This is a terrific story. Not terrific for any parties involved, but a well-written and well-told _story_. For any of you that just skimmed it - it's worth going back and reading the whole thing.
With lots of journalism these days it's terribly easy to give up on the storytelling part and stick to dry facts. Sometimes the case calls for that, but other times the weaving of the tale can be the best part.
Here, the reader is brought along for the ride - we're led to believe one version, then learn some dramatic differences that arose during the trial. Fun and worthwhile.
Agreed! Amazingly the "twist" doesn't appear until after around 4300 words -- which were themselves captivating even without yet encountering the twist!
Personality is a vector. Just because you are really high up on technical smarts means nothing in regard to the rest of you. We could simplify it down to a minimal [technical-smarts world] vector where at an extreme end you could have [100 0] being "brilliant, but forgot to wear pants to work today" to [0 100] being "the friendliest, most amazing person you'll ever meet, but they can't work a toaster." Few people are a Feynman. Most of us manage to be midline boring enough we wouldn't make interesting NYT articles.
But, more interestingly, never underestimate the ability of a smart person to seem dumber than they are for their own benefit. We honestly can't tell if he's a rube, a conman, or a mark.
Having read the whole story, I can't help but think that he knew he was transporting drugs, but was duped into thinking he was doing it for the real Milani. Like all the best movie cons, you make the mark believe they're on the inside, but they're really not.
Getting back to the egotism: This is speculation, but I think his thought process on the drug smuggling probably went like this: "I'm so much smarter than everyone else I've ever met, of COURSE I will get away with it, especially with my airtight excuse if I am caught." This kind of reminds me of Hans Reiser, whose egotism and belief in his own superiority was also his downfall.
Do you really think a personality vector (space) basis is close to two-dimensional, or was that a drastically simplified example? I don't think [IQ EQ] comes close to accurately describing personality.
Plenty of people who have poor inter-personal skills and "emotional intelligence" would still not be caught dead transporting someone else's luggage in that situation.
Actually, Feynman might not be the best scientist role model to hold up for all-around common sense and decent behavior, particularly where relationships with women are concerned.
He was getting paid well as a professor with an endowed chair at a major research university. He has no motive to smuggle drugs. He was the victim here.
The story raises an interesting dilemma that many of us in the tech and academic realm are faced with quite often, when recruiting / hiring people to join our teams (whether at a company or in a lab or in an academic dept). Personality and indeed intelligence is a vector. How much of a priority do you put on the length of the projection of the vector onto the dimension(s) that are of direct relevance (e.g. expertise and creativity in theoretical physics) and how much weight do you put on the other dimensions (of which there are many)?
The risk of hiring a mad/strange/unstable/unusual "genius" is that dealing with the social aspects of their presence is not without its cost, even if there is a high probability they can generate the magic sauce. The risk of hiring a more well rounded set of team members is that you will end up with a pod of best friends who never end up generating the magic sauce.
Personally I favour the latter approach, I strongly believe that a more cohesive, well rounded team ends up being greater than the sum of the parts, and that quite often, a team containing a mad genius devolves into chaos.
A private investigator I know was asked by a startup to look into the background of a prospective engineer. She found what she thought were some personal red flags, including a lot of online forum unpleasant rants, and some financial ones, including a previous bankruptcy filing. They hired him anyway because he seemed like a really good engineer. It didn't work out (one problem was that he apparently wasn't a very good engineer) and they let him go, and now he's threatening to blackmail/extort them.
I think businesses and engineering teams would be wise to consider sociability a big factor in choosing talent. But I think in academia, that's less of a concern if the scientist can show that he/she can publish papers and create monetizable research.
I would have to agree with the later approach as well. I have some limited experience hiring and I would say that I've learned some valuable lessons. One is that the "other dimensions" you list, which I assume are things like ability to work in a team, humility, dedication, work ethic, etc., are far more important than "smarts". To go along with that, having a ton of "smarts" does not compensate for a lack of the other dimensions. I'd say it can in some cases even go the other route and make things worse as a "smart" but non-team player is capable of doing more damage than a less intelligent non-team player.
