Hunters Shot Down Google Fiber 1141
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].'"
Guns and chains... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Unexpected (Score:3, Interesting)
To me it's now known for being as hicky as the south. People are idiots. Please stop giving them guns..
Re:Fucktards (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
An experiment in Social Engineering. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hunters and responsibility (Score:2, Interesting)
Thinning pests, and over population of grazing animals...
When someone wakes up to find their prized roses chewed up by starving deer or when their spouse t-bones a deer on the interstate and dies, it's amazing how "pro-hunting" they become.
That's what happens when people crowd in and destroy an ecosystem - all the deer's predators were wiped out: hunters who wanted cats, hysterical suburbanites who were afraid that the big bad cat was going to eat their dog fi-fi, dumb-asses who thought the cats were going to come into their house or something and eat their babies, etc....
A starving deer or any creature for that matter, is an incredibly pitiful site - much more pitiful than seeing its heart blown out by a shotgun slug or pierced by an arrow.
On another note: Deer is an incredibly wonderful tasting animal! Bambie for the win!!
Save the environment - eat Bambie!! Disney should make a cartoon about that.
Re:so what? (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh dear, so you understood that I meant yes to both, but you are still trying to force a false choice upon me. Perhaps you need the class in both English and logic?
Perhaps that course in English would teach you what an epithet is. Or perhaps not, miracles are not that common.
Re:Guns and chains... (Score:1, Interesting)
When I was in scouts, and away from the adults, we'd attempt to shoot these out too.
It was a little ironic as the kids that were the sons of hunters were the worst shots...I always hated guns, and as a result needed to prove that I was better than they were. I hate the act of shooting a gun, the fact that kids have them, the very idea of them. (and yet believe that in the US it is our constitutional right to own them...go figure). And yet, I made certain I was a far better shot than any of the kids that loved guns and actually won a few regional competitions until I realized I was starting to like them.
Anyhow, the kids would attempt to shoot these things, and they'd ALWAYS miss. I didn't like shooting away from the range but one day I just got pissed at the ineptitude of the junior rednecks and said GIVE ME YOUR GUN...aimed at and ***BAM***...the loudest and brightest explosions I'd had ever heard up close. I realize it caused a lot of damage, and probably shut down power to a lot of people, but I was 13 years old and it was AWESOME. Ok...I still hate guns...
Stop spewing your discriminatory bullshit. (Score:1, Interesting)
What in the fuck are you talking about? I'm a black man, and my wife is Filipino. We've lived in Portland and several smaller communities throughout Oregon for many years. We've never experienced racism or discrimination of any sort.
The only person I see discriminating here is you, with your utter bullshit about the supposed "racists" in Oregon. Are you one of those hyper-sensitive, ultra-politically-correct people who sees racism EVERYWHERE, even when there is absolutely none?
Re:Hunting for food? We don't gather, either. (Score:3, Interesting)
I dare you to list one single reason why a modern society _needs_ to _hunt_ for _food_. There are none.
Because they want to? No further justification necessary.
Otherwise you get stuck on the slippery slope to micromanagement madness. So, are cows more or less sentient than pigs? Is it more immoral to yank a living green onion out of the dirt and chop it up while its still alive, than to tear the dormant seeds off a fruit tree and eat them while they're "sleeping"? Is it more or less immoral to chop up an apple and then bake it into a pie, thus only torturing it for an hour or two, vs dehydrating apple slices slowly over a period of days?
Re:Immature and Gun Happy (Score:5, Interesting)
This is Slashdot and I'm prefectly comfortable with having a discussion, but there is a lot of blind hatred that came out in this thread against gun owners that was being modded very high and was really rather vitriolic.
I'm sorry if my post came across as something more than was intended.
With regard to firearms, I've been encouraged many times to never let on to the fact that I own any, or where I keep them. They are a high value target for thieves. As a result, unless I'm very familiar with the person, I don't bring up my ownership of firearms. (Not worried about Slashdot, the people I'm worried about wouldn't know this username)
Re:Immature and Gun Happy (Score:4, Interesting)
The OP's line of "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." si crying out for analysis, too. I don't see how owning a gun and being a core part of the American rightwing (i.e. a cog in the military-industrial complex) marks you out as being free from the government's influence, either.
Re:Immature and Gun Happy (Score:2, Interesting)
Some people own guns because no government fears an unarmed populace, and government only works in the interest of the people when the government fears the people and not the other way around.
