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What is it like to be a geek in a prison?

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Re: What is it like to be a geek in a prison?

#221

Post by coldtea »

6d0debc071 wrote: post #99
coldtea wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You cannot go to authorities with "he called me a butt." Depends on the country. You very much can in mine, for "public insult".

Public order offence here; UK. But I don't see how it makes sense to do that over a little tiff, or even how it could be practically enforceable unless the policeman was right there. I mean what are you going to do; film all your life incase someone says a mean word to you?

Well, in my country's case, you could have a witness willing to testify as to what he heard. Happens quite a few times, especially from litigation-trigger-happy people.

Re: What is it like to be a geek in a prison?

#222

Post by droidist2 »

deftnerd wrote: post #212
Theodores wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This surprises me: "Once I learned that I should give a little to intimidation so the other party feels in control and powerful, but refuse to be totally controlled because the other party wouldn't risk their early release dates to beat up someone for no good reason, then I did well. It also helped to be able to pay off the local gang leader once a week with a pint of ice cream from the commissary. Protection was rel…

Excellent question. Yes, it did set me apart. Everyone laughed about how I "talked faggy". Other than being made fun of, which my skin was thick enough to not care, most of the other inmates just thought they were taking advantage of my skills. They didn't realize that I would have freely given those things away. The barter economy was interesting. Artists actually did well because inmates would supply pictures of th…

> Everyone laughed about how I "talked faggy".

This totally reminded me of movie Idiocracy.

Re: What is it like to be a geek in a prison?

#223

Post by lowkeykiwi »

wwweston wrote: post #210
warmwaffles wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's relevant for most jobs. In America it's considered bad to hire a felon. It's really bad. IMO everyone deserves a second chance if they make the effort to better themselves. However, my in laws and parents do not agree with this. Once damned, you are damned forever. Though I want to know about those who were former felons in the US and leave the country and pick up citizenship else where. I'd really like to hear…

There's a profoundly messed up bit of thinking deep in the psyche of a lot of Americans behind this. I think, more or less, it has to do with the idea of America as a specific (and even ideal) instance of the Just World hypothesis -- that is, America as a place where one is more free than anywhere else (even perfectly free ) to make their biggest dreams come true, or fall as deeply as their character flaws will take…

Absolutely. It's the dark side in the belief in pure perfect meritocracy. If they are rich then they deserve it. If they are poor then they deserve it.

Re: What is it like to be a geek in a prison?

#224

Post by Encosia »

adrusi wrote: post #49
kylelibra wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you disable pinchzoom?

it makes the page less sluggish. it's impossible to disable double tap zoom without disabling pinch zoom, and while double tap is enabled, browsers have to insert a tap delay. this is because every single tsp could be the beginning of a double tap, so the browser waits until 300ms after a single tap to respond to it. this delay isn't perceptible as a delay, but it does make the entire page feel less responsive. disab…

It's easy enough to avoid the 300ms delay without breaking zoom. There are dozens of tiny libraries that fix this problem by intercepting touchdown events and immediately firing a click if there isn't a touchmove within a very short interval. So, double tap doesn't work, but pinch does and you get "tap" events with very little delay.

Re: What is it like to be a geek in a prison?

#225

Post by eplanit »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #128
eplanit wrote: post #60

Hmm. He makes no mention of what crime he was convicted of, and expresses no remorse, either. Although he does seem to be feeling regret (which I think is an appropriate function of prison), he sees himself as being a victim -- no other victim is referred to. It seems he's proud of his murdering, home-invading comrades. This is certainly a testament to the failure of prisons (at least in his case). The education he n…

I would give you $1,000 to make it a week in medium, but I wouldn't want to be party to your murder.

Wow, literal prison yard jargon? "in medium" -- funny. Is this Hacker News or Pelican Bay? Murder? Not funny -- go fuck yourself.

Re: What is it like to be a geek in a prison?

#226

Post by ricree »

eru wrote: post #211
bg-throwaway wrote: post #186

I was sentenced to 10 months in 1998. I was released in 1999, went to college, got a Master's, and finally, a Doctorate. When I was originally sentenced, I was sentenced to a "boot-camp" style facility, with the goal of doing 90 days of boot-camp style labor, and walking out of prison a free man with a parole term. Due to some paperwork issues, I was transported to the main prison camp (where the camp's goal was to t…

How do you pay for a pardon? (I'm not from the US, so don't understand the legal system.)

Being mildly familiar with the US political system, but none of the specifics here, my best guess is that it was a combination of political donations and hiring some sort of lobbying company.

As a mild form of corruption, it's fairly common for lobbying firms to hire ex officeholders, as well as close friends and relatives of officials. Then the lobbyists have a core of trusted people that can at the very least get the official to listen to their client's argument.

There (usually) isn't any direct payoffs involved, but if someone plays by the rules they can generally be assured that there will be a cushy job waiting if they want it once their career in public office is over.

So in this case, my best guess is that a firm was hired to have one of the governor's colleagues raise the issue of the pardon every so often until he finally said yes. It also probably didn't hurt that he was the sort of person who can afford to hire their services, and there's always some upcoming election that needs to be financed through campaign donations.

But again, this is mostly just speculation, and I know absolutely nothing about his particular case.

Re: What is it like to be a geek in a prison?

#227

Post by aaronbrethorst »

nabnob wrote: post #154
jsmthrowaway wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, the stigma of having a criminal record sticks to you forever. Even now, in my middle 30's, it's nearly impossible for me to get a tech job even though my felonious history was from when I was a teenager. You pretty much have to resign yourself to the fact that you'll work at 50% of the salary as your peers or have to make your own future by starting your own companies and projects. You do not have to resign y…

Could I possibly email you for advice? I have a friend in a similar situation and I'm trying to help him find a job in Seattle. Edit: My email is [my username] AT gmail.com

I live in SEA and dated a woman for four years who was pretty intimately plugged in to a related community that could probably offer some help. I still have a number of contacts I could point your friend to. aaron@brethorsting.com

Re: What is it like to be a geek in a prison?

#228

Post by aaronbrethorst »

silveira wrote: post #105
Zikes wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN has no PM system. You'll have to give him an email.

treenyc can post his public-key in this thread, edw519 uses it to encrypt his email address and post the result in the thread. treenyc then uses his private-key to decrypt edw519's email.

Or you could just use twitter. That seems easier.

Re: What is it like to be a geek in a prison?

#229

Post by jsmthrowaway »

jtheory wrote: post #164
nabnob wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could I possibly email you for advice? I have a friend in a similar situation and I'm trying to help him find a job in Seattle. Edit: My email is [my username] AT gmail.com

You're replying to a throwaway account, so I doubt the poster is going to put an email address on it. Make yourself contactable instead (e.g., an email or something similar in your profile text), and cross your fingers.

My email is easily found in my comment history, in an attachment. My actual username is on permavacation; I thought the field was in seconds and it's in minutes. Whoops.

I prefer that my identity remain a little difficult to find because there are people on the Internet that stalk me and are regular readers here.

Re: What is it like to be a geek in a prison?

#230

Post by justplay »

deftnerd wrote: post #131
clamprecht wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You pretty much have to resign yourself to the fact that you'll work at 50% of the salary as your peers or have to make your own future by starting your own companies and projects. Fuck that. If you're going to resign yourself to something, resign yourself to the fact that you will have to work 150% as hard as your peers to make as much money. I know this is saying almost the same thing, but it's saying it in a mor…

I appreciate your insight, but I have a family now and it wouldn't be fair of them for me to put 150% effort into my work life just to try to earn just as much as someone else who works 100%. I would rather work for less money as long as I spend time with the people I love.

+1
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