Month: January 2007

  • (416) 364-1111: From hell’s heart, I stab at thee

    UPDATE Jun 2007: There’s a page about this number at whocalled.us with 80 comments. A comment there written by “GL” sums up the situation – I can’t link directly to the comment so here it is:

    [this] number is associated to a leg of VOIP termination provided by more than one wholesale VOIP providers. Given how the terminating networks are overlaid and at times spliced together, it’s nearly impossible to be sure who actually holds the DiD and the info wouldn’t be very helpful if you had it, in terms of tracking the actual caller, unless you have subpoena powers. It might be a TDM circuit billing identifier. I’ve seen it previously with a Vonage outbound call, others have reported it with Skype. I ran the search today because it appeared in my call log as the ‘caller id’ on a VOIP test call between a Covad line and a Vonage line. The only thing you can be really sure of – if you see this number 416 364 1111, the caller is using a commercial VOIP service to access the PSTN.

    Long story short: if this come up on your Caller ID, there’s no telling who it is – though a bunch of shady characters do seem to be coming out of it.

    End update.

    Loyal readers might remember that I built myself a telezapper to eliminate phone calls from unwanted people and companies.

    Back in November, I got my first weird call from this phone number: 416-364-1111. It was your typical “dead air” caller which means telemarketer. See, they use computers to pre-dial numbers from their database, and then when someone picks up they’ll connect that line to the next available phone rep’s line. But sometimes the computer gets ahead of the people and you might end up waiting 10 or more seconds before being connected. That’s what these jerks seem to be up to, but all the time. I’ve never gotten a real person on the other end. So I added them to my ‘zapper list but they just keep calling – they’ve called four times this month alone. Now I’m posting this and hopefully other peopple will find this page and maybe tell me who these jerks are.

  • Pepper Hacking bears some fruit…

    I’ve actually created some things with the Pepper SDK! A calculator and a minesweeper game. I didn’t actually write either of the games, but I packed them up as “native” Pepper Keeper apps with the SDK. Nifty.

  • Let’s get something straight here people

    I’m not a gambling man. I like to get something for my money. So I would probably never plan a trip to Las Vegas. But, if I ever found myself there, I know that I would have to go to The Pinball Hall of Fame. Over 150 pinball machines, lovingly restored by collectors, (almost) all for a quarter a play? And all the money goes to charity? I’d like up for that kind of fun.

    And they have a Terminator 2table, which I probably put a hundred bucks into when I was in grades 9-11.

  • When did physical activity become so difficult?

    We played some pickup volleyball last night at Sandy’s school, and man am I one hurting unit today. I ran around like a rag doll for an hour and a half, hitting the ball off the ceiling about half the time. Some things I remembered:

    • Volleyballs like to bounce! A lot! You don’t have to hit them very hard.
    • I like to block and play close to the net. Long arms are good.
    • When you fall on your knees, you will get walnut-sized bruises.
    • Blocking the ball at the net is the best feeling in the world.
  • Two weeks of vacation have been pretty good to me. True, I’ve been lazy as hell but I deserve to be lazy as hell! Right now I’m fed up with trying to build software on my Pepper Pad 2 so I’m writing here. Friggin’ five year old version of autoconf and automake do NOT make me happy…

    Christmas was a pretty good time. Sandy surprised me with a Nintendo DS, which I haven’t hacked yet but I’m looking forward to it. We’ve been playing a ton of Rayman: Raving Rabbids and Elebits on the Wii. And just doing a lot of lounging.