But

5:45

obviously, if if there's a fire or

5:47

smoke that you think is a fire,

5:50

where there's smoke, there's fire, medical

5:52

emergency and you can't you

5:55

know, obviously getting an ambulance or get in a

5:57

get in your car and run some one of the emergency room if

5:59

you can. If it's quicker and you can do so

6:01

safely, it's quicker and cheaper cost

6:05

the gas maybe a couple of tolls, who knows,

6:08

compared to like an ambulance ride. No, that's a

6:10

that's a good point. But I

6:12

mean imagine if your home just loaded

6:14

and your kid gets hurt, you

6:16

should probably call nine one one, Call

6:18

nine one Uh. Car accidents, of

6:21

course, um, if they are major enough

6:23

and like have injuries, yeah, called

6:25

call nine one one. You should be able to tell, like

6:27

if somebody's like, oh, that kind of hurt my

6:30

neck, you don't have to call nine one one. You could

6:32

call Here's the other thing. If we're saying don't call nine

6:34

on one, that doesn't mean like don't alert

6:36

anybody. But there are there's

6:38

a your police have their own phone number,

6:40

Your local police have their own phone number. Look

6:42

it up and call that the non emergency

6:45

number, right. Uh. And then obviously

6:47

the last category is some sort of

6:50

crime being committed, violence being

6:52

committed, call nine one one.

6:54

Yeah. So that's like

6:56

no one's going to argue with that, I

6:58

think. So Okay, there are plenty

7:01

of instances where you shouldn't call nine one one,

7:03

and yet people reliably call

7:05

nine one one for stuff like this, And I think

7:07

that's because it's been drilled into everyone's head. It's

7:10

kind of a double edged sword. You can't drill that

7:12

into everyone's head. One one one, one

7:15

one one. All you gotta do is call nine one one and then not

7:17

expect to get some cats stuck in the

7:19

tree calls. You keep going back

7:21

to that, Well, we actually had did that

7:23

when I was a kid. Did you call nine one one for that?

7:26

Well, you know the funny story. It's not very funny,

7:28

my dad, but we had a cat stuck

7:31

in a tree. My dad went up

7:33

and he got stuck in the tree and he just

7:35

climbed up too high. Yeah, and you got

7:37

freaked out, I think so. I

7:39

mean, I was a kid, so you know they

7:42

weren't saying your father is very afraid and

7:44

he's screwed up. I was just a

7:47

kid kind of like, well, now dad's up there, and now there's

7:49

fireman here helping my dad out of a

7:51

tree. Cats and Dad's get

7:53

stuck in tree. Yeah, And looking back, I

7:55

think that's totally probably what happened. He

7:57

got way up there. It was freaked out. Yeah, yeah,

8:00

yeah, that's cute. I have to ask him about that one day.

8:03

Um. Okay, so your dad's stuck in a

8:05

tree, I would say, that's call nine one on cats

8:08

stuck in a tree. Now, unless you live

8:10

in Pleasantville, don't call nine one one for

8:12

that. Um. If

8:14

you have a question about the

8:16

speeding ticket you got the other day, that's

8:18

not a call that you would place through nine on one

8:21

Again, you can just call there's even a number

8:23

on the back of the ticket. Dumb.

8:26

Okay, hey, bringing that

8:28

back just for that second. Okay,

8:30

what else? Oh, of course, anything dealing

8:32

with your animals unless well,

8:35

I'm not gonna even gonna say that. I

8:37

was gonna say, if there's an animal attacking someone,

8:40

yeah, you would call tell nine one one for that. Come

8:42

out and shoot this dog. Basically

8:45

it could be rabid. It's terrible call.

8:47

Heckt hat out? Uh. But

8:49

otherwise, if the cat in the tree,

8:52

lost, animals, injured, animals,

8:55

noisy neighbors, I

8:57

love that day. Puts power outage in here and in

8:59

parentheses, call your power company, right,

9:02

It's that last one I think is a little it

9:05

kind of opens a can of worms, and that is the

9:07

suspicious person thing, because

9:11

uh, you know, they

9:13

they say to call for suspicious activity,

9:16

which theoretically is a suspicious

9:19

person. I think the distinction is

9:22

uh and what we see and we'll get into this

9:24

later racial biases. You

9:26

know, people in neighborhoods calling

9:29

the cops on someone because they're

9:31

black and walking down my street, which

9:33

happens, that is not a suspicious

9:36

person um even

9:39

I mean, if there's nothing going on, I know, people

9:42

try to justify it. But then local

9:44

police say, you know, hey, always call us

9:47

if you think something might be going on. And

9:49

that's where it gets dodgy, because that comes down

9:51

to a human beings perception.

9:54

So it can be very tilted. As Dave

9:56

put it. He put it a

9:58

couple of ways I thought were pretty smart. He said, people

10:01

aren't suspicious. Behavior is suspicious.

10:04

Yeah, and they say specifically to call nine

10:06

one for suspicious activities. But

10:09

again, these are people, so

10:11

it's just such a weird fine line you're walking there.

10:13

The other little litmus tests that I've seen

10:15

is stop just

10:17

for a second, because this is suspicious

10:20

behavior. You see somebody like breaking into a car,

10:22

like assaulting somebody that's that's

10:24

beyond suspicious. That's like the act. That's

10:26

the act um, that's a crime being committed.

10:29

So you have a second when you see a suspicious

10:31

person to stop and think, like what I what

10:34

I call nine on one? If this person were white,

10:36

or if you're a black person doing this, say what I

10:38

called nim one with this person were black, And if

10:40

the answers no, then maybe you shouldn't call.

10:42

Maybe they're not acting that suspiciously. Yeah,

10:45

it's just interesting. On these Facebook neighborhood

10:47

pages, it's kind of evenly

10:49

divided between people saying, uh,

10:52

don't call nine one one for this, This is just a guy

10:55

going door to door perhaps other

10:57

people saying, no, you know what, it's

11:00

it's nine or ten o'clock at night

11:02

and someone's knocking on your door in our

11:04

neighborhood. Semious, maybe you should call

11:06

the cops and let them work it out. And

11:08

for the cops, they say, you know, call

11:10

us. That doesn't mean we're going to dispatch eight cars

11:13

to your home, but we might work

11:15

you through the situation and

11:17

it's all going to be fine. Yes,

11:19

But this is the only one where I thought was a little bit

11:21

like you shouldn't just say, like, don't

11:24

call nine one one when you see a suspicious

11:26

person. No, you certainly shouldn't

11:28

say that. At

11:30

the same time that, I think one of the big hesitations

11:33

for calling nine one one these days is like

11:36

the either the increase

11:38

or the increase in reporting of people

11:41

innocent people who had nine one one called

11:43

on him being killed by the cops.

