"Jerry B. Altzman" <jbaltz@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> (08/07/90)
>[Moderator's Note: 10666 went unassigned as a carrier access code for >quite a long time for the same superstitious reason: Whichever telco >used it would have rumors spread about them similar to the ones which >have plagued Proctor and Gamble for over a decade. PT] Could you enlighten one of the unenlightened what this means? Jerry B. Altzman jbaltz@columbia.edu jauus@CUVMB NEVIS::JBALTZ (HEPnet) +1 212 854 8058 [Moderator's Note: Certain people -- a hybrid type of Fundamentalist Christian actually -- of which there seem be to several million in the United States alone, have long believed that '666' was an evil number, based on their reading of selected scripture. These people get NASTY when they think they have found an agent of Satan somewhere, based on the use by that person of some number involving '666'. It could be part of a street address or telephone number. In the P&G case, for the past decade, P&G has received several hundred cards and letters DAILY from people who express concern that (in the words of the rumor) 'the chairman of P&G has a pact with the Devil, and shows his love for Satan by the arrangement of the stars and ram's head in the corporate logo of P&G'. Arranging the stars in the logo in a certain way, you see, forms the evil 666. P&G has squelched the rumor several times, only to have it start up again. They finally had to drop the corporate logo they used for a hundred years, it got so hard to deal with. Where telcos are concerned, subscribers whose phone numbers end in X666 have complained bitterly about receiving huge numbers of obscene and/or hate calls, accusing them of being Satan worshippers, etc. The people spreading the rumor are vicious. PT]
patrickh@rice.edu (Patrick L Humphrey) (08/09/90)
With the "666" discussion, I thought I'd throw this into the pot: in the 817 NPA, where did Bell put the 666 prefix? Waco -- home to Baylor University -- of course. Poetic justice, if you ask me... Patrick L. Humphrey (patrickh@rice.edu) Networking & Computing Systems Rice University, Houston, Texas [Moderator's Note: Listen, we went through this about a year ago here, and people found all these bizarre examples of 666, such as one state, where it was truly assigned to the Great Satan: the IRS! It was the federal government centrex in another place, etc. Here in Chicago, the '666 North Lake Shore Drive Building' changed its address to 668 with permission of the Postal Disservice due to some important and large commercial tenant moving in who had nightmares about what might happen to business when the customers found out. PT]
clj@ksr.com (Chris Jones) (08/10/90)
In article <10619@accuvax.nwu.edu>, jbaltz@cunixf (Jerry B. Altzman) writes: >[Moderator's Note: Certain people -- a hybrid type of Fundamentalist >Christian actually -- of which there seem be to several million in the >United States alone, have long believed that '666' was an evil number, >based on their reading of selected scripture. The reference is from Revelations 13:18: "Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six." Many numerologists have come up with inventive ways to prove that their particular bete noir has a name which adds up to 666. Chris Jones clj@ksr.com {world,uunet,harvard}!ksr!clj [Moderator's Note: They even picked on poor President Reagan, whose first, middle and last names all have six letters. PT]
ergo@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Isaac Rabinovitch) (08/10/90)
> In the P&G case, for the >past decade, P&G has received several hundred cards and letters DAILY >from people who express concern that (in the words of the rumor) 'the >chairman of P&G has a pact with the Devil, and shows his love for >Satan by the arrangement of the stars and ram's head in the corporate >logo of P&G'. Arranging the stars in the logo in a certain way, you >see, forms the evil 666. P&G has squelched the rumor several times, >only to have it start up again. They finally had to drop the corporate >logo they used for a hundred years, it got so hard to deal with. One of these fundamentalists once posted his version of the rumor on our company bulletin board (the old-fashioned kind, not a BBS). This version had the P&G Chairman announcing his Satanic affiliation on one of those late-night talk shows! I seem to have missed that show. Anyone see it? A few years ago, P&G sued the editor of a trailer-park newsletter to get him to stop reprinting these stories. The guy wasn't even a fundamentalist -- he just thought the stories were funny. Some time back, an underground paper in Santa Cruz printed an article claiming that the badges worn by local cops were actually hex signs. I've often wondered if there wasn't something to this. I mean, where did the custom of police wearing badges begin, anyway? One possibility is that cops wore them to