Let me through, I'm a nosy person
February 7, 2008 12:26 PM Subscribe
Curious why the power is out at your office or the fire engines are rushing past your home? If you live in Seattle, public911 might be able to tell you.
Someone needs basic life support three blocks away. Cool!
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:42 PM on February 7, 2008
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:42 PM on February 7, 2008
Way back - way, waaaaay back when I was only about 12 or 13, I was watching TV one evening. I couldn't tell you exactly what show it was, and I'd probably be too embarrassed to mention it even if I could recall (might have been MacGuyver, come to think of it). Suffice it to say, I LOVED this show, and it was the kind of show that - if you were a 12 or 13 year old kid - kept you on the edge of your seat for the first 54 minutes waiting for the big payoff at the end (sounding more and more like MacGuyver). We were at Minute Fifty-Two, give or take a few seconds. I was drooling from the suspense and excitement.
Just as MacGuyver (what the heck, lets run with it) was about to fashion a lock-busting mini-PC from a AAA battery, two foil gum wrappers, and the torn blouse of his heroine-in-distress du jour, the local news cut in. To report that a three story home had caught fire. Somewhere in my metropolitan area. No details on whether anyone was in the house. Firefighters seemed to have it under control. More details at eleven.
Then back to the show. MacGuyver is out. Tanning himself on the beach. Heroine at his side.
AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
Even then, as a 13-year-old not well-versed in the ways of the world, I said to myself: WHAT. THE. FUCK. Who needs to know this? Why couldn't this wait until eleven? What is the possible rationale behind knowing that, right now - at this very moment! - somewhere close by, an emergency is taking place?
posted by googly at 12:56 PM on February 7, 2008
Just as MacGuyver (what the heck, lets run with it) was about to fashion a lock-busting mini-PC from a AAA battery, two foil gum wrappers, and the torn blouse of his heroine-in-distress du jour, the local news cut in. To report that a three story home had caught fire. Somewhere in my metropolitan area. No details on whether anyone was in the house. Firefighters seemed to have it under control. More details at eleven.
Then back to the show. MacGuyver is out. Tanning himself on the beach. Heroine at his side.
AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
Even then, as a 13-year-old not well-versed in the ways of the world, I said to myself: WHAT. THE. FUCK. Who needs to know this? Why couldn't this wait until eleven? What is the possible rationale behind knowing that, right now - at this very moment! - somewhere close by, an emergency is taking place?
posted by googly at 12:56 PM on February 7, 2008
Is it just me, or does this seem to anyone else like the online equivalent to staring at the scene of a car accident as you pass by?
posted by cerebus19 at 1:02 PM on February 7, 2008
posted by cerebus19 at 1:02 PM on February 7, 2008
Interesting that there are police helicopters circling around my work in Burien and someone just told me they saw cops with rifles drawn two blocks away, yet there's nothing on public911 about it. These are just Medic One and fire department calls I'm guessing?
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 1:08 PM on February 7, 2008
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 1:08 PM on February 7, 2008
Even then, as a 13-year-old not well-versed in the ways of the world, I said to myself: WHAT. THE. FUCK.
And in a bracing irony, an increasingly commercially successful public911.com would eventually interrupt new e-rubbernecking convert googly's ambulance-tracking with a popover flash ad for the MacGuyver Deluxe DVD Box Set.
posted by cortex at 1:16 PM on February 7, 2008
And in a bracing irony, an increasingly commercially successful public911.com would eventually interrupt new e-rubbernecking convert googly's ambulance-tracking with a popover flash ad for the MacGuyver Deluxe DVD Box Set.
posted by cortex at 1:16 PM on February 7, 2008
Is it just me, or does this seem to anyone else like the online equivalent to staring at the scene of a car accident as you pass by?
Oh, totally, but you won't hold up the cars behind you this way. You know, unless you're looking on your web-enabled cell phone.
posted by katillathehun at 1:33 PM on February 7, 2008
Oh, totally, but you won't hold up the cars behind you this way. You know, unless you're looking on your web-enabled cell phone.
posted by katillathehun at 1:33 PM on February 7, 2008
When the WTO riots first hit Seattle, I went out and bought a police scanner. During the height of the bad-stuff, it made for some very interesting listening (someday I have to find the mp3s I made that week), with police officers calling out for help, sounding more scared and overwhelmed than I can describe.
Afterwords, living in downtown, I'd hear lots of sirens, but often by the time I turned on the scanner, it'd be too late to hear about whatever aid vehicle I'd seen/heard. So I got the idea to hook the scanner up to an mp3-encoder/archiver, and auto generate timestamped files every 30 minutes. This was obviously less than ideal, and drive space wasn't infinite, so eventually I just gave up, and only brought the scanner out for events that I could tell were going to last a while (like the protesters hanging a banner off a tower crane).
But I had an idea, of setting up the scanner, hooked up to a PC that, instead of spitting out mp3s, ran the audio thru voice recog software, and generated a DB of incidents. Who knew you could just ask the FD for a datafeed. Well, obviously someone =)
The obvious reasons for wanting to know RIGHT now would be incidents that could affect you personally, be it your own safety (gunman on the loose, swift moving fire/flood, the terrrarists!) or your local traffic (crash on the northgate/i-5 N onramp? I'll go up to 145th).
