Geohashing Meets an Angry Rancher With Firearms 800
katicli writes "Geohashing, an obscure xkcd pastime which involves going to random coordinates generated by md5 hashing, the date, and the opening status of the stock market, appears to have just gotten far more interesting. The official wiki reports a warning for other geohashers intending to go to the spot designated for June 14th in the San Francisco area, as several avid fans of xkcd were met by an angry rancher and firearms."
Re:Overreactions (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Overreactions (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Culture --weird (Score:1, Interesting)
Don't worry. It won't be a problem once they ban knives [bbc.co.uk], too.
Because no complex social problem is so intractable that it can't be addressed by laws against possession of inanimate objects.
Re:Culture --weird (Score:3, Interesting)
Near as I can tell, the news is propaganda'd over there to suppress reports on gun crimes. Our local news over here used to emphasize every time someone showed up anywhere (private house) or got shot at with a gun, unless a gun was used by an ordinary citizen to correct the situation (i.e. remove a crazy shooter trying to gun down as many kids as he can... by shooting him a half hour before the cops show up). They don't like talking about heroes wielding weapons, only villains. We had a few minor incidents a year but the overall impression of stuff like that hitting the news every month or so is that it's happening everywhere, all the time, to everyone just because it seems "normal" with all the reporting and you know it shouldn't be a "normal" occurrence.
As far as I can tell our rape rate here is massive. I know too many people who got raped (like, almost every girl I know?). In general this isn't considered a problem in this country; most girls simply don't talk about it, a lot of girls haven't gotten raped, but a lot have. Go outside, you don't see rapists everywhere or hear about this horrible rape culture; yet you're living in it and oblivious. Over there you might have the same sort of issue with guns-- hasn't happened to you or most/any people you know, but it's still a significant problem compared to other places. It's really hard to tell.
Gun in the hand of the good guy (Score:1, Interesting)
random coordinates in NorCal (Score:1, Interesting)
Don't these people know better (or have they been smoking too much)?
Re:Overreactions (Score:5, Interesting)
There's enough gun weenies out there that it's often not worth the hassle if somebody panics when you're in town.
All this discounts concealed carry. Not to mention that they might have been carrying and you simply didn't realize it. I'm part of the firearms community that concerns itself with self defense. This includes both concealed and unconcealed carry. People who carry unconcealed have reported that an amazing amount of people never realize that they're carrying.
We're not normally talking about a chrome plated six shooter in a tooled leather harness with silver highlights, here. We're talking a flat black firearm in a black leather or synthetic holster. If they're carrying one of the smaller ones, perhaps with a shirt bloused a bit over the top, it can easily be mistaken for a blackberry or other such device.
Bacon fixin's (Score:4, Interesting)
In Indiana in some areas within the last few decades there have been enough incidents involving strangers that farmers do go armed for people. A farm near my parents had an incident where someone started shooting at a combine. There was no warning and no reason was ever found. There was also a sniper incident in that area recently where several people were killed. While there are hunters in that area the sniper incident encouraged a large number of people to learn what a rifle is and what it can do. I suspect there are more non-hunters who can shoot than hunters in that area now.
If you're going to go to a rural area and be an ass expect to get cornholed. I like the comic but if it's readers are such stupid fucking morons as to trespass they can be hog feed for all I would care.
Re:Culture (Score:3, Interesting)
I remember when I was young, maybe ten years old, and I went in to town to play with some friends. They were playing some kind of neighborhood-wide hide and seek, tear-assing through everyone's backyards. I felt unable to play because the wholesale trespassing going on made me intensely uncomfortable. It still does.
Of course I was trained to shoot at age 8 and operate heavy machinery at 12, so there were other benefits as well.
Had these ordinary folks with an arcane hobby shown up on my father's farm he would have shot a warning shot across thier bow (12 gauge bird shot). He, however would have told them to stay where they were and to not move until the County Sheriff arrived to deal with them. At which point they'd get a free meal and room for the night in the pokey. You see my father, and every landowner in the county who had an ounce of smarts, knew the sheriff and his deputies pretty well and would be happy to do a favor for him (particularly if there would be a good story in it) and would always take his word against someone from out of the area. So even if these guys had called the law, it would have done them no good.
Had they gone up and rung the doorbell and asked, it may have been a no problem. But then again it might have. Depends on the season and where they wanted to go. If they wanted to go in the middle of a field and there were still crops in, there's no chance in hell, they could easily cause hundreds of dollars of crop damage. And likewise in a pasture where there are animals. Just because they are farmed animals does not mean they are domesticated. Getting run over by a cow isn't fun, and a sow can and will kill you if she senses a threat to her young.
Re:Culture --weird (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Bacon fixin's (Score:4, Interesting)
Most of the ranches in the west are on public lands, so even if it is posted there is no such thing as trespassing, since all the ranchers have is grazing rights. A couple of our gold claims out here are smack dab in the middle of ranches, and the rancher can't deny access. The only time it gets iffy is on privately maintained roads, then courtesy (and often personal safety) demands that you head up to the ranch house and ask permission.
As for cornholing... Erm... are you living in the 1800s, or in the Deliverance country? Most ranches are big businesses, with thousands of head, and tens of thousands of acres. These are run by huge companies, and the head rancher is usually financially well off, and educated. Most of the hands are either freindly half-drunk Mexicans, or friendly blue collar folk escaping from city life and complications.
The wild west isn't that wild anymore.
As for guns, expect them. Where we go, there are rather large predators running about, and tons and tons of poisonousness snakes. Also your 200 miles from nowhere, and there are some bad folk stomping around up there.
This is my experience in AZ, but I'm guessing it is largely the same everywhere in the west, possibly more so in civilized CA.
Re:Overreactions (Score:2, Interesting)
proof you're all fools (Score:1, Interesting)
Like you guys wouldn't get shot, or at least have the police show up, if you walk into someone else's place without permission in town so why do you think you could get away with it out here? Often the police show up after the funeral so it pays to be pro-active in the defense of your own property. For a lot of people their property is their income source (you know, livelihood) and they have alot invested and work damn hard for it. So it becomes fairly critical when people show up and drive all over their property without permission or any understanding of whats at stake.
The long sentence is intentional indicator of how arrogantly stupid those insensitive selfish kids were.
Short headline: City kids meet the country people that feed them and run home.
In the kids defense: They most likely wouldn't have known who to ask as a lot of the time ownership and tenant information out here can be hard to come by. Of course, if you don't have permission, stay off still reigns.
Re:Irrational.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Hmm. Maybe the laws only prevent the law abiding from having guns. Perhaps that gives the person about to commit a crime the monopoly on force?
Re:Overreactions (Score:5, Interesting)
In short, barring special circumstances or special permits, it is illegal for the owner to drive anybody off their property.
I'm certainly not saying you're wrong - I just thought that people may want to know that alternative views on the concept of private property exists, and just picked one of the first posts in the discussion about it to reply to.
Oh, and Sweden is not the only country that has this practice. The law exists in other Nordic countries, and to a lesser extent some other European countries.
Re:Overreactions (Score:2, Interesting)
Biggest example: The UK. They are the most domestically violent country in the developed world. Their rape rate, assault rate, and domestic violence rates are EXPONENTIALLY higher than that of the US on a per capita basis.
Thanks for backing me up
Re:Overreactions (Score:4, Interesting)
Why would the reverse not be true? Why would a person not have the right to go where the cattle could go? Ranchers can't claim their property rights are "violated" when they don't respect others' in the same manor and keep their cattle on their property.