FBI Need Potheads To Fight Cybercrime 319
An anonymous reader writes "The rate of cybercrime is growing and growing, and law enforcement is struggling to keep up. The FBI is in the process of beefing up its headcount, but they're running into a problem: many of the hackers applying for these jobs have a history of marijuana use, and the agency has a zero tolerance policy. FBI Director James Comey said, 'I have to hire a great work force to compete with those cyber criminals and some of those kids want to smoke weed on the way to the interview.' However, change may be on the horizon: Comey said the FBI is changing 'both our mindset and the way we do business.' He also encouraged job applications from former pot users despite the policy."
Let me know when you win that war on drugs? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait a second, I thought potheads were worthless burnouts who will never amount to anything?
Looks like one bullshit stereotype driven war is affecting our ability to fight another bullshit stereotype driven war.
The irony is fucking killing me.
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So... is this whole situation good or bad?
It's a moral infinite loop.
Re:Let me know when you win that war on drugs? (Score:5, Insightful)
When has admitting that you smoke pot to a law enforcement officer ever turned out to be "good" for you? Seriously, if you hack and smoke pot, don't work for the FBI. Not until pot becomes legal everywhere in the US.
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Believe you me, the cops don't get blunt honesty a great deal, and some find it quite refreshing.
Caveat: YMMV. There would be a much greater probability of a positive outcome if you were admitting to some minor marijuana use versus having a body in the trunk.
Re:Let me know when you win that war on drugs? (Score:4, Informative)
Occasionally (depending on the individual LEO, the circumstances, and your flawless delivery) you can use a truthful response to your advantage during a roadside interview.
Anything you say can and will be used against you. Keep your trap shut.
Re:Let me know when you win that war on drugs? (Score:5, Informative)
No, no and double no. You will never, ever get out of an arrest for drug possession by admitting to possessing drugs. It doesn't matter if the nice police officer man says he'll "go easy on you if you just admit it," he won't. He's lying to you, because he's allowed to lie to you. There is no reward system in place for "how many honest drug users did you let off the hook today?" There is only a reward system for "how many violators of the law did you apprehend today?"
Do. Not. Talk. To. Cops.
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Wait a second, I thought potheads were worthless burnouts who will never amount to anything?
Well, Eric Holder is the Attorney General . . . and any time he opens his mouth . . . I think he's tripping his balls off on LSD.
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As one of the top 4% of minds in the world, I have smoked an average of two oz. of cannabis a month for the last 38 years. Ive blow it all off over time,designed everything from military weapons to consumer electronics, interviewed more celebrities than youll ever meet in a lifetime,received two bullshit doctorates from Ivy league Universities and have the gall to offer my top of the line archtop guitar for a cool $35k U.S. This is only from my hobbies.
What have you done lately?
Re:Let me know when you win that war on drugs? (Score:4, Funny)
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Congress should pass a law preventing the FBI from hiring these people. If they're flouting the drug laws, then they have no business working for the government which enforces those laws and refuses to rescind them. If the FBI can't fill their staffing needs as a result, and cybercrime goes unpunished, then that's the price they need to pay for their bad policies.
Selection bias. (Score:2)
Wait a second, I thought potheads were worthless burnouts who will never amount to anything?
You'll see only success stories posted here. Not a word from those whose careers were crippled or cut short by alcohol or drugs.
Re:Let me know when you win that war on drugs? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes you have, you just don't know it because they aren't advertising that they smoke.
Re:Let me know when you win that war on drugs? (Score:5, Funny)
Smoke from what? Too much current? Its pretty hard to make a pothead [wikipedia.org] smoke!
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Pump enough current through and just about anything will smoke, shorting out a 200 amp mains feed will do it PDQ.
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Six figure salary in IT here. Can confirm.
Re:Let me know when you win that war on drugs? (Score:5, Funny)
At least he doesn't smoke crack, unlike you...
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Being financially successful is not the same thing as being useful to society. In fact, often enough people who are harmful to society are financially successful.
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Maybe you were too drunk to notice.
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Are you kidding? CAD/CAM drove desktop computing for a long time in the early days.
Lets not forget UNIX either....
I guess you haven't looked....
Put down the bong, go outside and interface....
Re:Let me know when you win that war on drugs? (Score:5, Insightful)
Pot use just doesn't happen in this industry.