11:47

That and that death would not have happened.

11:49

Their death wouldn't have happened had

11:52

a person been suspicious of them and

11:55

called nine one one. And the fact,

11:57

you know, when when news of something like that

11:59

gets out, it will make you second guess that

12:01

kind of thing, like you're for sure you're

12:04

It makes you realize you're bringing like

12:06

people who are armed and jumpy out

12:09

to a situation where it's just somebody

12:12

walking around or whatever. And

12:14

when you look at it from that respect, it can

12:17

make you second guess the whole thing. Yeah, And things

12:19

can look it can look like potential

12:21

malfeasance that's not you know, like

12:24

a lot of people, you see a lot of people

12:26

saying, well, I think someone's chasing my house,

12:29

um, because a car pulled it into my driveway

12:31

and sat there for two minutes. They asked me if I wanted

12:33

to know more about syrac or

12:36

someone stopped and was taking pictures of my house,

12:38

Like, you never know, somebody might

12:40

be taking picture of the oak

12:42

tree that they're trying to learn about, or

12:45

or just looking up something on their phone and

12:48

standing in the direction of your house. Nine times

12:50

out of ten they're trying to figure out at the

12:52

oak tree near your house. I'm

12:56

trying to give people the benefit of the doubt, you know.

12:58

No, I'm with you anyway. It's just

13:00

that's where it gets a little dodgy and

13:02

what we'll have statistics

13:06

later on about actual racial

13:08

bias, because it's real. Okay,

13:11

moving on, you want to take a little break after

13:13

that. It seems like a good spot. I think I do.

13:15

Okay, well, everybody, we're taking

13:17

a rare Josh break and

13:20

we'll be right back. Okay,

13:37

we're back. That Josh break was

13:39

invigorating. I wasn't doing anything. I was just taking

13:41

a picture of oak tree. We'd get off my back. What

13:46

kind of oak is that, sir? There's

13:48

only one kind of oak. I

13:50

know, there's a bunch of different oaks. Everyone

13:53

in Ireland's like, no, that's not true.

13:56

Uh, while we're mentioning calling one

13:58

though, um, you can

14:02

get arrested. It is a crime to prank call nine

14:04

one one. Yeah, you don't want to do that. Or to swat.

14:06

It's called swatting. That's a I think that deserves

14:09

its own podcast. Maybe because there

14:11

was some some guy got

14:13

killed right from a swatting incident. Yeah, I

14:15

think it's happened more than once. Yeah, that's

14:17

serious stuff. If you don't know it's swatting as well, just give

14:20

you the four one one on this

14:22

abuse of nine one one man,

14:25

I love myself something great. Um.

14:28

So, swatting is where you are a

14:30

hacker, right, and

14:33

you can disguise the number that you're coming you're

14:35

calling from, uh, to make it

14:37

look like you're calling from a house that you want

14:40

the cops to go to, and

14:42

you basically say like, I'm in this house and

14:44

I'm holding hostages and what are you going

14:46

to do about it? Johnny law? And the

14:48

law comes out and usually swat that

14:51

I shouldn't say. Usually in some cases

14:53

the swat team will actually enter this house where

14:56

people who have no idea what's going on

14:58

are and maybe the the people

15:00

who have been swatted, you know, said

15:03

something mean to the to the guy who

15:05

you know, called the swat team out on them.

15:08

But it's basically it's not like saying, like there's

15:11

a I think there's a hostage

15:13

situation in this house. It's I'm the guy holding

15:15

the hostages. And here's where I mean,

15:18

like and swat teams stick right

15:20

exactly, the swat teams like we're gonna go kill

15:22

that guy. I'll bet you would never in a million

15:25

years bring your swat team out, and

15:27

whatever you do, don't come in guns blazing,

15:30

right, which we're joking about something

15:32

that's really happened. Sure, So like I really

15:35

think we need to talk at least the short we'll

15:37

look into it a little first, one on swatting

15:40

and one on dockx inga two

15:42

weird new things that people do now, right,

15:44

But but swatting is definitely

15:47

a crime. Yes, okay. Also

15:51

so that you don't make nine on one feel like

15:53

I think this is great. This is almost like a public service

15:55

announcement that we're in the midstup. So

15:57

you, um, you don't get in trouble

15:59

with the nine one one, so they don't think that

16:02

you're pranking them when you're not.

16:05

If you ever call nine one one accidentally,

16:07

or say your kid does or whatever. You

16:10

do not want to hang up the phone. Yeah, I did

16:12

that a few years ago.

16:14

I feel like I accidentally called nine one one because

16:17

I think cell phones have a feature that

16:20

it enacted like an automatic call

16:23

by accident. And I saw it and I went,

16:25

oh crap, and I hung up right and

16:27

I got a call back, like in a second. That's great.

16:29

Ideally you should. Yeah. Umi has a

16:31

great story from when she was a kid. She

16:34

um got scared. Uh,

16:36

I can't remember something about her grandmother who

16:38

was perfectly fine, but she called nine

16:41

on one and I got

16:43

scared with nine on one answer and hung up and

16:45

they kept calling back and she kept hanging up. They

16:48

came out to the cast a little welfare

16:50

check. Yeah, basically, Um,

16:53

but you don't want to do that. Don't follow the Umi

16:55

model of nine on one, Like just

16:57

stay on the phone and be like, I'm really sorry. This is

16:59

an act sentental call and I'm

17:01

definitely not the bad guy pretending

17:04

that this is an accidental call. Make sure you say

17:06

that to. My name is Timmy, I'm five, It's

17:09

all good. My name is little boy with brown

17:11

hair. So I think

17:14

the history is fairly interesting. Um

17:16

because England started

17:19

nine, not nine one one,

17:21

but their version, which is way

17:25

back in n seven in London. I

17:28

didn't know it either, but they they were the first city

17:30

in the world that created the three

17:32

digit model. Apparently, as

17:34

the story goes, there was a fire in

17:36

downtown London and people tried to get through the

17:38

fire department and they were put on

17:41

hold and switched around,

17:43

and so they said. The town crier came

17:45

out and said nine is

17:47

the answer, yeah, which so

17:50

easy to remember. Um,

17:53

I guess no one else was using at

17:55

the time. But this is back in the day of rotary

17:58

phones, right. Oh yeah, well, so

18:00

that that's actually that was. It was

18:02

a burden to dial with

18:05

a rotary dial. One should

18:07

have been for sure. I just thought that was

18:09

kind of clumsy of them, a little

18:11

bit clumsy of the Brits. But

18:14

let me see here. I think it was a twelve

18:17

mile radius around London

18:19

at first after World War Two and

18:21

went wider. Uh And because

18:24

you know, Britain like to do a little world

18:27

conquering. You can find in

18:30

cities all over the world where

18:32

London has or where England has left there.