ward off the curses of perps, back when "Damn you to hell!" had a very literal meaning! >Where telcos are concerned, subscribers whose phone numbers end in >X666 have complained bitterly about receiving huge numbers of obscene >and/or hate calls, accusing them of being Satan worshippers, etc. >The people spreading the rumor are vicious. PT] Or perhaps dumb, like the folks who held Anita Bryant, then well known for her anti-gay cruasade, responsible for Hurricane Anita. Or the folks who miss an eclipse because of the weather and call the observatories to find out when it's been rescheduled. I'd think, though, that you'd get a lot more flack for having a 13 in your number! ergo@netcom.uucp Isaac Rabinovitch atina!pyramid!apple!netcom!ergo Silicon Valley, CA uunet!mimsy!ames!claris!netcom!ergo [Moderator's Note: About a month ago, P&G sued two more people: a man and his wife in Parsons, KS who were peddling the rumor. P&G has tracked down the story several times to people who happen to be Amway distributors ... however Amway corporate flatly denies telling their distributors to pass along such garbage, and in fact a couple years ago told their sales force specifically to NOT make such claims. Maybe its just the nature of people who would peddle Amway door-to-door. Part of the rumor says the Chairman of P&G appeared on the Phil Donahue show (that figures! .. in some versions it was O. Winfrey) and publicly professed his worship of Satan. No one ever actually saw the show, it was a friend of a relative's friend who saw it. PT]
Dave Levenson <dave%westmark@uunet.uu.net> (08/10/90)
Our Moderator writes: > Where telcos are concerned, subscribers whose phone numbers end in > X666 have complained bitterly about receiving huge numbers of obscene > and/or hate calls, accusing them of being Satan worshippers, etc. > The people spreading the rumor are vicious. PT] I met a man on the platform at a commuter rail station here in NJ last year. He began looking through the trash in a container near the canteen. He found an empty candy-bar box and asked me if I knew what the UPC bar-code symbol was for. Trying to be helpful, I told him that it identified the manufacturer and the product for the automated cash-registers with price-lookup features. He launched into a tirade against the manufacturer of the candy, the manufacturers of cash-registers, and _me_. He was convinced that there was a secret way of encoding 666 in binary, and that Satan was hiding among the bars in the UPC symbol. Then I told him that there are no 6's in binary; only 0 and 1. He told me that he knew better; that his brother knew about these things, and that there were _hexes_ in binary. I showed him the decimal interpretation of the bar-code, printed just below the symbol, as usual. As it happened, it contained no 6's. He calmed down, a bit. About then, the train arrived! The number on the side of the first car was 7666! He refused to board the train; deciding to wait for the next one (about 30 minutes, I think). I changed my mind about 800 service from MCI. Our best-selling software product is the MoneyRoom(tm). They were offering us the number 1-800-MONEYRM, but unfortunately, that's 800-666-3976, and you never know what sort of nut will run up our 800 bill over that prefix! Dave Levenson Voice: 908 647 0900 Fax: 908 647 6857 Westmark, Inc. UUCP: {uunet | rutgers | att}!westmark!dave Warren, NJ, USA AT&T Mail: !westmark!dave [Moderator's Note: But we know that money is the root of all evil, and that is why the telephone dial has MNO on the '6' key; so that if you try to spell out 'money' your real satanic motives will be obvious to everyone. :) I don't know about 800-666, but 312-666 has had its share of nuts. Checker Taxicab Radio Dispatching had the same telephone number for over sixty years: From MONroe 3700 to MO-6-3700 and for the last decade, they promoted it as 666-3700. In addition to a few thousand legitimate calls each day they always got a few dozen crackpots accusing them of being one of Satan's subsidiaries. A few years ago they gave it up and now use 312-TAXICAB. PT]
I.G.Batten@fulcrum.bt.co.uk (Ian G Batten) (08/10/90)
On several PABXen I've used in the UK, ``999'' --- the normal emergency number --- is replaced with ``666''. The claim is that otherwise ``999'' would be ``9999'' (9 for an outside line) so (1) you'd have to compete with the rest for a line when it's busy and (2) call-barring gets confused. But I know better :-) ian
cmoore@brl.mil (VLD/VMB) (08/10/90)
I also recall 666 being discussed a while back in Telecom, and I have a printout (not right in front of me) which has lists of some prefixes 666. I have no plans to bother you or the Digest with that stuff again. I do know of 666 in Cockeysville, Maryland (near Baltimore; area 301) and 215-666 in Valley Forge, PA (near Phila.) and I do not know of "devil" etc. stuff going on with either of those.
