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back to article In redneck heaven, internet outages are the American Way

Welcome again to On-Call, our regular reader-contributed tale in which we reveal the odd things you've been asked to do at all hours. This week, reader “Commander” brings us a tale from the American South. Where they don't just have bacon. They have machine gun bacon! And as one reader once told us, cars in Texas are big. So …

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        1. Sarah Balfour
          Reply Icon

          Re: It's a sport....

          With slight adjustment, that'd work in Blighty too… well the bit about politicians at any rate. Wouldn't say our wildlife is all that dangerous (unless you happen to be sitting on a sea wall eating fish and chips. I did laugh at the American family sitting on the sea wall at Salcombe, feeling smug they'd the entire wall to themselves, having ignored the ubiquitous gull warning signs, then having to beat a rapid retreat (I say 'rapid' they were stereotypical septics) being pursued, coz they weren't gonna leave their tea!).

          1 1 Reply
        2. P. Lee
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          Re: It's a sport....

          >"Welcome to Australia, where the wildlife want to kill you

          Not just the fauna either, the flora have a tendency to spontaneously combust and try to burn you alive.

          0 0 Reply
    2. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It's a sport....

      Now if deer hide in trees or up the poles, it might be beneficial to the hunter to have that skill

      Sounds like an ideal skill for hunting these. They're unbearable!

      1 0 Reply
    3. Alan Brown Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: It's a sport....

      " bored hunters who decide some target practice is needed and use the insulators on the poles"

      What goes up must come down.

      _ANYONE_ who fires a shot without knowing where the bullet will land up should be flayed and delivered home in a bag made of their own skin.

      2 3 Reply
      1. Anonymous Coward
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        Anonymous Coward

        Re: It's a sport....

        @Alan Brown; Since we're talking about shots aimed in a primarily vertical direction though, is it such a major issue in that case? I seem to remember that they're nowhere near as lethal, primarily due to air resistance slowing them up and- most importantly- limiting the speed they'll reach on the way back down, which- if it were down to gravity alone- would otherwise be the speed they left earth at. (#)

        Did a look-up on the subject and got this:-

        http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2011/03/watch_out_for_falling_bullets.html

        Seems the orientation of the bullet on the way down is also normally tail-first, which tends to limit things too. Quite willing to bet that they'd still cause a nasty hit though, even if they didn't kill you.

        'Course, this only applies to near-vertical shots with minimal horizontal component.

        (#) For that reason, it's probably a significantly worse idea to try this on the moon.

        0 0 Reply
        1. Charles 9
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          Re: It's a sport....

          Since we're talking a shotgun, then no odds are the shot falling back down isn't likely to be an issue. Recall we had this discussion a month ago when a man took a shotgun to an invading UAV. Since shot aren't on spiral trajectories, they'll just tumble back to the ground like comparably-sized gravel.

          0 0 Reply
  2. Alan Brown Silver badge

    Not just the USA

    “Someone had fired a shotgun straight up in the air into a 16-count fibre optic cable,”

    A long time ago, on the other side of the world, in another life as a telco tech, we'd routinely run into problems traceable to water ingress on aerial cables caused by shotguns. Even if they don't sever the fibres/wires, damaging the jacket is often enough to cause long-term problems.

    Dickheads are dickheads the world over. If road signs have shotgun damage then they're unlikely to be the only thing in the area that got targetted.

    4 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Not just the USA

      Dickheads are dickheads the world over. If road signs have shotgun damage then they're unlikely to be the only thing in the area that got targetted.

      Indeed, I've seen bullet holes in road signs around the Snowy Mountains, so it's not just the US.

      0 0 Reply
    2. Richard 45
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      Re: Not just the USA

      "Dickheads are dickheads the world over. If road signs have shotgun damage then they're unlikely to be the only thing in the area that got targetted."

      Road signs around on the Powys/Shropshire border around Bishop's Castle have shotgun damage. https://goo.gl/maps/OBnRZ

      0 0 Reply
  3. Jock in a Frock

    Happens here in the U.K.

    We have some overhead fibres atop the National Grid network, and routinely get shotgun damage on a section between Plymouth and Exeter near a clay pigeon shooting range.

    0 0 Reply
  4. NobbyNobbs

    reminds me of:

    Given an infinite number of pickups with an infinite number of rednecks with an infinite number of shotguns and an infinite number of road signs they could write the whole works of Shakespear in braile.

    8 0 Reply
  5. OzBob

    It was probably

    the alien spaceship taking off after abducting a local that snapped the cable. Seriously, if these are the people Aliens are using as an example of our species, we must be considered the "Norfolk" of the western spiral arm of the galaxy.

    0 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It was probably

      Um...which Norfolk: England or Virginia?

      0 0 Reply
  6. Robert Grant

    Weirdly...

    in South African, it's British people who're known as rednecks, as we aren't used to the sun!

    1 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Weirdly...

      Well, that makes sense since people who've lived a long time in South Africa are either dark-skinned or have developed the tan needed to avoid sunburn.

      0 0 Reply
  7. BrentRBrian

    Yes, it was guys like these GUN TOTING, MEAT EATING, FUR WEARING, TEA CHUCKING good old boys that ran the KING'S BEST back to their island 18th century ...

    1 0 Reply
    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
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      Paris Hilton

      What a wonderful sight to behold at dawn: Shotgun damage

      Actually it's Texas, so it used to be part of the King of Spain's dominion...

      Definitely not "the colonies".

      0 0 Reply
  8. sisk

    Sounds par for the course. Except that, 'round here, the F150 is a status symbol, not a compact car. Though not much of a status symbol really. The poor sod driving an F150 just isn't quite good/rich enough to drive a gas guzzling Ram 3500 with a Cummins Turbo-Diesel engine. (Bonus points if it never sees anything more rugged than the Wal-Mart parking lot and the bed is so immaculately clean that it's obvious it's never had anything heavy or dirty in it.)

    3 0 Reply
  9. TomPhan
    Unhappy

    In the liberal socialist west coast, Internet outages are the American Way

    because we have Comcast.

    1 0 Reply
  10. dentext

    Texas is Redneck Heaven, and Texas has more assholes than mosquitoes,

    Texas has a lot of mosquitoes.

    0 0 Reply
  11. Rick Giles

    This isn't the first time...

    this has happened. My company is in Memphis and was affected by the Comcast outage.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/04/raccoon_gunshots_downtime/

    1 0 Reply
  12. sgp

    Eat steak the American way?

    I won't ruin a perfectly good piece of meat by putting plastic cheese on top, thanks nonetheless.

    0 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Eat steak the American way?

      And we won't talk about the abomination that Americans call bacon...

      0 0 Reply

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