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Do you need to tell the citizens of the United States to kiss their asses goodbye? Have a tornado that interrupts Michael Wilbon's viewing of a tape delayed sporting event? Need to scare the poo poo out of kids who just want to watch The Price is Right when school is closed? Then the Emergency Alert System is here for you! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85mIjzJ7WuI The EAS replaced the Emergency Broadcast System in 1997, the EBS replaced CONELRAD in 1963. Each system is meant to communicate timely with citizens and has grown from forcing everyone to listen to one of two AM frequencies should the Russkies start World War III, to an omnipresent block on your television and phone to tell you a child has probably not been abducted on the opposite end of the broadcast market from you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqigWSZDq3A The system does have its benefits to remind you not to look out the window when a tornado is bearing down, but it's original purpose has thankfully never been needed. It's also provided the sound effects for a fan fiction community who spread their craft on youtube, just don't you dare broadcast  853 and 960 Hz over the radio or television or the FCC will fine your morning zoo for the false alarm. My OP is going to try to focus on the history and when things don't work the way they are supposed to. When EAS is not activated, they usually say the media did a better job.CONELRAD (1951-1963): Duck and Cover! But first turn your dial to 640 or 1240. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWLNPCPs1Zc Back in the days of strategic bombers delivering atomic hellfire, the idea was to maintain radio silence except for the occasional information bursts on two designated AM frequencies, hopefully confusing any Russians using radio for navigation. The system of rapidly cylcing the transmitters off and on prior to 1 kHz tone was both damaging to the equipment and prone to false alarms during lighting storms. Improvements in technology, including ICBMs, left CONELRAD in need of upgrades. EBS (1963-1997): So much for you spending a snow day watching cartoons, the world is ending. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YFp_ZeDg8A This is probably what you still call the system. The technology improved to use teletype and primary entry point stations to relay the messages across all broadcast media and press wires. It was eventually expanded to include local emergencies and was supposedly activated over 20,000 times. Thanks to the internet, the EBS of most goons' childhoods was replaced by the EAS, with all the weird tones and text-to-speech you now know. EAS (1997-Current) MOAR TONES iospace posted:Quoting from a while back, the voice gets muffled because it's a pretty simplistic (and lossy) encoding, so a lot of quality gets lost. Usually it's coming from weather offices or police stations, where they don't tend to spend a lot of money as well for high end audio equipment for that. The current system was overhauled in 1997. Gone are the minute long tests, replaced with 15 second burst that can come at all hours of the day. Depending on what kind of cable company you have, the lockout system may get stuck occasionally, preventing you from watching Law and Order: SVU for the trillionth time. Feel free to post your favorite alerts, annoyed tweeters who just want to watch NCIS and other emergency notifications you may have. BONUS: If the world is truly ending, this is what Ted Turner wants you to see on CNN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JnfAr_YSxs This concludes this shitpost... EDIT: Dude who had a kickass EAN tape from WGN caught a youtube ban. Oh well... InsensitiveSeaBass fucked around with this message at 13:52 on Jun 3, 2019 |
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Apr 23, 2019 15:43
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Moments in Emergency Broadcast History, usually screw-ups CONELRAD had two regional issues where the west coast underwent blackout in 1955 when the Canadians were unaware of a B-47 bomber training run. In 1959, an erroneous activation message would black out Green Bay and Upper Penninsula Michigan. Both were corrected before the CONELRAD stations were turned on. 2/20/71, The HATEFULNESS U Give: During the EBS days, cards were given to stations monthly bearing test words and EAN codewords. NORAD accidently sent real codeword "HATEFULNESS" over teletype and 20% of stations followed protocol completely, including WOWO and WCCO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu4r79l8P8I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B1EAeh6H_I 40 minutes and six incorrect cancellation messages later, the alert was officially retracted. The FCC would stop test EAN's for nearly two years whiled they made corrections. 