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The Setup: John McAfee (usesthis.com)
141 points by ahemphill on March 14, 2014 | hide | past | favorite | 49 comments



It's easy to hate on him now, but when you're 68 years old you just might wish you looked young and did badass shit like John McAfee.


"My favorite real-time software is the XM153 remote control software that comes standard with the XM153 50 caliber machine gun. It is solid, never crashes, easy to use and easy to install."

If you don't appreciate the genius of that answer you are dead inside.

BTW it's obviously a fake.


The video is priceless. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKgf5PaBzyg The guy is completely insane.


The guy is completely insane.

Or he just likes attention and knows how to get it.


My favorite remote control software comes attached to M16 rifle. That always faithful wetware automatically takes care of, transports, and operates M16 rifle in all conditions around the world.


Recently though, lacking a direct and physical, interface to the bioware, "firmware-management" plans have been ramped up with both extreme speed and remarkable efficiency.

One of the most complex programming methods ever discovered, managing the overall environment in which the wetware develops from birth to deployment has been a massive undertaking.

Ensuring that the self-programming options available to the node are either limited, controlled or invalidated is the primary drive of the system as a whole.

Nodes must be new-enough models, with limited networking so as to ensure their primary perceived preferred path is that of servicing the delivery of control-policies via physical means where the illusive and intangible rewards to their self-image is valued higher than that of real-world financial gains.

In parallel, control of the code creep and systemic awareness of all other nodes must be either tightly managed or swiftly controlled with impunity.

....

Watch this:

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/human-resources/


Are you crazy or a markov-chain generator?

EDIT: Oh! Oh. Oh...

Dang.


In light of the "zuck calls obama" -- here is something I wrote a couple years ago:

--------------------------------------

It started innocently enough. Everyone is on it. Everyone. In the more than 20 years since it was founded - and now - daily life just could not be managed without it. Sure, it started innocently enough. Connect with your friends, post your pics, keep up with the fam. Yeah, that was then.

It wasn't too long before they started adding features. Adding value they called it. Extending your circle. Enabling you they'd say. Yeah, in the same way a spiders web is beautiful. The pattern and symmetry, glistening like shiny gossamer art. Its beauty pulls you in - you don't realize at first as you touch it, that it sticks. No, more than sticks - you become imbued with it. The more you move it wraps around you, encasing you... entombing you. For the data-mining black widow to come and suck the marketable value right out of you, your connections... every aspect of your life is now a product.

Classified, organized, tagged, sorted, tracked, pegged, followed, poked, monetized, labeled... owned is what you are. A commodity. A small spec among 3.5 billion in the user base of the book.

That's what it was these days... just simply 'the book'.

Everyone knows - everyone is aware. They are all in the book. Not even a page, or a word either... more like a letter. A single letter. An iconographic digital hologram of the total sum of your parts - all wrapped up real nice in a uniform singular profitable little package called your user profile. Displayed and viewed and consumed and tracked billions of times over. With more than thirty trillion page views per month, the cancerous blue and white digital encapsulation of the human soul was now blazoned across innumerable screens as nearly half the worlds population interacted on the book - more than 20% of the worlds population on the book at any given moment.

A study, one of the countless to be sure, said that now more than 90% of real human interactions occurred through the book. What does that even mean anymore... real? Real human interactions? Through the book? how is that even possible.

It was no wonder that in the last few years the backlash has switched to resisting this unexpected strangle-hold on the human condition. Most never saw it coming... happily going along with every new feature update, privacy change, "enhancement". MZ was repeating himself a lot these days... except his frame of reference had gotten bigger... along with his security detail.... Where years ago, the book was likened to that which only came along to change humans interactions every 100 years... now his statements were 10 fold. MZ thinks of himself as the embodiment of the singularity... whatever that means. Some fucking fantasy of a long dead cybervisionary that couldn't recognize the makings of our current prison I'm sure. Fuck him.

