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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].'"
For our amusement, let's hope they killed somebody's 2g1c download.
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
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.
I work for a large utility holding company. Every new years and 4th of July we have transformers shot out across our system. They make pretty "sparks and arcs" while they die. Another stupid people trick is throwing chains across 2 live high voltage lines. Invariably, at least one person per year forgets to let go of the chain before it makes contact. Stupid people are everywhere. Darwin takes care of some...
--I like turtles...
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.
that'll learn em
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.
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
On the list of preaching, soap box standing zealots, I have found hunters to be the most vocal. Responsibility, conservation, and a given right to engage said pass-time is delivered in fire-brand like sermons.
From my observations, though, for every 1 responsible hunter there seem to be 10 irresponsible.
15 years ago, I did a stint as a volunteer park warden for 6 months. I noted the following:
- Bringing shot deer down to the nearest clearing, often walking tracks, partially butchering the animal and leaving the rest to rot on the track.
- Pot shots and damage to any and all infrastructure.
- "Boredom Kills" - usually birds shot with high powered rifles.
- Hunting dogs left to roam, sometimes till a following weekend, when the hunter would come back.
- Creepy comments to day hikers such as "I saw you long ago from across the valley, i saw you in my scope".
15 years later and hunters will still defend their pass time with the fervor of a rabid PETA campaigner, or Muslim cleric. Saving the world you know. Thinning pests, and over population of grazing animals...
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
Where I live you can't have guns, but people still find ways to be fucktards. Popular passtimes are throwing pavement tiles from overpasses, cutting or shorting cables and stealing bikes, street signs and street lanterns. No, I don't know what they use the street lanterns for.
To be fair, there's no way Steve could have thrown a chair that high.
During his Beretta days Robert Blake was on the Johnny Carson show.
He told a story of walking in Northern Europe during WWII. They saw some insulators.
"It was wartime. We had guns on us. When we got back to camp, we were told that the Germans had cut the communication lines."
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.
When I used to work in the wireless Internet world, I had an associate who had much the same problem with idiots shooting at his antennas. After he had been forced to change antennas on several occasions, I told to him that the simple way to fix the problem was to mount a bullseye somewhere else on his towers and give these lunatics something different to aim at. The last time I talked to him his antennas were bullet hole free but he did have to replace a few of the targets due to them taking some serious damage. Come on, Google, put some creative thought into solving these problems..
You think that's bad? In Germany, manhole covers and guard rails are vanishing...but the best one was when they stole 40 tons of rails...yes, the ones where trains run on.
On a sidenote, there are quiet a few stories about that over at the Darwin Awards.
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
I worked for a ISP that had a POP in the sticks. It's feed would regularly be shot by some stupid hick. There was also only one telco field tech for the area, and it would take him forever to respond and even longer to resolve the issue. The city has its own issues. Once a very large section of copper was stolen from the telco taking out an untold number of consumers.
If you work for telcos that have thousands of miles of fibre traversing farmland, you'll quickly come to appreciate (especially in the hunting season) that shotgun damage is a fact of life.
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.
I get up, I get down...
I do, they're likely HID lights and thus are suitable for indoor horticulture.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
You can't simply chase down a deer and scream liberal rhetoric at it until it kills itself, now can you?
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.
ask cheney's hunting buddies.
I work in electrical power transmission and distribution, and apparently shooting at insulators is a popular pastime. One of the bullet points in most specsheets for fiberglass insulators is the resistance to damage from gunfire.
So, what we're saying is that Google is being regularly shot down by yahoos?
...There's gotta be a witty quip to be made there somewhere...
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Is it just me or does it seem as if "fucktards" are the only people buying guns in the US?
No, they are the ones getting all the headlines but the reality is that the typical gun owner tends to be a very responsible, level-headed, person. It's like how most people can enjoy an occasional beer or glass of wine without causing any commotion but alcohol still has a bad reputation because some idiot overdoes it and then drives and kills a bunch of people.
I've been around guns my entire life and have many friends who had the same kind of upbringing. At no point have I EVER seen a legal gun owner brandish his weapon or use it in some sort of unsafe or idiotic manner. In fact most hunters and gun owners that I know are extremely responsible, civically-minded, kind-hearted people - MUCH more so than the average public.
On the other hand illegal gun owners tend to be unsavory and uncaring about the damage they do with their weapons. They are the ones likely to shoot the gun in the air on New Year's Eve, shoot out signs and lights, brandish it at any provocation, keep it unsafely around minors, etc. Any illegal gun ownership or usage should be harshly punished.
Sapere aude!
>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.
They sure do. but at least you can send out untrained crews across the area and ID where your breaks are exactly, so the next available trained repair crew and come out and attend to it.. repairing utilities in a vault or in a trench isn't as easy.
----- The internet has given everyone the ability to have their voice heard equally as loud.. even if they shouldn't be
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.
Guns are supported by many on the left in American politics. We even have the Pink Pistols, a gay pro-gun group ("Armed gays don't get bashed"), and the NRA has endorsed many Democratic candidates based on their pro-gun stance.
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.
Upon arrival to a site the crew will either find an abandoned construction site or vehicle accident. Construction crews generally leave the site when they hit a cable because they know work is done for the day and their employer is about to have an unpleasant phone call from someone like me. The bill for a cut like this runs in the tens of thousands of dollars.
If an obvious break isn't found, then you have to start looking for squirrel chews on aerial and rat chews in underground conduit. That's generally just a partial break so you can roll your fiber at the two nearest splice points onto good dark fibers, or at least fibers occupied by lower speed systems.
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