...and there are no gays in Iran. Right. :-)
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potheads were worthless burnouts who will never amount to anything?
Considering I've never heard directly of anyone in this industry using it, I think the stereotype is correct. Personally I didn't see it in college (BS in Comp Sci in 1989) nor have I seen it in the twenty-five years since. Pot use just doesn't happen in this industry.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha, I hope that was sarcasm...
Re:Let me know when you win that war on drugs? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or they all detected your attitude and so didn't mention it.
Re:Let me know when you win that war on drugs? (Score:5, Insightful)
More likely you're a straight-laced prude that no professional who smoked would reveal themselves to for fear of being turned in to the authorities. If I were to guess from my own experiences I'd say somewhere around 20-40% of computer professionals I've known smoke at least on the weekends - more among the creative programmer types.
Ask yourself this - how many computer professionals would you estimate drink alcohol? Now, how many of those would you be able to guess if they never mentioned the fact around you? And how many do you suppose would mention the fact in your presence if it were illegal? The fact is you can't tell what drugs somebody uses just by looking at them, unless they are heavy addicts. A stoner, drunk, etc. is obvious, but they're never going to make it in the professional world anyway. The responsible users who have a glass of wine or smoke a bowl after dinner look just like everyone else once they sober up.
Re:Let me know when you win that war on drugs? (Score:5, Interesting)
When I was much (decades) younger (and still smoked) I wrote code all of the time when high. In fact, it was one of life's pleasures -- the concentration focus was fantastic. And yes, the code was very complex, was thousands of lines long (when finished) and ran perfectly when I was done as far as I was ever able to tell.
With that said, not everybody could do what I did and work effectively high. But I knew a fair number who could and did, and of course I knew a few who were useless when high. Of course, I knew a fair number or people who were useless coders stone cold straight. This isn't terribly surprising -- the world is full of functional alcoholics too. Pot is different from alcohol, though, in so many ways. Alcohol eventually puts you into a stupor, then kills you. Pot at worst puts you to sleep and has no known fatal dose. It is considerably safer than aspirin or caffeine -- the former you can easily overdose on or it can kill you outright with e.g. Reyes' Syndrome. Caffeine is lethal at doses somewhere between 2 and 20 grams (depending on your metabolism and weight) -- not easy to ingest in coffee, easy to ingest if you put a couple of spoonfuls of legal, over the counter caffeine powder onto your morning post toasties. Cigarettes, don't get me started -- a single cigarette can kill a small child if accidentally ingested, and nicotine makes a dandy insecticide even when highly diluted.
In addition to being amazingly safe compared to almost anything humans consume outside of brocolli, pot is basically a non-prescription (openly illegal in many states) antidepressant. Lots of people who smoke (or drink, for that matter) are self-medicating or compensating for the fact that their lives suck for reasons utterly beyond their control. Is it a good medicine compared to SSRIs or other prescription medicines? I don't know. I do know that drug companies don't want you to have the choice. I do know from bitter experience that the law enforcement industry from police through the lawyers and the courts make a living from pot. I know that the biggest single risk for pot smokers isn't anything associated with pot itself -- it is being arrested, charged, jailed, forced to pay thousands of dollars for bail, forced to pay thousands more for lawyers, forced to pay fines and court costs, forced to endure probation, forced to pay for "rehabilitation". It is being fired, not being hired, not getting into college not because of your grades or intelligence (both of which can be just fine) but because of your "police record". And the penalties scale up enormously for the poor and stupid who often smoke weed because life as a janitor or store greeter or one of the dudes who has to put on a costume and wave at passing cars to get them to file their taxes or patronize a failing store sucks, but weed makes the menial and mindless jobs you can get a bit more tolerable without ruining your liver.
If pot has a flaw as a recreational substance, it is that it can, by making a shitty situation tolerable, act as an ambition suck. Hamlet on pot:
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? Or just get high
And suffer no more; and by suffer to say we end
The head-ache of the thousand natural schlocks
That life is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. So don't bogart that joint,
My friend, pass it on over to me...
