Slashdot Mirror
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."
My first reaction is that the geohashing folks overreacted. I might be a little concerned and take photos of license plates if a bunch of people suddenly showed up on my property somewhere out in the boonies.
As to the firearms, were they scared at the mere presence of firearms or did the ranchers actually point them at anyone? If they simply saw the guns in the truck, what possibly could have scared them? Ooooh, guns.... scary.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
http://wiki.xkcd.com/geohashing/Known_Issues
"If someone says you are trespassing, it is probably best to heed them and turn back. Shotguns are a good indicator of trouble. See Template:Disclaimer."
Sounds like that other thing where you use GPS and leave a bowl with stuff in it.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
WOW! a bunch of people from San Francisco ventured out in to the real world and found that people have strange ideas like property rights and the right to bear arms. I'm glad they got an education.
Profanity - The sign of a small mind trying to express itself.
Indeed. Guns are tools, and ranchers have ample use for them such as killing critters (feral dogs, etc) that threaten their livestock. Fuel and equipment thieves are another good reason for ranchers to be armed. Diesel theft from irrigation pumps can threaten their ability to make a living, and thieves may be armed. In isolated areas the police can't be there on the spot to help.
Remember kids:
If it isn't your land and you don't have permission to be there, stay the hell off. There is plenty of public land to play silly games on.
Country folk are often very good at looking out for their neighbors. If you don't belong there, expect to be checked out. I'd be delighted to have a neighbor who would observe and photograph any questionable visitors. Being visibly armed deters violence, and cameras preserve potential evidence.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I dunno why people always think a fear of firearms is irrational, it is a device made for the sole purpose of killing or wounding a living creature, it does so in an instant with the twitch of a finger. couple that with the general fact that people are idiots (the geohashers in this case seemed to be the idiots, but it's a fair general rule to live by, unless proven otherwise: people are idiots.). I'm afraid of firearms, I'd rather they never be anywhere near me. I'm not one to advocate that they all be taken away either because unfortunately the cat is out of the bag there, people have guns and getting them away from criminals AND legitimate owners would be pretty much impossible now.
Anyways, yeah they overreacted to someone just having guns in their truck, but I don't think being afraid of or uncomfortable around guns is all that irrational.
Removing knives from the hands of Brits will also cut down on the number of crimes committed in the kitchen.
My apologies to our British friends, this was a cheap shot at your cooking which has admittedly improved.
Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
You're absolutely right, but I'd say it's less a matter of fundamental hypocrisy as it is one of fear. And that's mostly from unfamiliarity ... people are afraid of the unknown. We're pretty much hardwired for that, and in this case I think the government does us a disservice by discouraging people from owning firearms or learning how to use them properly. I'd rather have someone who knows what he's doing with a gun holding one on me, rather than someone who's never fired one before and is terrified of it. That applies as much to criminals as it does to us law-abiding types.
.44 Magnum. If everyone carried a gun, but only a few drove automobiles, we'd all be irrationally afraid of cars.
It's a machine people. Yes, it's one that requires some knowledge and self-discipline to own and use safely, but that's all it is. Would that We the People spent as much time bitching about the poorly-trained drivers we have in this country as we do about gun owners. The untold millions of four-wheeled sociopaths on the road today are responsible for a hell of a lot more death, destruction and general mayhem than all gun owners combined. But that's okay, you see, because cars are technology that we all find comfortable and familiar, in spite of the fact that a car is just as much of a weapon as a
Personally, I'm far more concerned about being killed on the way to work by some lobeless, cell-phone-wielding, SUV-driving thimblebrain than I am about being shot. If the Feds really (I'm mean, really) want to make our lives safer, they should force the states to implement some serious training requirements for obtaining a driver's license. That should mean a CV (Commercial Vehicle) license for anyone that wants to drive a big SUV. Do that, and leave gun owners alone, and they would save a lot more lives each year.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
It took a few moments to sink in. "In the San Francisco area" ... with guns mounted on trucks? Why, unless people are using one of those really broad definitions of San Francisco, that could be nowhere else but ... yup. Upon checking the address on Google Maps, it turns out to be none other than San Ramon, California -- about 15 minutes from where I grew up.
