Geohashing Meets an Angry Rancher With Firearms

katicli writes "Geohashing, an obscure xkcd pastime which involves going to random coordinates generated by md5 hashing, the date, and the opening status of the stock market, appears to have just gotten far more interesting. The official wiki reports a warning for other geohashers intending to go to the spot designated for June 14th in the San Francisco area, as several avid fans of xkcd were met by an angry rancher and firearms."

Comments

Re:Culture --weird

[Simon (S2)]

Why would somebody owning a gun be "scary" or "a lunatic"? I can understand the fear of guns empowering criminals (even if I don't agree with the conclusions some reach on that basis) but guns in the hands of the good guys should probably be reassuring, not alarming. Because guns are "never" something "good". Not in good hands, and not in bad hands. They should be used only in a shooting range or by people with uniforms. If that is not the case, over here, people with guns are scary or lunatic. I know it's different on the left side of the ocean, I guess it's a cultural thing, but I would *never* feel comfortable having someone in sight wearing or holding a gun whoi is not a policeman or a guard or something.

Re:Overreactions

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out "trespassing" in Common Law. Your "reality" is caused by your countrymen's sheer lawlesness. Fix them, you fix the problem.

Re:Overreactions

[infaustus]

You're talking to the wrong audience here. Those clowns are nerds. They're cowards. They are mortally afraid of firearms because they are terribly scared of (SHOCK! HORROR!) being hurt by someone. And yet, not a day passes that they don't imagine themselves as some gun-toting hero from some stupid FPS. But they know full well that they could never, ever, stomach to be in a REAL rebellion. They would shit their pants. They would cower. That's why they hate you. That's why they put down anyone with a practical mind. Because they remind them of their own inadequacy. Ignore them. Life has beaten them up. Their faces still smell of shit.

Why is this modded troll? It's the most accurate

[Fross]

By the account on xkcd's wiki page now:

- the meeting was NOT on private property, it was in a public place.
- the attendees did NOT venture onto private property.
- the other side of the road from where they were, was private property, owned by someone who drove up, with guns in sight, and proceeded to take photos of their numberplates (without permission, one presumes)

(this is all taken/derived from the wiki entry.)

I can't vouch for the behaviour of the meeting attendees, but by all means the property owner acted like an asshat, in an intimidating fashion. However the dialogue went, arriving with guns (and note, NOT on his own property) is not a cordial way to start investigating what is going on.

This is news to slashdot, perhaps the headline should read "Warning to geohashers: outsider-hating, gun-toting rednecks may crash your meeting on public property and take photographs of you or your vehicles without permission, because they 'don't take kindly to your kinda people round these parts'"

Scared citizens

[Anonymous Coward]

It is truly sad to know that there are people out there that feel they need to carry a gun to chase off a few kids from their property. This shows a complete lack of normal reasoning skills, and because of that, they should not be allowed to carry a gun in the first place.

Do you think it is a good idea to let a mentally handicapped person carry a gun for self-protection?

I mean seriously guys, how scared must you be do rely on a lethal weapon to protect yourself from a bunch of geeks?

I know that in this case they may not have had actually been armed during the confrontation, but there are many posts defending them.

Re:Culture --weird

[Falconhell]

Actually, to anyone but a gun nut it is a device with one purpose to kill or injure. What type of seld delusion leads you to try and make a case for any other purpose. Ah US citizenship-of course.

Re:Overreactions

[plasmacutter]

Actually, at point blank range, someone with a knife can be faster than a person with a gun. Let me know when you can grab a bullet, turn it, and force it into the person who just fired it at you.

Also not true. It only takes a few pounds of pressure to puncture someone with a blade. it only takes a few grams of pressure to pull a trigger, my point stands.

Also, the effects are just as immediate as with a gun provided you hit the proper locations (jugular/carotid artery, femoral artery, etc). let me know when a blade produces a fist sized exit wound and has the concussive force of a bullet.

I think you need to study ballistics a little more.