18:35

Uh. Imprint that's a way

18:37

to put it, for sure. Yeah. Um.

18:39

And the US of course said, well, we're not gonna

18:41

let the Brits outdo us. You're

18:44

you're gonna do brexit. Hold my beer.

18:46

Yeah, we're gonna wait twenty something years

18:48

and do it ourselves, right exactly.

18:50

So, um, I think in nineteen fifty

18:52

seven, the Fire Chiefs Association,

18:55

sorry, the National Association of Fire Chiefs

18:57

I was way off. Um. They said, hey,

19:00

we should come up with an easy to remember

19:02

three digit number for people to report

19:04

fires. And other

19:07

people said, hey, that's a great idea. We'll we'll,

19:09

we'll do that to report emergencies,

19:11

and the Fire Teach's Association said no, just

19:14

fires, right. Luckily no one

19:16

listened to them. Well,

19:18

they didn't listen to the just firepart, that's

19:21

right. Um. And then a couple of years after

19:23

that or maybe uh yeah, a few years later,

19:25

the National Academy of Scizees

19:27

said, this is actually a really good idea. We should do this for

19:30

calling ambulances to And then finally,

19:32

um Presidential Commission

19:35

on Law Enforcement and the Administration

19:38

of Justice said no, all emergencies

19:40

should have a three digit, easy to remember

19:42

number. That's right. So the FCC

19:45

says, who should be get in touch

19:47

with here? How about a T and T? Because

19:49

these were the days of phone

19:51

monopolies, right or phone monopoly

19:55

it's just one right? Uh

19:57

No, I think when did they break up the phone cup

20:00

niece. I

20:02

think it was before this, because

20:04

they broke them up into the different bells, right,

20:07

yeah, where they were

20:09

all the different bells part of one big phone company.

20:11

That's right? Which one? I just said,

20:13

two different things? Liberty Bell, the Southern

20:16

Belle bell from

20:18

Pacific Bell, Pacific Bell, the bell from

20:20

Beauty and the Beast, all

20:22

the bells, Albuquerque Bell. Sure,

20:25

why not? You can

20:27

ring my bell. That's a good one.

20:29

That's a good song. It's a good one. But I think

20:31

more and more and more by Andrea true connection

20:34

is far better. What's that?

20:36

Virtually the same thing, but just a better, better

20:38

song. Okay, they got

20:40

in touch with a T and T and they said,

20:43

can you help us out with this? Apparently

20:46

a T and T is the one that chose because

20:50

it hadn't been used yet, which is kind

20:52

of the first stumbling block again. The rotary

20:54

dial. Rotary dial that was nine

20:56

one ones a lot better way. It's

20:59

it's two words better. It is, sure, it's

21:01

better and it was easy to remember.

21:04

And you know, I think they had set up at

21:06

this point already four one one in

21:08

a lot of areas, so they

21:10

just kind of extended that idea

21:13

of the something one one

21:15

right. So, um, the

21:17

first this really surprised me.

21:19

The first um on one

21:21

call that was ever placed in the United States.

21:23

New York City. You would think, so, Washington,

21:26

d C, Chicago, what else you got? Chicago?

21:29

You already said that one. Okay, I don't know. What

21:32

about Los Angeles? Yeah, why

21:34

not? What about Albuquerque? They're

21:37

doing fun? Okay, No, none of those

21:39

are correct. Haileyville, Alabama

21:42

was the site of the very first nine one one

21:44

call. Yeah, that's a good little tribute

21:46

question. I think that pedal

21:50

to the metal. By

21:53

the way, I recently watched I had recorded

21:56

all those Jeopardy shows with the Ken

21:58

Jennings on there. The Champion run

22:01

some of the better TV I've seen in a while, really

22:04

good stuff. Yeah. Well, I mean, if you're

22:06

a Jeopardy fan that it was as good as it gets,

22:08

like the smartest competitors

22:11

and like big time drama

22:13

because they you know, they had to bring it on

22:15

those daily doubles. It wasn't like a regular show

22:18

like they were daily doubling on like twenty dollars

22:21

and stuff like. It was

22:23

really tense, good drama. Yeah,

22:26

so cool because I think Kid knew that other guy,

22:28

the whole Celtzer guy was a as a gambler

22:30

and he made his name for really just going all

22:33

in, and Ken knew this, so he had

22:35

to do the same in order to beat

22:37

these chumps. If you're playing a gambler, you

22:39

get dragged into gambling, whether you want to gamble

22:41

or not. Get in there. You know. That's good stuff.

22:43

Anyway, good trivia question. It's probably

22:46

been on Jeopardy. Hayley Bill Alabama

22:48

did it was It was kind of a publicity stunt.

22:51

It sounds like they so the little uh,

22:54

the little phone company there, the Alabama

22:56

Telephone he co um

22:58

basically said, it's pretty a T and

23:00

T is is about to do this. We're about

23:02

to launch this nine one one system.

23:05

We want to jump on it and adopt it first.

23:07

So we're going to set this up as fast as we

23:09

can. Because here's the thing. We'll find out more about

23:11

this in a minute, but there's

23:14

no national nine one one system

23:16

all everywhere in the United States.

23:18

Nine one one reaches an emergency dispatcher

23:21

or an emergency operator, but each

23:24

system is local, regional at best.