1992 A true EBS activation during the riots after the Rodney King trial, complete with the poo poo radio that every emergency service has: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4JnrJOKC8w 1996: Amber Hagerman is abducted and murdered in Texas. This is the motivating case behind amber alerts, where confirmed abductions of children with enough of a description of pertinent facts and risk of serious harm or death will lead to activation. "Officially" successful, and potentially useful in truly life threatening situations, this is also likely: wilderthanmild posted:A few years ago I had a dream that nuclear war was about to start. I then woke up to my phone making the noise of doom for an Amber alert. Unfortunately it bugged out in my phone, so I got the little dialog with the warning icon, but no message. I got the actual message way after the fact, but was already wide awake. 9/11/2001 EAS not activated, they forgot.  (This is the #1 with a bullet "the media did a better job so we didn't bother" case)2005 It's not a false alarm if it's true: EAS activated to order the evacuation of Connecticut. Only 1% of people polled attempted to follow the order. 2013, Olympus has Fined Your rear end: Advertising for Olympus has Fallen included commercials with EAS tones and a blown up White House. The FCC fined companies $1,900,000. 2014, Worse than his Dancing with the Stars win: Country DJ Bobby Bones complains about the World Series being interrupted by EAS. He decided to play the tones to illustrate his point. Problem is, some of his syndication stations may have been Primary Entry Points and it managed to screw up TV stations down the line. The FCC fines iHeartMedia $1,000,000. Bobby Bones then manages to expose all the flaws of letting people vote in Dancing with the Stars. 1/13/2018, Hey Vern! Watch me make Hawaii nuts! Hawaii Emergency management clicks the wrong link, sends the above false alarm that North Korean missiles are inbound. InsensitiveSeaBass fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Apr 25, 2019 |
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Apr 23, 2019 15:44
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Other countries have Emergencies too: International Emergency Broadcasts Former British territories seem to think our noises are too soft.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVtq4Oj0u0k  (If you find the right video, you get Robot French in a addition to Robot English)insert_funny posted:Canada: where the EAS (or Alert Ready in local nomenclature) plops itself right in the center of your screen so you can't possibly ignore it. Britain herself has no true Emergency System at the current time, just something called https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozuFCYJQ4os  Has the J-alert system, which covers some highly specific situations, including Earthquakes, Tsunamis, Ballistic Missile Launches and even Guerilla Invasions:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrt26UfL13I Tangentially, NHK has one of the calmest breaking news tones, as seen when they announced Hirohito had died: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDJ-U2J_PQo Mexico: Desperado Bones posted:I find it funny that my country doesn't have a single TV emergency alert system. We get a gently caress ton of natural disasters, so it's odd as gently caress. Historic Events  Less an official alert system, more we're making you leave Pripyat:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l3g3m8Vrgs Desert Storm Brings us these two air raid warnings from Saudia Arabia, switching to All Clear after a little over seven minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGiarFjUN9g and Israel, though I have more question about where the dude is dragging that woman before the warning, then what the IDF guy is building after: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Apf9jX0Fi_g InsensitiveSeaBass fucked around with this message at 15:48 on Sep 6, 2019 |
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Apr 23, 2019 15:48
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Oh man I am here for this thread. Broadcast creeewwwwww
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Apr 23, 2019 16:10
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Oh man, this poo poo. So I did college radio for a while, and one of the things we had to do was take a test. A good... third of it was dedicated to day to day operations, like "how do you take meter readings", "what to do if the computer crashes", etc. The rest was solely on EAS. How to use the transceiver, what to do when EAS went off, how to do the weekly test if it came up on your shift, etc. By law in the US, you're required to monitor several counties for severe weather alerts (which is really all you're concerned about, and this was the era before Amber Alerts, so I don't know how those are handled). The most annoying thing was if there is a tornado and/or severe thunderstorm warning in any of those counties, and the station was manned, you had to remain manned until those warnings cleared. So let's flashback a few years. It's the summer, and in the upper Midwest, that's storm season for us. The entire area is covered in watches. We're doing our usually 4 or so hours on air to pass the time and shoot poo poo in the station, and we're keeping a close eye on things. First warning comes down. Then another. Another. We're all groaning because now we have to stay on air until this system passes over our region. And then it happens. All warnings in the area are cleared. We quickly cut the music, announce we're going off air, and shut down. As soon as we shut down the transceiver starts printing another warning.
