[rdl]

Happy to help. This is Free Liquor Week (aka RSA), but you're probably wise enough to avoid it.

I agree the most likely situation with Hastings was he had personal issues, but maybe got spooked by someone calling him or otherwise being threatening, and crashed his car. After writing some pretty good articles. And Barrett Brown has some serious issues as well, although (like aaronsw and weev, and manning's pre-trial detention conditions) the way the legal system is being used is itself unconscionable.

I still think "punch up" applies.

[tptacek]

I would rather eat a live wriggling cockroach than attend RSA or, for that matter, be in the same city as RSA.

I don't understand where you're even coming from regarding Hastings. He had a history of abusing drugs and alcohol. His car crashed. A bunch of Internet conspiracy theorists decided that crashed cars don't burst into flames the way video showed Hastings car had, even as other Internet people, including (here on HN) an EMT, pointed out that they actually do exactly that surprisingly often; some even presented videos. The LA Coroner released a report that pointed out Hastings had amphetamines and cannabis in his system when his car crashed.

From where, exactly, do you get the notion that he received a threatening phone call? Is there any evidence anywhere at all that that ever happened, or does it just make for a good story?

[rdl]

I just meant he might have been driving even worse than usual due to (founded or unfounded paranoia). Or meth. Or both.

(I recall reading somewhere that he was convinced someone was monitoring him. But I suspect occam's razor in this case was being used to cut up lines.)

[tptacek]

Well played.

Also: are you seriously telling me you haven't read Robert Anton Wilson? You seem like, I don't know, the type.

[rdl]

I have, although not in the past ~10 years -- I think I read the Illuminatus trilogy in ~3 days at the MIT SFS library; I haven't read Schroedinger's Cat. I often get two of my favorite characters (Celine and Danneskjold) mixed up, though.