Pro tip: Governments have tanks, helicopters, cruise missiles, GPS, satellites, and trained/disciplined armies. They don't fear your semi-auto shotgun.
Just look at Afghanistan - and they are armed to the teeth even compared to the US gun nuts. Were the US government to become so oppressive as to actually spawn a domestic uprising, they more than likely would be spinning PR, so it wouldn't matter how many civvies they killed, unlike now in Afghanistan.
I support responsible firearm ownership. I target shoot. I don't make the mistake of thinking I could take on a government with a couple of long guns and my personal ammo stash.
I am, however, entirely prepared for the Zombie Apocalypse.
Re:Immature and Gun Happy (Score:3, Interesting)
I support responsible firearm ownership. I target shoot. I don't make the mistake of thinking I could take on a government with a couple of long guns and my personal ammo stash.
Exactly. I grew up in a household with guns. I was introduced to guns at an early age. And although I don't own any guns, I do enjoy shooting skeet and trap whenever possible. And I have been thinking about getting a small-caliber handgun to do target-practice. But not for a second do I think that I need guns to "protect myself" either from criminals or from the government.
And if the shit really it the fan, me and my gun would be next to useless when facing tanks, gunships and artillery. And if we really did got an oppressive regime, it would mean that me and my fellow citizens had already failed. If you need guns to oppose your government, you have already failed. People usually get the government they deserve. If you don't want oppressive regime, make sure to vote, and stay educated about politics.
And as history shows, we have had lots and lots of revolutions by unarmed populace.
Re:Immature and Gun Happy (Score:4, Interesting)
I know people in the Twin Cities carry concealed quite often--enough that the hospital I sometimes go to work has a "no guns allowed in building" sign and a locker where you can check-in your weapon is full.
Wisconsin is open carry (no concealed carry) and recently there's been some activity with people doing everyday things (pick up garbage, going out to dinner) while openly carrying. Police--especially the police-state type of police--of course freak out until after they arrest someone and realize it is within their right to openly carry.
Then the police are hit with a lawsuit (I believe that's what's going to happen in a recent Madison, WI case)
The pendulum of a government-sponsored police state has swung too far for people in my region to feel comfortable. The gun-rights advocates are pushing it back in their own way. When Obama was elected, you could not easily find ammunition to buy. It was being scooped up as fast as it could be delivered to sporting stores. It was not because a bunch a crazy citizens thought a black-man president was going to take away their weapons, it was because the message of $400 spent on 1000 bullets is heard much more clearly than any angry saying on a bumper sticker.
Re:Explain to me again please, (Score:3, Interesting)
Why "hunters" need guns?
Because I'm in it for the food, not for the fun (it's okay if it's fun as well though) and because without guns hunting is a high-energy activity with a poor risk:reward ratio.
Explain to me please why you think the subject line is part of the comment. It's labeled, you'd think you could tell the difference.
Re:Immature and Gun Happy (Score:3, Interesting)
I love how you assume that is even remotely possible. Its not like people are going to blithely accept something like that. There is a phrase that Charlton Heston used, that rings very true with a lot of gun owners. 'they can pry it from my cold dead fingers'.
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.
And that, really, ist the problem with gun ownership in the USA: it is uncontrolled. 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.
Re:Hunting for food? We don't gather, either. (Score:2, Interesting)
The solution was to have an organized hunt/cull in which many people who wanted to try their hands at hunting but couldn't because they are disabled. Then they loosened the restrictions on regular hunting during the year and allowed people to take more deer. Now the you see in parks are much more healthy and less deer are hit on the roadways.
Plus, venison if cooked correctly is delicious! (Ok so nobody would starve if there was no hunting for food, but people were getting hurt/killed due to over population of deer. Tasty venison is a nice byproduct of solving that problem.)
Re:Hunters and responsibility (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Immature and Gun Happy (Score:3, Interesting)
I find it funny the GP's post was modded "insightful" while his second post was modded "flamebait", even though both messages are essentially the same thoughts.
If you want to see what happens to an unarmed populace, all you need to do is look at Germany during the 1930s and 40s. The unarmed enemies were rounded-up and jailed easily (or shot if they resisted). The armed enemies made the government's plans fall apart (see Jewish Uprisings and the defense of Switzerland by its own armed citizens).
