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Hunters Shot Down Google Fiber
aesoteric writes "Google has revealed that aerial fiber links to its data center in Oregon were 'regularly' shot down by hunters, forcing the company to put its cables underground. Hunters were reportedly trying to hit insulators on electricity distribution poles, which also hosted aerially-deployed fiber connected to Google's $600 million data center in The Dalles. 'I have yet to see them actually hit the insulator, but they regularly shoot down the fiber,' Google's network engineering manager Vijay Gill told a conference in Australia. 'Every November when hunting season starts invariably we know that the fiber will be shot down, so much so that we are now building an underground path [for it].'"
The combination of guns and immature pranks doesn't sound too good to me.
Exactly my first thought. If they can't hit an insulator, what are they hunting? Barns?
I would have expected to hear about something like this in Kentucky, Tennessee, or another southern state, but Oregon? I can't even think of anything Oregon's known for.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
The word "fucktards" comes to mind. This is what you get when you have some kind of right to own a gun combined with a bunch of low-IQ fuckwits.
Take their guns away from them. They are too stupid to have them.
I drink to make other people interesting!
First off, I'm guessing they're thinking about all the shitty beer they just drank.
Actually, that answers the second question too.
Ah, so an internet company should consider fuckwit withs guns as part of its normal operating procedure, eh? Are you from Oregon perhaps?
Or if you are no, but you are so disturbed by Google that you can't even read a story like this without ranting what bad guys they are then do the obvious thing: fuck off to the opt-out village.
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Hunters were reportedly trying to hit insulators on electricity distribution poles...
It's why non-Americans think the U.S. gun culture is so obviously insane. I remember talking to one person here on Slashdot who recommended that I read the Turner Diaries (which is often sold at gun shows to gun enthusiasts) in order to understand the gun culture in America. The funny thing is he thought the Turner Diaries was a NORMAL and intellectually stimulating thing to read, just like the Bible.
For the rest of us (non-Americans), we think a love of guns and a feeling of necessity to own fire-arms by U.S. citizens is as fucked up as it is in the Middle East for ordinary citizens to own automatic military assault rifles. It's one thing to be Libertarian about gun ownership, and quite another to be fanatical about gun ideology and just plain Gun Happy, as most Americans seem to be.
Yes. Because unless they are some dumbass redneck there is no way to argue that shooting at their equipment is a good response. In fact even the dumb hicks who did it would probably "argue" that they were just pissing around because they were wasted. It takes a real armchair nutjob like you to claim that they were in the right against some evil global multinational.
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
Ah, so a citizen trying to live freely should consider a global information aggregator as a harmless and healthy part of society, eh?
No, but a conscientious citizen shouldn't consider lunatics with guns a great thing either.
The article says that HUNTERS regularly TRIED to hit the insulators. That's like those jackasses that shoot up stop signs for fun. It's called VANDALISM, not HUNTING.
I'm guessing the animal rights nuts and anti-gun people are thinking that hunters go in the woods, get bored, and start shooting at random objects to pass the time..
That makes absolutely no sense. Regardless of what game you're going after, if you make any noise at all, any game in the vicinity will take off. If you fire off a shot, you can pretty much pack it up and go home. You're not getting anything that day.
Accepting vandalism does not lead to accepting suicide, murder, bombing (even if "no one is hurt"), etc. The fact that you managed to make the conclusion means that you probably need to seriously review your premises, as a lack of perspective of that magnitude could mean you end up causing considerable harm to yourself or others.
If you can't see how vandalism does harm to normal people, then it's you who needs perspective.
Misa no botha with yousa.
It's their excuse, not motive.
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
They aim at the insulators, and end up taking down the cables as collateral.
Pure "luck" hitting them, but with enough shots at the insulators the wires will by chance get hit eventually..
OK, cut the bullshit. The trajectory of a 3006 bullet is about 15 minutes of arc at 1000yds. Windage will put you about 10 minutes off at 1000yds for every 2-5knots depending on bullet shape and gusting.
Then there's the non-identical nature of the bullets themselves. Unless you make your own loads and reject any loads less than 100% perfect, you will get a variation of a few minutes of arc at 1000yds. And the non-identical load of the powder, variation in burn rate and gas expansion and so on.
Then you have to check the rifling and clean the barrel before that shot.
Over a thousand yards, you can have a good couple of degrees drift overall in your aimpoint. Half of that in areas out of your control.
So, unless you're shooting bell wire from 0.3x57.3=17 inches, you are talking bullshit.
It is amazing what you can hit while aiming at something else.
Also, cables cover a MUCH larger area than insulators - i.e. there is whole lot of cables to be hit while missing insulators.
