So that nobody’s surprised.
Starting at 2:18 pm ET, the test wireless alert message will be sent with the header “Presidential Alert” and text reading: “THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed.” https://t.co/Dyv9XDJXGR
— Axios (@axios) October 3, 2018
And open thread.
LeeM
Under normal circumstances, this would be no big deal. With this president*, I wonder how long it takes to make this a political tool or twitter extension.
debit
Yeah, I’ll be turning my phone off.
MomSense
Ok everyone Beyoncé is your guide for this.
Middle fingers up
Hold them hands high
Wave them in his face (your phone)
Tell him boy bye.
This way you are less likely to destroy your phone by throwing it across the room.
Keith P.
$5 says he adds a “NO COLLUSION!!!”
JMG
I don’t have a phone, so I’m good.
satby
I wonder if they’re able to get metrics on how many people turn their phones off to avoid this. I will. If the purpose is to be a national alert system that people go out of their way not to get messages from it pretty much fails as a concept.
Chyron HR
To be followed at 2:20 PM by an emergency alert from Daniel Dale fact-checking the first text.
JGabriel
debit:
Mine’s already off, and will likely remain so for the rest of the day. I’m one of those middle-age luddites who still use a land-line for their primary phone, and just keep a pay-per-minute cell phone handy for wi-fi and emergency calls when I’m out.
Leto
I’m 100% certain I’ll block the number, or figure out a way to disable the alert. At least until 2020. I have Apple Care but I don’t know how many times they’ll replace the phone due to “I loathe this person with every fiber of my being.” Also I like being able to browse BJ on the go, so I don’t need that type of self inflicted wound.
Baud
Tommorow is the day a lot of liberals buy new cell phones.
Elizabelle
Someone here asked yesterday: can we message back “Release your tax returns!”
Baud
I think it’s fair to say that most good people would rather take their chances in an emergency than get an alert from Trump.
JGabriel
Axios via Cheryl Rofer @ Top:
Followed by a second text saying, “No Collusion!” and a third mocking victims of sexual assault.
Chyron HR
@JMG:
You don’t have a phone?!
PaulWartenberg
No. No. NOOOO.
I will be proctoring an exam at that hour.
Bastards…
germy
Will it be one of these ear-splitting alarms that goes off whenever there’s rain predicted in my local forecast?
jimmiraybob
My rule of thumb is that anything coming out of this administration is a verifiable lie until further notice. Which puts me in the awkward position of evaluating “This is only a test.”
Betty Cracker
I’ll bet this was originally proposed as a FEMA alert (since they’re the ones who actually run the program) and Trump insisted on calling it a “Presidential Alert” as a way to mark the phones of everyone in the country, like a tomcat pissing on a fence post. God, I hate that motherfucker so much. I hate every little thing about him, including the way he flaps his flabby little flippers and makes a gaping asshole of his mouth every two seconds while speaking.
Although I’ve been vaguely aware of Trump as a tawdry tabloid entity most of my life, I never realized he epitomized everything loathsome about the human race until he got all up in our collective grill two years ago. Yeah, I think I’ll turn off my fucking phone too, even though I’ve never done so since the day I bought it.
CCL
I now know I am officially over the edge. My first thought was “how is * going to use this new toy to tank the 11/6 election?”
?BillinGlendaleCA
Being that it’s 5:40 in the morning here and I was up installing the latest and greatest Win10 feature update on 4 computers, I’ll be asleep and have my phone on Do Not Disturb when the blessed even occurs.
JPL
Don’t forget to turn off your phone.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Won’t his followers feel special, their presizident is talking directly to them.
different-church-lady
@JMG: But… but… how do you pay for things?!? How do you buy things? How do you get food?!!1?
different-church-lady
@Baud: The Trump Presidency IS an emergency!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@different-church-lady: …and communicate with people without having Facebook.