I know what you guys are thinking. "A bunch of uptight yuppies from San Francisco got in their cars and drove out to the wild wilderness and got a taste of the real world..." Yeah, right -- if by that you mean "took a pleasant drive out among the trees along the curves of Crow Canyon Road," just off the 580 Freeway kinda wilderness. Maybe they took the long way back and stopped off at Stoneridge Mall on their way home.
News flash for ya, folks. The exact location where these folks went is out a long, undeveloped road, sure. But San Ramon is a suburb, people. Yeah, if you're out there you'll find that 80 percent of the people are white. But that's not "white trash missin teeth an' drinkin moonshine" white, that's "53 percent of the people in this town are college educated and 17 percent have graduate degrees" white. It's "48 percent of the families in this town have median incomes higher than $100,000" white. Look it up.
Clearly, these "geohashers" must be even bigger peckerwoods than the people I grew up with (in neighboring Castro Valley) if that environment makes them uncomfortable. If white guys with guns mounted to pickup trucks makes them uncomfortable, I hope they had a speedy return to wherever they came from, completely bypassing Oakland, California, whose demographics are markedly different. And whatever they do, they should not wait for the bus on the streetcorner out in front of my local bar. It's gotten pretty hairy over there a couple times over the last few years.
Breakfast served all day!
Hey, Randall here (hey, my account still exists!)
Sometimes the coordinates fall on military bases. Sometimes they're in the ocean. Sometimes they're in the middle of Bill Gates's house (when that one happens, maybe we can work something out). So even if it weren't for the legality issues, there's a big common sense element.
The idea is that you get as close as you can to the point without going onto private property without permission. Most of the time, this means meeting on a road or cul-de-sac or whatnot. The point is just to get people close enough that they can all exchange high fives and then go to a nearby park or bar together.
I've met unfriendly people while out hiking (both for geohashing and for fun). I've also met some astonishingly friendly people, more than you'd expect. People on the whole are decent. But if you're wandering around in strange places in the real world, there are risks inherent to that, and you do have to use your judgment. If you treat the coordinates like commands and try to get at them no matter what, you're doing it wrong.
xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
Mod parent up, of particular amusement "Because someone picked up their gun, and showed it to an aggressor, thus ending the conflict before it ever becomes violent." - if drawing down on someone isn't an escalation in violence I have no idea what is. +5 informative my ass.
There are indeed reasons for that Rancher to be armed. First off, if you get into trouble, it can take 911 longer than the rest of your life to get there. Pretty much you're on your own. Secondly, I don't know if anybody's noticed or not, but it's spring and cows drop calves and sheep drop lambs this time of year, and Coyotes are everywhere. Worse still, coyotes have something in common with man-- they frequently kill for the hell of it. And the margins on running a ranch are close enough that you can't afford to lose livestock to random predation unless you want to go broke, so this time of year, if you see a coyote, out comes the SKS or whatever, (very popular as a ranch rifle) and the coyotes in question become fodder for vultures, magpies, ect. There are places where there is a tradition of free range. Most of Nevada outside of Clark or Washoe Counties for example, still let you roam around as long as you're not damaging anything. A lot of ranchers are looking at keep out signs though, because of idiots who do things like cut locks, cut fences and shoot at water troughs. (And in a desert, shooting a water trough is actually a crime that merits hanging, even though nobody does) and sometimes livestock. In order to prevent such things, if you're working a ranch, you pack a rifle. And it is considered good manners to ask, and if you're hunting and get lucky, a couple of cleaned birds on the way out is usually appreaciated. And I usually carry some stuff to take a few minutes to fix a downed section of fence if I find one. One makes friends that way. The bottom line is that those young idiots who seem to have gotten a case of the vapors over a rancher with a camera and guns that happen to be his working tools in the gun rack, were handled far more gently than they probably deserved and they should be thankful rather than complaining. And they do owe him an apology, so that little suggestion that was on their website is one that they should take to heart.
A farm near my parents had an incident where someone started shooting at a combine.
The combine probably deserved it.