Sometimes, though, it really is better to take arms against the sea of troubles and by opposing end them. Pot can make it a bit too easy to suffer the slings and arrows and end up trapped in a life that consists of little else. Or not. Or it can do so for a while, and then people grow up. Ultimately, it ain't nobody's business but your own, and it certainly isn't a positive predictor of failure -- or success. Like anything, for some people (especially some of the me
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I know that the biggest single risk for pot smokers isn't anything associated with pot itself -- it is being arrested, charged, jailed, forced to pay thousands of dollars for bail, forced to pay thousands more for lawyers, forced to pay fines and court costs, forced to endure probation, forced to pay for "rehabilitation"
The way they put it, back in the day was: "Pot is dangerous to your health because it can cause your body to get thrown in jail."
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In case that's sarcastic, it was too subtle for internet use.
Look around you at work. Look left. Look right. If there's more than 5 people in the room, one of them is a regular user. If not, things are VERY different in your home country than in mine (and no, this here ain't the Netherlands where stuff like that would be legal).
I don't, I noticed that stuff doesn't do jack to me but making me incredibly sleepy. If I wanted that, I'd go to more meetings, they have quite the same effect on me, are not only ch
Re:Let me know when you win that war on drugs? (Score:4, Insightful)
This whole "problem" the FBI has would be solved by legalization. It would solve a lot of other problems, too, like our overcrowded prisons and a fair bit of untaxed organized crime.
I've never smoked marijuana, and I don't think I've ever even smelled it. If it was suddenly legal tomorrow, I probably wouldn't become a major pothead (and neither would anyone else who isn't already). I still support legalization. It is such a waste to keep marijuana illegal. It should just be like alcohol or tobacco, both of which are more dangerous and addictive than marijuana.
We all know how alcohol prohibition turned out. Everybody can see how marijuana prohibition is turning out. Everyone who wants to can still get their hands on it, and it's only encouraged a black market largely run by organized crime. The FBI complaining they can't hire any good cyber security experts is just the latest in a long line of absurdities resulting from this nonsense.
Can we please get whatever equivalent to the twenty-first amendment it'll take to end the madness over reefer?
Yes, I went there.
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Re:Let me know when you win that war on drugs? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm an accomplished software developer, i smoke pot, i make 6 figures have a family and kids. I have many friends who smoke pot, they include directors of large telecommunications companies, several engineers of different disciplines, and of course other developers. We all have nice houses, cars some of us have boats, yachts and horses. We all hang out and smoke pot together, work on recreational software/hardware projects some private some public, some open source some closed.
We have an uncanny ability to find our own kind like most other subcultures and like many we don't advertise it.
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It doesn't encourage it's users to rob liquor stores or eat the face off each other, and unlike it's completely legal cousin alcohol, it is not a leading cause of family violence... I will bet a lot of the children of abusive alcoholics wish their dads would've smoked a little reefer.
On the negative side of the list, weed does take a few points off of the old IQ in exchange for a helping of spontaneous creativity, and truth be told, it's no
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Marijuana increases the risk of having psychotic episodes...Marijuana worsens depression and schizophrenia
Is there any actual evidence for this? Since all I've seen was mostly contradictory and inconclusive.
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Basically, if you have a genetic pre-disposition to this kind of mental illness already, AND use for at least 2-3 years WHILE your brain is in it's formation period, you MIGHT have your schizophrenia triggered early. The research doesn't indicate this happens with adults (ei, post b
Re:Let me know when you win that war on drugs? (Score:5, Informative)
...contradictory, inconclusive, and (as even Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN finally came to realize and stated in public when he changed his stance on pot) the result of decades of research funded for the sole purpose of finding something wrong with pot. If 96% or more of all research grants are titled "Investigating Marijuana as a risk factor of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia", and the only way to have a grant renewed is to find some positive (that is, negative) effect, it is hardly surprising that 96% of all research results turn up something negative about pot. What is really interesting is that in spite of subjecting it to a microscope far more demanding than we have ever applied to any other substance under similar circumstances, so very little has been double-blind confirmed as a "risk" to pot smokers. It "interferes with" (but certainly does not "prevent") the formation of short term memory -- for the duration of the time you are high, with no long-term effects. It is indeed used as self-medication for lots of different kinds of dysphoria, and can by preventing or ameliorating dysphoria keep people from making beneficial life changes. Sometimes one does need to take action instead of endure when life sucks. Other times, its gonna suck regardless of what you do, and then sure, pot can help make it suck less.