Baud
@different-church-lady: How do you watch porn?!!! VHS???
different-church-lady
@?BillinGlendaleCA: How did she/he even make that post?!? This is SORCERY!!!
different-church-lady
@Baud: Just look over Clarence Thomas’ shoulder.
kindness
Is there a way I could set this alert to Spam & block it? How about report it as a scam with virus potential? Trump is obviously worse than a virus but I’m not sure what comes next and I have a biology degree.
jonas
OT, but Jason Kander has withdrawn from the Kansas City mayoral race to get treatment for depression and PTSD. A tough thing to do, no doubt, but good that’s he’s reaching out for help and showing other vets that’s it’s ok. Would luuuv for him to be on someone’s VP shortlist in 2020.
JMG
@different-church-lady: Paying for things for things is no problem. As for Facebook, that assumes I WANT to communicate with people, a fact not in evidence. I used to have two work phones. I swore I’d never have one when I retired. So far I’ve made it stick.
different-church-lady
@JMG: Didn’t the IMA (Inconvenienced Millennials Act) revoke all cash from the economy?
mali muso
Open thread? So on the subject of actual emergencies and real alerts, I hope everyone will keep the people of Palu and Donggala, Indonesia in their thoughts. They experienced a 7.5 earthquake followed almost immediately by a tsunami late last week. The alert systems (such as they were) did not work. Some villages nearby were sucked down into a tomb of mud due to “liquefaction” of the ground from the force of the quake. Source
On a personal note, this is the city and region where I spent 13 years of my childhood (my parents’ work took us there). It’s incredibly surreal and difficult to be seeing the reports and photos of the total devastation what is essentially my hometown.
Snarki, child of Loki
Future history books will write:
“2016 was the year that America elected a SPAMMER as President. In the following years, they passed the 28th Amendment, which decreed a summary death penalty for spammers. And there was much rejoicing.”
mali muso
And since there isn’t a functioning edit button…the last paragraph is linked to a story in the Guardian. Wasn’t intended to turn the whole text block into a hyperlink, but oh well.
satby
If you have a moment, you may want to go share a condolence to commenter jackmac on the loss of his Daisy. He told us on the almost dead morning thread.
satby
@mali muso: horrible. And our country is probably AWOL in any assistance. Which makes me so ashamed.
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: Would bet it was meant to be a FEMA alert.
Oh well. In happier news, if this is the week BK’s nomination bites the dust, and he is in trouble with his DC Circuit Court job, I will be happy. Gotta look for the good stuff.
VOR
@Betty Cracker: Yep, Trump is the Seven Deadly Sins in an ill-fitting suit.
Lust – Stormy Daniels, etc…
Gluttony – two scoops, well-done steaks
Greed – obvious
Sloth – “Executive time” most of the day
Wrath – also obvious
Envy – reversing everything Obama did
Pride – Orange spray-tan skin, thing he calls hair on his head
But he’s giving the Evangelicals the gift of Brett Kavanaugh so Trump clearly is an instrument of God.
Cheryl Rofer
@mali muso: Fixed it for you. I have been partly following the story of the quake. Terrible.
SFAW
According to a headline over at Josh’s place, the Traitor-in-Chief is apparently making noises about Senator Leahy’s drinking. If I could stomach reading any more about that fucking racist, misogynistic traitor, I’d provide more details, but I find that doing so incites darker-than-usual thoughts.
Thank FSM that ZEGS and Traitor Turtle will rein in his worst excesses.
Waldo
Because “Two Minutes Hate” was already taken.
FlyingToaster
@Betty Cracker:
This was actually named in-Congress, to distinguish this from every other alert you phone can have. Wikipedia.
FlyingToaster
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I don’t think that DND will stop it, per the FEMA specs. The idea is that it’s supposed to wake you up.
Putting the iPhone on airplane mode at 2, turn it back on at 3. Bringing the (wifi-only) iPad. Don’t turn on TV. Et cetera.
SFAW
@SFAW:
Re: Leahy: I have no idea if he has a drinking problem, by the way. I’m assuming he doesn’t, and it’s just Fuckhead being Fuckhead, because the Secret Service will protect him from Leahy (or anyone else) beating the ever-loving shit out of that motherfucker.
Elizabelle
I feel like it’s Friday already.
Mary
@Betty Cracker: No, it has always been called a Presidential Alert.
