[brains, sorta]

[wispfox]

It is, in fact, a fairly major mental shift to be at work, have one's cell (mobile!) ring, appear to be a US number, and be australian_joe.

My brain hasn't quite managed to recover from that yet. :) (I mean, phone call was a good thing, but... sudden dramatic mental shift!)

Ow. My brain hurts.

Still. Now I'm all chipper. :)

Comments

[uberjay.livejournal.com]

So, is he in the US, or is there some other trickery going on to change the caller-id?

[bridgetester.livejournal.com]

murfle? *also curious*

[australian-joe.livejournal.com]

It's the way the telcos in both countries hand off international calls to each other.

I am guessing but do not know for sure that it works like this:

My telco says, ah, an international call to the US, and connects to a US telco. "I have a call for someone in your country. I don't understand how your system works. Will you take care of it for me? Just place the call for me and we'll pipe my part into that."

Sometimes the US provider correctly recognises that the origin of the call (for purposes of caller ID as displayed to the American phone) is a number in Australia), and displays that number.

Sometimes it deems the caller to be my Australian telco rather than me, and so displays *their* caller ID - which is "Unknown". Or perhaps it recognises that the call originated outside the US, with the same result.

Sometimes the "caller" is deemed to be the last link in the chain, ie. the US telco handling the US side of things, and displays *their* caller ID - which is a domestic US number.

There doesn't seem to be any pattern over which way it ends up.

I note with interest that when I'm in the US and calling from my Australian number via global roaming, it *always* displays my caller ID correctly. So I'm guessing it's the handover between the two domestic systems that's the issue.

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

I am pleased that I was correct in believing that waiting to answer the questions would result in you already having answered, and far more coherently than I (since I couldn't remember the details). :)

[australian-joe.livejournal.com]

Oh, come on, it's a pretty safe bet that I'll answer just about *any* question in my hearing that I think I can answer. 8->

[bridgetester.livejournal.com]

Other people don't? Silly them.

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

_I_ don't, if I'm not certain that I can answer it well. Like, oh, this particular example. :)

[bridgetester.livejournal.com]

I think I can answer.

This also has the qualifier of "well", or else the tentative answer (which happens much less often) will have a qualifier of "I'm not entirely certain, but I think"

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

Perhaps, but I've not spent enough time with you to know that for sure! :)

[australian-joe.livejournal.com]

Hee. Normally my other partners would roll their eyes at your NRE in not minding my habit of answering everything - but you haven't even got to that point yet! 8->

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

... which point?

And... if there are questions being asked - rather than simply statements being made - why would someone answering it be a problem? I mean, not stopping if someone asks you to and/or explains that they didn't acually
want an answer would annoy me.

I think I've even seen you in question answering mode when it _was_ annoying me, but since it wasn't me you were answering the question of, I just wandered off to a different conversation. *shrug*

[australian-joe.livejournal.com]

The message I'm often given is that volunteering answers when any question was not directed at one is itself somewhat rude and/or annoying.

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

Hmm...

The only examples in which I can see this applying would be if someone was attempting to have a private conversation and failing such that questions were asked too loudly, or if someone was specifically trying to determine what someone knows or does not know about something, rather than actually needing the information.

(like if one is trying to quiz a child, for example, having the other child answer isn't helpful)

[australian-joe.livejournal.com]

In those examples I'd understand not to pipe up.

But no, I'm thinking a good deal more generally than those.

It's part of why one of my sayings is "People can usually forgive you for being wrong, but they never forgive you for being right."

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

In those examples I'd understand not to pipe up.

Yeah, I thought so.

It's part of why one of my sayings is "People can usually forgive you for being wrong, but they never forgive you for being right."

Huh.

I think that I don't tend to have sufficiently concrete facts in my head often enough to run into this.