The other really interesting thing about pot is the number of myths straight out of the War on Drugs are still being perpetuated by people who heard some pithy thing about it twenty or thirty years ago and never thought to doubt the veracity of their government or question its interest in the whole matter.
http://www.drfranklucido.com/p... [drfranklucido.com]
http://medicalmarijuana.procon... [procon.org]
The government itself is pretty schizophrenic on the issue. There are several places one can get to (compilations of) original papers on pot, and (allowing for the confirmation bias that is rampant in medical science these days, especially when reporting anecdotal "evidence" rather than double blind, placebo controlled studies) it really is pretty benign compared to ever so many other things that are quite legal. The same cop who arrests you, the judge who sits on your case, and the lawyer who gets you off can easily be functional alcoholics. I'm guessing alcohol and bipolar disorder or schizophrenia don't mix real well either -- but that is never mentioned or discussed, for some reason...
Colorado Attorney General (Score:5, Interesting)
Regardless of your stance on the morality of it, maybe we just start treating one drug (MJ) like another (Alcohol or Tobacco) from a legal perspective? Contrary to Mr. Christie, Denver is a fantastic place to live, and I genuinely believe the recreational industry has improved it even more.
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Colorado, specially Denver is fantastic.. I go regularly to visit friends and for a wee bit of work. The state is happy as it's got massively increased tax revenue and the people are happy as they no longer are victimised for having a wee smoke. Police are happy as they can get on with other more serious stuff... and i mention the police as one of my friends over is
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Drunk (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Drunk (Score:5, Insightful)
Different bodies function differently. Just like the majority of people need something to speed them up, some people need something to slow them down.
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It is insane how much caffeine some people run on. Seeing people drink 2 XL coffees an hour for a 12 hour shift makes my weekend pub crawl look like the church picnic.
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Of course then you get the geeks/programmers/hackers who prefer to get their caffeine in carbonated form (and become obese or diabetic as a side-effect thanks to all that HFCS they drink)
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Did you even read the second line I wrote? Try understanding it.
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Really? Here is a study about the effects various recreational pharmaceuticals have on how spiders construct their webs:
http://www.trinity.edu/jdunn/spiderdrugs.htm
There is no picture for alcohol - probably because it would have killed the spider. However, Marijuana did far better than Caffeine. In fact, all the webs were far better than Caffeine except sleeping pills but that's only because the spider didn't get far enough to complete anything.
I'm not suggesting the hyper-perfect structures of the tripp
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Find a better place to work. When I was an apprentice mechanic almost 20 years ago, the shop I was at had a beer fridge with beer in it! Shock! And the guys who worked there would actually drink a beer or two during work.
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Re:Drunk (Score:5, Informative)
It used to be fairly common to have a couple drinks at lunch.
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It still can be. I have a tech friend who used to work for a company (about 4 years ago) that brought in kegs at lunch.
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It used to be fairly common to have a couple drinks at lunch.
And smoke a pack of cigarettes at your desk. And only hire people of the correct religion or race. And fire the secretary for not putting out.
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We've stopped doing all those things and now look at the mess we're in.
Peggy, get your skirt back on, get me some ice and pour me a drink.
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So if we bring even one thing back, we automatically have to have all the others?
Besides, the drinks at lunch continued well after the other things went away.
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Quite true. Should we bring back other practices from that bygone, golden era, such as sexually harassing women in the workforce and refusing to hire blacks for decent jobs? Or are we still waiting for those other bad ideas to come back in style?
(quick aside: apologies if you're merely making an interesting historical observation, without intending to use it to lend credence to the notion that it's fine to show up high for an interview)
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The funny thing is, everyone spins faster but it's just spinning in place. No more of worth gets accomplished. For all that talk about internet speed, real accomplishments move slower than ever.
Re:ended pretty much by the end of the 80s (Score:5, Insightful)
A combination of forces has pretty much made the liquid lunch history(at least in technical fields). Neoprohibitionists (MADD, which is no longer about driving, but about drinking, per se), employer paranoia about "impaired employees", etc.
Not really. I have a beer at lunch once in a while. I do so in plain view of my boss. The way some of you guys describe jobs, I really wonder why you don't leave. You're in a technical field, jobs really aren't that hard to find. Take a pay cut, go work for a startup, get more freedom. Still a ton of work and insane hours, but you're not going to get your boss writing you up for an official warning from HR because you had a beer during lunch.
