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Murder Suspect John McAfee: I'm Innocent
- unimpressive 14y agoHe's wanted for murder and he has no plans to leave the country? I sincerely doubt that.
- bluedanieru 14y agoHis description of a Navy SEALesque operation the government of Belize put in place to poison a bunch of stupid dogs leads me to believe this guy has a tenuous grasp on reality. And he has a history of violence. Oh and he's apparently been really big on research chemicals as well? Yeah, his mind is fried.
- pyrotechnick 14y agoCondemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance. http://quorumex.com/content/about-us http://quorumex.com/content/about-us Perhaps he got a little too close to The Truth?
- ceejayoz 14y agoI'm still going to go with "he's a nutter", personally.
- pyrotechnick 14y agoThe Mad Hatter: Have I gone mad? Alice checks Hatter's temperature Alice Kingsley: I'm afraid so. You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are.
- ceejayoz 14y agoA lot of the worst, too. What, exactly, are you going for here?
- pyrotechnick 14y agoWhat, exactly, are you going for here?
- bluedanieru 14y agoThis is more about meth/meth derivatives than any work on some replacement for antibiotics or whatever. Research chemicals are bad fucking news and for every one discovery of something like LSD there are hundreds of newly-discovered chemicals that will happily get you high or keep you awake, while scrambling your brain and turning you into a literal crazy person who: thinks the government is poisoning his dogs; blacks out and kills his neighbor.
- pyrotechnick 14y agoI apologise! I didn't realise you're sufficiently qualified to speak about exactly what it is QuorumEx has done and intends to do with its research. Please formally introduce yourself so we can get a proper conversation started. I guess you're right though. That pesky cosmos thing is nothing but a serious of compounding mistakes. Why won't it ever learn? We simply cannot be trusted with science because some of us just might happen to abuse it. Pack it up folks. Go back home to the caves. Science has been cancelled.
- b6 14y agoI think you have a point, but this type of overkill response makes me think you have a persecution complex.
- pyrotechnick 14y agoI think you mean "a sense of irony". Something you clearly lack. Sorry I'm not "underkill" enough for you. But nobody has Clockwork-Orange'd you into reading this thread. If you don't like what you see, close your eyes, look away. It will still be here when you're ready to open them again. Thanks for the internet diagnosis though! I'll look into it! --- irony 1 |ˈʌɪrəni| noun ( pl. ironies ) [ mass noun ] the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect: ‘Don't go overboard with the gratitude,’ he rejoined with heavy irony. • a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often wryly amusing as a result: the irony is that I thought he could help me | [ count noun ] : one of life's little ironies. • (also dramatic or tragic irony )a literary technique, originally used in Greek tragedy, by which the full significance of a character's words or actions is clear to the audience or reader although unknown to the character.
- stickfigure 14y agoWhile I have zero knowledge of this particular situation, I've spent a fair amount of time in Central America and "corrupt law enforcement does something creepy" really does not seem all that far fetched to me. The rule of law does not work the same way it does in the US or western Europe - I too would hesitate to trust the legal system, especially if I had been around long enough to piss off (eg fail to bribe) the local authorities. Of course McAfee may very well be a nutter. These are not mutually exclusive propositions.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- wilfra 14y agoyou appear to be confusing him with a person thinking rationally.
- nilved 14y agothe photos and title do a great job of loading the question
- pyrotechnick 14y agoA keen observation indeed. In a zombie apocalypse, I'd readily let you keep watch whilst I slept. Wired is notoriously sensationalist. Take anything you get from there with many grains of salt.