Mary
@germy: Yes.
boatboy_srq
@MomSense: I like Yelle’s version better
Whatever
Maintenant j’ai le choix
J’attend pas
Decollage immediat
Whatever
Maintenant j’ai le droit
Et ce doigt que je leve
To le vois?
mali muso
@Cheryl Rofer: Thanks. Yeah, it’s been pretty awful all around. Knowing the geography of the region from experience, the roads in and out of the area weren’t all that good or safe on a normal day (it’s surrounded by mountains and the roads are twisty and precarious along rock mountainsides). So it makes sense that accessing the site has been so hard. But still, it’s incredibly frustrating to see how slow the rescue operation has been.
schrodingers_cat
We already get emergency alerts during bad weather how is this different?
schrodingers_cat
Did anyone see Frontline yesterday about Mueller, T and the Russia probe?
danielx
@boatboy_srq:
Ecrasez l’infame!
danielx
Now if I could just respond to him – you know, have a dialogue:
Trump text alert: This is your president, the best, GREATEST president!
Me: Go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut!
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: No. Because they billed it as a show about Trump.
Tell me it’s a show about Mueller and you have my attention.
rikyrah
The other Fredo rears his Odo-like head
Remember Trump-Russia? Remember treason?
We may have forgotten in the maelstrom of Bart Kavanaugh news. But you know who hasn’t forgotten? That’s right, Bobby Three Sticks.
And remember Eric Trump? For the most part he’s kept his head down, not being as much of a target as his brother Don Jr. But today, a story in the Wall Street Journal brought the other Fredo back onto center stage.
schrodingers_cat
@Elizabelle: It was 2 hours, first hour was about the FBI investigation into election and Comey’s role in it
The last hour about Mueller. But it was mainly about the horror show of the current presidency.
geg6
@schrodingers_cat:
No, but I wanted to and just realized now after your comment that I forgot to record it! Damn it! I was asked to give a financial aid talk in our residence hall last evening and, since it’s college students, the event didn’t even begin until 8 pm. It was good though, as we got more students to come and listen and ask questions that I ever anticipated. Got them all to download the new FAFSA app to their phones and hammered home the fact that they can get their FAFSAs for next fall done right now…today…immediately. So it was worth it.
schrodingers_cat
@geg6: PBS usually has its shows available for streaming for a few weeks after they air. You should check their website.
OzarkHillbilly
Not on my phone.
A Ghost To Most
Sorry, Dicktator Donald. Much action is needed.
rikyrah
New hacking case referred to Robert Mueller investigation
Rachel Maddow looks at a report of a surprise referral of an FBI investigation into the hacking of a Republican operative to Robert Mueller’s Trump Russia investigation.
Mnemosyne
@mali muso:
It’s awful. If you know what the best relief organizations for that region are, you could email one of the front-pagers and ask them to create a post so people know where they can donate. My go-to is Doctors Without Borders, but I know they don’t coordinate emergency supplies or help rebuild, so they may not be the best choice in this situation.
chopper
@rikyrah:
it’s fredos all the way down.
zhena gogolia
@mali muso:
It’s horrific. I’m so sorry.
NotMax
Alert at 2:18.
Collapse of nationwide cell service at 2:18:10.
Declaration of martial law at 2:18:12.
R-Jud
If it comes with a photo attachment, don’t open it. ?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
sounds like King, who is I believe far more popular in ME than Collins, is firing a warning shot at his colleague
and Continetti is Bill Kristol’s SIL who famously couldn’t explain why the Dems were like Neville Chamberlain when he was flinging that around wrt Iraq
zhena gogolia
@satby:
I fell in love with that dog on the BJ calendar and was meaning to find out who was her human companion. She was incredibly sweet (everybody look at your September calendar for Daisy).
FlyingToaster
@schrodingers_cat: Because you can’t decline Presidential Alerts in your settings, and DND won’t prevent it from setting off your phone.
Whenever I go out of town, I turn off Amber alerts, because I wouldn’t know where the fuck they’re talking about.
Elizabelle
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Continetti has it ass backwards, as is his forte.
The Kavanaugh vote is career-defining for those who envision any kind of career post-Trump. Trump and the Fox-spewing base are the pathogen; it seems many Republicans still think there’s a party beyond them.