Now, though, you get text messages during your (working) lunch asking for a response "soonest", and somehow I think that if you texted back "sorry, getting a couple pints with the guys, get back to you tomorrow", the next text would be "we'll ship your stuff to you at the last address you had on file with HR".
Holy shit, tomorrow?? Yeah, I wouldn't blame them for firing you in that case, I would too. The guy you're responding to said a couple of drinks, not get plastered and blow the afternoon off. Somehow I think if you instead texted back, "sorry, I'm currently at lunch. I'll get to it as soon as I'm back in the office," it wouldn't be that big of a deal. It's still a workday, dude.
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I'm sure that FBI Director James Comey has specific case files he can point to of this actually happening, and wasn't engaging in hyperbolic BS like he normally does.
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Look I'm all for allowing them to smoke on their own time, but I don't show up to interviews or work buzzing off of a couple bloody marys. Relax the drug screenings yes, but showing up high? That's just immature IMHO.
Imagine you're going to throw your morals under the bus. Wouldn't you be plastered or stoned in your FBI interview? The shitty thing is, aside from my anti-war and anti-spying activism, shitfaced or not they'd hire me on the spot after seeing my resume.
The people that could protect this country, wouldn't agree to work with the NSA and FBI anyway, that would be counter productive to said goal. Look, if they wanted to end cybercrime then our guys would be discovering exploits and patching them. We'd be bu
Riiiight. (Score:3)
No they don't... (Score:2)
They just need to actually advertise for those positions.
Anyone seen the FBI recruiting for hackers?
Nope? Okay... so there's your problem.
If they're really serious they'll talk to the Pentagon about how to actually get recruitment flowing.
It requires things like "placing an ad"... in anything. And then manning the phone or email address cited.
Pot will be legal before too long (Score:3)
Like gay marriage the prohibition of marijuana will start falling state by state. Colorado and Washington have already done so. When people see that it isn't going to be a huge disaster other states will follow suit and eventually it will become untenable to maintain the prohibition. It's just a matter of time.
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Would they just put up with it for a key hire? (Score:3)
Assuming you've got a track record as a top-notch white hat hacker and security guy and you had some unique experience/skill mix that the FBI really felt they needed, would they just kind of put up with it, maybe/especially if you lived in a state like Colorado or had a medical card in California?
How do companies like Apple/Oracle/Google/MS/Amazon handle it in California now? My first hand experience and everything I've read in the media makes pot seem pretty well accepted in California and there's certainly a counter-culture kind of attitude among a lot of technology people. If you get recruited to Google because you're something special, do they give you a piss test and then tell you they won't hire you?
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Assuming you've got a track record as a top-notch white hat hacker and security guy and you had some unique experience/skill mix that the FBI really felt they needed, would they just kind of put up with it, maybe/especially if you lived in a state like Colorado or had a medical card in California?
How do companies like Apple/Oracle/Google/MS/Amazon handle it in California now? My first hand experience and everything I've read in the media makes pot seem pretty well accepted in California and there's certainly a counter-culture kind of attitude among a lot of technology people. If you get recruited to Google because you're something special, do they give you a piss test and then tell you they won't hire you?
If you are a world class mathematician, NSA will hire you without the traditional polygraph. Under these circumstances they will likely invest more on the field investigation which are fairly expensive but for exceptional individuals likely worth the extra $$$.
Re:Would they just put up with it for a key hire? (Score:4, Interesting)
Funny...you think tech companies drug test. I worked for MS for 5 years - I *NEVER* heard of an FTE there getting a drug test, even on hire. I never took one. I've since left and work for another tech company. Most of the owners (it's a ~30 person company) know I smoke, and I've smoked with some of them. I have friends at Apple, Google, and Amazon. Again, no drug tests.
Tech companies basically can't drug test - they would have to fire 1/2 of their employees.
Uh... (Score:2)
Maybe we can discuss this over a beer?
'zero tolerance' == 'three years' (Score:2)
I know someone who tried joining the FBI years ago, as a mechanic. He had tried a few things during college, even though he hadn't used in years, and he didn't make it through the interview process. This was probably 10-15 years ago.
Shortly after that, I had heard they had increased the limit to 7 years, so he gave up, rather than trying to just wait out the time ... so three years might've already been relaxing the rules.