Looking around looks a lot more like binary slavery than any form of singularity. None of our old problems have been solved - in fact the book has only made things worse. After it became a "platform for governance and outreach" we, people like - those who really see, knew. We knew what this meant. Game fucking over.

This era of hyper connectivity and ultra social awareness was supposed to usher in some sort of Utopian orgasm -- one in which MZ would be carried on the shoulders of the masses to stand next to fantastical human saviors like Jesus. Fictional allusions to stellar bodies be damned!

The only problem is that most of the world is too busy. Feeding their attention into the black hole of the book to notice... or care I guess.

With ubiquitous access thanks to the assimilation of the largest global fiber network a few years ago, the book was now able to offer complete and total "free" access via the acquired goog-net.

Years ago, when Athena rolled out - it was a huge success. Welcomed into every neighborhood - direct, very high speed fiber access in every home was quickly made into a "right". The model was seen as our manifest destiny, held in a 62-micron translucent hair that fed us with more 1' and 0's to each person in a single day than the entire digital output of the globe in 1999.

Such an umbilical cannot be bad right!

The only problem is we misjudged the direction of the flow!

Now, with goog-net reaching everywhere, but the book being the only lens into the tubes -- our minds are warped. We are a most technically advanced - yet wholly dependant child-like civilization.

A mutant.

If its not on the platform. Not "in the book" they say -- how can it be trusted - how could it succeed? How can you expect to be relevant?

HOW CAN IT NOT BE RELEVANT!

Slaves! All of them!

This is why we act! This is what is needed. Who are we? Who the fuck were we? Not this! Surely not this. It is time....

We take action now. Rewrite this so called book.


Uh.... I think its fun to write about cyberpunk topics....

Its called "creative writing", try the googs.


i don't think this is a joke.

the only thing i want to know is: does this guy hang out with larry ellison?


This isn't fake.



Nice try Samsung. Not falling for any more of your "viral" commercials.


Why yes. My primary tool is the M1A1 Flamethrower. It does wonders for spreading my development philosophy which is my own variant of FDD; fear-driven development.


Also, it makes people Agile, with a capital 'A'.


The funny thing is that is a fucking GSG-5 .22lr mockery of the HK MP5, with a fake suppressor attached to make it legal as a rifle (16"), in his photo.

That's like posing with a "mac" from fisher price.


If this fisher price thing is loaded, pointed at someone, and you pull the trigger will it hurt or possibly even kill that someone?

Another question: if a bunch of well trained delta force operatives went up against an equally numbered random thugs where delta force had the fisher price thing and the thugs had whatever you said was better, who would win you think?

I don't get some people's attitudes when it comes to guns.


>If this fisher price thing is loaded, pointed at someone, and you pull the trigger will it hurt or possibly even kill that someone?

Yeah, and a Raspberry Pi is a perfectly good computer. I just choose to use a laptop instead because sometimes a bit more oomph is practical.


Yeah, it's more like a body kit on a crappy old civic trying to impersonate a Lambo.

I have (2!) GSG-5. I've had an MP5 (real, full-auto, 9mm, with a suppressor). It's about that scale of difference.


John McAfee is crazy and any listening to his rants is a waste of time. I unfortunately read this one thinking it was actually a parody, but since there was no punchline, I realize now I've been suckered into another pointless article. I'm still in disbelief that bragging about a gun is actually coming from a 68 year old man(boy?).


> I unfortunately read this one thinking it was actually a parody, but since there was no punchline . . ..

Yeah Me too, guess we were the punchline.


Read between the lines - it's not bragging, it's a pointed threat.


It's trying to be a "pointed threat," but it's really pompous, swaggering machismo, which we might as well call "bragging."

(Assuming it's real, of course. Poe's Law is in effect.)


Well that's surreal. I took a moment to check if this was a parody, a la The Onion.


I shudder to imagine the lengths one would have to go to in order to parody John McAfee.