Do you want to turn around and bend over for Mitch McConnell? Do you want to be jeered in your home state for years for putting a blackout drunk and credibly accused assault attempter on the Court?
Elizabelle
A new thread would be minty. Something with a sweet pet in it. Why not pop up a photo of the late Daisy, September calendar pup?
randy khan
I know this is boring, but this is 100% not a Trump thing. A Presidential Alert is an existing category of emergency alert, intended to be used in dire circumstances when the President needs to tell the entire country something.
This is the career professionals doing their jobs, something we all should be happy about. They did a similar test of the broadcast/cable very of the emergency alerts during the Obama Administration, which did not go well (lots of stations did not broadcast the alert because of technical problems) and led to some changes in the system to fix the problems.
Truth be told, you should leave your phone on to see if you get the alert. If you don’t, you should contact your carrier to say it didn’t come through.
Raven
@randy khan: oh come on, don’t ruin all the fun with facts!
Elizabelle
The FTF NY TImes had a really interesting story on his estate in Danville, CA (about 30 miles north of SFO), which is now home to Silicon Valley Affluenza. But you can still tour his home, which looks lovely. Had 158 acres when he and 3rd wife Carlota Monterey purchased it. They eventually sold it, and moved on to a succession of apartments in hotels.
Discovering Eugene O’Neill’s San Francisco
In Northern California, the playwright found solace from a past that haunted him, and wrote his greatest works.
Elizabelle
@randy khan: Good point.
And FEMA and other agencies are aware we are seeing more disastrous natural disasters. Severe weather and way more population in the path of it.
WaterGirl
@schrodingers_cat: No. Anything noteworthy?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@randy khan: that’s why I don’t really want to respond with “Release your tax returns, you cowardly cheeto-faced shitgibbon”, because if it even gets through, it will just cause aggravation to a lower-level career employee just doing a job
Spanky
@R-Jud: Is that a toadstool in your comment, or are you just happy to see me?
NotMax
@randy khan
Each time an EBS message comes across on the cable TV service now it shuts off the soundbar. Didn’t used to be so.
H.E.Wolf
@mali muso:
Deepest sympathies to your former neighbors in Palu and Donggala, and to you. Thank you for boosting the signal.
Ohio Mom
How many fender-benders and worse as drivers dig into their pockets and purses to see why their phones are making that awful noise?
Not everyone follows the news, a lot of people are going to be surprised and mystified and even panicked.
Martin
@schrodingers_cat: It makes sense that we’d want a national alert in the event of a 9/11 type attack, super-regional time sensitive weather phenomena like a tsunami threatening the west coast, or a rogue FBI agent and his lover initiating a WITCH HUNT. NO COLLUSION!
Some crises have national reach and scope beyond NOAA.
r€nato
Imagine the epic right-wing meltdown if the black guy had forced a text message onto everybody’s phone. It would be compared to Stalin.
Martin
@Ohio Mom: Well, there’s no way to do this type of thing without that situation. Normally these kinds of messages override your phones ‘Do not disturb while driving’ feature (Amber alerts do), but it’d be nice if test messages could carry a flag that they’re tests so that they don’t override that feature in that case.
R-Jud
@Spanky: Nobody is happy to see the toadstool.
Mnemosyne
@randy khan:
This is yet another example of Everything Trump Touches Dies. Under normal circumstances, having this kind of alert system would make perfect sense, but people are understandably worried about Trump abusing this power just like all of his other ones.
germy
I just saw the trailer for “Vice”
(Movie about Dick Cheney, with Christian Bale as Cheney)
r€nato
@Mnemosyne: many of us still remember how the Rapeublicans abused the color-coded terror alert system to scare voters into voting W in 2004.
Elizabelle
NPR is so goddamned callous.
Kelsie Snow. Their Trump/GOP whisperer. She assured us weeks ago that Kavanaugh was going to be a problem for Red State Democrats.
Now she’s telling us, earnestly, that Trump feels he was falsely accused of sexual assault.
She sounds about 23 years old.
This media whore has a bright future at the NY Times or Politico.