Guns create problems for government leaders and slow down their ability to be tyrants.
Re:Well... (Score:3, Interesting)
Whatever. You try digging hundreds of kilometers of trenches for cabling in sparsely populated regions to reach perhaps only a few thousand houses or less. Try maintaining those trenches too. Then come back to us.
At the end of the day, poles are surprisingly more robust and resilient and cost effective than people give them credit for. Yes power cuts occur, but they can be fixed promptly if the right systems are in place. I've lived in rural areas for years and while power outages happen (~1 every 2 years), they are usually fixed within a day or perhaps two. Even following nationwide gale-force winds and 100,000 homes without power, the juice is usually back on for almost everyone within a few days. Meanwhile, the state has saved itself billions over the years by not digging expensive trenches under every boreen up and down the country.
This is in Ireland. A small but sparsely populated country on the whole. I cannot fathom what herculean labours North American network engineers have to perform to keep their systems up and running. But even despite the tornados, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods and hunting parties, given the scale of the continent I doubt they've given up on poles just yet.
Re:Fucktards (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Hunters are Conservationists (Score:1, Interesting)
Perhaps hunting culture is different in the UK than here in the States, but I think its disingenuous to say that hunting for sport is disrespectful to nature. In fact, hunters have a vested interest in wildlife conservation and protection and want to ensure the population of wild game thrives, otherwise they'll have nothing to hunt.
Anecdotally, when I was taking a hunters safety course, the instructor explained that 40 years ago, the typical deer hunter could hunt for more than 5 seasons (5 years) without even seeing a deer in the wild. Now I can't even drive to work w/out seeing a deer carcass on the highway, and deer hunting is more popular than ever. The conservation and education programs funded by ammo and permit sales have helped to preserve the wild life and ensure a surplus of game.
Hunters and land owners, as conservationists do much more to protect the environment than you might imagine.
Re:Immature and Gun Happy (Score:4, Interesting)
I so agree.
The worst incursion I have had on myself or my living area stemmed from a misunderstanding of epic proportions, was at my home, and went so far as to get to fisticuffs until sanity was restored. Bruises were sustained, egos were bruised and stuff had to be discussed (and I even declined to press charges even when it was within my right to do so. No harm, no foul).
Notice that nobody got shot dead.
I live in Sweden, in the worst neighborhood within a few hundred kilometer radius. I know that somebody got beaten up with a bat a few months ago in the neighborhood (reportedly a drug debt, happened after he let the drug dealers he owed money to into his apartment).
Hunting weapons are widely owned in Sweden, and there's a large army base in the town. But people don't keep loaded 9mm pistols or semi-automatics in the glove box. This is a possible influencing factor why a misunderstanding did not get elevated to homicide. Neither party had a weapon which pierces human bodies easily with a feather light pull on the trigger at a time when fear and tempers flared high.
Most excellent.
A shooting is a national headline in a country which has 31 guns per 100 residents (Sweden). USA does have 90 guns per 100 residents (according to wikipedia) but 31 is not a low number. Why is gun crime not just 1/3 of what it is in the USA?
Different rules and different mentality?
Or are the other 60 guns per 100 persons mostly handguns and sprayfire weapons specialized for killing people and no good for hunting?
Re:Immature and Gun Happy (Score:5, Interesting)
As a WW2 history buff I say to thee respectfully the history of WWII contradicts EVERY POINT you've made.
"At which point did WWII partisans ever become a threat the third reich"?
When they were killing soldiers left and right, blowing up transport and supplies, generally holding up whole divisions that could have been at the front?
"They were, at no point, capable of even attempting to attack any significant groups of German soldiers".
Really, read a book or two. There where literally thousands of attacks on significant German forces, in Russia, in the Balkan, in France.
"And the groups collaborating with the Nazi's dwarfed, in almost all of Europe, the resistance".
And the group that did nothing whatsoever dwarfed all the combined Nazi's AND the resistance.
Your point?
As for Roman and other Fascist tactics in population decimation, complete control and massive retaliations against any and all resistance;
That works so well that these Empires still thrive and survive, and are seen as admirable examples we should look up to.
Idiot.
Re:Pretty common. (Score:3, Interesting)
Can someone explain this to me? Do insulators have some kind of shape or feature or position that awakens some kind of primal instinct or something? Are people somehow compelled to shoot them down? Should they be painted a special colour or something, because it seems that people cannot be relied upon to resist the urge to shoot them down.
