• Xythar (unregistered)

    This reminds me of that movie with Bill Murray where he finds out Rita's phone number by highlighting some text.

  • Herby (unregistered)

    Until sometime last year, here you could actually get a "good time" call using another prefix. It was the prefix that in this part of California would route you to the nice "time lady" who would tell you the time of day. Very convenient! The problem was that the prefix was different in the other part of the state. Sometime last year they turned off the service and we are now left timeless when the power fails or some such.

    Oh, it was pretty accurate, using the NIST time signals from WWV. The biggest problem was that one time the people at NIST flipped the switch for daylight savings time accidentally and the time lady was an hour off for a bit in some places.

    Nowdays, your cell phone displays the time automatically! Progress I assume.

  • Smash King (unregistered) in reply to Xythar

    I totally agree. For God's sake, doesn't anybody read A SINGLE comment? I mean, come on, it's dozens of comments, don't you think anybody else would have noticed something that simple by now? A quick sweep through the page would show these comments to be irrelevant before they were posted.

    Please PLEASE Jake highlight any of those comments. It'll at least weed out those who read the blue comments after the main article before they enlighten the world with their "discoveries".

  • Resistance (unregistered) in reply to Xythar

    The captcha should be improved. It should require comment posters to read previous comments

  • savar (unregistered) in reply to Xythar

    I worked on a multi-hundred million dollar project at Fannie Mae writing disclosures: reports which go to wall street investors. These reports were already running on old mainframe systems, and part of our job was to be able to recreate the report on our modern unix systems in the exact same format -- EBCDIC, fixed length, etc. -- so that downstream consumers wouldn't be forced to retool.

    On one disclosure, each record had a phone number field for some kind of point of contact. The business requirement for that report actually mapped the field to a constant... a 202 area code number.

    I just had to figure out what the hell this number could be, so I called it. The number turns out to be the front desk in the lobby of Fannie's DC headquarters. Nice.... I'm sure that the investors will appreciate their financially savvy point of contact being a rent-a-cop.

  • Anonymoose (unregistered) in reply to aib
    aib:
    I can't decide whether the real WTF is that he had HTML tags in his phone number or that Jake forgot to escape them in the article.

    Win.

  • (cs) in reply to Lenny
    Lenny:
    DENTAL PLAN
    Lisa needs braces.

    BTW, did anyone notice you can just highlight the text and the number will show up?

  • David (unregistered) in reply to John Smallberries
    John Smallberries:
    Has anyone commented about the commentators commenting on the comments made by commentators not reading previous comments? Because someone already made those comments.

    My faith in humanity can no longer be represented accurately by a 32 bit floating point number.

  • DeepThought (unregistered) in reply to call me

    The 555 exchange is a fake exchange (regardless of area-code). The only exception (that I'm aware of) to this is when it's used in conjunction the 1212 suffix (i.e. 214-555-1212) where it is (once was?) used for information (like 411), but I think they may have shut that service down since 411 was introduced in most regions.

    I'm not sure where/why the fake 555 exchange originated, but it's often used in movies and TV shows when the story requires someone to give a phone number. That way the producers don't have to worry about getting their ass sued off by some irate little old lady in Peoria, IL whose number they inadvertently gave to millions when they aired their program.

  • Adrian Pavone (unregistered) in reply to Justin
    Justin:
    No, the *real* WTF is not providing a proper bloody constructor for PhoneNumber! Gaaah! Sometimes it seems I spend all my time trying to bang this into people's heads.

    Yep, this was my reflection on it. "Why didn't they just do a one liner: 'setHomePhone( new PhoneNumber (xxx) );' dawns on me Ohh, their idiots and can't set up a half decent overloaded constructor"

  • Adrian Pavone (unregistered) in reply to Zylon
    Zylon:
    I'd just like to thank this thread for, once again, demonstrating exactly why having "Add Comment" available outside the actual discussion thread is a terrible, terrible, stupid idea.

    Ohh, right, that all makes a lot more sense now ... Didn't occur that the "Add Comment" link was available on the wtf page, because I've never used it :).

  • (cs) in reply to Resistance
    Resistance:
    The captcha should be improved. It should require comment posters to read previous comments

    I think about 80% of those duplicate "highlight" posts were meant as a way of jeering at the few who actually thought they had found the devs real number underneath the blacked out part.

