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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].'"

14 of 1,141 comments (clear)

  1. Re:so what? by FuckingNickName · · Score: 0, Troll

    If you think Google fiber = electricity, then you truly are a fucking moron.

    If you think that it is acts of petty vandalism which have a deciding influence on your electricity bill, rather than the whims of a few very powerful energy companies, then I'm not sure how you even managed to crawl out of the slime and onto your computer chair.

  2. Explain to me again please, by Dee+Ann_1 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Why "hunters" need guns?

  3. Re:Hunters and responsibility by BenevolentP · · Score: 0, Troll

    Agreed. Just like being a butcher, jailer or actor in Uwe Boll films, Hunting should be a job you hate and simply do it because someone has to (debatable on the latter) or are ordered to. Because taking pride and joy in any of these makes you a bad person by definition.

  4. Re:Fucktards by iamhassi · · Score: 0, Troll

    Is it just me or does it seem as if "fucktards" are the only people buying guns in the US? I'm American and I don't own a gun and don't know anyone that does but then I'm also on /. so you can imagine the company I keep. I still think the right to have a gun is a good idea but it does seem like only the wrong people ever bother to actually buy one.

    --
    my karma will be here long after I'm gone
  5. Re:so what? by FuckingNickName · · Score: 0, Troll

    Vandalism.
    Murder.
    Vandalism.
    Vandalism.

    1 of these words is different from all the others. I suggest you learn quickly.

  6. Re:Unexpected by drinkypoo · · Score: 0, Troll

    I can't even think of anything Oregon's known for.

    Neo-Nazism. Not making this up. Oregon is like the rainy, racist version of California with more free gun laws. Not that there's not PLENTY of racists in California, you get very far off a major highway and you start running into them in droves. Lots of them moved to Oregon when the population was lower and have been keeping their numbers up successfully ever since. The gun laws probably had a lot to do with it. Amusingly I'm anti-racism and I find Oregon appealing for many of the same reasons.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  7. Re:Hunters and responsibility by misexistentialist · · Score: 0, Troll

    A moose is better off dead than neutered. While it might be somewhat happier not to be frequently driven insane by horniness, it is still an eating machine with no reason to live, contributing only to the disease and starvation of the population.

  8. Re:Immature and Gun Happy by dmgxmichael · · Score: 0, Troll

    Shut up and move to North Korea. Seriously.

    Presence of guns doesn't make the US into Somalia -- Lack of guns doesn't make Britain into North Korea. But since you think in such simple minded terms then complete the cycle - move to North Korea.

    A quote from one of the greatest statesman in history, not to mention prime minister of Britain, is in order. "Democracy is a lousy way to run a country - but it's the best we've come up with." - Winston Churchill.

  9. Re:Immature and Gun Happy by drinkypoo · · Score: 0, Troll

    I see shooting in many ways to be like archery. It's not something I'd consider using for defense, but the peace and satisfaction it gives me is healthy.

    So, just to be clear, if I draw a bead on you with my bigass compound bow, you're not going to put a bullet in me? Because I assure you that if I'm holding my bow and you your pistol, and you point it at me, you're going to sprout some plastic-feathered carbon fiber in short order unless you perforate me first.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  10. Re:Immature and Gun Happy by commodore64_love · · Score: 0, Troll

    The UK has effectively banned gun ownership, and yet has a higher murder rate than the US. Criminals now see the UK populace as unarmed sheep to be preyed upon at will.

    --
    "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
  11. Re:Immature and Gun Happy by OeLeWaPpErKe · · Score: 0, Troll

    Let's just state the plain, obvious, unpopular truth :

    Why do you think Vietnam/Iraq became such nightmares?

    Simple : because America refused to do what was necessary. Refused to do what the enemy did. America is always attacking half-assed. America was literally attacking to free Iraq. Because America is fighting an enemy that doesn't respect any rules, uses civilians as cannon fodder and shields, massacres entire cities on mere suspicions, rapes children (just like a certain religion commands) and worse. And America fights them with pink gloves.

    If America attacked truly to get at the oil, and wanted to destroy any attempted guerilla force, they could easily simply do what everyone has done before America : every time an invading soldier hurts his toe on a wooden splinter (or worse), you pick out 100 Iraqi's from whatever family is rumored to have something to do with the attack, and include their neighbors for good measure. You shoot them one by one in the town square, or alternatively slowly cut their throats (as the enemy does). Anyone gives the slightest hint to not follow the invader's ideology, you do the same. Anyone publicly so much as thinks about fantasizing about throwing a shoe at an American cell phone, you do the same.

    No guerilla force will survive for a week under those conditions. And before you say "that's just terribly bad", quite frankly this would still be within the "human rights treaty" (unless the enemy forces play by the rules, civilians are fair game. Any civilian is only protected as long as he can keep both fighting forces away from himself and his house. That means that armies are supposed to declare war, tell eachother where they'll fight, fight at that location, and everyone else surrenders to whomever wins, WITHOUT resistance. Any deviation from that plan allows both sides to kill any civilians).

    That's not how warfare has actually happened, not in the middle east, not anywhere else. Killing anyone who blinked is how Napoleon did it, that's how Ataturk did it (in fact he was a *LOT* worse), that's how the Saudi's did it (they were also a lot worse, if not quite as bad as Ataturk), that's how Saddam did it, and let's not talk about our friends, the Iranians. What hitler did to jews, Iranians did to their *own* children (and worse).

    If America loses to guerilla warfare, in Iraq or Afghanistan it will be because stupidity and attempting to push "freedom" where it just won't go.

  12. Re:Pretty common. by Guppy06 · · Score: 0, Troll

    "And no, the hunters are not shooting at the fibre or insulators, but at the pheasant, grouse and other flying game creatures that routinely alight on the overhead cables (usually power lines) that carry the fibre."

    And those hunters and their families are going to starve to death if they don't get that particular little bird that happens to be in a Bad Place to Shoot.

  13. Re:Fucktards by hondo77 · · Score: 0, Troll

    So you are saying that Saddam never had the WMDs that he used to kill thousands of people...

    Just the ones we sold to him.

    --
    I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
  14. Re:They're called *VANDALS* not hunters by carnalforge · · Score: 0, Troll

    If you're not certain of your field of fire, you don't squeeze. Period.

    You've never played Quake it seems :-)

    --
    :wq!