
Ronald Tackmann’s Prison Breakouts Have Made Him a Legend - bhousel
http://nymag.com/news/features/62893/
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JshWright
I don't get it... This guy is a lousy criminal (frequently beaten up by the
very people he's try to rob with a fake gun), lousy at escaping from prison
(often laughed at by the guards he's try to scare with a fake gun), and when
he does escape, he's not smart enough to leave the area and gets recaptured
the next day.

Why is this worth a multi-page article that has such a bizzare disconnect
between reality and the author's perception? More to the point, why is this
worth posting on HN?

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thinkbohemian
For the same reason people read about serial killers...we don't understand,
and we want to see what makes them tick.

What interested me about this article was his perception of his situations. It
reminds me of Al Pacino's monologue in "Two for the Money" something about how
gamblers are only happy when they're on the bottom, because there's no where
to go but up. Everyone wants to be good at something...

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JshWright
I guess that explains why it's on HN. It still doesn't explain the author's
glorification of his incompetence...

From the bottom of page 4: "It would have been reasonable to assume that a man
with Tackmann’s criminal smarts would be on a Greyhound bus to Virginia or
Florida or anywhere across state lines to get out of New York. But he went to
Spanish Harlem."

It seems like the entire article is about this criminal genius who is so
insanely good at being a criminal, he actually appears to be a _bad_ criminal.
Why not just make the leap to the conclusion that he simply sucks at being a
criminal?

~~~
thinkbohemian
He's so good at predicting human behavior and noticing minutia...his tales of
escape place him well above the average intelligence of a typical inmate...yet
he robs places as if he was in a 70's straight to beta-max released cop movie.

The two pieces of the puzzle just don't add up.

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josefresco
I have to think that if this guy's crimes were online/Internet/computer
related he'd have quite a booming consulting business waiting for him each and
every time he made it out of prison.

Of course, he'd probably still not be happy with that, and would do something
dumb to send him back to prison where he's apparently happiest.