Re:Immature and Gun Happy (Score:3, Interesting)
You carry a compound bow as a sidearm? Do you go about your daily business with a strung bow? Or keep one by the bed just in case?
Obviously I was making a point, but moderators felt I was trolling. Either way I'm not really planning to shoot anyone with a bow. My point was, he said he would NEVER defend himself with it. That is just pathetic. You can call me flamebaiter, but you can't call me troll.
The bow IS of course always strung, because it's a compound. I keep it in a case with arrows in the attached quiver.
I don't know if you were being light-hearted in your comment, since typing carries so little nuance, but if you read the GP's comment it's one I would agree with (if I owned either weapon): it's only for actual target sports, hunting or such.
If I'm holding a chicken sandwich and someone attacks me I'm going to throw the sandwich at them in spite of the fact that it's only for eating. If someone attacks me and I own a gun I'm going to put a big fucking hole in them because fighting is dangerous. People die in fistfights every day. Just let me say fuck that. There is one and only one time violence is permissible; to prevent violence. Frankly, I have no problem killing someone who is taking an action likely to result in my death or maiming. Anyone who does is an enabler of evil, period, the end. Of course you may disagree, but this is what I believe. Fucking shit head mods.
As a side note, bows have always had more power in the hands of a trained bowman in comparison to gonnes and muskets.
Yes, of course. But today I can take my 1898-designed belgian Mauser, rebarrelled in Peru to shoot US military surplus ammo, and point and click at something very very far away, so far that my bow can't put an arrow anywhere near it.
Re:They're called *VANDALS* not hunters (Score:1, Interesting)
Your correction is about as meaningful as replacing "a taxi driver committed a murder" with "a murderer committed a murder". TFS says that the cut fiber is correlated with hunting season, end of story.
Re:They're called *VANDALS* not hunters (Score:1, Interesting)
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.
So, if you're a British paratrooper that murders a family of four, you're NOT a British paratrooper?
Re:Hunters and responsibility (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, it generally is uneconomical to hunt for food. Hunting normally takes too much time. Likewise it was exactly the commercial hunting for food which nearly wiped out most North American animals about a century ago, before the recreational hunters were able to get the conservation laws passed. The first, and most enduring conservation movement is that of sport hunters. Modern lobbying organizations like Ducks Unlimited, are some of the largest voices protecting habitat and environment. Hunters have a direct interest in protecting the biodiversity and strength of habitats, as both are integral to continuing the sport. Hunting (like fishing) license fees are there to support the wilderness.
The justification for hunting is population control as part of a overall environmental management strategy. Since large predators are generally dangerous (and therefore suppressed by humans), hunting fills in this gap in the predator-prey relationship, limiting prey populations. If this did not happen, prey populations would grow to an unsustainable point, resulting in destruction of habitat and eventual mass starvation. Hunting is used as a management tool. Additionally, hunting seasons are normally in the fall with the idea that culled animals would have likely starved over the winter anyways.
As a hiker, mountain biker, cross country skier, and occasional hunter, I notice that hunting puts you in a different relation with your surroundings. When you hike (or ski, or bike), you can easily pass through the country, paying only attention to the path in front of you, and be wrapped up in your own world of concerns and worries. When you are hunting, you must pay attention to the entire world around you and be in-tune with it, otherwise you will be unsuccessful. It is different relation between man and nature than any other activity.
And yes, there are idiots who go hunting. This is like most endeavors which are accessible to the populace as a whole. Most of the time, when wrapped up in our professional lives, we do not realize that half the population (by definition) has an IQ of less than 100. That being said, the grandparent is guilty of the basic statistical problem of selection bias. Of course he would only notice the hunters who are unsafe or otherwise anti-social: those who act properly are generally no different than hikers and he would have no reason to remember them. Having been a part of many community shooting-range cleanups, I can attest that most firearms sportsmen act in a responsible manner. Unfortunately the few that don't can have a large impact.
The parent poster is from the UK, and as I understand it, hunting there was restricted to members of the upper class. Overall being anti-hunting is part of their broad culture war against the upper class. While I sympathize with his populist viewpoint, in the US it is the reverse. Because hunting is more accessible to rural people, but still relatively accessible to everyone, anti-hunting initiatives are spearheaded by the upper classes against the populist sport.