The Hacked leading the Hacked (Score:2)
Perhaps now you see why secret agencies like the NSA and FBI are detrimental. Their "Cybercrime" is full of skiddies who'll do anything for a paycheck and likely are the same folks who privately rail against such mechanisms. Think about it. How many of the ones they hired that weren't potheads were spies from "enemy" states instead?
FBI (Score:2)
Fraternal Brotherhood of Inhalers.
"Open the door, it's the F.B.I." (Score:2)
"The F.B.I.?"
"Yes. The F.B.I."
"...F.B.I.'s not here, man."
Why is it still illegal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously... Ever see a stoner get violent? Many drunks get violent, yet alcohol is legal. Weed is not the same as hard drugs, and more people than you think indulge (or have indulged) in the stuff.
Besides, if you use a vaporiser, it's not that harmful, and I don't think weed kills more brain cells than beer.
Re: I call BS (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: I call BS (Score:4, Interesting)
Must be true. You are statistically significant.
At a young age I learned to read beyond the words of humans. Frequently the ignorant will have valid points when they talk on subjects even if they are unable to speak on the pertinent issue with the nuance it requires.
I wrote my first wireframe 3D game while stoned. I hadn't been taught trig yet so I invented vector math independently after discovering what you'd call the "unit circle" by drawing a radiant diagram of line slope ratios represented in decimal form; Ultimately I ended up creating the equivalent to sin(), cos() and dot() functions because I didn't know what those were useful for (seriously 'online' documentation sucks sans Internet). It was one of the most productive nights of my young life. I doubt I'd have come to the conclusions about connectedness between the mathematic properties in geometry with just a knowledge of linear equations, a glorified graphing calculator, and no mind expanding chemicals. The next school year I realized there was no such thing as Genius. I couldn't understand the reverence my teacher had for these dead dudes: If a stoned kid could discover in a single night much of what took Pythagoras decades to do when confronted with the same problem spaces, then maybe we're just teaching kids wrong... I digress.
We do have a bit of research which found that downers are less common among Hackers. [catb.org] We typically don't like things that make us stupid or slow. Today's Marijuana is very potent compared to the 70's or even 90's, so many Hackers tend to shy away from what I would call an overdose (meaning above recommended, the term does not imply lethal). IMHO, a brownie shouldn't put you out of commission; Eat herbal confections responsibly. However, for those that Marry Jane doesn't dance with in 'detrimental' ways it's not uncommon to do some light buzzed hacking sometimes with surprisingly clever results (especially for harder problems). Indeed, after I woke the next afternoon I was refreshed and amazed at my output. I was only confounded by a single block of dense hand optimized code with only the comment, // Refactored symbiotic slope system to remove branching. Whether such "here be dragons" comments in code should be taken as quite literal statements or if they arise from the ceremonial chemistry itself is still a great mystery each code-fu master must overcome for themselves. Mine turned out to be matrix math sans matrix idiom.
Think about it: Hackers like exploiting systems for interesting or clever results; Drugs are the tools we hack organic computers with... Well, that and tDCS, but the latter may blow your fuses before our stem-cell and n.net replacements are ready. As with even alcohol, caffeine or self modifying instructions: Moderation is the key when dealing in any form of computer altering substance.
Now reconsider the GP's post: Here is someone who has since the early 90's never heard of anyone enjoying recreational mind expanding chemicals in programming. However, when we polled Usenet via trial balloon that's not what we found at all among hackers. Consider that the corporate-clone workplace strongly filters against non-authoritarian approved drug use with the help of the state. The environment itself even hackers find somewhat hostile. Consider that many people sacrifice their pleasures if these are made to cause their livelihood risk. Consider that Hackers do have ways of defeating many unjust social systems such as these. Consider that we may be letting some great minds slip through the cracks for no other reason than a form of Orwellian thought control. Even consider that GP is posting AC and propagating anti-drug propaganda, just as we've seen since the 60's and 70's. With a bit of context even a seemingly dumb comment can stir up the probability matrix quite well. The trick is not to assume anything absolutely or concretely,
Re:I call BS (Score:5, Insightful)
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So what are the tech wages like in Salt Lake City?
Living well... (Score:2)
So what are the tech wages like in Salt Lake City?
Not half bad.