Leto
My iPhone allows me to turn off emergency notifications and amber alerts. It’ll be off until 1430 EST today. It’ll probably remain off as I’ll forget about it. Working as intended.
r€nato
apropos of my comment above (#84): remember that time when the butthurt right-wing lost their tiny little minds because Obama gave an address to pre-K students across the country via closed-circuit TV? That was entirely OPTIONAL to attend? Nevertheless butthurt crybabies still smarting over Old Spice and Bible Spice losing to The Great Black Satan pulled their kids out of school that day to avoid being contaminated with socialist cooties; apparently “study hard and stay in school” is a message of socialist indoctrination.
https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2009/09/02/conservatives-on-obamas-stay-in-school-speech-i/154139
Tarragon
@Leto:
“Presidential Alert” is a third category and is not supposed to be blockable.
C. Isaac
@Leto:
You’re lucky. My Android Galaxy S7 tells me ‘presidential alerts are mandatory and cannot be turned off’ regardless of my ability to turn off all other types. So looks like I’m turning the thing off around two for a half hour.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
This made me chuckle
It’s almost like you’d have to be distracted by the pursuit of compensatory flashy assets like neon covered casin0s, airlines, football teams and…. mail-order steaks and be completely clueless about actual real estate. Didn’t he lose money on the freakin’ Plaza Hotel?
randy khan
@Raven:
Yeah, I know, I’m being a total killjoy here. It’s just that this is connected to what I do for a living, so I can’t help myself.
Would it help if I said this is a distraction from something or other?
chopper
@r€nato:
oh, come on. it’s not like republicans flipped out when obama cut a video for school kids telling them to stay in school and do their homework.
randy khan
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah, I know. FWIW, the system already existed before Trump was in the White House; this is just the first nationwide test (which is pretty quick, actually, considering it took decades to do the first national test of the broadcast/cable system).
Gin & Tonic
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yes.
r€nato
@chopper: covered that @ #92 :-)
NotMax
@germy
Which opens on December 25th. Because nothing says Happy Holidays like Dick Cheney. //
ruemara
@MomSense: I like you. Come sit by me.
ET
I know that this thing has been in the works for years (and it seems you can’t opt out) but it is unfortunate that it becomes real under a president large swaths of the country hate and don’t trust. Many will turn off their phones (like me) just to avoid what is likely to be nothing much at all and may be a good system for big emergencies because it is called a “presidential alert”. It has now become tainted with the stink of him.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So on Judge McDrunkenCryBay, it sounds like they trying make it all about Ford, not get witnesses.
Turtle is screaming “we will not be intimidated” which pretty much says he is personally. I suppose to a doughy, soft old man a bunch of angry women would be an actual threat. That might be why this is so crazy; a bunch of privileged white bois who just work up and realized all these women they’ve been bullying are an actual physical threat to them now and these guys are frantically trying to bluster their way out of it.
Frisk reaction to all this is telling, if he is really the voice of the Republicans moderates, such as they are, they seem to get this has gone off into looney land.
Leto
@Tarragon: @C. Isaac: Ah, “third” category. I only have the two listed. Back to plan A: turn it off. Repeating Mnemosyne: everything Trumpov touches, dies.
BlueGirlFromWyo
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: You mean all those economically anxious people have cell phones instead of health insurance? But what about personal responsibility?!?!?!?!?
Kraux Pas
@r€nato:
We all know facts have a liberal bias.
NotMax
@ET
Obligatory?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: the new very important clue on trumpy twitter is that Christine Blasey’s bitter ex-boyfriend says she once, in the mid-90s, gave a friend advice about taking a polygraph test, which proves…. something.
Manyakitty
@mali muso: And now a volcano is erupting there. Hope all your people are safe!
opiejeanne
@Baud: I do need a new cell phone. This one i six years old and it suffered a stroke last week, or maybe a heart attack. It was dead, like the famous parrot, but it rose from the dead a couple of hours later. It’s a wake up call telling me it’s time for a new one.
J R in WV
I won’t be receiving any text from President Trumpass today. I’m at home with no cell coverage and the phone is (as usual, unless I am actually using it) TURNED OFF !!
