Slashdot Mirror
Trapped Girls Call For Help On Facebook
definate writes "Two teenage girls (aged 10 and 12) found themselves trapped/lost in a stormwater drain in Adelaide, South Australia. The interesting point of this article that makes it Slashdot worthy, is that although the teenage girls had mobile phones, instead of calling for help using 000 (Australia's 911 number), they decided to notify people through Facebook. My guess is it was something along the lines of 'Jane Doe is like totally trapped in a stormwater drain, really need help, OMG!'. Luckily a young friend of the girls was online at the time and was able to call the proper authorities."
one of the nice things about 911 is the 9 and the 1s are on different sides of the keypad, so if you call 911, you really mean to call it
so australian 000 (or british 999 or kiwi 111 for that matter) doesn't make any sense to me: are australian emergency services always being called by people with unlocked keypads in their pockets with loose change hitting the zero key?
are they always being pranked by toddlers reaching up and continuously tapping the closest button they can find or running around with their parents unlocked cell?
but then again, you antipodeans always did drive on the "wrong" side of the road too ;-)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Last year my wife was messaged on Facebook by her friend claiming to be stuck at the airport in London, and needing cash wired to get an airplane ticket. (All of us live in the United States.) Initially she believed the story, but eventually asked for proof of verification by asking something that wasn't on the person's Facebook page: the name of her roommate. The friend immediately logged off, and logged on later, claiming "network problems." By then we had figured out the scam and posted on the friend's wall (getting the posts deleted and de-friended in the process) and posted on our walls and contacted our mutual friends. After we were able to contact the real friend, the account was locked down before anyone had actually lost any money. We later found out that the scammer had been messaging a number of people on the friends list to try to get a wire transfer.
Ok, so getting asking for help from being stuck in a storm drain is not quite the same thing as asking for money from being stuck in an overseas airport. But don't believe everything you read on Facebook.
In reference to your sig..
I've taught at both union and non-union schools. Unions are better for students and teachers.
NO, they are not.
Progress is man's ability to complicate simplicity!