And shooting with shot might not reach the insulators with enough force to do any damage, but just nicking the optic fibre might warrant servicing/replacement.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
> Stupid people are everywhere. Darwin takes care of some...
It is unfortunate that to a large extent this only applies if they have not yet reproduced :-(
I'd say attach a sentry gun to the bullseye and don't skimp on the caliber or amount of ammo available.
Oh, and attach that camera anyway and upload directly to YouTube.
The proper term for people taking these actions is not "hunters", it is "vandals."
I am in favor of licensing citizens without criminal records to own firearms. However, before you leave the gun shop the gun owner should have valid certificates from certified gun safety training schools. Add a tax about equal to the price of the firearm. Use that money to enforce licensing. Add to this expensive fines for violation of hunting or gun use regulations with payment of property damages. Want to shoot an insulator? Go right ahead, but the fine for that would be $20,000 plus all expenses for repair plus court costs, plus paying for the time spent by law enforcement on the violation. Oh. And for malicious destruction of property, the license to own firearms is permanently suspended and all firearms confiscated.
I have to disagree. I have seen more responsible hunters than irresponsible. However, the irresponsible types are always most visible. I would not call the people who shoot at other people's property "hunters" at all. At least for the time that they are shooting at fiber optic lines or the like, they are not hunting and are in fact vandals.
> The only difference is you want to decide what people should want to do.
No. The difference is that _one_ of the examples you made involves hurting other sentient beings. This fact changes the "let people do what they want" situation into a "let people do what they want, but minimize negative impact on others" one.
Also, neither video games nor web sites per se are a need. Food is. By claiming that hunting is for food, people deliberately pull something from the realm of "want" into the realm of "need". When I call bullshit on that, claiming that "want" is "want" may be true, but is hardly a logical answer to what I said.
It's nothing personal, but I feel reminded of arguing with children or religious zealots, atm.
From my observations, though, for every 1 responsible hunter there seem to be 10 irresponsible.
I'm a hunter and while I might not agree with your numbers from my personal experience, I do agree that a great many irresponsible hunters exist. The causes of this are numerous, but in general, it doesn't matter too much. I'm a strong believer in freedom. I voted to keep dove hunting legal in my state, eve though I think 99.9% of people who hunt doves are complete and total jackasses. I think people have the right to be complete and total jackasses and make decisions I find appalling... provided those decisions are not infringing upon the safety and freedom of others. When hunters are unsafe, or destructive, that's where the law should step in, and realistically we have plenty of laws on the books to cover those cases(including most everything you list and I don't see anyone campaigning to change those laws), although they are often poorly enforced due to lack of manpower and concentration of man power on other things, like busting kids for smoking pot.
I will defend people's freedom to hunt, along with their freedom to marry people of the same sex, put pornography on the front of their house, dress as a nazi, worship Thor, and vote for Sarah Palin. That's because I think the freedom to do things I may or may not agree with is more important.
>You'd think so, but the US Military has bigger guns and bigger idiots, so revolt could never occur.
I submit to you that the United States has been engaged in an unsuccessful bid to put down rebellions in at least two countries for the last 9 years and has been unable to do so, despite massively superior military power. I think everyone pretty much sees how this will turn out - we will eventually withdraw, just as the Soviets did, without having changed much of anything.
I also submit to you that this war is fought somewhere else and most US citizens just don't care. As one soldier put it, "The Marines are at war. America is at the mall." Also because of this, there is no damage to America's infrastructure. A rebellion at home would directly affect the citizens of this country and directly affect its infrastructure, causing massive economic fallout, massively eroding the tax base, thus hitting the government where it is most vulnerable - its wallet.
When the two DC Snipers went on their rampage shooting people at gas stations, the economic impact was in the millions of dollars just from people afraid to go put gasoline in their cars. Imagine the impact of outright civil war.
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>If a lot of households have weapons, it means that the criminals are more likely to carry a weapon. If the criminals are likely to carry weapons,
>it means that even more households will acquire a gun, too. Stalemate.
I would expect that if it were known that lots of households have weapons, a lot less criminals would rob households
And in fact, the FBI's Uniform Crime Records confirm again for 2009 that violent crime of all types, including firearm types, continue to decline, in spite of continuing record sales of firearms and ammunition
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>Actually, I think that does help to show just how close gun ownership is to an addiction. Gun owners actually can
>experience withdrawal symptoms if they lose access to their weapons. And like most addicts, they can get agitated
>and violent if they feel cut off from their high - just ask any smoker who quit cold turkey.
What a complete and utter crock of shit. People enjoy exercising their rights enumerated in the Constitution because people enjoy being FREE! I like being able to say what I want. I like being able to have equal protection under the law. And I like having the means to defend myself and my family.