23:27

Um so hailey

23:29

Ville, Alabama could jump on this and set up

23:31

their own system and get started. And that's exactly

23:33

what they did. That's right. February they

23:36

had a state senator named Rank

23:39

and fight he dialede

23:42

as a you know, obviously, is this like a photo

23:44

op or video op? In

23:47

other words, there wasn't an emergency. It's

23:50

like, man, what a coincidence that the

23:52

state senator had the first emergency

23:54

and happened to be standing next to the special phone.

23:57

That's right. They had a special bat phone, a red phone,

24:00

and I think an Alabama congressman

24:03

was on the other end at the police station, Congressman

24:05

Tom Bevill, known as the pork

24:07

King really not just the Alabama

24:10

pork King, the poor King of Congress.

24:12

And the state senator said, what are you,

24:14

pork King? What are you doing at the police station? I've

24:17

got an emergency? And

24:19

he said, are we really going to do this? Bit? I

24:22

would force whoever is on the other line to do it.

24:25

So yeah, it was all just a big show to

24:27

say, hey, we did it first. Uh,

24:30

they did it a week later. They still

24:32

have a big festival every year too, a nine

24:34

one one festival. I wonder if they re enacted this

24:37

famous phone man, if we could

24:39

play those two parts, I'm the pork King.

24:41

How great would that be? Forget drunk

24:43

history. Just put us up there. That's

24:46

cool, um. And when I say forget drunk

24:48

history, I mean we very much want to be on it.

24:50

Are we still pursuing that? No, I mean just

24:53

by occasionally yelling out of my window every

24:55

now and then. Why not the

24:58

crickets are deafening. Yeah,

25:00

I'm surprised no one said like, hey,

25:03

this is a natural fit. These

25:05

guys are great storytellers about history. They

25:07

can get drunk with the best of them. And we've been

25:09

saying this for years.

25:13

So uh No. M Alaska about a week

25:15

later did the same thing, and

25:17

we're the second city. And then throughout

25:19

the seventies and eighties it kind of started rolling

25:21

out. But it takes a while to get this kind

25:24

of thing going. It does because

25:26

again, it's a local again

25:29

at best, regional system

25:31

okay, and your local

25:34

um city might not have the money to put

25:37

in a new telecommunications

25:39

system to be used

25:41

for emergency services. UM

25:44

and at first, you know, cities that were a little

25:46

more flush with cash because they had a larger tax

25:48

base had the money to roll these out. So as

25:50

expected, aside from hailey Ville and

25:52

Nome, it was mostly like large

25:54

metropolitan areas that were starting to roll

25:57

out there the nine the earliest nine one one

25:59

systems, but the

26:01

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which

26:04

was the foundation based on Johnson

26:06

and Johnson's company, UM,

26:09

they took early interest in this and

26:12

started handing out grants to rural

26:14

areas to set up their own nine one one systems.

26:16

So ironically,

26:19

hailey Ville, Alabama, had it not jumped on

26:21

it probably still wouldn't have a nine

26:23

one one system where it not for the Robert

26:25

Wood Johnson Foundation doling out grants

26:28

to like, you know, small towns around the country

26:30

for their own Yeah, because they're

26:32

like you know what people call nine one one, they

26:34

go to the hospital. We're using Johnson

26:37

and Johnson products. Yeah,

26:40

I'm not being overly cynical. I'm sure

26:42

that you know, nine one one is probably

26:44

good for the band aid business, I would

26:46

guess so. And baby shampoo,

26:48

Yeah, because if you can't get if you can't

26:51

get an ambulance to that person,

26:53

they're gonna croak. But if you

26:55

get the ambulance to them, right, you

26:57

don't need band aids when you're dead, No, that's

27:00

it's just like a fact of death. But

27:03

if you survive, you're gonna need a lot

27:05

of band aids depending on what you've done to yourself.

27:07

That's right. Here's some stats for

27:09

you. By nineteen seventy six, when I was five years

27:11

old, only seventent

27:13

of the US had nine one one. You want to

27:16

know a surprising fact. Nineteen

27:18

seventy six, I was just born, Well,

27:20

you probably weren't covered by nine one one. Again,

27:23

not until nine Well, by

27:26

seven, only fifty percent of the country, which

27:28

is uh, that's kind of that's

27:31

pretty late. I would have thought we would have had a lot more of

27:33

the country cover by then, for sure, you would think so.

27:35

And it wasn't until ninety nine, actually,

27:38

chuck that um the that

27:40

nine one one officially became the

27:43

emergency number for everywhere

27:45

in America. Bill

27:47

Clinton said, let's do this.

27:52

He said, what about nine nine nine? And they

27:54

went, Bill, please, wrong country,

27:57

Canada. Speaking of wrong countries, they

28:00

are very much the right country because they got on board

28:02

within one as well. That's absolutely

28:04

true, because they were like, why, why make things

28:06

too difficult? You know,

28:08

that's a great question Canada, And I think the

28:10

answer to that is you shouldn't make things

28:13

too difficult, just kind of go with the flow,

28:17

should do some more stuff. Here, I was

28:19

thinking, maybe another break. Okay, are

28:21

you okay with that? Are you sure?

28:23

Yes? What about you listeners? Well,

28:27

we'll be right back, Okay,

28:43

Chuck, Let's talk about

28:46

how it actually works. Yeah,

28:48

in the early days, obviously

28:50

it was all landline telephones. So

28:54

when your call got routed to

28:56

the switchboard, which was one

28:59

switchboard that kidded to that, they

29:01

would patch you across phone lines that were dedicated

29:03

to nine one one to what's called

29:05

a peace app a public safety answering

29:08

point. And at the

29:10

time they were a lot of times

29:13

like in the fire department or in the police

29:15

station. Right, so they could just turn their chair

29:17

and be like, Sarge, dispatch some

29:19

people to this address. We've got a suspicious

29:22

person staring at oak trees right

29:26

again? Right? And um,

29:28

like originally, like today, at nine on one,

29:30

dispatcher is a highly trained,

29:33

highly skilled person. There's

29:35

a lot of stuff going on. It's like a flight

29:37

attendant. Remember when we've learned like flight

29:39

attendants are actually trained to save

29:41

your life in an emergency, and they just hand

29:43

out peanuts is like a side thing. Um,

29:46

this is basically the same thing with the nine eleven

29:48

operator call taker. They know how

29:50

to do a lot of stuff, but the earliest ones

29:53

just knew how to answer the phone, take

29:55

down your info and then turn around and send

29:57

it off to the fire department or the police department

30:00

or you know, the paramedics or something

30:02

like that. You know, they'd be like, okay, I

30:04

gotta go all right, I'll see you buy right, and

30:06

then they would get off the phone, and that of all

30:08

to the call center. Um.

