4 ms·

One possibility is to call 911 and ask what time is it.

by infthi 1y ago

accrual 1y ago
I know this wasn't meant literally, but it does make for an interesting thought experiment - under what circumstances might it be valid to dial 911 to ask for the time? My first thought was something like a nuclear operator - "we need to shut down the core at exactly 19:00, but our clocks are down!" so they call and wait for the operator to advise when the time is reached. Obviously contrived and not realistic, but interesting to think about.
- mattbee 1y ago
  In the UK they are fine with you calling 999 to test your newly-configured office phone routing. They don't want a chat though.
  - fc417fc802 1y ago
    That's a bit different than asking for the time. That's testing a newly configured emergency system to make sure it works.
- zzo38computer 1y ago
  > under what circumstances might it be valid to dial 911 to ask for the time? Maybe, if all of your clocks don't work and you went to somewhere else and their clock isn't working either, and it is raining and you cannot use a sundial, and you tried to call everyone else already and they also cannot give you the time for whatever reason, then you might try to call 911 and ask them, because you tried everything else and it didn't work. (I once heard a (fictional) story where this happened. This is an unlikely scenario, but some of the things mentioned here (and other things) might happen, e.g. bad weather so you cannot go out, the television and computers are not working (and maybe the power is out but the telephone uses a separate power), and there are some problems with the telephone too (I have had problems before where some telephone numbers worked and some didn't), etc.)
  - HappMacDonald 1y ago
    Well given that virtually everyone's "telephones" are cell phones which would be incapable of making calls unless they connected to the network, and the network would be incapable of handling their calls without also telling the phone what time it is, this situation becomes far less tenable in 2025 vs the 20th century when land lines were king. :)
- disillusioned 1y ago
  That's what the US Naval Observatory Master Clock phone service is for: 719-567-6742
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
c5karl 1y ago
It's not a good idea to call 911 with non-emergencies. But until a few decades ago, the primary way most of us to set our clocks was to call a number the phone company provided, which in our case was TI4-1212. "At the tone, the time will be ..."
- jrockway 1y ago
  You can still call NIST and get the time via "at the tone...": https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/time-distribution/radio-station-wwv/telephone-time-day-service https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/time-di...
nine_k 1y ago
If a response packet contains a good timestamp, you could initiate a 911 call, get a reply packet, and cancel the call before it reaches any actual operators.
adrian_b 1y ago
At least in many European countries, the landline phone companies offered a short number for obtaining the time from an answering robot. Many, many years ago, I have designed a piece of equipment that was integrated in a phone exchange and it provided vocal messages to be sent to a caller, for errors like non-existent phone number, but also for replying to the dedicated number for the time service. The messages were something like "The time at the next beep will be ... hours ... minutes ... seconds". I have not heard about a similar service for mobile phones, because here the phone gets the time automatically and it displays it.

One possibility is to call 911 and ask what time is it.

by infthi 1y ago

One possibility is to call 911 and ask what time is it.

I know this wasn't meant literally, but it does make for an interesting thought experiment - under what circumstances might it be valid to dial 911 to ask for the time? My first thought was something like a nuclear operator - "we need to shut down the core at exactly 19:00, but our clocks are down!" so they call and wait for the operator to advise when the time is reached. Obviously contrived and not realistic, but interesting to think about.

mattbee 1y ago
In the UK they are fine with you calling 999 to test your newly-configured office phone routing. They don't want a chat though.
- fc417fc802 1y ago
  That's a bit different than asking for the time. That's testing a newly configured emergency system to make sure it works.
zzo38computer 1y ago
> under what circumstances might it be valid to dial 911 to ask for the time? Maybe, if all of your clocks don't work and you went to somewhere else and their clock isn't working either, and it is raining and you cannot use a sundial, and you tried to call everyone else already and they also cannot give you the time for whatever reason, then you might try to call 911 and ask them, because you tried everything else and it didn't work. (I once heard a (fictional) story where this happened. This is an unlikely scenario, but some of the things mentioned here (and other things) might happen, e.g. bad weather so you cannot go out, the television and computers are not working (and maybe the power is out but the telephone uses a separate power), and there are some problems with the telephone too (I have had problems before where some telephone numbers worked and some didn't), etc.)
- HappMacDonald 1y ago
  Well given that virtually everyone's "telephones" are cell phones which would be incapable of making calls unless they connected to the network, and the network would be incapable of handling their calls without also telling the phone what time it is, this situation becomes far less tenable in 2025 vs the 20th century when land lines were king. :)
disillusioned 1y ago
That's what the US Naval Observatory Master Clock phone service is for: 719-567-6742
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]

c5karl 1y ago

It's not a good idea to call 911 with non-emergencies. But until a few decades ago, the primary way most of us to set our clocks was to call a number the phone company provided, which in our case was TI4-1212. "At the tone, the time will be ..."

jrockway 1y ago
You can still call NIST and get the time via "at the tone...": https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/time-distribution/radio-station-wwv/telephone-time-day-service https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/time-di...

nine_k 1y ago

If a response packet contains a good timestamp, you could initiate a 911 call, get a reply packet, and cancel the call before it reaches any actual operators.

adrian_b 1y ago

At least in many European countries, the landline phone companies offered a short number for obtaining the time from an answering robot. Many, many years ago, I have designed a piece of equipment that was integrated in a phone exchange and it provided vocal messages to be sent to a caller, for errors like non-existent phone number, but also for replying to the dedicated number for the time service. The messages were something like "The time at the next beep will be ... hours ... minutes ... seconds". I have not heard about a similar service for mobile phones, because here the phone gets the time automatically and it displays it.