There is a large group of people with no cell coverage, ever, due to geographical conditions and the current limits of cell technologies. There are areas of the nation with no cell coverage because of those same geographical conditions. There are long stretches of Interstate highways in WV and other mountainous areas with NO Cell Coverage at all. Just like the 15th century, light a fire if you need help.
Cheryl Rofer
Here’s more about the earthquake in Indonesia.
J R in WV
Actually, I don’t do texts at all. Won’t open one to read it, won’t reply to one, just fuck that whole technology, you can’t make me use it. Don’t care who or what is on the other end. Publisher Clearing House with a $5million prize, fuck that too.
Can you tell I have my adorably curmudgeonly moments? Grrrrt1!
Brachiator
@germy:
Christian Bale as Cheney?? Wow. I gotta take a peek at this trailer.
Amy Adams as Lynne Cheney. OK. I’m sold. The movie opens on Christmas Day.
laura
Just saw CA Sectetary of State Alex Padilla give one hell of a speech to the general assembly at my Union’s conference. Voting! Only 13 dem SoS’ nationwide. Gerrymandering, suppression, and kobach fuckery. Well delivered, and well received.
Governor Jerry Brown up in an hour and change.
Brachiator
@Elizabelle:
It always amused me that some of his descendants could say “My grandpa was one of the most important, beloved, and influential artists of the 20th century. And my other grandfather was Eugene O’Neill.”
O’Neill’s daughter, Oona, married Charlie Chaplin, and had a brood of talented kids and grandkids.
Mnemosyne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I just realized something reading a crazy person’s comments on Facebook: they’re bullies who think that they’re alpha males, but as soon as they run into any kind of resistance or pushback, they dissolve into tears because they have no other way of relating to the world other than bullying people. If the people around them don’t soothe them and coddle them, they freak out.
schrodingers_cat
@WaterGirl: It was a good synopsis of our current national nightmare.
Uncle Cosmo
@VOR: Paraphrasing this from a coupla days back, but –
You might want to ask any fundies you communicate with who might still have half a brain (I know, I know, that’s a toughie) the following question:
I’d really like to see them wrap their pointy widduw heads around that. Not like I’m a solo-rated eschatological engineer here[1], but FFS, peeps….
——————-
[1] Though I did spend a fair number of vacations in WV staying with my aunt & uncle[2] when the Book of the Apocalypse[3] was half of the available reading material that I found at all interesting[4].
[2] Mom’s favorite sister & her husband, Also my godparents. Super people but not readers.
[3] Douay-Rheims version of Revelations.
[4] Closest thing they had to science fiction. The other half was a, ~800-page 1-volume history of WW2 which I’d probably read in its entirety a half-dozen times by age 12. /tmi
Ohio Mom
Is this alert system something that can be targeted by region? Because as dire as a tsunami hitting California would be, I don’t need to know about it ASAP here in Ohio.
Ditto for a volcano in the Pacific Northwest, a flood in Iowa, etc. It’s a big country. I’d just as soon not be startled by an alarm about what’s happening a thousand miles away from me.
The problem of course will be that lots of people have cell numbers with area codes from places they don’t live in anymore.
My main personal concern will always be tornados, and so far there doesn’t seem to be any way to provide anyone enough real warning.
Yes, we have tornado watches but all that means is that condition are ripe for a tornado, not that one will actually develop — and most of the time, they don’t. We already have sirens that sound for watches that most of us ignore.
Mnemosyne
@Uncle Cosmo:
Ah, but you misunderstand the fundie mentality, as explained by Fred Clark: since they interpret the warning that the Antichrist will lie to them in a very literal way, they actually find someone like Trump to be trustworthy, because he makes very little attempt to hide the fact that he’s a greedy, rapacious asshole. They think you should only be suspicious of the people who say they want to help you and make your life better, because those people are lying to you. The only trustworthy people are the ones who tell you that they’re going to screw you over.
In other words, they heard the Biblical warning to beware of those who speak of peace but bring war and interpreted it as you can only trust people who tell you they’re going to bring war, because people who say they want peace are all liars.