I enjoy all these right not because of some fucking addiction, but because all people love freedom!
>When the Bill of Rights was framed, the writers still remembered warrantless searches and seizures by the British
>army before the war for independence, and since guns and ammo were naturally scarce they didn't consider the possibility
>of gluttonous gun consumption a serious concern. Coupled with how most of the western borders of the 13 original states really
>were the Wild West, with lots of dangerous wildlife, it was only natural then to declare gun ownership a right.
Let's be absolutely clear on their motivations here. Their motivations had nothing to do with the availability of firearms (which had existed in much the same form for at least 200 years before the founding of the United States). Nor did it have much to do with shooting bears.
The entire country was set up as a series of checks and balances, so as to prevent a concentration of power in any one branch of the government. This philosophy extended to military power. THAT is why they enumerated the People's right to keep and bear arms.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
That assumes the idiots are adequate-to-good shots.
A few of the towers my company owns get shot up each year. The damage is almost always to the antenna cables running up the tower within 10 feet above or below the tower lights. Occasionally they actually hit the light in the process, but not always.
And once every couple of years some douche shoots the hell out of the equipment shack. The record is 157 bullet holes in one 10x20 building.
We have a policy that there must be a vehicle parked visibly on-site if someone is working in the shack. Never drop off someone, then take the truck to another site.
---
"I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
>So, owning guns is about "not being submissive to the government"? So, do gun-owners in USA refuse to pay taxes,
>break the law and otherwise disregard laws and regulations that are mandated and enforced by the government? Or do
>you follow them just like everyone else does? So, how exactly are those "Euro-hippies" and what have you "submissive"
>to their governments, while those American gun-owners are not?
Quite simply, owning firearms gives me the power to choose whether to do all those things or not. Most firearm owners are peaceable, law-abiding citizens who believe in our way of government and believe it still responds to the will of the people. Firearms are simply an insurance policy in case this turns out to not be true one day.
>How does gun-ownership turn person from a "sheeple" in to "non-sheeple"?
I would say that owning firearms is just like owning any other tool. It gives you other optional courses of action to follow.
>So, the argument is that in case of oppressive government, you can use your shotguns and what have you in defending freedom?
That is correct.
>If I slap you in the face, do you have to right to shoot my head off?
It depends on what state you live in, but where I live I have the right to shoot the head off of people who I reasonably believe are a threat to myself or my family. If you slap me in the face, and I can be shown to reasonably believe that your intent is to cause grave harm to me, then yes, I can shoot your head off.
>Could you explain how people who do not own guns are being "controlled by the government",
>while gun-owners are not? How about some tangible examples?
I believe the OPs point is that should you start to be oppressed by your government and you are unarmed you have no choice but to go along.
>Maybe widespread availability of guns is one reason why your personal space is so threatened?
As the just-released crime date from the FBI shows, violent crime of all types continues to decline, in spite of record sales of firearms and ammunition.
>Strange, I have never had the need for anything of the sort.
Good for you.
>I lived in rural areas as well, and I never felt threatened by anyone. Yet I'm the one who is to be pitied,
>where you are the bastion of freedom to be envied? Even though you need to arm yourself to the teeth in order to be (or feel) safe?
You are to pitied because you have no choice in the matter. You have been lucky enough to avoid violence, but you have no recourse should you be forced to confront it. That is a pity.
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The reality is that there is always something to repair.
Yet more evidence that there are a lot of damn fool gun owners who need to be regulated (NRA be damned).
I personally find modern factory-farming to be a lot more hostile to animal-welfare than hunting a wild animal is. Yes, the farmed animal can be killed in a more controlled fashion, so the death will be swifter and involve less pain. But on the flipside, that farmed animal might have spent it's entire life on a letter-sized piece of wiremesh, and never once even seen the sun. What would you choose for yourself ? Life your entire life free, and then some day be shot from a distance. Or live your entire life in a prison, then one day be executed. I don't know your answer, but my guess would be, the overwhelming majority, would prefer living free. Offcourse some people are of the opinion we shouldn't be eating meat at all. I can respect that, though I don't agree. it's atleast internally consistent. But happily munching eggs from modern cage-hens, while complaining about hunting on animal-welfare grounds, seems rather strange to me.
Having said that, I agree that US "internment camps" do not rise to anything like the level of inhumanity found in Nazi concentration camps.
So everyone can do any inhumane thing that occurs to them for any reason and it will be perfectly all right, as long as they don't do the worst thing that has ever been done.
"Sure I killed your grandma by dunking her in acid, but it's fine because I heard of a guy who dunks 'em even slower! I mean, THAT'S the guy you should be mad at."