I feel that the only relevant factor in hiring should be competence. How do you define being well rounded, and how do you measure that when you're interviewing? Is that just a code word for being someone like you?
I guess it depends on how outstanding your stuff must be. If it is ok to be merely very good, then the later approach should be the best, I think. If you want one of a kind stuff, then you might want to be a little bit more lax about the other aspects. But often there isn't a conflict. I've found that the brightest people are often very nice, too.
Their use of a somewhat-known bikini model sounds like the same technique phishers use to weed out their victims: introducing typos/stories that non-gullible people would easily see as discrediting the entire ploy. If anyone continues from that point on, they've already proven that they're susceptible to being scammed, and the job is that much easier.
Good point. Craigslist is a hotbed of spammers and phishers, especially in the housing section. They employ some pretty transparent tactics: amenities that are too good to be true at the given price point, pictures that you can easily reverse search, etc. They're looking for people who won't ask too many questions.
I wonder what the best course of action would be in such a situation?
Ditch the suitcase and risk the attention of some fairly unpleasant people?
Go to the police and risk being arrested anyway?
There was a TV series a while ago called "Banged up abroad" which documented a number of cases like this.
It was quite scary the lengths some of the criminals had gone to in order to find drug mules, in one case they had got an attractive woman to date a guy for a year and gain his trust before getting him to mule for them.
I wondered the same thing. Best I could think of would be to hide the case somewhere secure and go to your embassy to seek advice.
On the whole, though, if you're sitting in a hotel room thousands of miles from home with a case full of drugs then your situation is unlikely to improve whatever you do.
You could go to a police station and ask for assistance searching the bag. You could go early to the airport and ask for the help of a drug sniffing dog.
Assuming you are innocent, what will absolutely doom your defense is any indication that you knew you were doing something not quite right and took any effort to not get caught. "Well, just in case, I will do this so it is more likely I get away with it."
Complying with the wishes of imagined unpleasant people you have never met implies you are probably doing something wrong on purpose, doesn't it? If that is your concern, immediately book a flight to your home country, pronto!
Don't ever do it "on your own". Don't ever contact local police.
Contact your embassy / consulate, explain everything truthfully and your suspicions. You may or may not be charged (you've already been an idiot and deserve whatever you get). But at least, you'll (probably) be getting if from your own justice system which will be better for most citizens of most countries.
Assuming the cops won't be sympathetic and there's no cameras in the men's room, dump the contents in the furthest stall you can find, without touching any of it. Then get the hell out of there on the first flight back you can get or head to the embassy.
His greatest dream was "to have a prediction verified by experimentation." This, he explained, was how you win the Nobel as a theoretical particle physicist. "That would bring an enormous sense of fulfillment, quite apart from the Nobel Prize"
It's hard to tell from that statement if he puts more importance on the scientific achievement itself, or the Nobel prize awarded for the achievement.
You hit the nail on the head of the irony implicit in the hunt for the inherently material/prestige-granting awards in science where we're also meant to believe these individuals care only about a higher, non-trivial realm. Funny
"That would bring an enormous sense of fulfillment, quite apart from the Nobel Prize"
The part you are objecting to was definitely not part of the quote, it was added/paraphrased by the author, for the audience's sake.
From the wording, it seems clear that the author said something like "You could win a Nobel prize for something like that", and the professor retorted with "enormous fulfillment"
Whoa..what a story! So beautiful, well-written and expressive! Kudos to the author..felt like watching an Al Pacino film!!
One thing I'm not sure of is if he actually knew he WAS transporting drugs, yeah I do get the fact that the injunction was lifted, but was he really aware of his actions??
The 30 text messages discussing hiding from the drug goons, changing meeting locations, the value of the cocaine he's transporting, etc seem to indicate that he did in fact know. I mean I suppose as he says he could have just been kidding around, but those messages (and that many) don't seem like a joke. Of course only an idiot would send texts about their drug smuggling plans, but then again there is ample evidence in this article this guy was in fact an idiot in many respects.
I think that's part of the charm of the story. There's really no definitive answer to your questions and it's up to the reader to arrive at his own conclusions
- if anybody hasn't heard of death sentences for traffickers in Asia, or had the experience in the airport, when you're waiting to clear Customs/Immigration, of seeing the labrador retriever decide that somebody's bags were interesting, you can google those stories.