FlyingToaster
@J R in WV: Clearly you don’t have pre-teens with iPods or teenagers with iPhones/Droids.
I do, and the only reliable way to even find WarriorGirl at home is to text her. Otherwise I’m spending 10 minutes wandering up-n-down stairs, around the house and yard looking for her. She likes to hide behind the family room sofa, or behind the bed in the guest room, or above the terrace wall in the back yard. Maddening.
The neighbor kids who are in middle school are totally unfindable w/o their devices.
WereBear
@Uncle Cosmo: I resemble this remark.
Summers with my grandparents, in a tiny town, where we went to the library one a week I was able to get TWO books.
The rest of the time, it was a complete collection of Reader’s Digests from the end of WWII, an 1897 book on health advice for ladies (they were likely to die of constipation from spidery outhouses) and The Thousand and One Nights.
FlyingToaster
@Ohio Mom: Nope. This is for national emergencies.
ruemara
@opiejeanne: Can I recommend a google Pixel phone? And Project FI, which has been a phenomenal service.
@Mnemosyne: You’re not wrong. At least about white christian conservatism.
Martin
@Ohio Mom: I would argue that for a super-regional event, you want everyone to know. You want people that are texting with their kids or parents across the country to mention it. You want people about to get on planes to know about it. You want businesses that are dealing with customers or suppliers out there to know about it. Mt St Helens was a national event. It screwed up the entire country in various ways, but we also anticipated that one. We talked about it for weeks beforehand so we didn’t really need a national alert. Floods in Iowa are never so unexpected to need it. That’s not always going to be the case. Earthquakes and tsunamis occur in the span of minutes or hours. 9/11 was minutes or hours. Tornados are minutes or hours, but they’re very localized.
There are regional alerts. We just got our county alert, so we can probably expect the national one any minute now. We have a very on it county though. We are one of the few non-states to have a top level terrorism response structure. But the system can be subdivided however it makes sense. The alert asked for a reply to confirm receipt. It originated with the number of the office that sent the alert (they run each test out of a different command center) and it hit the land line phone and all 4 cell phones in the house simultaneously, and to be honest, I’m still trying to settle down from that. Having 15 devices in my house all going off at once is overwhelming.
For cell phones, the alerts don’t target your number, but the devices that are connected to towers in the region. So if you were visiting me in California, you would have gotten our county alert because the cell tower your device was hanging off of was in the county. You wouldn’t get an Ohio alert because you’re not in Ohio.
I suspect the solution for the tornado watches is going to be a device-level system. I have something like that on my phone now where it gives me a small alert when it thinks its going to rain within the next 15 minutes. I set it up locally and control whether its on or how annoying it is and it fires off of weather data for my current specific location, as in, if I drive to the store it’ll recalculate for half a mile away. What’s nice about it is that it has very few false alarms, particularly those that are due to a lack of granularity. A few days ago we got a flash flood alert because there was a thunderstorm near the mountain where the Holy Fire took place, but it fired for the entire county. Well, I’m miles from that mountain and there’s no way in hell a flash flood from there could reach me. And there are people that are 20 minutes further away from there. It had too much reach, and that’s why people learn to ignore them. That can be improved upon, but it’ll be a while before we decide that infrastructure is important to build out.
Tarragon
@Ohio Mom:
Wireless_Emergency_Alerts
Yup. The safety alerts and amber alerts are sent on a cell tower by tower basis and go to every phone connected to that tower. So they can be pretty narrowly targeted.
The presidential alert is sent the same way from the tower. But it’s every tower too.
gvg
@opiejeanne: Don’t check for updates and automatically install. Both Apple and Android have new buggy updates out. I use things I like till they don’t work so well anymore, and recently got a new ipad and a new phone. I let the ipad install the new IOS, and it locked up in a glitchy way. I had to have the geek squad wipe it and reinstall my stuff. luckily I didn’t have lots of personal stuff moved yet and still had the working old ipad, but it was annoying and frustrating until I realized what the solution had to be. My phone came in the mail 2 days ago and I am not installing the update that just came out. My tech friends say it’s buggy too.
