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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].'"
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.
First off, I'm guessing they're thinking about all the shitty beer they just drank.
Actually, that answers the second question too.
Yep. Give a moron a gun - or anything else for that matter - and you can expect him/her to not use it properly.
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.
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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.
It's their excuse, not motive.
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
> 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 :-(
>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.
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.
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"I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
The reality is that there is always something to repair.
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.
It doesn't matter if they were hunters, hippies, or investment bankers. It seems that we have simply let the idiot to normal ratio get far to imbalanced in society. We need to repeal seatbelt laws, take the warnings off plastic bags, and let Darwin lean out the population a bit.