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Apr 23, 2019 16:23
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iospace posted:Oh man, this poo poo. lmao this is the 2nd realest thing in college radio behind being buried in lovely single CDs/8" vinyl singles and stickers from bad indie bands
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Apr 23, 2019 16:35
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THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN PADUCAH AS ISSUED A TORNADO WARNING everyone in southern indiana/illinois  I feel like I've heard that so much it's not even scary anymore edit: also I'm sure everyone says this but I'm pretty sure NWS Paducah has the worst eas voice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hf9wEjqYUg8 Peanut President fucked around with this message at 17:02 on Apr 23, 2019 |
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Apr 23, 2019 16:58
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DJExile posted:lmao this is the 2nd realest thing in college radio behind being buried in lovely single CDs/8" vinyl singles and stickers from bad indie bands My CD collection has so many CDs with, "SAMPLE ONLY DO NOT REMOVE FROM STATION" or something to that effect on them. I wasn't behind the mic, but my friend was. Ironically, just as I was linked to this thread, my phone popped up an Amber Alert, for...squints...a city 10 hours from here.
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Apr 23, 2019 18:29
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Dirt Road Junglist posted:My CD collection has so many CDs with, "SAMPLE ONLY DO NOT REMOVE FROM STATION" or something to that effect on them. I wasn't behind the mic, but my friend was. Right after I hit post, Pennsylvania decided to do its monthly test. 
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Apr 23, 2019 19:34
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Dirt Road Junglist posted:My CD collection has so many CDs with, "SAMPLE ONLY DO NOT REMOVE FROM STATION" or something to that effect on them. I wasn't behind the mic, but my friend was. hahaha yessssssss back on topic I kind of love that sirius/XM runs EAS tests these days too and it still sounds every bit as scratchy and staticy
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Apr 24, 2019 14:20
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Did EAS get activated for 9/11?
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Apr 24, 2019 18:45
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:Did EAS get activated for 9/11? Not nationally, it was close though if they couldn't get a hold of W. The only national activation has been for four tests, the most recent one in October. The three previous ones were via traditional means, first happening in 2011 (with some issues), then 2016 and 2017. The October one was unique because it also involved cell phone testing for the first time. iospace fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Apr 24, 2019 |
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Apr 24, 2019 18:53
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iospace posted:The only national activation has been for four tests, the most recent one in October. The three previous ones were via traditional means, first happening in 2011 (with some issues), then 2016 and 2017. The October one was unique because it also involved cell phone testing for the first time. The October one was where we all got a Text from (The President), right? Which of course lead to many many memes.
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Apr 24, 2019 19:18
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Hockles posted:The October one was where we all got a Text from (The President), right? Which of course lead to many many memes. Yes. It was originally scheduled for September but got pushed back a month due to a hurricane.
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Apr 24, 2019 19:24
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A few years ago I had a dream that nuclear war was about to start. I then woke up to my phone making the noise of doom for an Amber alert. Unfortunately it bugged out in my phone, so I got the little dialog with the warning icon, but no message. I got the actual message way after the fact, but was already wide awake. I didn't go back to sleep that night.
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Apr 24, 2019 20:31
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wilderthanmild posted:A few years ago I had a dream that nuclear war was about to start. I then woke up to my phone making the noise of doom for an Amber alert. Unfortunately it bugged out in my phone, so I got the little dialog with the warning icon, but no message. I got the actual message way after the fact, but was already wide awake.  At least if my phone is set to full silent (which it is, always, unless I know my family is trying to get ahold of me; I have a smart watch for notifications), AMBER Alerts don't push through audibly.
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Apr 25, 2019 06:55
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Dirt Road Junglist posted:
You can actually disable Amber Alerts. Or at least on Samsung phones you can.
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Apr 25, 2019 07:01
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iospace posted:You can actually disable Amber Alerts. Or at least on Samsung phones you can. I'm part of the Apple Massive, so I can't do fuckall with my phone  E: Okay, total lies, there's a toggle for emergency alerts. But the spirit of my statement stands.
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Apr 25, 2019 07:02
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Dirt Road Junglist posted:
This was before they made the change to allow that. I remember that particular Amber alert made a bug fuss around here because of people all over the state of Ohio being awoken by the voice of doom about an Amber alert in a remote corner of the state. If I recall it was in Cincinnati, but they sent it out to the whole state at 3 am.
