4 ms·

I remember ① buying a can of this from a vending machine at MIT, when I visited while I was in high school ② occasionally calling 1-800-I-FEEL-OK, especially

by schoen 7y ago

I remember ① buying a can of this from a vending machine at MIT, when I visited while I was in high school ② occasionally calling 1-800-I-FEEL-OK, especially to test out a phone or something

baxtr 7y ago
I upvote this because I’m impressed by the number icons.
- qubex 7y ago
  “Enclosed Unicode Numerals”
  - phonon 7y ago
    Very common in Japan.
    - numpad0 7y ago
      Japanese language require IME to type, which converts sound written in hiragana to kanji: i.e. you type soba → get “そば” → IME suggests you “蕎麦”. Basically a stretch of modern phone keyboard correction but existed since the 80s. Nice side effect to it is while there are predetermined sets of conversions coming with IME, it also handles some arbitrary mapping for convenience, i.e. かお(face) → ( ´∀｀) or きょう(today) → 2020/04/08. iOS Japanese keyboard gives me following for literally number 1: 1 １ ① 一 ⅰ Ⅰ 1K ⒈ ⑴
  - ShroudedNight 7y ago
    Searching for that string explicitly [on Google] only yielded HN results, but relaxing the search terms yielded: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosed_Alphanumerics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosed_Alphanumerics
travbrack 7y ago
I used to spend hours on the hotline as a kid. It was really weird and entertaining.
PopeDotNinja 7y ago
I just called this number to try it out. It's a phone sex line now. There are supposedly hot girls for guys to talk to, but I didn't investigate the veracity of this claim.
- have_faith 7y ago
  I will volunteer to perform this hard hitting investigate journalism.
  - ben_w 7y ago
    Now I have two questions: 1. Is the sort of thing ever outsourced to, for example, India? Or wherever else is a common place for call centres if it’s no longer there. 2. Is anyone currently doing this with chat bots and speech synthesisers?
    - PopeDotNinja 7y ago
      >> 1. Is the sort of thing ever outsourced to, for example, India? Or wherever else is a common place for call centres if it’s no longer there I don't know if there are call centers full of phone sex workers. You'd have the same background noise you get when calling any call center. And the workers would have to get paid when nothing was happening. Here's a read on the topic: https://www.businessinsider.com/reality-of-being-a-phone-sex-operator-2015-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/reality-of-being-a-phone-sex... >> 2. Is anyone currently doing this with chat bots and speech synthesisers? Me: Hey Google, talk dirty to me. Google: Manure. Dust. Crusty crumbs on the floor. <Poop emoji> I can only report that Google does not talk dirty to me at this time.
- DonHopkins 7y ago
  In the 80's I once met a guy who claimed to own the phone number on the "HOW'S MY DRIVING? CALL 1 (800) EAT-SHIT" bumper stickers, a parody of all those trucker's bumper stickers with real 800 numbers to report them to their masters. Not sure how he monetized it, but he had some scheme going on, and paid for it by selling the bumper stickers. Probably he sold more to all the careless drivers who called and wanted one too, than actual shit eaters. https://www.ebay.com/itm/HOWS-MY-DRIVING-CALL-1-800-EAT-SHIT-VINYL-DECAL-STICKER-/390467834464 https://www.ebay.com/itm/HOWS-MY-DRIVING-CALL-1-800-EAT-SHIT...
DonHopkins 7y ago
Do you remember the vending machines around that time on MIT campus that had games built in: some LEDs that would blink after you purchased a coke, and if you won, you got a free coke! I think there also were some musical coke machines, too. (I was also visiting while in high school!) When I worked at the CMU CS department, my office was right down the hall from the Internet Coke Machine, and you could "finger coke@cmua" to see how many sodas of what kind there were, and what their temperature was. https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~coke/history_long.txt https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~coke/history_long.txt https://www.ibm.com/blogs/industries/little-known-story-first-iot-device/ https://www.ibm.com/blogs/industries/little-known-story-firs... https://www.livinginternet.com/i/ia_myths_coke.htm https://www.livinginternet.com/i/ia_myths_coke.htm

by schoen 7y ago

I remember ① buying a can of this from a vending machine at MIT, when I visited while I was in high school ② occasionally calling 1-800-I-FEEL-OK, especially to test out a phone or something

baxtr 7y ago

I upvote this because I’m impressed by the number icons.