  • Matt (unregistered) in reply to halcyon1234
    halcyon1234:
    214 is the oldest Dallas, TX area code. Most of this key space is allocated, so you can't eliminate many lines without cold calling. Also most of these people have voice mail. Good luck; you're gonna need it.
  • Random832 (unregistered)

    Has anyone mentioned yet that if you highlight the number you can... they have? ok...

    Well, has anyone posted yet to complain about all the posts saying that... they have? ok, well...

    Has anyone posted yet making fun of those?

  • r2k_in_the_vortex (unregistered) in reply to halcyon1234

    or... you could highligth the code

    if ( homePhone == null ) { homePhone = new PhoneNumber(); homePhone.setNumber( "214-555-1212" ); setHomePhone( homePhone ); }

    give the lonely guy a call

  • Rage (unregistered) in reply to call me

    Anynomised ? Alt+a -> 214-555-1212... Nevertheless The code is a lie!

  • (cs)

    http://www.555-1212.com/

  • heysel (unregistered)

    But the number is still there ... 214-555-1212

  • Mike (unregistered) in reply to m0ffx
    m0ffx:
    Vollhorst:
    jimlangrunner:
    Other than that, 555-xxxx is nonsense, as there are NO other valid phone numbers in these US of A that have an exchange of 555. (feel free to correct me if I have that wrong, but I'm pretty sure.)
    WHAT?! All those movies lied to us?! My world... crumbling!
    That's exactly why the movies use 555 numbers. People WILL call numbers given in fictional media, as the 'Jenny' song proved.

    This is not only with phone numbers. Any IPs that can be seen in a monitor in a movie (as far as I have seen) are invalid. Take a look at Deep Impact, the astronomer at the beginning tries to connect to an smtp server at xxx.xxx.xxx.300.

    There I was thinking back then, "WTF???, no wonder he can't connect, poor chump :)"

  • Bongchin (unregistered)

    214-555-1212??

  • Josh (unregistered) in reply to halcyon1234

    214-555-1212 Hello? Yessss!

  • koekum (unregistered) in reply to dpm
    dpm:
    viceroy:
    Actually, there is nothing legally or technically that prevents the phone companies from giving out numbers in the 555 exchange. However, by common agreement, most will not.
    Valid US area codes are all three-digit combinations XYZ except X == 0 except X == 1 except Y == Z except Y == 9 except X == 3 AND Y == 7 except X == 9 AND Y == 6 http://www.nanpa.com/area_codes/index.html

    What? No regular expression?

  • Sarkie (unregistered) in reply to halcyon1234

    Copy and Paste Helps...

    if ( homePhone == null ) { homePhone = new PhoneNumber(); homePhone.setNumber( "214-555-1212" ); setHomePhone( homePhone ); }

  • Ritsaert (unregistered)

    I guess 214-555-1212

  • Anonymous (unregistered)

    TRWTF is that you only need to highlight the text to make it show up. And also that the number is directory enquiries. And that 555 is the exchange used by fiction writers. Did I miss anything else that has been mentioned in the comments 20 times over already?

  • JN (unregistered) in reply to halcyon1234

    Or just highlight it....

  • rave (unregistered)

    "which we anonymized so that the guy doesn't get too populal: ROTFL, is that his real number?

  • Kevin (unregistered) in reply to halcyon1234

    Not quite. There are at least a couple exceptions, all of which stem from people who live in that area code.

    Total possible: 10,000,000 Exclude phone numbers starting with 1: 9,000,000 Exclude phone numbers starting with 0: 8,000,000 Exclude phone numbers starting with 911: 7,990,000 Exclude several more: 555-5555, 222-2222, 333-3333(etc), 234-5678(etc) and you're down to at most 7,500,000

  • Not as DULL as you (unregistered) in reply to Adrian Pavone
    Adrian Pavone:
    Justin:
    No, the *real* WTF is not providing a proper bloody constructor for PhoneNumber! Gaaah! Sometimes it seems I spend all my time trying to bang this into people's heads.