30:11

That evolved to what was called enhanced nine

30:13

one one, which was in

30:16

the nineteen seventies, again driven by telecom

30:18

advancing with A T and T with

30:20

new technologies. They developed

30:23

a N I and a L I automatic

30:25

number identification and location

30:28

identification A and I just caller

30:30

I D. That's what everybody calls caller I D. Yeah.

30:33

Remember those cute little boxes that

30:35

you can plug your phone line into it on your little

30:37

table show you in some little terrible readout.

30:40

Basically dot matrix readout yep, who

30:42

was calling? Pretty neat

30:44

and then it was on your handheld

30:47

cordless phone. Right, you could look at

30:49

it, and that was like, whoa, we're living in the

30:51

future, rich or the

30:53

answering machine now is digital.

30:56

We don't need those tiny tapes. Yeah,

30:58

it's true. That was like a big revolution too.

31:00

That was huge, amazing because you could leave

31:02

as long a message as you wanted now, but

31:06

you couldn't get that clever nobody's

31:08

home. Nobody's home.

31:10

Sure, you're still recording your outgoing message, right,

31:13

you could sing it, but they actually had that tape

31:15

you could buy that you could put. Yeah,

31:18

there was one that was like a whole mixtape of them,

31:20

just like gag answers. Boy,

31:23

you don't remember that, not really.

31:25

There was a very famous ad

31:27

that ran. It

31:30

was like delight your friends basically

31:32

yeah, wow, yeah, it's pretty funny.

31:35

Um. So this enhanced nine in one

31:37

system, the automatic number and the automatic

31:39

locator. That was a big deal

31:42

because now all of a sudden, if you were

31:44

a call taker for and

31:47

a call came up on your little computer

31:49

screen, it said what the number

31:51

was and what the address was, and

31:53

because everybody was calling from land lines,

31:57

you knew exactly where that person was who needed

31:59

help. It's right, saved a bunch of time.

32:01

It was a very huge life saving measure.

32:03

Yeah. I mean when you think about people

32:06

in an emergency,

32:08

could be everything from crippling fear

32:11

keeping you from even knowing where you are too,

32:14

haven't been hit on the head and not being able

32:16

to say where you are yeah, or you just can't speak

32:18

yeah. And so that really imagined that they

32:20

spend a lot of time sometimes just

32:23

trying to get through that first step of where are

32:25

you right? So this

32:27

was an enormous leap forward, and in the seventies

32:30

and eighties it really kind of cemented how helpful

32:32

in life saving this nine

32:34

one one system could be. And then

32:36

cell phones came along and the rest

32:39

of us kind of leapfrogged right over nine

32:41

one one because the cell phone carriers

32:43

didn't have an I and a L

32:46

I when when you call

32:48

nine one one still to this day from

32:50

a cell phone, it does not come

32:52

up what your number is or

32:55

where you are in any specific

32:57

way. And so Congress,

32:59

or at least that c C said, um,

33:02

hey, we need you guys to do something

33:04

like there's got to be something that you just can't be like,

33:06

you know, you have no idea where this person

33:09

is in the country. Because part of the other

33:11

thing about the automatic locator uh

33:14

that that they had originally with nine one

33:16

one in the seventies and eighties is it would

33:18

route you to the closest um

33:21

public safety answering point, right, So

33:23

that would be saving time too, because

33:25

the person you're talking to is in the same area as

33:27

you and knows the area you're talking

33:30

about and can more quickly dispatch people

33:33

cell phones. Is not the case. Yeah, And Dave makes

33:35

a good point. Even if they could have located

33:38

like where your cell phone plan was or

33:40

your phone was activated, you

33:43

don't have to live in the city where that is, right.

33:45

You can friends to have l A numbers that work

33:47

in the film industry here just because that

33:50

stupid l A three one O or

33:52

three to three makes them look like a more legitimate

33:54

higher just so cool. It's so

33:56

cool and so dumb. But yeah,

33:59

it would be like you're in Atlanta, says

34:01

you're in Los Angeles. Is this a prank? Are you

34:03

swatting me? Yeah? So

34:06

um, the so the FCC said,

34:08

Okay, you guys need to do something. So what they did

34:10

was they came up with UM, a triangulation

34:14

where the closest cell phone

34:16

towers address comes

34:18

up when you call. It's a start, it

34:20

is a good start. But if you're

34:22

out in the sticks, the closest

34:25

cell phone tower might be miles and miles

34:27

and miles away. And even if it's not

34:29

miles away, let's say it's a football field a way.

34:31

Well, if you're in a dense um

34:34

densely populated area and you're bleeding out,

34:36

sure it doesn't help. It does not help at all,

34:38

but it gets you a little bit closer, and it helps

34:40

to to transfer your collar to rout your

34:42

call to the closest peace app Okay,

34:45

And then the other thing that they have them do now, Phase

34:48

two of this enhanced wireless, enhanced

34:50

nine on one is UM.

34:53

It gives your GPS coordinates, which

34:56

is so nineties it's ridiculous

34:58

and it's like map quest. When who's

35:00

ever waited on a ride share, uh

35:03

that thought you were down the street from where

35:05

you were knows how

35:08

accurate that GPS can be. Well, still, it's

35:10

still great, but that's way

35:12

more accurate than what nine one ones working

35:14

with. Well, they're just working with longitude and latitude

35:16

points. Right. Yeah. One of the big, one of the

35:18

big qualities.

35:21

A quality to have as a nine

35:23

one one operator is to be

35:25

able to quickly translate longitude

35:28

and latitude coordinates GPS coordinates

35:30

into like Google Maps to get an address really

35:32

fast and it smooth, sexy voice

35:35

like Berry White with fingers of fury,

35:38

or like halle Berry with fingers

35:41

she uh. Did you see that movie The Call?

35:44

She played a

35:47

call uh specialist in

35:50

a movie, a thriller. It was good, It

35:53

wasn't great. Yeah, it was good. Okay. Brad

35:55

Anderson directed it. He's like a really quality director.

35:57

Yeah, I know that name, and it seems like this sort

36:00

of from what you're

36:02

gonna call me out on that. I didn't hear you from what?

