Thursday, July 10, 2014
From Conelrad to Captcha
Fire season is here. Hot, dry, breezy. We missed out last year because temps were atypically moderate. We're back to typical patterns this year.
A fairly large fire is burning about 10 miles north of Spokane, with visible haze. So I've been a little more alert than usual.
This morning at 3:10 the NPR station was interrupted by a non-test EAS message. I sharpened up and listened carefully. Was this important info about the fire?
The message, as always, was superimposed on the sound of a vacuum cleaner picking up gravel, and it was read by a primitive 1979 speech synthesizer that doesn't separate words and doesn't pronounce local names properly. (Kottney county, Cordaleeen) The effect, as always, was the audio equivalent of reading a Captcha. Maximally difficult pattern recognition task.
No, it wasn't about the fire. It was about some neighborhood where the 911 phone service wasn't working right.
This is how "our" "government" "works". Warnings about real emergencies DO NOT OCCUR. Warnings about meaningless semi-situations DO OCCUR, but they're presented in Captcha style to guarantee that you remain totally confused. The only clear warnings are the Custody Dispute Warnings. Those are read by actual humans with good radio voices and good pronunciation in a quiet studio environment.
Conclusion: We do not need to know about events that could kill us. We only need to know about a biological parent who DARES to repossess her kid from official custody. We are obliged to beware of biological parents. It is our duty to destroy all biological parent-child relationships.
Huxley would understand. Nobody else would.
¶ 8:06 AM 
The message, as always, was superimposed on the sound of a vacuum cleaner picking up gravel, and it was read by a primitive 1979 speech synthesizer that doesn't separate words and doesn't pronounce local names properly. (Kottney county, Cordaleeen) The effect, as always, was the audio equivalent of reading a Captcha. Maximally difficult pattern recognition task.
No, it wasn't about the fire. It was about some neighborhood where the 911 phone service wasn't working right.
This is how "our" "government" "works". Warnings about real emergencies DO NOT OCCUR. Warnings about meaningless semi-situations DO OCCUR, but they're presented in Captcha style to guarantee that you remain totally confused. The only clear warnings are the Custody Dispute Warnings. Those are read by actual humans with good radio voices and good pronunciation in a quiet studio environment.
Conclusion: We do not need to know about events that could kill us. We only need to know about a biological parent who DARES to repossess her kid from official custody. We are obliged to beware of biological parents. It is our duty to destroy all biological parent-child relationships.
Huxley would understand. Nobody else would.
¶ 8:06 AM