    Yep, this was my reflection on it. "Why didn't they just do a one liner: 'setHomePhone( new PhoneNumber (xxx) );' dawns on me Ohh, their idiots and can't set up a half decent overloaded constructor"

    You're the idiot for blindly assuming that the PhoneNumber is an in-house class which they are actually able to change.

    Perhaps there are other reasons why they didn't want to provide that interface.

    To me, complaining about this is like complaining that someone called a loop counting variable n rather than i.

  • Radu (unregistered) in reply to halcyon1234

    If you try to select the code you will see a phone number : 214-555-1212.

  • Xythar (unregistered) in reply to WhiskeyJack
    WhiskeyJack:
    The real WTF is the number of people who evidently subscribe to the theory that if a joke is funny once, or even twice, by GOLLY it would be just HILARIOUS if I repeated the joke too!

    No, the real WTF is the number of people who evidently subscribe to the theory that if a joke is funny once, or even twice, by GOLLY it would be just HILARIOUS if I repeated the joke too!

  • Pim (unregistered)

    Jeez, hundreds of comments on the nature of the number, and I'm still wondering if the number in the article actually was the number as it appeared in the code, or if Alex replaced it with a different one, to protect the stupid.

  • Midhat (unregistered)

    Anonymous Fail!!

  • lol (unregistered) in reply to halcyon1234

    It's easier than that, too. NPA-NXX currently has 427 distinct possibilities, so it's only 4,270,000 possibilities.

  • qper (unregistered)

    isn't the number just: 214-555-1212 ? Just copying and pasting...

  • Chrissie Brown (unregistered)

    The real WTF is that the phone number is not anonymized correctly and can shown easily if you mark it with the mouse cursor.

    homePhone.setNumber( "214-555-1212" );

  • (cs) in reply to Xythar
    Xythar:
    WhiskeyJack:
    The real WTF is the number of people who evidently subscribe to the theory that if a joke is funny once, or even twice, by GOLLY it would be just HILARIOUS if I repeated the joke too!

    No, the real WTF is the number of people who evidently subscribe to the theory that if a joke is funny once, or even twice, by GOLLY it would be just HILARIOUS if I repeated the joke too!

    No, the real WTF is the number of people who thought that joke was ever funny. Seriously people...

  • Ronny Karam (unregistered)

    It's not even censored. select the black parts @#$%^

  • ThePhone (unregistered) in reply to halcyon1234

    Selecting the text (Fire Fox) reveals the 'missing' numbers...

  • hobbestuna (unregistered) in reply to halcyon1234

    Well, obviously because 555 isn't a proper area code. Sheesh!

  • gnud (unregistered)

    why not censor the phon number properly? Now all you have to do is select the text-- the phone number is not even safe from screen scrapers.

    This is really bad form.

  • would suggest you actually remove the numbers from the post. (unregistered)
  • Its 214-555-1212 (unregistered) in reply to halcyon1234

    Its not hidden , the number is 214-555-1212 simply copy the text , and you will see the number , this is real !!!!

  • Murali (unregistered) in reply to halcyon1234

    Isn't the number is 214-555-1212?

  • Tedr2 (unregistered)

    214-555-1212

    lets call this guy and ask for his expplanation.

  • Julie (unregistered) in reply to halcyon1234

    NSA sex call me 540-419-5137

  • TestUser (unregistered) 
    homePhone.setNumber( "214-555-1212" );

    Just highlight the text and the "anonymized number" is right there... WTF?

    That guy might be getting heck lotta calls ... lolz

  • EDegra (unregistered) in reply to halcyon1234
    halcyon1234:
    Why didn't you also censor out the area code? You just opened this developer up to some serious phone calls. The entire keyspace is at most 10,000,000 entries. We can hack that in seconds and spend the rest of our time doing nothing but calling him over and over, all because his phone number appeared ON THE INTERNET!

    214-000-0000 Hello? Nope 214-000-0001 Hello? Nope.

    How about highlighting the "censor" and phoning 214-555-1212 ? :P

  • Chris (unregistered) in reply to halcyon1234

    I'd be more concerned about HOW they've censored out the number above. I wouldn't worry about the AREA code.

  • Doesnt matter (unregistered) in reply to halcyon1234

    You truly are an idiot.

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