Internet2 Taken Out by Stray Cigarette

AlHunt writes "A fire started by a homeless man knocked out service between Boston and New York on the experimental Internet2 network Tuesday night. Authorities say the fire, which also disrupted service on the Red Line subway, started around 8:20 p.m. when a homeless man tossed a lit cigarette. The cigarette landed on a mattress, which ignited and led to a two-alarm fire."

Comments

If a cigerrette can

[Splezunk]

take out the internet... what hope do we stand against nukes?

Re:If a cigerrette can

[iabervon]

This is what happens because the internet is designed to deal with nukes. If a nuke took out the Longfellow Bridge, Internet2 users in Boston wouldn't be complaining about their network connection to NYC, or doing much of anything else. The internet is only designed to route around damage at larger-than-blast-radius scales, and the affected area was actually quite small by those standards.

so the fire starter didn't have a home?

[c_jonescc]

Sorry, but isn't a little absurd, and likely judgmental, to mention TWICE in the abstract that the fire was started by a homeless person?

If the cig was tossed from a car window would we be hearing repeatedly about how a Toyota driver started this all?

Geek priorities...

[AndersOSU]

INTERNET DOWN! THE experimental INTERNET that nobody uses WENT DOWN, in a fire that killed three people and did millions of damager to property.

G0d@|\/|N smokers!

[ukemike]

You know cigarette smokers somehow think that flicking their butts isn't littering. It pisses me off to no end. HEY SMOKERS, YEH YOU! Put them out and then throw those butts in the trash, pathetic litterbugs. It's bad enough we have to smell your stink, we shouldn't have to look at your trash strewn all over the place.

Hopefully not too many smokers have mod points today...

Re:G0d@|\/|N smokers!

[Eccles]

f you had just let them smoke in their offices

I'm old enough to have worked with smokers who could smoke in their offices. My girlfriend at the time could tell the days I'd gone into the smokers' offices, even for a brief visit, and would demand that I shower before I'd get any action.

Sorry, but having a smoking section in a building is like having a peeing section in a pool.

Re:G0d@|\/|N smokers!

[jacksonj04]

Smoking places second-hand smoke into the environment. I go for a drink somewhere with smokers (Only one or two), I come home smelling of cigarette smoke. I go for a drink somewhere with homosexuals (Only one or two), I do not come home gay.

I dislike people who pollute my local environment. This includes people who thing playing dance music on their phone at full volume is the height of cool and those who otherwise do things which irritate me if I'm not really paying attention. Smoking falls into this category, and I fail to see how things like 'noise pollution' can be covered by laws yet 'smoking pollution' can't.