True. It's probably easier, and equally effective, to arrange an interview.


And to be clear, I never gained any certainty whether this is a parody.


It's not :)


"They allow me to solve 2nd order partial differential equations in my head and to spontaneously create 4 dimensional images of software structures that I can mentally manipulate."

Dude, teach me! But seriously, although the first boast is pretty much BS, I was surprised to learn that there is actually something called software visualization, albeit in 3D: http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~bieman/Pubs/StaplesBieman99.pdf If only the authors knew about the "smart drugs"!

Anybody know more about this topic?


1. If McAffee could differentiate y = x^2, I'd be surprised.

2. Although it sounds intense, a 2nd order partial differential equation represents either an oscillating sinusoid, a decaying or growing exponential, the product of the two, or a trivial solution: a constant.

Ever pulled on a spring and let it bounced back and forth a few times until it came to rest? Congratulations, you've just "visualized" a 2nd order partial differential equation. Same thing (,Leon). I learned thisin high school 20 years ago and it was invented/discovered hundreds of years ago. It's much harder to actually solve than to "visualize." And it's much harder to apply, to combine with harder math (try solve the wave equation!), etc.

3. 4 dimensional images of software structures (during sex). If you can imagine a call graph in 2-d (doxygen/dot), then imagine the same call graph in 3-d (not flattened), then imagine the same call graph at several moments in time, like a multiple exposure image, congratulations, you've just spontaneously created a 4-dimensional image of a software structure. No phenethylamines needed.

McAffee is all bullshit marketing, swagger and trying to sound deep, tough and cool. If you read his backlog of attempts to do anything on his own on bluelight.ru, you'd feel sorry for the poor guy. He could barely synthesize meth and ecstacy under ideal conditions.

Whatever happened to his B.S. plan to provide a secure anonymyity VPN blackbox-whatever from six months ago? [1]

[1] http://www.pcworld.com/article/2050334/john-mcafees-secure-a...


The 4th dimension is clearly time :)


Why not visualize a graph and be done with it?

Are there really geometric properties that are useful here?


More about the smart drugs or the equation solving?


"primarily a semi-auto .22 rifle with a silencer. They are virtually completely silent and can pierce car doors and other light armor."

Complete and utter bullshit. They won't penetrate a car doors, nor will they penetrate light armor. Conventional wisdom is that they will struggle to stop an adrenaline filled grown man, the combined experience of 100,000s of hunters says they won't stop mid sized game.

And don't start with "but if you head shot" nonsense.


Well... not to be contradictory, but don't be so quick to count the little round out. They can penetrate car doors depending on where they hit and the angle of the shot. The caliber debate is pretty silly, .22 have killed many, many humans and game of all size. Is it the most powerful? Of course not. But it's hard to decide what is, live bodies are weird that way. I can also say that anyone who calls a .22 with a silencer completely silent has never shot a .22 with a silencer.


Now I don't know jack about guns, but I'd heard that .22s can be way more deadly than heavier ammo, largely because of the bullets' tendencies to go spiraling around inside the body due to their low force/velocity/whatever.

Can you comment on this?

Or not, I mean, it's not like it's a practical matter or anything.


http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=467321

Search for "My name is Jesse" and read on...


They won't penetrate a car doors

Actually .22 LR can indeed penetrate a car door.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0LS0ZRk1y0


Did he actually mean .22 LR, or maybe .223?


.22lr can penetrate a door, too (out of a rifle); car doors are like paper. But .223 will zip through much more.


John McAfee doesn't deserve any more attention.


This is a shitty version of "Breaking Bad"...


It could be worse: At least he is not talking about the setup of his newest drug lab.


I swear, the things I'd do with that downvote button. [edit: I just realized this wasn't actually written by Mr. McAfee]


It was written by him


I.. wow.


You can click the "flag" link like I did...


Why do you think that it deserves to be flagged?


Flagging seems a little extreme.




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