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Apr 25, 2019 18:13
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wilderthanmild posted:This was before they made the change to allow that. I remember that particular Amber alert made a bug fuss around here because of people all over the state of Ohio being awoken by the voice of doom about an Amber alert in a remote corner of the state. If I recall it was in Cincinnati, but they sent it out to the whole state at 3 am. Heh, they set up a system like that at work after the Google shootings, and there was an email about when the first test would go off during the work day, but hardly anyone actually paid attention to the comms. When it went off, it was such an amazing cacophony.
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Apr 26, 2019 00:23
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Canada: where the EAS (or Alert Ready in local nomenclature) plops itself right in the center of your screen so you can't possibly ignore it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Le4XGUgucTc [your signature is being processed. check the notification bar for updates]
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May 19, 2019 21:47
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uEgiswlryc
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May 24, 2019 14:35
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WNEP's Talkback 16 (also known from Last Week Tonight) recently got complaints (and two compliments!) for interrupting *checks notes* a Farrah Fawcett documentary and a repeat of Shark Tank: https://wnep.com/2019/05/24/talkback-16-the-weather/ (The warning barely went south of the Blue Mountains which goes into the Philadelphia DMA, but the Philadelphia stations didn't break in. There is an independent station in the Lehigh Valley that I'm sure broke in.)
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May 26, 2019 15:56
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Let's see how many fuckheads whine in Dayton and Columbus tonight. e, from silver nitrate in the weather thread: https://twitter.com/pod4g/status/1133185644241543168 iospace fucked around with this message at 05:38 on May 28, 2019 |
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May 28, 2019 05:30
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I just saw this thread and I am absolutely subscribed. I'm fascinated by EBS/EAS poo poo, especially the what-if scenarios and the protocols that would be followed in the event of truly nationwide emergencies (nuclear attack, Emergency Action Notification, etc). That drat alert tone scared the poo poo out of me as a kid. I'm not scared of it now but to this day it still makes the back of my neck shiver. iospace posted:Let's see how many fuckheads whine in Dayton and Columbus tonight. Holy poo poo. Some people really need to get their life priorities in order.
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May 30, 2019 18:25
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DizzyBum posted:Holy poo poo. Some people really need to get their life priorities in order. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alarm_fatigue is a thing. There is so many weather alerts it really does become background noise and it is hard to know that this or that one is the real one instead of the 50 small craft advisory warnings and flood warnings for places you don't live. And like clearly people should care about every alarm but that is what the concept of alarm fatigue is, once everything is marked top level important nothing is.
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May 30, 2019 19:44
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alarm_fatigue is a thing. There is so many weather alerts it really does become background noise and it is hard to know that this or that one is the real one instead of the 50 small craft advisory warnings and flood warnings for places you don't live. And like clearly people should care about every alarm but that is what the concept of alarm fatigue is, once everything is marked top level important nothing is. That's a real thing but it has nothing to do with people being angry that a Tornado Warning interrupted their TV show, so I'm at a loss for why you decided to bring it up.
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May 30, 2019 19:59
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PT6A posted:That's a real thing but it has nothing to do with people being angry that a Tornado Warning interrupted their TV show, so I'm at a loss for why you decided to bring it up. It applies here, if you're the sort of person who hears the alarms all the time for non-emergencies or distant emergencies (like how I had to turn off emergency weather alerts on my phone because they're frequently for the coast, and I live 100 miles inland), you're probably not gonna notice when an actual emergency happens.
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May 30, 2019 20:01
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InsensitiveSeaBass posted:1992 A true EBS activation during the riots after the Rodney King trial, complete with the poo poo radio that every emergency service has: Heads up, the guy who uploaded this is apparently a racist rear end in a top hat with his use of "dindu nuffin" in the description.
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May 30, 2019 20:03
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Dirt Road Junglist posted:It applies here, if you're the sort of person who hears the alarms all the time for non-emergencies or distant emergencies (like how I had to turn off emergency weather alerts on my phone because they're frequently for the coast, and I live 100 miles inland), you're probably not gonna notice when an actual emergency happens. And the midwest lately has had loads of tornado warnings, to the point where the entire state of OK was in in a tornado watch. These things don't actually hit a whole lot of ground relatively unlike a hurricane, so it's easy to get a lot of alerts for something that isn't affecting you. Complaining about it interrupting your show is pretty obnoxious though.
