He was all over evoice as well. He converted his home in to a playroom and had loads of toys. ----- Original Message ----- From: "derek Lane" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "talk2" <talk2@AndreLouis.COM> Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2007 10:36 AM Subject: Re: The Talk2 List interesting obit
Yeah, that guy did some stuff for playback. Granted, I haven't been subscribed to playback in ages, although it was rather amusing when I was subscribed. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ryan Perdue" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "talk2" <talk2@AndreLouis.COM> Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2007 9:16 AM Subject: The Talk2 List interesting obit >I remember this guy > > Published: August 20, 2007 > > Joybubbles (the legal name of the former Joe Engressia since 1991), a > blind > genius with perfect pitch who accidentally found he could make free phone > calls > by whistling tones and went on to play a pivotal role in the 1970s > subculture of "phone phreaks," died on Aug. 8 in Minneapolis. > Associated Press, 2005 > > Joe Engressia, or Joybubbles. > > He was 58, though he had chosen in 1988 to remain 5 forever, and had the > toys and teddy bears to prove it. The cause of death has not been > determined, said > Steven Gibb, a friend and the executor of the Joybubbles estate. > > Joybubbles, who was blind at birth, was a famous part of what began as a > scattered, socially awkward group of precocious teens and post-teens > fascinated > with exploring the phone system. It could then be seen as the world's > biggest, most complex, most interesting computer, and foiling the phone > system passed > for high-tech high jinks in the '70s. > > "It was the only game in town if you wanted to play with a computer," said > Phil Lapsley, who is writing a book on the phone phreaks. Later, other > blind > whistlers appeared, but in 1957, Joybubbles may have been the first person > to whistle his way into the heart of Ma Bell. > > Phreaks were precursors of today's computer hackers, and, like some of > them, > Joybubbles ran afoul of the law. Not a few phreaks were computer pioneers, > including > Steve Jobs > and Steve Wozniak, founders of > Apple. > > Joybubbles felt that being abused at a school for the blind and being > pushed > by his mother to live up to his 172 I.Q. had robbed him of childhood. So > he > amassed piles of toys, Jack and Jill magazines and imaginary friends, and > he > took a name he said made people smile. > > But he never lost his ardor for phones, and old phone phreaks and younger > would-have-beens kept calling. Joybubbles loved the phone company, > reported > problems > he had illegally discovered and even said he had planned his own arrest on > fraud charges to get a phone job. And so he did, twice. > > Well before the mid-1970s, when digitalization ended the tone-based > system, > Joybubbles had stopped stealing calls. But he was already a legend: he had > phoned > around the world, talking into one phone and listening to himself on > another. > > In an article in Esquire in 1971, the writer Ron Rosenbaum called > Joybubbles > the catalyst uniting disparate phreaks. Particularly after news accounts > of > his suspension from college in 1968 and conviction in 1971 for phone > violations, he became a nerve center of the movement. > > "Every night he sits like a sightless spider in his little apartment > receiving messages from every tendril of its web," Mr. Rosenbaum wrote. > > Josef Carl Engressia Jr. was born May 25, 1949, and moved often because > his > father was a school-picture photographer. At 4 or 5, he learned to dial by > using > the hookswitch like a telegraph key. Four years later, he discovered that > he > could disconnect a call by whistling. He found this out when he imitated a > sound in the background on a long-distance call and the line cut off. It > turned out that his whistle precisely replicated a crucial phone company > signal, > a 2,600-cycles-per-second tone. > > Joybubbles's parents had no phone for five years because of their son's > obsession. Later, his mother encouraged it by reading him technical books. > His high > school yearbook photo showed him in a phone booth. > > By the time he was a student at the University of South Florida, > Joybubbles > was dialing toll-free or nonworking numbers to reach a distant switching > point. > Unbeknownst to telephone operators, he could use sounds to dial another > number, free. He could then jump anywhere in the phone system. He was > disconnected > from college after being caught making calls for friends at $1 a call. In > 1971, he moved to Memphis, where he was convicted of phone fraud. In > Millington, > Tenn., he was hired to clean phones, a job he hated. In 1975, he moved to > Denver to ferret out problems in Mountain Bell's network. > > He tired of that and moved to Minneapolis on June 12, 1982, partly because > that date's numerical representation of 6-12 is the same as the city's > area > code. > He advertised for people yearning to discuss things telephonic and weaved > a > web of phone lines to accommodate them. He lived on Social Security > disability > payments and part-time jobs like letting university agriculture > researchers > use his superb sense of smell to investigate how to control the odor of > hog > excrement. > > Joybubbles is survived by his mother, Esther Engressia, and his sister, > Toni > Engressia, both of Homestead, Fla. > > His second life as a youngster included becoming a minister in his own > Church of Eternal Childhood and collecting tapes of every "Mr. Rogers" > episode. When > asked why Mr. Rogers mattered, he said: "When you're playing and you're > just > you, powerful things happen." > > > > Did you miss a message? Well, don't. > http://www.mail-archive.com/talk2%40andrelouis.com/ > has it for you. Never miss a Talk2 message again. > Did you miss a message? Well, don't. http://www.mail-archive.com/talk2%40andrelouis.com/ has it for you. Never miss a Talk2 message again. Did you miss a message? Well, don't. http://www.mail-archive.com/talk2%40andrelouis.com/ has it for you. Never miss a Talk2 message again.
