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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 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...
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.
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..
All the above sentiments.
When fox-hunting was banned in the UK, there was a pretty huge outcry from the hunting community, with modest support from locals/country folk etc, and ambivalence from most of the rest of us. However, it quickly became apparent that the only real / main reason to keep hunting going was to continue the 'tradition' and to keep a few people employed. I think at this point public opinion swung in support of the government, and I think most of us haven't looked back since.
I'm all for hunting for food, but hunting for sport just seems gratuitous and disrespectful to nature.
Duncan.
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.
i'm not sure brightly colored camo-suits will work...
anyway, googletroopers, expect them to have home-brew equipment which might seem slightly crude, but is actually miles ahead of modern day military hardware, very intuitive to operate... like a railgun (point-click-kill)
(and i just thought of something, if apple ever amassed an army of iTroopers, the black/white color scheme of stormtroopers certainly fits well doesnt it? kind of gives you a whole new perspective on steve's black turtleneck)
People, what a bunch of bastards
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.
It's why non-Americans think the U.S. gun culture is so obviously insane.
As a European, I don't have a problem with American gun culture at all. Can't fire across the Atlantic, so nobody except Americans get hurt.
On the serious side, though: The way the US government is trending I think it's a really good idea to have a large number of weapons in the populace.
The Turner Diaries etc don't define US gun culture, which is quite diverse.
This guy is no closet Klansman waiting for the Apocalypse:
http://catb.org/esr/guns/
Nor is she:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/7/4/881431/-Why-liberals-should-love-the-Second-Amendment
"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. "
Lots of us think your utter submission to your governments, preference for the safety of lawbreakers over personal self-defense, and general sheeple tendencies aren't admirable either. You've traded freedom for (the perception of) security as is your right, but that only works in certain situations and assumes benign government.
The Middle Eastern populace clearly needs them for self-defense, and even the Coalition forces in Iraq allow one per household. If you cannot use force to protect yourself you have no _effective_ right to self-defense.
While those of you who are totally comfortable with your government controlling your lives and who live in areas without violent demographic/sectarian/criminal conflict may not care for firearms, they do go a long way to ensure sovereignty over ones own space.
Americans killed their way to freedom in the Revolution, killed those who supported slavery until they surrendered at Appomattox, and if the government gets bad enough will vote with the bullet again. We tolerate quite a bit of corporate abuse, as do the rest of you, but woe betide the government that goes too far. Mao was right, political power does flow from the barrel of a gun, and the requirement to kill opponents who won't respond to reason means that the tools to do that are worth keeping.
Both self and wife have used firearms in self-defense without firing them. We live in a rural area where the cops can't do more than react (clean up the mess), so relying on the kindness of others isn't a good idea. If you don't have a gun, anyone physicallly superior to you can do what they will.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Lots of us think your utter submission to your governments
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?
preference for the safety of lawbreakers over personal self-defense, and general sheeple tendencies aren't admirable either.
How does gun-ownership turn person from a "sheeple" in to "non-sheeple"?
You've traded freedom for (the perception of) security as is your right, but that only works in certain situations and assumes benign government.
So, the argument is that in case of oppressive government, you can use your shotguns and what have you in defending freedom?
If you cannot use force to protect yourself you have no _effective_ right to self-defense.
If I slap you in the face, do you have to right to shoot my head off?
While those of you who are totally comfortable with your government controlling your lives
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?
and who live in areas without violent demographic/sectarian/criminal conflict may not care for firearms, they do go a long way to ensure sovereignty over ones own space.
Maybe widespread availability of guns is one reason why your personal space is so threatened?
Mao was right, political power does flow from the barrel of a gun, and the requirement to kill opponents who won't respond to reason means that the tools to do that are worth keeping.
And what if the ones without guns are the ones being reasonable, while the ones with guns are being unreasonable? Couldn't those guns be used to prop up an oppressive regime, just as well they might be used to bring one down? How many US presidents or other high-ranking politicians have been assassinated, or faced an assassination-attempt?
Both self and wife have used firearms in self-defense without firing them.
Strange, I have never had the need for anything of the sort. But I'm just an Euro-hippie, so what do I know. It must be like living in the jungle in USA?
We live in a rural area where the cops can't do more than react (clean up the mess), so relying on the kindness of others isn't a good idea. If you don't have a gun, anyone physicallly superior to you can do what they will.
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?
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
gimme a country in anarchy where the populace don't have easy access to guns than the most politically stable country in the world (which the US is *not*) where they do.
And this was modded as insightful? If Slashdot had a terminally naive moderation this post would certainly deserve it.
If you want to rant about the United States, rant about the United states, no one is going to stop you from doing so (Not even the US). But framing this as a discussion about firearms is disingenuous. Don't pretend that you care about firearms when what you really want to do is bash on the United States.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
So Microsoft are the Borg, Apple are the Evil Empire and Google are... Mighty Morphin Power Rangers?
Then why do only 3% of Americans own guns?
Once again, the moderators are on crack -- giving +1 to something that can be proved wrong with a simple Google search:
Two in Five Americans Live in Gun-Owning Households
Technically it's not a POW camp, seeing as a majority of the "detainees" weren't part of a military of any sort involved in a war with the US - a "war on terror" is meaningless, you can't send a formal declaration of war to "terror".
It's an internment camp, and by extension a concentration camp. Look up the definition of both internment camp and concentration camp. The OP did not mention "nazi concentration camp", just concentration camp.
So you are 100% wrong with your rejection of the term.
Actually, it *was* because there were a lot of people that thought they were going to lose access to ammo. There were numerous new reports at the time featuring interviews with shop owners and customers. It was quite eye opening at the time - I didn't realize that people were that nuts.
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...
Hi there, hunter here from Wisconsin. Do you know that there are more deer in Wisconsin than before it was settled? It's true. And do you know why? There are no more wolves. The deer have no natural predators any more. Every year deer cost millions of dollars in crop damage and insurance claims. Almost 27000 deer/car collisions a year.* $28 million in crop damage.** They also destroy forests by eating new growth faster than it can recover. Yes they are cute and many people are afraid of guns due to ignorance and inexperience, but don't let that stop you from actually getting the facts.
And trust me, all the shitheads that want to go around poaching and shooting road signs and transformers piss off every decent hunter out there that has to defend themselves against stories like these. It's not the guns or the hunting that's the problem, it's STUPID PEOPLE.
* http://dnr.wi.gov/org/land/wildlife/HUNT/DEER/CKDFY10.pdf
** http://learningstore.uwex.edu/assets/pdfs/G3083.pdf
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
Let's just state the plain, obvious, unpopular truth :
Why do you think Vietnam/Iraq became such nightmares?
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).
Did this work for the Soviets in Afghanistan? No, of course not. It didn't work for the Germans in France either. More importantly, it will never work unless you keep a large military force in the country forever. The United States does not want to keep a large military force in the country forever. It wants a stable, relatively free country, since that seems to work out best for everyone, the US included. Barring that, the US wants a stable, unfree but not threatening country.
Insurgencies don't work the way that you seem to think. You cannot kill your way out of them, since as you kill people, you make more insurgents. The improvements in Iraq came because we were more careful, not more indiscriminate, in who we killed, while attending to the social and cultural factors that could make the country more stable and non-threatening (cf. Petraeus). Afghanistan is even worse because it's not really a country so much as a collection of tribes and warlords and an arbitrary boundary.
The more people I meet, the better I like my dog.