I am having problems with the phone too. ATT store said we just have people download this app to both phones and you scan them on this barcode and the data transfers (or something like that). Well guess what my 5+years old phone isn’t compatible and there was no instruction on their website because the only answer is have the store do it. On line chat told me pretty quick, and they made me an appointment with confirmation emails that the store has been told to just do it. My phone is almost antique. I remember a similar reaction the last time I upgraded. Anyway, have them look this up before you leave the store.
JWL
“The Kushners apparently took their grudges seriously, and Christie sensed that Jared still harboured one against him”.
He put “the kid’s” father in prison, and then “sensed” something might be amiss in their relationship? Bluster and/or Bullshit, thy name is Christie.
The Moar You Know
Nixon wanted a device that would do this – it would turn on every TV in America and all three networks (I am just old enough to remember when there were only three networks, Christ I’m old) would carry whatever deranged bullshit he wanted to spew. This was during the time of the insane Nixon.
I’d actually like to take a deep dive into the history of those times with my psych background and try to figure out when he went insane. He was not always so. And I was far too young to have any idea of what was going on.
chopper
@FlyingToaster:
i can think of very few emergencies that are so big, the consequences so dire, that they require alerting every single cell phone in the country.
WereBear
@chopper: I can think of some urgent text messages everyone should get, like:
“Don’t eat the orange Twinkies!”
TenguPhule
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
You seem to be under the mistaken impression an Emergency Alert system cares about that.
Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)
@Tarragon: Then somebody is misjudging the alerts.
I live in southwestern Indiana near the Illinois border, yet have received Amber Alerts originating from Ohio.
TenguPhule
@Ohio Mom:
The alert is intended for national issues. Like a nuclear war breaking out.
D58826
While I’m sure I hate Der Fuhrer as much as any one, aren’t we overreacting a bit to this text message test. I don’t watch much TV but when I do I still see the emergency broadcast system test with the loud beep. I think it is/was called ‘Conlrad’. A hang over from the cold war/duck and cover days. With so many people going wireless it seems reasonable the FEMA/or whatever will go wireless also.
Really way down on my list of Trump deplorables.
misterpuff
How many “Reply to all” will we see?
D58826
They are getting better at it but its hard to provide adequate warning for an event that last 15 minutes and usually affects a land area a mile or so wide and a few miles in length. Florence on the other hand was kind of hard to miss. The storm made landfall within a mile or to of the prediction. Cold/wet comfort for coastal NC.
J R in WV
OK, now it’s 14:16 EDT and I DID NOT GET A Presidential Alert!!! Hurray! Left the phone on, brought it in from the car last night when I got home from phone banking, thought it would like a top off charge up, was down to 80% after 2 or 3 weeks riding around. Won’t work if you aren’t on line with a tower… darn!
Just shut it down, until I’m back on the network and need to use it for something.
I do understand being online 24/7, especially if you have a cohort of people who are also on line all the time. Just not for me, here, now.
Ohio Mom
@TenguPhule: I appreciate knowing how this stuff works on a technical level, that it goes through cell towers so it can indeed be targeted to a region. Thanks to all who explained this to me.
But I file “need to know a nuclear war just broke out” in the same folder as “look out, a meteor is about to land on your head.”
Yes, it could conceivably happen but I can’t worry about it. Like I said, the most likely unavoidable disaster in my neighborhood are tornados, and weather science is not yet at the point where it has anything very helpful to offer.
I think it interesting that Nixon wanted a similar alert system. It smells to me to be something of a propoganda effort, convincing people people that the world is full of dangers and only a “strong” (read Republican) president can protect us.
And right on cue, Trump has made my phone buzz very loudly. What personalized service! When has a Democrat done anything like this for me!
wkwv
Harshed my mellow, to put it mildly.
John M. Burt
#PresidentialAlert
There is an incompetent madman squatting in our White House. Take action immediately.
THIS IS NOT A DRILL
#ITMFA #donaldsDone #TheCallsAreComingFromInsideTheWhiteHouse
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Mnemosyne: Yep, if the guy was a real alpha male, why would he need to say it?
But I think the twist is these guy’s age is catching up with them and it’s getting harder and harder for them to bluff it so the terror there is growing.