Man stabbed by fellow Microsoft employee | Hacker News Reader

Man stabbed by fellow Microsoft employee

king5.com

25 pointselilev23 comments

He’s got some psychiatric issues.

You're not kidding. From his "about" page:

"As I neurally wave farewell here, I remain an atheist, and I'm delighted scientists are still researching to move humanity to its highest apexes of enlightenment. My various neurotransmitter release rates decelerate over time due to a prenatal genetic alteration by alcohol and tobacco, but in my neural disturbances, I've danced and conversed with processions of rainbow "ghost" women to keep me company through the occasional derivative misty night. From age five to age twenty-six, I called this attention deficit hyperactive disorder, A.D.H.D. Now, I've grown to call this part of myself the descript phrase Neural Deceleration Disorder, N.D.D. By selectively disconnecting certain neurons and combining slow motion adrenaline release, I am first to declare I am the strongest man alive by such mechanisms. Neurons and other cells in parts of my body like the eyes, visual cortex, cerebral cortex, and prefrontal cortex work somewhat independently yet are holistically intertwined like a networked graph to create the reality I perceive. The website logo of josephcantrell.org in the top left is an image of my brain generated using an MRI machine at Georgia Tech, and it is encoded with the recognition of my motivations. Decode my obfuscated code in my home executive functions JS file, and refresh straight away for secret magnetic induction powers to blacken the hole of the Milky Way. 101010x3!"

Reads like amphetamine psychosis.

Been there.

How did you recognize it in yourself, and how did you overcome it?

Overcome: stopped taking amphetamines.

Recognize: self-reflection after brief periods where I wasn't taking amphetamines.

Glib as it is, that's basically it. Prescribed by a doc at 15. Used them for a decade. After reflecting on my actions and the person I was, it brought me deep shame.

If you're wondering if you've fallen into psychosis, I recommend keeping a journal for a month. Write your thoughts and reflections for the day inside. Then, a month or two later, take a break from the stims, and re-read what you've written. If you come off as psychotic then you have your answer.

The journal was my first real clue that something was amiss; but really, anything that records your behavior works too (e.g. text messages, Slack messages, blog posts, emails, phone recordings, audio recordings, video recordings, etc.).

Did any of your family/friends/coworkers bring it to your attention as well? Or did it kind of fly under the radar with them?

Unfortunately, not. They saw the changes, but none spoke out about them -- until I'd already made an unforgivable ass of myself. Many relationships have been permanently damaged or destroyed.

To be fair to them, I understand. I recognize bits and pieces of the psychotic state of mind in people who drink too much coffee: and I'm avoidant of these people, rather than confrontational with them (I, too, want to keep my involvement with psychos to the minimum).

I think that is far too common.

I had a coworker that was a paranoid schizophrenic and he stopped taking his medication. We all knew he was "off" and we kind of dealt with it. I had complained a number of times to our founder and his advice was to "take him out to dinner and smooth things over". Crappy advice.

It was a weird and rocky ~6 months until the coworker threatened to kill our founder's cat one day.

Anyone that decodes functions.js (https://josephcantrell.org/functions.js) can find the hidden message he talks about:

https://josephcantrell.org/res/images/trippy1.png

May be suffering from schizophrenia or some related issue.

Basically it creates an animation where trippy1 is rained down the page infinitely.

He seemed to be going down a nasty rabbit hole of paranoia. He believed Velocity internet was racketeering and working with gang members to cut off his internet and mess with him.

He recorded phone calls with their support: https://josephcantrell.org/res/audio/

He also catalog a bunch of random stuff here: https://josephcantrell.org/res/reports/

I wonder how on earth Microsoft didn't pick up on this behavior earlier? There's no way he was completely normal at work.

That it is mentioned that it was a fellow $TechName employee is a testament to how rare violence between employees in the tech sector is.

https://archive.is/Xleoa

To the luck point, there are plenty of places in the head and neck where an injury won't kill a person. The consequences of the wound to his brain might never be apparent to anyone other than those close to him.

Guy was stabbed in the neck and head and survived? Modern medical care is a miracle.

It's somewhat about luck. Phineas Gage got an iron rod through his head 150 years ago and survived. The body can be surprisingly fragile and tough at the same time.

He's still alive?

In the corporeal sense no, but he does live on in every intro psych textbook. Tons of early insight into brain function actually came from freak industrial accidents where someone took a hit to the brain and lived to tell the tale.

Also a skull fracture and brain bleed...sounds like his head hit the pavement on the way down.

Undesirable work culture, or mentally unstable? Both?

a generous amount of the latter, at least

Does anyone else, also get "Acces Denied", when visiting the link?

The workplace can burn you out and turn into a mental vegetable, throw into depression, marginalize into a submitted animal. It's rewarding status game until it all derails into a catastrohpe. Hello, crisis.

how do you do, fellow windows user

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