36:05

From where? Oh,

36:07

I don't get what you mean from what? Like

36:09

what other what other movies is he directed? He

36:12

directed a scary movie called Session

36:14

nine. Oh yes, okay, well, then

36:16

this guy is one of my favorites of all time. That's

36:19

what. It's one of the best horror movies ever

36:21

made. Yeah, I'm a fan of Brad Anderson

36:23

because he has a range of genres.

36:26

Like one of his early movies is this kind

36:29

of spacey rom com called Happy

36:31

Accidents. That was great. Happy

36:35

Accident, Yeah, really good with Mercy Thoma and Vincent

36:38

dina Frio. But it had This was

36:40

a rom com with a sort of a

36:43

bit of a sci fi twist to it. And

36:45

he did Trans Siberian. He's he's

36:47

done. He did Next Stop. Wonderland was one

36:49

of his first little indies. But

36:51

yeah, he does. It's unusual for a director

36:53

to tackle all these weird are different

36:56

genres, it's disparate genres.

36:58

Well, you have me at Session nine. Yeah.

37:00

The Call Is is a good, you know, Puckcorn

37:02

movie. I highly recommend it. Okay, I'll check it out.

37:04

Halle Berry is a call center person. No, no, that's

37:06

all I'll say. Hey, she's quality quality

37:09

actress. She is. But the fact that I had never

37:11

even heard of this movie really made me

37:13

suspicious. It did pretty well. It

37:16

wasn't a massive hit, but it

37:18

did like sixty million bucks. But

37:20

that's really surprising. Like I'm very aware

37:23

of movies, like I'll know what the movie is

37:25

about, and I have never seen it, not a

37:27

preview. I'll just kind of no, So

37:29

I'm I'm surprised. Okay,

37:33

I recommend it I'll check it out. Yeah, I mean

37:35

it's no black coat's

37:37

daughter, but that's a

37:39

good one too. So where

37:41

are we now? We are now at texting

37:44

to oh wait, hold on,

37:46

I wanted to drive this home real quick. Okay, okay,

37:48

drive it home. The FCC

37:52

rule that says you have to have a

37:54

cell phone tower, tell one

37:58

it's address, the closest

38:00

one to your cell phone, and then give the GPS

38:03

coordinates for wherever that

38:05

cell phone they think the cell phone is. That's

38:08

the nine one one system that's in place nationwide

38:11

today. That's why they

38:13

ask you from a cell phone, who

38:15

are you and where are you, just like they did in the early

38:18

days, right, And this is a problem because, like you

38:20

said earlier, of nine

38:22

one one calls in the United States are made from

38:24

cell phones, and nine one one does not

38:26

know where you are unless you tell them. Yeah,

38:28

but it's also um balanced

38:31

out by the fact that you

38:34

have they want to help, well, you have that cell phone

38:37

right there and immediately. So

38:39

yeah, yeah that remember the old days, You're like, let

38:41

me find a pay phone, let me go knock on someone's door

38:44

and be and ask about their oak tree, and hopefully

38:46

I won't get shot Um,

38:48

so people are calling right away, So I would

38:50

think that kind of counterbalances the clumsiness,

38:53

yes of location. I

38:55

think you're right, Chuck. We'll see, well

38:57

you really swooped in there, I say, we'll see as

39:00

if there's some report coming out. And the thing is,

39:02

though, is there there people have

39:04

figured out the people, the powers that be who

39:06

are concerned with nine one one in its

39:08

system are well aware of this major

39:11

flaw, and our work have

39:13

figured out how to how to update it.

39:15

It's just now we're in the process of rolling out updates.

39:18

Well, and then privacy advocates are going to be like, what

39:22

you're gonna like locate every

39:24

single person with the cell phone and know where they are

39:26

at all times. And Amazon and

39:28

Apple are like, dude, we already know

39:30

that. It's just one is the only one who

39:32

doesn't know where you are at all top, which

39:35

is a problem. It's funny. I saw

39:37

um a Wired article from

39:40

that was like wringing its hands, like, oh, you know,

39:42

privacy advocates are worried that they

39:44

may be able to track the movement of

39:46

cell phone users based on this information

39:49

that now yeah,

39:51

they're like, maybe I don't know, we'll have to

39:53

see the future holds. Yeah, so

39:56

texting the one is the latest technology

40:00

about ten years ago, eleven years ago in Iowa

40:03

in black Hawk, they were the first jurisdiction

40:06

to offer this service and

40:08

it's still kind of coming out. I

40:11

think. Um, a couple

40:13

of years ago they all

40:15

fifty states had text

40:17

capability, but UM,

40:19

it's not everywhere in each state. Yeah,

40:22

exactly, and it's just text.

40:24

I love day points out you can't send emojis.

40:27

Um, I can need help emogi,

40:30

but you can't send text and video

40:32

and that kind of thing would be super helpful, I think.

40:34

Right, So this is where we

40:37

are in the next generation.

40:39

It's literally called next generation, and

40:44

it's where nine one one finally catches

40:46

up to every other UM

40:50

telecom company and

40:53

device manufacturer already is.

40:55

And it basically uses all the information

40:58

from the Internet of Things that

41:00

lets people know exactly where

41:02

you are, not just like what your

41:04

addresses, what floor of a building you happen

41:07

to be sitting on right now. UM,

41:09

all of that information is now going to be

41:11

funnel to nine one one when you call, because

41:13

ninmon one is finally abandoning land

41:15

lines landline telecom.

41:18

That's what they they're dealing with Currently they're

41:20

going over to v O I P so

41:22

nine one will be using a secure internet

41:24

connection in the near future. And

41:27

when they get to that point, um,

41:29

they will be able to accept video

41:32

photos like this is the guy that's that's

41:35

attacking the lady, hurry up, that kind

41:37

of thing. And then they'll also be able to because

41:39

they're setting up a separate wireless

41:41

broadband network just for first responders

41:44

called first net. Yeah, that's going to be a big deal,

41:46

and so nine one one will be able to say, hey, here's

41:48

a photo of the guy that there that you're

41:50

looking for. Um, And they

41:52

can't do that now is mind boggling as it is.