qubex 7y ago
“Enclosed Unicode Numerals”
- phonon 7y ago
  Very common in Japan.
  - numpad0 7y ago
    Japanese language require IME to type, which converts sound written in hiragana to kanji: i.e. you type soba → get “そば” → IME suggests you “蕎麦”. Basically a stretch of modern phone keyboard correction but existed since the 80s. Nice side effect to it is while there are predetermined sets of conversions coming with IME, it also handles some arbitrary mapping for convenience, i.e. かお(face) → ( ´∀｀) or きょう(today) → 2020/04/08. iOS Japanese keyboard gives me following for literally number 1: 1 １ ① 一 ⅰ Ⅰ 1K ⒈ ⑴
- ShroudedNight 7y ago
  Searching for that string explicitly [on Google] only yielded HN results, but relaxing the search terms yielded: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosed_Alphanumerics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosed_Alphanumerics

travbrack 7y ago

I used to spend hours on the hotline as a kid. It was really weird and entertaining.

PopeDotNinja 7y ago

I just called this number to try it out. It's a phone sex line now. There are supposedly hot girls for guys to talk to, but I didn't investigate the veracity of this claim.

have_faith 7y ago
I will volunteer to perform this hard hitting investigate journalism.
- ben_w 7y ago
  Now I have two questions: 1. Is the sort of thing ever outsourced to, for example, India? Or wherever else is a common place for call centres if it’s no longer there. 2. Is anyone currently doing this with chat bots and speech synthesisers?
  - PopeDotNinja 7y ago
    >> 1. Is the sort of thing ever outsourced to, for example, India? Or wherever else is a common place for call centres if it’s no longer there I don't know if there are call centers full of phone sex workers. You'd have the same background noise you get when calling any call center. And the workers would have to get paid when nothing was happening. Here's a read on the topic: https://www.businessinsider.com/reality-of-being-a-phone-sex-operator-2015-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/reality-of-being-a-phone-sex... >> 2. Is anyone currently doing this with chat bots and speech synthesisers? Me: Hey Google, talk dirty to me. Google: Manure. Dust. Crusty crumbs on the floor. <Poop emoji> I can only report that Google does not talk dirty to me at this time.
DonHopkins 7y ago
In the 80's I once met a guy who claimed to own the phone number on the "HOW'S MY DRIVING? CALL 1 (800) EAT-SHIT" bumper stickers, a parody of all those trucker's bumper stickers with real 800 numbers to report them to their masters. Not sure how he monetized it, but he had some scheme going on, and paid for it by selling the bumper stickers. Probably he sold more to all the careless drivers who called and wanted one too, than actual shit eaters. https://www.ebay.com/itm/HOWS-MY-DRIVING-CALL-1-800-EAT-SHIT-VINYL-DECAL-STICKER-/390467834464 https://www.ebay.com/itm/HOWS-MY-DRIVING-CALL-1-800-EAT-SHIT...

DonHopkins 7y ago

Do you remember the vending machines around that time on MIT campus that had games built in: some LEDs that would blink after you purchased a coke, and if you won, you got a free coke! I think there also were some musical coke machines, too. (I was also visiting while in high school!) When I worked at the CMU CS department, my office was right down the hall from the Internet Coke Machine, and you could "finger coke@cmua" to see how many sodas of what kind there were, and what their temperature was. https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~coke/history_long.txt https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~coke/history_long.txt https://www.ibm.com/blogs/industries/little-known-story-first-iot-device/ https://www.ibm.com/blogs/industries/little-known-story-firs... https://www.livinginternet.com/i/ia_myths_coke.htm https://www.livinginternet.com/i/ia_myths_coke.htm