cramer@uunet.uu.net (Clayton Cramer) (08/11/90)
In article <10619@accuvax.nwu.edu>, jbaltz@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Jerry B. Altzman) writes: > [Moderator's Note: Certain people -- a hybrid type of Fundamentalist > Christian actually -- of which there seem be to several million in the > United States alone, have long believed that '666' was an evil number, > based on their reading of selected scripture. These people get NASTY > when they think they have found an agent of Satan somewhere, based on > the use by that person of some number involving '666'. It could be > part of a street address or telephone number. A little more detail on this, so that you'll have a better understanding and can point out the ignorance that these sorts are operating under, the next time your 666 phone number attracts unwanted attention. Revelation 13:18, in describing the Antichrist (in terms that sound much like a modern totalitarian state) says: Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beat, for the number is that ofa man; and his number is six hundred and sixty-six. In the first century A.D., there was a type of numerology called *geametria* (a corruption of the Greek word for geometry), in which the letters of the alphabet were assigned different numeric values, and the name of a person was calculated to a particular number. (You may recognize a similar superstitious practice alive today). Depending on the value of the different letters, there are a number of names that comfortably totaled "666", including the Emperor Nero's full name. (Nero was the inventor of urban renewal, though his techniques for clearing cities have been improved upon since then). (There is considerable debate among Christian theologians today whether Revelation was intended to refer to Nero's persecution of Christianity, or had a longer term significance -- certainly, putting Nero's name in the text would have caused even more difficulties for the early church than they already had). But note that the number itself wouldn't be blatant! The person who sees "666" as evidence of the Antichrist doesn't even under- stand what Rev. 13:18 refers to! Clayton E. Cramer {pyramid,pixar,tekbspa}!optilink!cramer
Macy M. Hallock, Jr. <macy@NCoast.ORG> (08/11/90)
OK since we are on the 666 subject again, here's a bit of info and a
comment I never got around to last time:
216-666 is the Montrose, Ohio exchange.
There are several reasons to believe there may be some hellish
connotation here:
- It is a GTE Ohio exchange (That ought to prove it as far as John Higdon
is concerned)
- It is a GTE Automatic Electric No. 2 EAX office. (OK, maybe its just
telepone purgatory, then)
- Montrose is a suburb of Akron, Ohio (almost hell to New York types)
- My in-laws live in this exchange (and have for 30 years....I will risk
no other personal comment)
Another item:
- The Montrose CO was knocked out of service for half a day by a direct
lightning strike on the power pole beside the building. The generator
in the CO could not help because the breakers for the battery chargers
were all tripped. When the CO batteries discharged, things just ground
to a halt. The CO was unmanned for the weekend, and GTE did not dispatch
because the alarms showed a power failure with the generator running OK.
Help was send only when the office went "no tone"...with three different
municipalities police dispatch centers in it. Repair was slowed by the
need to replace the damamged breakers, and no supply houses were open on
Sunday. Needless to say, GTE was called on the carpet for this one...
(The PUCO never was told the whole story, BTW)
A few other comments:
Montrose 1000 cycle test tone is 216-666-1212 ... and many people often
dial it by mistake for 216-555-1212 ... I remember some AT&T toll
reports we got when I worked for GTE back in '70 that noted this..and
suggested GTE change the number (which they would never do).
My in-laws number is one digit different from the 1000 cycle number,
and they have gotten a few odd phone calls due to this. My father in
law is a retired police chief, and when I worked for GTE he was
active.
I traced a few of these bad calls for him and traced some to an Ohio
Bell test desk in Akron Blackstone exchange. An automatic trunk
routiner had been programmed with the 666-1212 number, but a bad
thumbwheel had caused one digit to work erratically ... thus causing
the problem.
My father-in-law suggested he could personally impound the test board
supervisor's car if the problem was not promptly repaired ... an
interesting solution to telephone equipment repair delays, IMHO. It
never came to that.
Ohio Bell repaired their unit promptly once the problem was explained
to them (and they decided they could believe a lowly GTE person ... I
had to tell them I was ex-Bell to get them to listen).