41:55

They cannot do that. Yeah,

41:57

I mean, just to have a dedicated wireless

41:59

network cuts down on I

42:02

imagine interference and potential

42:04

hacking. Plus in a disaster, if

42:07

you're out there in the field, you are

42:09

using your own wireless device that's on the public

42:11

broadband right now. And

42:13

so if the public broadband goes down because there's

42:16

so many people trying to use it to find out

42:18

what's going on in like an earthquake or something like,

42:20

the first responders suffer from that too.

42:23

So this separate broadband network just for first

42:25

responders won't crash in the event

42:27

of a disaster. Yeah, And speaking of

42:29

first responders, uh, I

42:31

think it's kind of time we

42:33

join certain people and saying

42:37

call center employees are first

42:39

responders, are people saying they're

42:41

not well. I don't think they're generally thought of

42:43

as first responders if you work

42:45

at a call center, because they just sit around maybe,

42:49

but they are literally the first and

42:51

most important first thing that happens

42:54

in an emergency. And like you said earlier, they

42:56

are trained to and

42:58

walk people through epr Heimlich,

43:02

how to deliver a baby, how to handle

43:04

an active shooter, uh, suicide,

43:06

domestic abuse, um, if

43:08

you're a kid and you're scared because grandma

43:10

fell over, like how to handle children?

43:13

Like they're really skilled. And I think it's

43:15

a shame that, Like I feel like

43:17

the only time you hear about call

43:21

center responders is

43:23

when there's a bad one

43:25

and you release those calls and everyone's

43:28

horrified, you know, and

43:30

it is, it's awful. But those are clearly

43:32

like the standouts, I guess not

43:34

standouts. The standouts are all the good employees. There

43:37

have been some doozies, for sure. Yeah,

43:39

I've read about one where somebody

43:41

called in um of wildfire

43:44

in Oregon, Oregon, sorry

43:47

Oregon, and uh,

43:49

the nine one one operator said,

43:52

what you're seeing is probably just the play

43:54

of light on sunlight on the fog. It

43:57

was like, how would you even know that you're in a

44:00

all center. I'm looking right at this thing. It's a wildfire,

44:02

and like they didn't dispatch

44:04

anybody, and um, like

44:06

a half hour twenty minutes later, somebody else

44:08

called it in and by this time it was like raging.

44:12

Um. There was the one lady drowning in her car too. That

44:14

one was horrific. I didn't hear about that one.

44:16

She was in her car that was going down and I

44:18

think I don't remember exactly what happened,

44:20

but she was freaking out, and

44:23

I think the person

44:25

was just sort of dismissive

44:27

and it was really kind of rude even

44:30

But you know, that makes the news, not

44:33

the six and fifty thousand calls a

44:35

day that go through and

44:37

our lives are saved. Like, no, no,

44:40

absolutely, it's absolutely true. It's a great point.

44:42

Um. There are plenty of stories of people

44:44

like of them just like straight up

44:47

doing hero stuff, going

44:49

above and beyond. You should see halle Berry in

44:51

this movie. One of

44:53

the things that can happen is as

44:56

hard as much as your trained to

44:58

not let it happen. UH,

45:00

you can become emotionally invested

45:02

in a call totally. And I've

45:06

read that some some operators

45:08

are just find it leaving it at the door, at least

45:10

appearing to leave it at the door. But others can suffer

45:13

UM burnout PTSD UM.

45:16

And one of the big things that I saw that's a

45:18

huge psychological problem

45:22

for nine one operators is that

45:24

there can very frequently be no resolution.

45:27

They can be on the phone with somebody who

45:29

is like holding someone hostage, and they're

45:31

trying to talk them down, and all of a

45:33

sudden, the cops come in. The line goes dead. They

45:36

if they're not good friends with the cops who

45:38

came in, UM, they may never

45:40

find out what happened, like no

45:42

idea. UM, they're talking someone

45:45

through who's been shot or whatever to

45:47

try to keep them alive and conscious. They

45:49

have no idea what happened to that person. They have to take the

45:51

next call, and that's a huge problem.

45:53

There's no closure. And then sometimes

45:55

there is closure, like if you're a nine

45:57

one one operator, you probably have

46:00

been on the phone with somebody when they took their last breath,

46:02

when they were murdered, when they died, very very

46:04

scared. That kind of stuff takes its

46:06

toll on people, and that's a big It could

46:08

be a big problem, and there could be pretty

46:10

frequent turnover among dispatchers'

46:14

halle Berry movie, Oh yeah, I'm it's

46:16

all there. Uh yeah, because

46:18

even if they don't get closure on

46:21

the work site, they could see it on the news that night

46:24

be like, man, that I took that call of

46:26

this murder or whatever. Pretty

46:29

bad. Sure, not a job

46:31

for me. I don't think I could hack it

46:34

either. And then practically

46:36

speaking, there's like you have to be able to type

46:38

really really fast with a high level

46:40

of accuracy while somebody's telling

46:42

you other information, like you

46:44

might be taking info in and you have to

46:46

be chatting with you know,

46:48

a cop on I am who you're sending

46:51

out while you're also taking the description

46:53

from the other person who's going back and forth. Yeah,

46:55

you gotta be able to compartmentalize and multitask

46:58

all. None of those things are my special team though.

47:01

If you're wondering, you pay for one.

47:04

If you have a phone bill cell

47:07

phone bills included. It's a little

47:09

little surcharge there. So Uh,

47:11

that's outrageous to scream socialism

47:13

everybody. Uh.

47:16

And as far as those statistics we talked about earlier

47:18

about the racial bias, Um,

47:21

of course, if you were a fan of Public Enemy, you

47:23

remember the Great Great Song is

47:25

a joke. Flavor flavor.

47:27

Uh. There was a study done by the a c l U

47:30

in two thousand thirteen, residents

47:32

of Grand Crossing this is Chicago

47:35

study, Uh, African American

47:37

neighborhood on the South Side waited

47:39

eleven minutes for a cop to come after

47:42

a priority call. Um two

47:44

and a half minutes for the predominantly

47:46

white neighborhood of Jefferson Park. Um

47:50

in response times in that were four and

47:52

a half time slower in the black community.

47:55

And there's you know, like I mentioned earlier

47:57

with the people

48:00

calling on one on you

48:02

know, just an African American person living

48:04

their life. There have been cases

48:06

where people ended up dead because

48:08

of that after escalation, and

48:10

that's just like a pure

48:12

tragedy for sure. Um.