Miles
Re:Immature and Gun Happy (Score:1, Interesting)
You seem to forget that we were supplying the Afghans with some of the most technically sophisticated weapons on the planet. The Soviets completely lost control of the sky and suddenly couldn't move armer around.
Had the Afghans been left to their own devices it would have gone down VERY differently.
Same goes for France, if there wasn't a massive force challenging everything Germany did that occupation goes a whole hell of a lot differently too.
Re:Immature and Gun Happy (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know about that. From all the spew coming out of them lately, at least the stuff getting press, it appears to me that, whatever the original intention, the current Tea Party is composed primarily of Republican cheerleaders being pissy that their team lost and the other guy is fucking things up (instead of their guy fucking things up).
Re:Immature and Gun Happy (Score:2, Interesting)
The longest existing democracy is Iceland - 930 to 1799, then 1845 to present.
30 generations is 600-900 years, there was never stability of that type in the Roman Republic or Roman Empire.
Four to six generations of stability in the western Roman Empire perhaps and maybe in the East, but never even 10 generations of stability.
they shatter (Score:3, Interesting)
Can someone explain this to me? Do insulators have some kind of shape or feature or position that awakens some kind of primal instinct or something?
They're glass or ceramic. They shatter spectacularly.
Re:Hunters and responsibility (Score:1, Interesting)
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.
The problem is that no system exists to make sure the stupid people don't have guns. That is what's worrying. I don't worry about the 90% of gun owners that are rational, even-tempered, and responsible. I worry about the other 10%, and the fact that it only takes one idiot with a gun to cause serious harm.
If, as you say, hunters and other decent gun owners were concerned with maintaining a positive image and ensuring that people who should not have guns don't get them, then one would think they would support initiatives to ensure that people are held responsible for actions they take with their weapons. However, any time any ideas are put forward to provide accountability (say, tracking of ammunition) they all start yelling and screaming about the government coming to take away their guns, and basically going on like paranoid and irrational idiots. Why is it that pretty much every gun owner seems to be dead-set against the creation of a system to ensure that those who use their guns irresponsibly are not permitted to own/use guns?
Actually did work for Soviets and German Fascists (Score:2, Interesting)
Did this work for the Soviets in Afghanistan? No, of course not. It didn't work for the Germans in France either.
Actually it was working for the Soviets. The mujahadeen were losing and dying off until the US intervened with massive financial and material aid based out of Pakistan.
And it was working in France too until the allied invasion. The resistance was more of an intelligence gathering operation until the invasion.
Note the common thread. It was massive external forces that led to the failure of the invaders employing brutal tactics.
Re:Immature? (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course not. Who said anything about outlawing anything?
I'm not even saying that all hunters are morons, just that every hunter I've ever met has been a moron. It could very well just be a coincidence. I'm having some very bad luck when it comes to the hunters I have met, that's all. I'm sure there are hunters out there who don't actually enjoy killing wild animals and then stuffing them as trophies. Maybe I haven't met them because most of them lived in pre-industrial civilizations.
If your notion of leisure is blowing out the lungs of a deer with a high-powered rifle or bow-and-arrow, it qualifies you as a moron. If you say you're doing it to "keep deer from overpopulating" you are a moron and a bullshitter. If you say you are doing it "to preserve a fine tradition and strengthen family bonds" you are a moron, a bullshitter, and a sociopath. If you live in a city and didn't have any guns you'd probably be setting stray cats on fire.
But if you're a hunter who's doing it to feed your family or protect your family from dangerous predators, you are very possibly a fine person. Since I live on the U.S. mainland, there are very few of those hunters, which is probably why I haven't had the pleasure to have met any.
Re:Unexpected (Score:2, Interesting)
Oregon is that a lot of it is nature. With animals. Real animals. That will eat you .
... we had a pack of coyotes hunting the area ... When I hike, I regularly come across bear and cougar tracks and cougar kills.
Take in mind that I live in Alaska when I say that you guys are fucking pansies. Wild animal attacks are rare, even here and much more so in Oregon. No cougar has eaten a human in Oregon [wikipedia.org]. Nor for coyotes [wikipedia.org].Likewise for bears [wikipedia.org]. Meanwhile, Alaska, a state with a fifth the number of residents had 10 fatal bear attacks in the last 30 years. Oregon does not have "Real animals, that will eat you".