- my parents are/were academics and I've met a nontrivial number of people who are brilliant in their little corner of math, software, EE, physics but palpably short on the skills needed to not get hit by a car or not burn down their kitchen.
Slightly off topic, but as someone who hopes to sail around the world one day, I can't wait for 3D drug printing to arrive. Boats are often left unattended and with every other cruiser announcing their planned route on a blog, I am amazed so few get in troubles for unknowingly transporting drugs planted by some drug smugglers. Maybe it's the lack of speed that makes them unattractive.
Some of the narco-sub stuff in incredibly impressive given the constraints they're working under. They might spend ~$5M on a single-use vessel, knowing it's going to be maybe 1-2% of the total value of the trip, and the risk of re-use is too great.
I'm curious how UUV (unmanned/autonomous underwater vehicle) tech might change the economics of that; certainly you could improve on the eggs/basket metric if you could bring the cost/size/detectability down.
For your cruising theory; I wonder just how hard it would be to build a magnetic/quickset-epoxy limpet-mine type construction that can hold a few 10's of Kg of payload.
Bonus points for ruggedised GPS+satphone so you can track it, and perhaps even instruct it to detach and inflate buoyancy compensator 10-20m underwater til you come collect.
Along those lines, a prof at UMich lost custody of his son because he gave him Mikes Hard Lemonade at a baseball game. So much brilliance and cluelessness wrapped up into one person.
It appears that not only did he know there were drugs, but he was planning on stealing them for his and Milani's benefit. It seems he had a plan to outsmart everyone.
Reading this story made me wonder, does it ever work? And if so, I wonder what the success ratio is. Clearly is must be high enough (or profitable enough despite losses) for them to keep doing it...
I'm not a doctor, but from this article it seems to me like the professor has Asperger's or another ASD. The way he fixates on data, attempts to quantify qualitative things like ego, and one sided verbosity expressed in the article seem similar to behaviors I've observed in people with AS. Any psychiatrists on HN today?
[+] [-] nlh|13 years ago|reply
With lots of journalism these days it's terribly easy to give up on the storytelling part and stick to dry facts. Sometimes the case calls for that, but other times the weaving of the tale can be the best part.
Here, the reader is brought along for the ride - we're led to believe one version, then learn some dramatic differences that arose during the trial. Fun and worthwhile.
[+] [-] eli|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tichy|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tobinfricke|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] drawkbox|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ap0rnnstar|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ahoyhere|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seiji|13 years ago|reply
Personality is a vector. Just because you are really high up on technical smarts means nothing in regard to the rest of you. We could simplify it down to a minimal [technical-smarts world] vector where at an extreme end you could have [100 0] being "brilliant, but forgot to wear pants to work today" to [0 100] being "the friendliest, most amazing person you'll ever meet, but they can't work a toaster." Few people are a Feynman. Most of us manage to be midline boring enough we wouldn't make interesting NYT articles.
But, more interestingly, never underestimate the ability of a smart person to seem dumber than they are for their own benefit. We honestly can't tell if he's a rube, a conman, or a mark.
[+] [-] IvyMike|13 years ago|reply
Getting back to the egotism: This is speculation, but I think his thought process on the drug smuggling probably went like this: "I'm so much smarter than everyone else I've ever met, of COURSE I will get away with it, especially with my airtight excuse if I am caught." This kind of reminds me of Hans Reiser, whose egotism and belief in his own superiority was also his downfall.
[+] [-] harshreality|13 years ago|reply
Plenty of people who have poor inter-personal skills and "emotional intelligence" would still not be caught dead transporting someone else's luggage in that situation.
[+] [-] microtherion|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] javert|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] plg|13 years ago|reply
The risk of hiring a mad/strange/unstable/unusual "genius" is that dealing with the social aspects of their presence is not without its cost, even if there is a high probability they can generate the magic sauce. The risk of hiring a more well rounded set of team members is that you will end up with a pod of best friends who never end up generating the magic sauce.
Personally I favour the latter approach, I strongly believe that a more cohesive, well rounded team ends up being greater than the sum of the parts, and that quite often, a team containing a mad genius devolves into chaos.