48:16

There is there like when

48:18

you have something this massive and huge and

48:20

it's involves people at like their worst

48:22

moment of their life. A lot

48:25

of stuff is going to kind of come out

48:27

of it. There's a lot to nine one one, a lot

48:29

of legends and myths and everything. But

48:31

one of the things I saw that everyone

48:34

seems to know about is that if you

48:36

call nine one one and pretend you're ordering

48:38

a pizza, they will

48:40

understand that you were in a position where you

48:42

can't talk, and they'll dispatch the police. Supposedly

48:45

that's a myth, but it makes total

48:47

sense. Doesn't you've heard that before? I was just

48:49

just thinking of die Hard. Oh, I

48:52

don't remember that. There was that line where he's calling

48:54

the nine one one dispatcher. Well,

48:56

I guess I don't even think it was. I think

48:58

it was an actual cop on the other end, and

49:02

she's like, calm down, sir, and you know, it's

49:04

not an emergency whatever, And he said, what do you think I'm doing

49:06

ordering a pizza? Yeah, And that

49:08

might have been a reference to that maybe, So

49:11

so what are you saying again? The urban

49:13

legend is that if you like, let's say there's

49:15

there's somebody who's got a gun on you,

49:18

if you can somehow get it to the point where

49:20

you're like, hey, let's order a pizza, right, now you

49:22

call nine on one say hey, I'd like to order

49:25

a pizzas my address

49:27

and then yeah, and then nine one one will get

49:29

what's going on and send the cops out. Apparently that's

49:32

not true, okay, but there

49:34

there is. There's another. There was an urban

49:36

legend I saw in

49:38

the UK with that

49:41

if you um call

49:43

and you don't say anything, that

49:46

they will send someone out, and I think that is

49:49

kind of widely believed over

49:51

here in the US too. Apparently

49:53

in the UK that is true,

49:55

but it's going to send you through a series

49:58

of prompts if you don't respond um,

50:01

and if you press five five it

50:04

will you will be confirming that yes, you

50:06

there's an emergency and you just can't talk right now,

50:08

and they will send people out. If you don't press

50:10

five five, then they won't. It'll

50:13

just take it as like an accidental

50:15

call. Well, and that's the big benefit.

50:17

I don't even think we kind of brought up about texting

50:20

to nine one because you might think,

50:22

like because because people want to text, But

50:25

there are plenty of cases where you can't

50:27

talk. You're maybe

50:29

in a domestic dispute, or

50:31

if you're hearing you're hiding in a closet, or if you're

50:34

hearing impaired, or if you've been

50:36

kidnapped and don't want to use your voice out loud,

50:38

or you're scared child like, plenty

50:40

of great cases to be made for texting. And

50:43

since text to nine one one isn't

50:45

everywhere, the FEC has a

50:47

law that if you're telecom carrier

50:49

doesn't UM doesn't

50:52

have text nine one one, they have an immediate

50:54

bounce back that says like, you can't do that, you have

50:56

to call nine one. Yeah, which is that's pretty

50:58

valuable. It is. And one last thing, if

51:01

you find an old phone that has a charge in

51:03

it, even if it hasn't been had service

51:05

for twenty years, you can

51:07

dial nine one you will be connected. That

51:10

is pretty cool. Every single phone that is that

51:12

is in operation dials nine and one

51:14

for free. Yeah. I like that. I

51:16

do too, man, I love nine one one.

51:19

I think Kurvanni gets said there's no uh,

51:21

no greater display of humanity

51:24

than seeing a fire truck go down the street

51:26

with its sirens blazing. Really

51:29

it sounds like something it's interesting. Uh.

51:32

Well, if you want to know more about curvanning get

51:34

you can just type that into the search bar

51:36

how stuff works and who knows what that will bring

51:38

up. Uh. And since I said

51:40

that, it's time for a listener. Man, this

51:45

is a response. When we asked for examples

51:48

of racism in today's military, and

51:50

we heard from a range of people. I have to

51:52

say, from this guy

51:55

who the other guy to the other guy.

51:58

This guy said, I'll just tell you what this guy

52:00

said a minute. But other people have said that,

52:02

yeah, they've seen some pretty bad racist stuff in the military,

52:05

but they're isolated incidences, just like

52:07

in the real world. But this is

52:09

what Matthew apple White says. Uh.

52:12

Start off, I'm a white guy. I can't speak on everyone's

52:14

experience while in the service, but during

52:17

my four years I saw more camaraderie

52:19

between a mix of races than I ever see in

52:21

my real life. It seems like this is the

52:23

response that we got the most the most. I think you're

52:25

right. They thought us. Oh,

52:28

they taught us from the start in boot camp Marine

52:30

Corps that you're all nothing and

52:33

you will all become Marines. And with that

52:35

in common, it gives the common ground between any race

52:37

or nationality. Uh. They might

52:40

often refer to African American Marines

52:42

as dark green implying, yes,

52:44

they may have a different skin tone, but they're still

52:46

green. And over the years, in and out of

52:48

training, you learned that everyone endures the suck

52:51

and the hard times together. Uh,

52:53

and no one is above another. In the end, you learn

52:56

to trust the man to my left and right with

52:59

my life, no matter what his skin color. And

53:03

ladies too, there are female marines. Uh.

53:06

I'm glad you said that. Yeah. Now saying

53:08

all this, some some prejudice

53:10

from other people's upbringing do still remain, but

53:12

most of the time it is shot down very fast

53:15

with harsh repercussions, and it has kept to a

53:17

minimum. I made many friends from all walks

53:19

of life that I would have never even imagined

53:22

being so close to. Without the common ground we

53:24

stood on are the hard times that we endured together.

53:27

And that is from an avid listener named Matthew

53:29

apple White. Thanks a lot, Matthew. Um,

53:31

we appreciate you letting us know. Thanks to everybody

53:33

who wrote in to let us know. Virtually

53:35

the same thing. Yeah, except

53:37

for the couple of standouts. Yeah. Um.

53:40

Well, if you want to get in touch with us, like Matthew

53:42

did, you can go on to stuff you should know dot com.

53:44

And I think our social links are there. Who knows, but

53:47

you can always get in touch with us via email at

53:49

stuff podcast at i heart radio

53:52

dot com.

53:56

Stuff you Should Know is a production of i Heeart Radio's

53:58

How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my

54:00

heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple

54:02

Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

54:07

M h m

54:11

hm