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May 30, 2019 20:19
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PT6A posted:That's a real thing but it has nothing to do with people being angry that a Tornado Warning interrupted their TV show, so I'm at a loss for why you decided to bring it up. There is 19 weather alerts in tulsa since yesterday, and similar amounts the 18th and the 19th and all sorts of other days, and more in counties around tulsa. Alarm fatigue isn't that the alarms aren't real or aren't important, but that once there is enough important alarms people can't react in any way but counting them as the normal and then someone needs to make a double extra special double alarm to get the same "this is serious" reaction the original alarms originally got even when it is serious, because that level of alarm is the new baseline. Even if all the alarms are real people still tune out the 50th one they hear, even if the reason there is 50 is because 50 actual bad thing happened. Kansas seems to have 71 separate weather alerts in the last 24 hours right now. from hail to tornados to flooding to strong winds.
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May 30, 2019 20:32
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PT6A posted:That's a real thing but it has nothing to do with people being angry that a Tornado Warning interrupted their TV show, so I'm at a loss for why you decided to bring it up. Growing up my broadcast area was huge; I got tons of flash flood to Tornado warnings for areas far to the east of me. I get what you’re saying but the fatigue thing is definitely related. It’s like snow closings for school districts or government. I don’t envy the people who have to make calls at 3am before a noon event may or may not hit—you can’t please everyone. Haters gonna hate.
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May 30, 2019 21:38
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Of all the fake EAS scenarios out there on Youtube, I think this one is my favorite. Hard to explain without spoiling it, but it's good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9ujfAvcIh4 Unfortunately there's a hell of a lot of really really loving bad EAS scenarios and parodies out there. Also a bunch of "Caillou Makes A Fake EAS And Gets Grounded" videos I don't know what the gently caress: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=fake+eas+grounded
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Jun 2, 2019 00:29
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Pollyanna posted:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NA1ozrioWMY I think the idea is that these super low quality mass produced youtube kids videos already used robot voices so they are going through all the different situations that use robot voices just anyway.
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Jun 2, 2019 01:21
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nah those aren't bot videos, they're basically little kid shitposts they used to mostly use GoAnimate but then that died, so I'm not sure what they're using nowadays
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Jun 2, 2019 02:34
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Hell yes this thread rules. I've always loved weird TV ephemera. This is probably my favorite fake EAS video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c66w6fVqOI
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Jun 2, 2019 17:51
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I'm making a few updates to the OP, including finally getting the international post fleshed out.Maxwell Lord posted:Heads up, the guy who uploaded this is apparently a racist rear end in a top hat with his use of "dindu nuffin" in the description. Son of a bitch, I never read YouTube descriptions. I'll dig around for a different real EBS activation that's not weather related, but those are few and far between. InsensitiveSeaBass fucked around with this message at 13:58 on Jun 3, 2019 |
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Jun 3, 2019 13:55
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Last week when we had some heavy rain over here in New Jersey, I was at work when my phone made the EAS Warning Tone From Hell. As did the other two pharmacy techs' phones. And my pharmacist's phone. And her Apple Watch. And the customer standing in line to pick up medicine's phone. And the customer in the drive-thru's phone. Over her car stereo, thank you very much Bluetooth. Hearing that "VORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRP" seven times in twenty seconds was a bit unnerving, I have to admit. Then it got funny because one tech didn't acknowledge her phone, so it kept making the EAS tone.
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Jun 5, 2019 02:58
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Snorb posted:Last week when we had some heavy rain over here in New Jersey... I was driving to see the USAF Museum in Dayton in the middle of a torrential downpour through 3/4 of the length of Ohio. About halfway through, with visibility of about 1/8 of a mile, the EAS tone blares on my phone...to warn me about potential flash flooding in the area I had no intention of staying in. Given the severity weather I was thinking tornado or *hail*.
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Jun 5, 2019 10:24
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Maybe the EAS warning wasn't about the rain but to warn you that you were actually in New Jersey?
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