[+] [-] Leon|13 years ago|reply
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?CowboyCoder http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?CowboyCoding
[+] [-] danso|13 years ago|reply
I think businesses and engineering teams would be wise to consider sociability a big factor in choosing talent. But I think in academia, that's less of a concern if the scientist can show that he/she can publish papers and create monetizable research.
[+] [-] xhrpost|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rrrrtttt|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] auggierose|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pikewood|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eliza1wright|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] MWil|13 years ago|reply
Won't say much more than that but it's cool to see it on the front page of HN.
[+] [-] jiggy2011|13 years ago|reply
Ditch the suitcase and risk the attention of some fairly unpleasant people?
Go to the police and risk being arrested anyway?
There was a TV series a while ago called "Banged up abroad" which documented a number of cases like this.
It was quite scary the lengths some of the criminals had gone to in order to find drug mules, in one case they had got an attractive woman to date a guy for a year and gain his trust before getting him to mule for them.
[+] [-] riggins|13 years ago|reply
pay attention to reality how it is, not how you wish it was. i.e. don't believe models are chasing 60 yr old physics professors.
[+] [-] andyjohnson0|13 years ago|reply
On the whole, though, if you're sitting in a hotel room thousands of miles from home with a case full of drugs then your situation is unlikely to improve whatever you do.
[+] [-] comrade_ogilvy|13 years ago|reply
Assuming you are innocent, what will absolutely doom your defense is any indication that you knew you were doing something not quite right and took any effort to not get caught. "Well, just in case, I will do this so it is more likely I get away with it."
Complying with the wishes of imagined unpleasant people you have never met implies you are probably doing something wrong on purpose, doesn't it? If that is your concern, immediately book a flight to your home country, pronto!
[+] [-] njharman|13 years ago|reply
Contact your embassy / consulate, explain everything truthfully and your suspicions. You may or may not be charged (you've already been an idiot and deserve whatever you get). But at least, you'll (probably) be getting if from your own justice system which will be better for most citizens of most countries.
[+] [-] sampsonjs|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nhebb|13 years ago|reply
It's hard to tell from that statement if he puts more importance on the scientific achievement itself, or the Nobel prize awarded for the achievement.
[+] [-] redwood|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gimeq|13 years ago|reply
The part you are objecting to was definitely not part of the quote, it was added/paraphrased by the author, for the audience's sake.
From the wording, it seems clear that the author said something like "You could win a Nobel prize for something like that", and the professor retorted with "enormous fulfillment"
[+] [-] nvr219|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] auggierose|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neya|13 years ago|reply
One thing I'm not sure of is if he actually knew he WAS transporting drugs, yeah I do get the fact that the injunction was lifted, but was he really aware of his actions??
[+] [-] chadcf|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] agscala|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gtani|13 years ago|reply
- if anybody hasn't heard of death sentences for traffickers in Asia, or had the experience in the airport, when you're waiting to clear Customs/Immigration, of seeing the labrador retriever decide that somebody's bags were interesting, you can google those stories.
- my parents are/were academics and I've met a nontrivial number of people who are brilliant in their little corner of math, software, EE, physics but palpably short on the skills needed to not get hit by a car or not burn down their kitchen.
[+] [-] peterjancelis|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shabble|13 years ago|reply
I'm curious how UUV (unmanned/autonomous underwater vehicle) tech might change the economics of that; certainly you could improve on the eggs/basket metric if you could bring the cost/size/detectability down.
For your cruising theory; I wonder just how hard it would be to build a magnetic/quickset-epoxy limpet-mine type construction that can hold a few 10's of Kg of payload. Bonus points for ruggedised GPS+satphone so you can track it, and perhaps even instruct it to detach and inflate buoyancy compensator 10-20m underwater til you come collect.
[+] [-] danso|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ahi|13 years ago|reply
http://www.annarbor.com/news/ann-arbor-familys-custody-ordea...
[+] [-] jcampbell1|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lnanek2|13 years ago|reply
The character sure gets around even though he can't process most of what's happening between normal people.
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidrudder|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrchess|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cpursley|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bicknergseng|13 years ago|reply