Hacker News Reader

"At the tone?" ...what kind of ship are you running here? Is it at the start or the end of the tone?

Just called the number holy cow it’s real. I love obscure infrastructure stuff like that

Speaking clocks are pretty common. Here we dial *133.

When I was a kid, you could dial the operator and ask them for the time. I still don't know why anyone would do that, but I remember it was a thing you could do.

Also, dialing 0 to get a human operator. I swear I'm not that old.

Another good one is Bell Atlantic's support number which is strangely still connected even though they merged to form Verizon in 2000. 570-387-0000.

"Thank you for calling Bell Atlantic. Due to an emergency condition, we are operating with a reduced staff, and you may experience delay."

Waiting on hold is like the forever traffic jam of Doctor Who.

Yeah according to Wikipedia anyway the USNO is operated by the US Navy.