Google data center links shot down by 'bored' riflemen Google may have fashioned a new-age contraption that automatically relocates data stores when one of its top-secret data centers is beset by traffic or hardware snafus. But it's still struggling to protect its data centers against hunters taking pot shots at aerial fiber connections. According to Australia's IT News, Google …
I know that when I was a kid growing up here in Canada, about 45 years ago or so, I saw public service advertisements on TV regularly warning people against shooting at insulators, as it could cause power failures that could claim lives during surgery, as it was an illegal and irresponsible act, and so on. So this is an old problem.
If it looks ridiculous, I'll venture, odds are that they won't even want to look at it, let alone, to try to shoot it.
Ever seen those orange balls they stick on power lines near runways? Paint 'em pink with crazy-looking (no pun intended) googly eyes, and put 'em all the way along the line. Candy-stripe the lines with purple ribbon. They'll be so confused, they won't be able to shoot straight enough to hit the ground with the odd shot.
Hey, it's psychology, kind of in reverse....
I for one proudly welcome our surreal overloards!
Dad: "Timmy, see if you can shoot down that big fat insulator up there"
Timmy:"Alright, Dad - BANG"
Google repairman: "Aaieeeeeeee!!!! - THUMP!"
Dad:"Errr.. It's getting late, Timmy. We should be going"
Timmy and his dad are lucky to live in a country where shortsighted and/or retarded people are not discriminated against when purchasing weapons. Hooray!
Militias are two states over in Montana. Oregon is Jeff Merkley (D) and Ron Wyden (D) in the Senate, so that would be Hippie an tree hugger country, not Redneck. So maybe it is ELF instead or Redneck, but what they hey, it's safer to pick on Rednecks.
Forgive my ignorance, but don't they have Law in the USA? OK, so it won't really be a helmeted jackbooted thug beating the shooter to the floor with a huge stick while shouting "TEN YEARS, CREEP!".
But surely the Police out there can at least arrest these people? Surely the Courts can sentence them to a gun ban? As I understand it, for those folks that must be worse than the Death Penalty. If they violate the ban, jail them, five years per violation. When a form of criminality becomes widespread and the Law becomes disrespected, draconian measures are the only way.
...That by the time the police travel the three days through the snow to get to the scene of the crime, somehow the perps have vanished, leaving only a few shell casings and empty beer cans. Despite what you might see on CSI, no amount of 'zooming and enhancing' is likely to show you from whom those came.
And plenty of these shooters get prosecuted. The problem is catching them. Usually they get turned in by a buddy who knows how to be responsible. But when you live in a society where nobody is held personally accountable, the fines and imprisonments are both not a deterrent.
The facts are it only take a single "oh shit!" to wipe out a million "atta boys" so the millions of responsible, law abiding hunters get a bad name from the very few turds among us.
...vs. what is essentially vandalism via bullets. You wouldn't get ten years if you crawled up the pole and cut it down with a pair of scissors; so, maybe you get vandalism causing damage plus discharging a firearm in an unsafe manner - but you're not going to, nor should you, get five years for that.
And, of course, Paris, because she encourages people to discharge their firearms in an unsafe manner...
"can anyone briefly explain why they put a data centre at the end of a three day cross country ski trail"
The availability of cheap hydro-power maybe? It's a lot cheaper and more efficient to stuff relatively few high value advertising-carrying photons down a few lengths of fibre than pumping vast number of electrons through thick conductors, losing some of the already low-value potential due to resistance, to a data centre in more populated parts. Also, such a large data centre in a populated area will attract its own security issus.
Then there is a the reduction in air-conn requirements by placing servers at a cooler, higher altitude in more remote parts.
Of course there must be other transport links to these places beside ski trails.
(although I would have though snowmobiles would get you there a lost faster than sking).
Cross country skiing. Check.
Gunmen. Check.
Large internation organisation viewed suspiciously by many. Check.
Devices with the word "Fusion" in their name. Check.
Devices with the word "Splicer" in their name. Check.
Devices concealed in backpacks. Check.
All you need now is a man with a white fluffy cat.
When I feel this need, I watch Time Warp and Mythbusters re-runs. They do all the blowing and shooting for me, and I don't even need to clean up afterwards. And I bet they are rednecks too.
So far, they have blown/shot, that I already saw just on Mythbusters:
5 cars;
1 fully loaded cement-truck. That was beautiful, the only remaining recognizable part of the truck was a piece of the crankshaft. And they needed a 2-mile isolation line, 500kg of ANFO, and an empty quarry to do it;
At least 10 ballistic gel dummies or parts of it;
3 "Busters" (they favorite crash-test dummy) died in the course of the show. Died as in "destroyed beyond recovery". The dummies were shot, blown, dropped or torched at least 15 times, each.
3 pigs, or parts of pork.
50 carton outlines of Korean warriors. this was a bit of let-down, due poor aiming;
1 safe;
1 jail cage;
1 drainage pipe;
And at least 1 "boat", and one cut in half.
And that is just from the top of my mind.
Those guys that shot Google stuff aren't regular rednecks, if that much. Perhaps they were hunting real game uphill, aiming high, and it was in the way? Or just vandals, as said.
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