

Homeless Man Leaves Behind Surprise: $4 Million - sleepingbot
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111091624

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arethuza
What a great post.

Reminds me of this: [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1314070/Eileen-
Nearn...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1314070/Eileen-Nearne-
funeral-Mourners-gather-British-spys-memorial.html)

Imagine being a spy in WW2, dropped into occupied France, captured by the
Gestapo, put in prison camps and repeatedly escaping and never mentioning it
to anyone!

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RexRollman
Agreed. I read that story when it was on Reddit and it was probably the best
thing I've read this month, along with this one.

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edd
Posted and "[dead]"ed yesterday: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1744855>

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raganwald
Why would it be killed? At first glance this looks like someone who hacked the
system to have no permanent address, yet was able to execute financial trades.

That seems masterful to me.

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mquander
I was unaware that being homeless was now considered "hacking the system to
have no permanent address." I agree, however, that he demonstrated
considerable mastery of the telephone at the senior center.

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raganwald
I guess you're trying to make a funny. Have an upmod for effort.

What you may not be aware of is how difficult it is to perform certain types
of financial transactions without a permanent address. Trading in stocks, for
example. Quite often you need to do certain things in person and need to
provide identification, which in turn may require a fixed address.

He may have been using the seniors centre as his address, he may have been
doing something else.

The key here isn't that he was homeless and used the telephone in the senior's
centre, the key is that he was homeless and used the telephone in the senior's
centre AND managed an investment portfolio.

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jobeyonekenobi
I would find it very enlightening to find out what kind of organisation system
he used for his trades/paperwork. Did he have a stash somewhere where he could
store documents? Did he have a PO Box?

How would people on HN organise themselves without any permanent address...or
by the looks of it, laptop/smart phone/access to computer, whilst tending to a
portfolio that would end up being in excess of $4 million?

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ahi
Probably did it the old fashioned way, called his broker.

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zafka
Thanks for this post. An uplifting article to start my Friday. While I know I
am romanticizing the story in my mind, the blurb sort of translates into the
last line of a Haiku.

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eru
> "He was an atheist and I'm a very profound practicing Catholic, and I'd
> never met an atheist," Belle says. "And that just blew my mind that somebody
> could not believe in the Lord."

I guess she doesn't believe in the existence of, say, India or China or Japan
either?

~~~
hugh3
A conspiracy of cartographers.