Anyhow, we have our share of fundmentalist churches and preachers
here, perhaps they should all move to the 216-666 exchange to try and
help solve these problems ... The PUCO can't make GTE work right,
maybe divine intervention would help ;-)
Macy M. Hallock, Jr. macy@NCoast.ORG uunet!aablue!fmsystm!macy
F M Systems, Inc. {uunet|backbone|usenet.ins.cwru.edu}ncoast!fmsystm!macy
150 Highland Drive Voice: +1 216 723-3000 Ext 251 Fax: +1 216 723-3223
Medina, Ohio 44256 USA Cleveland:273-3000 Akron:239-4994 (Dial 251 @ tone)
[Moderator's Note: Based on all the complaints we get here about GTE,
I'm beginning to think divine intervention is the only thing which
might help improve their service. PT]Mark E Anderson <mea@ihlpl.att.com> (08/12/90)
>[Moderator's Note: ... Here in Chicago, >the '666 North Lake Shore Drive Building' changed its address to 668 >with permission of the Postal Disservice due to some important and >large commercial tenant moving in who had nightmares about what might >happen to business when the customers found out. PT] Nancy Reagan made the same change before they moved into their Malibu home. That has to be expected from her though. I don't consider myself ignorant but I would never accept a number with a 666 exchange or any 3 sixes in a row. If I were to get one, I'd simply ask for another number. I didn't even like it when my current number had 2 6s in a row. I don't consider myself that superstitious but a phone number is sort of like a personal identification of existence. It doesn't hurt to play it safe just in case. Mark mea@ihlpl.att.com
jonathan@jspc.wimsey.bc.ca (Jonathan Story) (08/12/90)
In Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (area code 604) the 666 exchange is used by ... the Canadian Government. jonathan@jspc.wimsey.bc.ca
roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) (08/13/90)
optilink!cramer@uunet.uu.net (Clayton Cramer) writes: > In the first century A.D., there was a type of numerology called > *geametria* (a corruption of the Greek word for geometry), in which the > letters of the alphabet were assigned different numeric values, and the > name of a person was calculated to a particular number. I don't know what this has to do with telecom anymore, but 19 centuries later, gemetria (the way I've always seen it spelled, but who knows?) is still practiced. Each letter in the Hebrew alphabet is a number and number games are still played by Jews. For example, when I got married, various people sent me checks for $72 (I'm sure I'll get corrected if I got the numbers wrong!). The Hebrew word for life adds up to 36, so 72 is two lives together. BTW, I grew up in 201-666. To the best of my knowledge, I have no tendencies towards being an ax murderer. Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy
kenny@world.std.com (Kenneth R Crudup) (08/13/90)
The "location" (I can't call it a "city") of Somerville, MA, has the 666 exchange. Kenny Crudup, Unix Systems Consultant nubian!kenny@ima.ima.isc.com 14 John Eliot Sq. #2B, Roxbury, MA 02119-1569 (617) 442 6585
hwt@uunet.uu.net (Henry Troup) (08/13/90)
In article <10727@accuvax.nwu.edu> mea@ihlpl.att.com (Mark E Anderson) writes: >myself ignorant but I would never accept a number with a 666 exchange >or any 3 sixes in a row. If I were to get one, I'd simply ask for >another number. I didn't even like it when my current number had 2 6s >in a row. >I don't consider myself that superstitious but a phone number is sort >of like a personal identification of existence. It doesn't hurt to >play it safe just in case. Well, my home number is 613-59 666 43 (unusual spacing to show the 666 in it. No one has ever mentioned it to me, and I've had it for eight years. But then, I don't think of the number as part of me, but part of Bell. (Canada) Shouldn't we really take this to alt.folklore.urban? Sort of folklore: in Toronto, there is a store called 'The Occult Shop', which deals in new age and neopagan stuff. They were for a while located at 664 Queen St. They wanted to get 666, but the shoe store wouldn't move. Really! I know the owners, somewhat. Disclaimer: Good Christians don't believe in Satan, numerology, or the IRS :^) Henry Troup - BNR owns but does not share my opinions | 21 years in Canada... uunet!bnrgate!hwt%bwdlh490 HWT@BNR.CA 613-765-2337 | [Moderator's Note: This is another topic being closed at this time. We all had several laughs from it, but the telecom connection is gone. PAT]