May 2013 Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Area Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates --- Salt Lake City, UT [bls.gov]
Which areas are the likely ''up and comers'' in the next decade? These are generally places that have been building up their tech capacity over the past several decades, and seem to be reaching critical mass. One place following a strong trajectory is Salt Lake City, No. 4 on our list, which has enjoyed a 31% spurt in tech employment over the past 10 years. Some of this can be traced to large-scale expansion in the area by top Silicon Valley companies such as Adobe, Electronic Arts and Twitter.
These companies have flocked to Utah for reasons such as lower taxes, a more flexible regulatory environment, a well-educated, multilingual workforce and spectacular nearby natural amenities. Perhaps most critical of all may be housing prices: Three-quarters of Salt Lake area households can afford a median-priced house, compared to 45% in Silicon Valley and about half that in San Francisco.
The Best Cities For Tech Jobs [forbes.com] [May 2012]
Re:I call BS (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been programming professionally for just over thirty years, and in that time I got a BS in Comp Eng in 1993 and a MS in Comp Sci in 2001. I have never even seen pot. I can't remember ever hearing anyone in this field mention using it. It just isn't common in our field. Of course when I was hiring for a new janitorial position here, I couldn't find a single male that could pass the drug test so it appears to be only the uneducated that use it.
that's because all the people who DO smoke it KNOW you are a prick and thus don't mention it near you
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and his co-workers probably know about Urineluck or other "fake urine" products...unless someone is standing there watching you piss it's pretty easy to use something else and show "clean"...
indeed l0n3s0m3phr34k , i use it for a govt contract i have LOL.. works a treat even if they stand on the toilet near you... i have it inside my underwear , which heats it to body heat and then when it comes time to pee... it looks like i am just having a piss.... easily done.
however Captain Bollocks is probably the company snitch so, again, it's not something he'd know about..lol
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It's all about the Twinkies and snowballs...
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I've always said, if I get wind of a national legalization of marijuana, I am going to buy a ton of stock in Frito-Lay.
Statistics from Colorado suggest that legalization has not increased consumption, and consumption has actually dropped among teenagers. So Frito-Lay may not be a good investment after all.
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If you have to smoke weed just to make it to the interview I seriously doubt you'll be able to do the job. Some recreational usage might be fine but it you need it to just get out of your apartment to go to a job interview then you have issues and problems that should disqualify for most any job out there.
A good point. if you can't stop long enough to pass a drug test for which you know the date, you likely have a problem. One issue is that the FBI loves to do polygraphs. Even though they're not reliable enough to be used in criminal proceedings, they use them for employment screening all the time.
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THC accumulates in fat cells. It can be detected up to three months out if you're a regular user. One of my friends, who was fucking smart but also a serious stoner and a bit of a womaniser, stayed of the whacky tobacky for six weeks before trying to get into the Royal Australian Air Force, but still failed the drug test. A few years later he successfully got into the army after not smoking weed for about six months.
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THC accumulates in fat cells. It can be detected up to three months out if you're a regular user. One of my friends, who was fucking smart but also a serious stoner and a bit of a womaniser, stayed of the whacky tobacky for six weeks before trying to get into the Royal Australian Air Force, but still failed the drug test. A few years later he successfully got into the army after not smoking weed for about six months.
I am aware of how THC works and how long it remains in the body, depending on how frequently it is used. My point still stands. If you know you're going to have a drug test and you can't stop long enough to pass it, you likely have a problem.
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Heavy user here as AC. I went 3 months without even being in the same room as second-hand smoke. I failed a litmus strip/instant-cup test at a third party lab. Luckily,the job was for a small business owner and he didn't care about THC positive, after I had to awkwardly explain what THC meant. That's 3 months. That is a pretty long time.
No judgement from me. I have no issue with marijuana use. In fact, I think it should be completely legal. Three months (as another poster pointed out) is generally the outside range for removing THC from the body. Presumably there's some variability in that three month window.
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Re:Interview on Weed?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Unrelated to the topic, but being qualified for the job and being qualified for the interview is 2 totally different things in the IT and software development field, since there's so many bad interviewers out there.
I wish I could screen for the interview before agreeing to do it. Would save me a lot of trouble.
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History is NO liar (provided it is not a govt. approved textbook)
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Only if they also controlled the substance totally that these people are dependent on. If they wanted that, making the stuff legal would be the first step.
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Sounds like a trap to nab a whole bunch of pot smokers imho.