- _delirium 14y agoFor those of you just tuning in to Adventures of John McAfee: "Antivirus Software Pioneer John McAfee Loses Fortune (2009)" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2933994 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2933994 [some additional discussion/links in the comments] "Meth Labs and Dead Dogs: How the Founder of McAfee Antivirus Went on the Run" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4027046 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4027046
- edj 14y agoAnd here's the Cliff's Notes: 2004: McAfee sells his entire stake in his antivirus company for something like $100 million. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/business/economy/21inequality.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/business/economy/21inequal... 2004: He starts building a compound in New Mexico for aerotrekking, i.e. flying ultralight aircraft. http://www.desertexposure.com/200711/200711_mcafee_icarus.php http://www.desertexposure.com/200711/200711_mcafee_icarus.ph... 2006: His nephew dies in an aerotrekking accident. 2007: He's getting major press coverage for his aerotrekking and his band of "Sky Gypsies". http://adventure.nationalgeographic.com/2008/06/aerotrekking/tom-clynes-text http://adventure.nationalgeographic.com/2008/06/aerotrekking... 2009: The financial crash supposedly wipes out most of his wealth, reducing his net worth to $4 million. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/business/economy/21inequality.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/business/economy/21inequal... 2010: He relocates to Belize. He is supposedly studying quorum-sensing in rainforest plants with a brilliant young doctor. http://www.fastcompany.com/1615167/plagued-lawsuits-mcafee-founder-hunts-cures-belize http://www.fastcompany.com/1615167/plagued-lawsuits-mcafee-f... May 2012: McAfee's house is raided and he's charged with running a meth-lab and possessing illegal firearms. Than the charges are dropped. But he goes on the run for a few days anyway. http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2012/05/meth-labs-and-dead-dogs-how-the-founder-of-mcafee-antivirus-went-on-the-run-in-belize/ http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2012/05/meth-labs-and-dead-dogs-how... 8 November 2012: Oops! Turns out he moved to Belize and planted the rumor that he lost 96% of his wealth to avoid possible damages in case he loses the civil lawsuits against him in the US related to his nephew's death. Oh, and now he hangs out with known gangsters. http://gizmodo.com/5958877/secrets-schemes-and-lots-of-guns-inside-john-mcafees-heart-of-darkness http://gizmodo.com/5958877/secrets-schemes-and-lots-of-guns-... 12 November 2012: McAfee is wanted in connection with the murder of his neighbor. http://gizmodo.com/5959812/john-mcafee-wanted-for-murder http://gizmodo.com/5959812/john-mcafee-wanted-for-murder
- tptacek 14y agoHow easy it to spot "9mm Luger ammunition" laying on a table? How much of an expert would you need to be?
- dr_doom 14y agoUnless he somehow saw the box or the imprint at the bottom, it's almost impossible. There is a small difference in width but you can't really tell if you're further than a foot away. http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&sa=N&tbo=d&biw=1182&bih=620&tbm=isch&tbnid=Z9ewtO6fax9T4M:&imgrefurl=http://herohog.com/images/guns/ammo/&docid=ehyFGanbGndNqM&imgurl=http://herohog.com/images/guns/ammo/CartridgeComparison.jpg&w=800&h=480&ei=uLGhUISKBYLzygHn-YC4Ag&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=241&sig=100504590602866504905&page=1&tbnh=135&tbnw=219&start=0&ndsp=16&ved=1t:429,r:8,s:0,i:139&tx=135&ty=98 http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&sa=N&tbo...
- sk5t 14y agoIt might seem like a small difference if you're not used to handling pistol cartridges, but if you are, that's like saying it's difficult to tell PHP from Perl. Edit: Also, there is usually an imprint on the bottom of the cartridge that says "9MM LUGER".
- dr_doom 14y agoI handle a lot of guns and that is a great analogy. We know that all we have to do is look for a ".php". But how many average people notice that type of stuff? You're right that there are imprints on all rounds but seeing and remembering that is like getting a database error and remembering if it was Microsoft or MYSQL...You have to have a lot of experience and a keen memory. So pretty much impossible.
- icambron 14y agoYou're assuming that the author is an average person with respect to gun knowledge. I don't know how much he knows about them, but the story seems to suggest he knows a little, right? Maybe relevant: he was a war correspondent in Iraq[1]. Or maybe he just likes guns? [1] http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.06/battlefield_pr.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.06/battlefield_pr.html Edit: spelling
- zalew 14y agoSo, to put it short: he loses his fortune, flees to a corrupt developing country, collects firearms there, gets arrested, thinks the govt need some black suited special ops in a boat to kill a dog, gets accused of murder so he goes on the run which would be a smart thing to do, but then he doesn't want to flee the country that presumabely wants to kill him because it's lovely. Sounds like trouble really likes this guy, or dude is simply nuts.
- amix 14y agoGizmodo has more details, especially regarding his meth activities and drug use (which could explain his paranoia and erraticness): http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2012/11/john-mcafee-wanted-for-murder/ http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2012/11/john-mcafee-wanted-for-murd... Reading about John McAfee is similar to reading about Hans Reiser - - brilliant minds wasted doing stupid things.
- Avitas 14y agoFor some odd reason, Phil Katz popped into my mind first.
- scarmig 14y agoPrompted me to read about Hans Reiser. Irrational as it is, it increased the my priority to move to ZFS...
- sliverstorm 14y agoYou know what they say, genius and insanity are just two sides of the same coin.