But yeah, it's mostlyl for virtual rubbernecking. Some crazy stuff goes down, often right near you, and it never makes the 11 o'clock news.
posted by nomisxid at 1:52 PM on February 7, 2008 [2 favorites]
Afterwords, living in downtown, I'd hear lots of sirens, but often by the time I turned on the scanner, it'd be too late to hear about whatever aid vehicle I'd seen/heard. So I got the idea to hook the scanner up to an mp3-encoder/archiver, and auto generate timestamped files every 30 minutes. This was obviously less than ideal, and drive space wasn't infinite, so eventually I just gave up, and only brought the scanner out for events that I could tell were going to last a while (like the protesters hanging a banner off a tower crane).
But I had an idea, of setting up the scanner, hooked up to a PC that, instead of spitting out mp3s, ran the audio thru voice recog software, and generated a DB of incidents. Who knew you could just ask the FD for a datafeed. Well, obviously someone =)
The obvious reasons for wanting to know RIGHT now would be incidents that could affect you personally, be it your own safety (gunman on the loose, swift moving fire/flood, the terrrarists!) or your local traffic (crash on the northgate/i-5 N onramp? I'll go up to 145th).
But yeah, it's mostlyl for virtual rubbernecking. Some crazy stuff goes down, often right near you, and it never makes the 11 o'clock news.
posted by nomisxid at 1:52 PM on February 7, 2008 [2 favorites]
cerebus19: "Is it just me, or does this seem to anyone else like the online equivalent to staring at the scene of a car accident as you pass by?"
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong (or at least not anything unnatural) with being interested in a flaming wreck; what's obnoxious is when it causes a traffic jam. If people can now get their flaming-wreck-watching without rubbernecking on the highway, I'm all for it.
Random story: a few years ago, when I was living up in Maine, a building down the street blew up. Just straight-out exploded. Adjacent building collapsed, windows all along the street facing it and in passing cars were shattered, you could feel it blocks away. I don't know how common this sort of thing is, but it was straight out of Hollywood. ("Gas leak," allegedly.)
I met more of my neighbors that day, standing out on the street, watching the old Radiator Works burn, than I ever did at any other event. It had this bizarre, almost carnival-like atmosphere to it. There's really nothing like a structural fire to bring people together.
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:58 PM on February 7, 2008
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong (or at least not anything unnatural) with being interested in a flaming wreck; what's obnoxious is when it causes a traffic jam. If people can now get their flaming-wreck-watching without rubbernecking on the highway, I'm all for it.
Random story: a few years ago, when I was living up in Maine, a building down the street blew up. Just straight-out exploded. Adjacent building collapsed, windows all along the street facing it and in passing cars were shattered, you could feel it blocks away. I don't know how common this sort of thing is, but it was straight out of Hollywood. ("Gas leak," allegedly.)
I met more of my neighbors that day, standing out on the street, watching the old Radiator Works burn, than I ever did at any other event. It had this bizarre, almost carnival-like atmosphere to it. There's really nothing like a structural fire to bring people together.
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:58 PM on February 7, 2008
There's no google map, but here's the same service for Toronto.
posted by Adam_S at 3:57 PM on February 7, 2008
posted by Adam_S at 3:57 PM on February 7, 2008
There's really nothing like a structural fire to bring people together.
A hostage situation where they closed off the horseshoe shaped set of three blocks I live in was pretty much like that too.
posted by IronLizard at 5:23 PM on February 7, 2008
A hostage situation where they closed off the horseshoe shaped set of three blocks I live in was pretty much like that too.
posted by IronLizard at 5:23 PM on February 7, 2008
Man, that would be useful, since I live up on the hill. Like when the guy across the street shot his roommate and I heard the 'pop' i thought it was an errant 4th of july firework. Nope, 10 minutes later the street is covered with cops and ambulances.
Or the time there was a murder suicide / hostage thing in the building behind mine, and my roommates (who were probably stoned out of their mind) let the swat guys go through our front door to the back door, so they could get a better view without the guy in the building seeing them. The cops even let me move my car, which was next to the building in question, as long as the drove the long way out of the lot.
All I know is after that, there stopped being trucks coming by that place at 4am picking up packages dropped off the porch.
posted by mrzarquon at 5:31 PM on February 7, 2008
Or the time there was a murder suicide / hostage thing in the building behind mine, and my roommates (who were probably stoned out of their mind) let the swat guys go through our front door to the back door, so they could get a better view without the guy in the building seeing them. The cops even let me move my car, which was next to the building in question, as long as the drove the long way out of the lot.
All I know is after that, there stopped being trucks coming by that place at 4am picking up packages dropped off the porch.
posted by mrzarquon at 5:31 PM on February 7, 2008
Man, this would be incredibly useful to me if I were a superhero.
posted by webmutant at 9:40 PM on February 7, 2008
posted by webmutant at 9:40 PM on February 7, 2008
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posted by grouse at 12:31 PM on February 7, 2008