Many of the call centers that handle your emergency calls are powered by out-dated technology. John Oliver thinks that’s “fine if you’re describing a Radio Shack, but a little scary if you’re calling a place that handles emergency situations.” He reckons that it’s time things changed.
The memorial is finished, the tower replacing it is occupied, and the museum is open—for better or for worse. Today, several of the largest remaining pieces of World Trade Center infrastructure from the 9/11 terrorist attacks were pulled out of storage to leave New York City.
San Francisco recently reported that its 911 system has experienced an incredible increase in calls since 2011. Was it due to its growing population? Or over-reporting? Or maybe just over-parenting? Nah: It was butt dials.
This morning, The New Yorker heralded the arrival of Speculative 9/11 Fiction with trepidation, calling the trend “unsettling.” The article is partly a commentary on how fiction of any kind deals with traumatic, culture-shaping events, and partly a review of the new anthology In the Shadow of the Towers: Speculative…
Utter the words—and we don’t suggest you do—“charge my phone 100 percent” to Siri, and your iPhone will try and call the emergency services, after a five-second grace period in which you can cancel it. But why?
Carl Sagan is arguably science's biggest rockstar—the ultimate champion for logic and reason. Which makes it all the more painful to find out that his son is a vehement 9/11 truther.
In 1992, mere days after Windows 3.1 was released, it was revealed that typing the letters NYC in Wingdings—Microsoft’s all-symbols font—produced the following antisemitic and/or Jewish conspiracy-backed text, depending on who you asked:
Yesterday, Vox somehow managed to write an entire article about the history of Oracle and its founder Larry Ellison without mentioning the CIA even once. Which is pretty astounding, given the fact that Oracle takes its name from a 1977 CIA project codename. And that the CIA was Oracle's first customer.
22 Words found this little clip by Mark LaGanga, recorded just after the first World Trade Center tower fell on September 11, 2001. One simple understated phrase from a man walking away from the wreckage.
Just this past Friday, the FCC voted to require all mobile carriers and "interconnected text providers" (i.e. iMessage) to allow their customers to text 911 by by next year. Which would be great except for one, itty-bitty little problem: The FCC can't do actually anything about it.
According to a recent FCC notice, anyone dialing 911 in the small township of Caddo County, Oklahoma was greeted by an automated recording telling them to "hang up and dial 911." A ghoulish game of merry-go-round that went on for months.
Before the 1960s, the United States didn't have one universal phone number for Americans to call if they needed help from the police or fire department. Callers simply had to know the phone number for each department in the area they were currently in.
You can't always call 911 when you need to, so starting today, you can send a text 911 in an emergency.
The 9/11 Museum, which opened today after years of construction, sits 70 feet below sea level. Nestled into the bedrock that supports the entire city, it's protected by strong walls and great engineering—yet it, like so much of the city, will inevitably be threatened by rising tides.
The National September 11 Memorial Museum opens to the public tomorrow here in New York City after more than a decade of complications, and amidst not always civil disagreements over what the museum should be in the first place—what its narrative intentions might be and whether or not it could ever be possible to…
Jalopnik says that the top of the Porsche 911 Targa is completely bonkers. I think I agree. Instead of the entire hard top roof disappearing into the car like other hardtop convertibles, the 911 Targa gets to keep the slick curved glass back while in topless mode. Awesome.
You've heard the cautionary tales about dialing 911 on your cell phone. A call about missing children in Illinois gets routed to Canada. A stroke victim in New York is only located after a grueling eight-hour search. Locating 911 calls in 2014 is a byzantine process that involves generating a fake phone number—but a…
If you've ever taken a lunchtime stroll in Lower Manhattan, you've seen them: Sightseers (and locals, too) with their eyes raised skyward, watching the construction of One World Trade Center. Annoying to some, but revealing to photographer Keith Goldstein—whose photo essay Looking On captures the craning.
Some heinous American companies think they can promote their brands with shameless 9/11 tributes. But there's worse. Much worse—these extraordinary imbeciles threw a 9/11 commemorative party using Muslim and US military costumes.
These are the 88 lights that form New York's 9/11 memorial Tribute in Light, as captured using fisheye lenses from the inside. A weird perspective that makes it look like one of the spaceships from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Really beautiful shot.