- 3amOpsGuy 14y agoIt didn't really shock me when the Reiser thing came to light. I remember back around 2003-2004 (possibly before) when there was all the hoo-haa on the lkml between Reiser's scratchy personality and his attacks on Torvalds, Cox et al., but backed up with a brilliant FS. It genuinely was faster, especially for lots of small files (the common case in 2003). It was night and day difference when running a busy mail server. It had lots of nice things too, e.g. it was reliably possible to grow a reiserFS while the FS was online / mounted, which was a neat trick in conjunction with LVM. There were some folks who stepped into the fray to try and lubricate the relationships a little - allowing the community at large to benefit from Reiser's work, by avoiding the need for the tempered Reiser to interact with others while his work was integrated. That never really happened though, there was noone to successfully defang the Torvalds side of the bun fight (which is entirely understandable). So when the case came to light, i couldn't help wondering if it was more than likely true.
- imjk 14y agoThis guy has been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons.
- ck2 14y agoWhether or not he is innocent/guilty/crazy/sane is to be determined but one thing about the dogs - the first thing police do is kill any dog that looks like it could attack them, they don't have to justify it so it's fun target practice for them. Special ops that don't want any alert by gunfire or barking would definitely poison the dogs with tainted meat, etc. So that part is not hard to believe. There are other aspects though that are worse. It's a series of poor, dramatic choices.
- joewee 14y agoIts VERY hard to poison a dog. If it was a special op they would just shoot the dog with a silenced weapon.
- nestlequ1k 14y agoReally? Dogs eat anything. Seems like a no brainer to add a bit of poison.
- polymatter 14y agoI am no dog trainer, but I've lived with them all my life. The dog would needs trust in order to take food from a stranger, even if you threw it to them at a distance. Some dogs are more trusting than others. And some dogs are fussy eaters too. They may not even be hungry and decide to bury it for later. Basically, if you want it dead, its simpler to shoot it. Less elaborate planning required.
- wandermatt 14y agoCan you link to sources on instances of special ops using this tainted meat tactic?
- Vivtek 14y agoI'm actually not sure about that. If they need quiet, they'd shoot the dog quietly - but apparently the dogs had not yet all died by the time the interview was held, so they were alive far, far longer than could possibly be of any benefit to a special ops team. More likely that a neighbor did it, sad as it is. Maybe the guy that got shot, maybe somebody else who got sick of a pack of wild dogs trying to attack them for using a public beach. It's one thing to "love dogs" and another to tolerate a dangerous pack of animals in your neighborhood that have been spoiled by a paranoid nutcase.
- Evbn 14y agoAny Hans Reiser comparison write ups yet?
- joewee 14y agoInnocent until proven guilty, no matter how many drugs he has used.
- swampthing 14y agoHe looks amazingly youthful for someone who's nearly 70...
- xbryanx 14y agoJust in case no one else says it, my friends say that Belize is actually a very lovely and mostly safe place to travel.
- crdoconnor 14y agoIt has the fifth highest murder rate in the world.
- justinY 14y agoi believe it's the 5th highest in the Americas, not the world - https://www.osac.gov/Pages/ContentReportDetails.aspx?cid=12320 https://www.osac.gov/Pages/ContentReportDetails.aspx?cid=123...
- Luyt 14y agoFrom http://wikitravel.org/en/Belize http://wikitravel.org/en/Belize this interesting tidbit: "Internet cafes can be found in larger tourist areas, but are infrequent in rural areas. The government does not allow Skype and forces tourists to call out of the country using its only government-owned phone company."
- nnq 14y ago...AMAZING how much work some people put into fucking up their lives ...still, better than having a heart attack in front of your PC while stuffing yourself with junkfood and energy drinks though :)
- xer0x 14y agowtf
- aneth4 14y agoHe's in a country where he claims the authorities will arrest him on sight and plan to execute him, but he won't leave because he loves it there. Something is not right either with him or these facts. "[T]he nicest place on earth" is not the place where they poison your dogs and try to kill you.
- mvzink 14y agoSee edj's cliffs notes version of McAfee's adventures: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4776504 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4776504 > 8 November 2012: Oops! Turns out he moved to Belize and planted the rumor that he lost 96% of his wealth to avoid possible damages in case he loses the civil lawsuits against him in the US related to his nephew's death. Oh, and now he hangs out with known gangsters. http://gizmodo.com/5958877/secrets-schemes-and-lots-of-guns-inside-john-mcafees-heart-of-darkness http://gizmodo.com/5958877/secrets-schemes-and-lots-of-guns-...
- meaty 14y agoI think there is something wrong with both him and the country. He's nuts and he didn't pay a large enough bribe.