

A Mad Scheme To Kill A Scientist - krisneuharth
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-scientist-murder7-2010jan07,0,1907606,full.story

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dschobel
_They discovered that the scientist had converted his living room into a
monitoring station for extra-terrestrial life: Six powerful computers were
running a program that analyzed radio signals from outer space._

If that's SETI @ Home (as I believe) then in addition to being a "monitoring
station for extra-terrestrial life", my living room is also a cryptography lab
(PrimeGrid) and a quantum computing and AI laboratory (AQUA@home).

Who knew!

~~~
JacobAldridge
I guessed it was most likely SETI as well, so hardly another brick in the wall
of mental illness. Applying my (ex) journalist nous to the story, however, I
think it was only included so they could run this quote in full (my italics)
later in the story:

"In her mind, he was perfect," Cox said. "She's tapped out. He has lots of
money. He doesn't know anybody. He lives behind closed doors. _He's trying to
communicate with ET._ Who would miss him?"

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rsheridan6
An interesting feature of this story is that the victim's internet friend was
the one who reported him missing. 20 years ago, a guy like this would have had
no friends at all, and, as the murderer intended, nobody would have noticed
that he was gone for a long time.

Maybe she would have even gotten away with it, especially if she had taken the
main part of his money, which she did not have time to get, and fled the
country.

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dkarl
_They discovered that the scientist had converted his living room into a
monitoring station for extra-terrestrial life: Six powerful computers were
running a program that analyzed radio signals from outer space._

Not to make light of a tragic story, but I hope no police or news media ever
have anything to say about my life.

~~~
argv_empty
I'm inclined to believe it was just SETI@home. After all the other
eccentricities they'd described, that seemed rather anticlimactic.

~~~
bitwize
Dear Media,

The _A Beautiful Mind_ guy is real, and he has a name. It's John Nash. You
should start using it more often as, movie or no movie, he's a remarkable guy
in his own right.

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aarongough
Personally I think cases like this are a great example of when capital
punishment is acceptable.

When a person shows that much contempt for the life and well-being of another
human being, they really don't deserve to continue living...

~~~
RevRal
We don't often learn something by killing, and it is barbaric. An ironic
reflection of our own lust for blood. But, okay. Sure, it is satisfying since
the "bitch has it coming."

Capital punishment is the easy way out for the criminal _and_ the society that
reared the criminal. If the criminal is truly guilty, they always get the last
laugh. At least in my mind.

We, the taxpayers, front the money to satisfy our blood-lust. And we learn
nothing in the end except, for a moment, we can feel the thrill of hooting and
hollering over the carcass of an enemy.

~~~
aarongough
I actually agree with you far more that my original statement shows. That
being said I just can't see how keeping someone locked in a cage for the rest
of their life is in any way preferable to just killing them.

They are unable to contribute to society while incarcerated, incarceration is
not shown to actually help rehabilitate them, and incarceration costs everyone
else a _lot_ of money...

On the other hand: if capital punishment is used then it's pretty clear
they'll never get the chance to re-offend. And in cases like this where the
criminal has done something truly heinous I think that is the biggest plus
possible.

~~~
RevRal
I understand your view. The situation makes me sad, and angry, all around. And
I'm not talking about just this case.

I have adopted a "we are homo sapien" (note: not plural) outlook toward
humanism. Ideally, for me, we can let these guys live while we slowly improve
our civilized society to a point where the niche that conditions these
criminals can absolutely no longer function.

They slowly die out and we have no blood on our hands. I think we're still
primitive, though. I acknowledge that I am very lofty and this issue is very
complicated. I would just really not like to have anything to do with death.

~~~
hugh_
_I have adopted a "we are homosapien" (note: not plural) outlook towards the
humanities_

While I have no idea what that means, I would like to point out that "homo
sapien" is not the singular of "homo sapiens"

~~~
RevRal
I'm really racking my brain here thinking of a way to fix my sentence.

What I'm saying is that our human power and dignity does not come from the
individual but the whole species. Like a colony of ants. A sort of species
mind. It is the intelligence that exists in the cloud of connections between
humans.

Not self aware intelligence, but an intelligence that expresses itself in
culture and societies. I am basically saying that we are all of the same
branch of that four dimensional tree called evolution. I believe that this
oneness mindset is healthier.

If you ever wondered what an off topic comment looks like, there you have it
:)

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og1
"She said Willa Blanc just showed up and said she had a large dog in the trash
can, and paid her dad $1,000 to help them burn it," prosecutor Smith said.
"They took all night to do it. This was even weirder than we were imagining."

Seriously...why would anyone believe a lie like that? This story makes me
angry.

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rgrieselhuber
"Prosecution is also more common thanks to surveillance cameras and other new
tools."

A sadly ironic statement, considering the victim's struggles with paranoia.

~~~
joeyo
That reminds me of one of my favorite Onion News videos: Is the government
spying on paranoid schizophrenics enough?

[http://www.theonion.com/content/video/in_the_know_is_the_gov...](http://www.theonion.com/content/video/in_the_know_is_the_government)

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sethg
There’s a common stereotype that to be “crazy” is to be dangerous, but as
stories like this indicate, the mentally ill are more likely to be victims of
abuse than perpetrators.

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jcnnghm
A relative of mine always used to say "just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean
they aren't out to get me." Perhaps he was right.

Also, given the topic of his research, nuclear weapon design, it doesn't seem
too unlikely that government agents would tamper with his vehicle. The article
seems to sensationalize a lot about the man. Running SETI@home isn't exactly
that strange of a thing to do. Isn't it built into the PS3.

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ahi
A lot of engineers have similar mental health issues, so I'm sure we all know
someone like this. It's hard to strike the right balance between respecting
their privacy and looking out for them.

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astine
Oh, so they just wanted his money. Nothing sensational there.

(Tragic and shameful nonetheless)

~~~
philk
The sensational thing is that they're preying on the mentally ill.

