A part of me doesn't want to believe this story.
Until recently, I hadn't heard of quinoa because I am not hip or a foodie, but then I googled it. All became clear.
I imagine that law enforcement officers aren't idiots, and thus if they ran into some word that could be relevant to the investigation, they'd type it into a search engine.
> My husband said no, my wife uses it to make quinoa. What the hell is quinoa, they asked
I could also understand not knowing what it is based on the pronunciation (I expected kwin-oh-a, but it's more keen-wah I think).
OTOH, if this is true, it screams "incompetence" pretty loudly, IMO. Two people googling for "pressure cooker" and "backpack" doesn't add up to squat. I mean, seriously, if I wanted a f'ng pressure cooker to build a bomb with, I'd just go to Wal-mart or Target and pay cash for it. Same for a backpack. You don't need to get on the Internet and do massive amounts of research to buy a pressure cooker and a backpack if you want to be the next Boston bomber. If they're really chasing down this many false positives with no additional evidence to suggest nefarious intent, they're wasting a shit-ton of tax money to do it, and probably overlooking all the real terrorists in the process.
That's a good point. If they were doing this even a couple of times a month (or probably per year) you have to expect that it would be getting reported.
Even if said agent was exaggerating his/her workload, this story sounds fishy.
People spend a lot of time not letting HN devolve into what reddit is now. Joke handles are a part of that. Downvoting "jokes" and jokes period is part of that.
My token nod of agreement with darien was more or less just a vote to call bullshit on the article. I wasn't trying to be hilariously snarky, or win some kind of prize, or even add to (or perhaps inadvertantly detract from) the grand, and sweeping cultural touchstone that is Hacker News.
Why does my user name match my comment? Why not? It's available. Whether this practice is frowned upon isn't particularly relevant to my goal of participation, in voicing my opinion.
Why did I choose to create a pseudonym for this response? Why wouldn't I? I'm not sock puppeting, or stacking the vote by creating multiple accounts. Whether you can tell or not, I haven't been replying to myself, in an attempt to create a false impression of astro-turfed conversation. I'm not creating this account in an effort to unjustly manipulate the perception of reality that other users have.
I'm not interested in collecting Karma. I'm not here to establish reputation, or take credit for anything. I'm merely participating in the peanut gallery of comments. In this instance, pointing out that I don't believe the assertions of this particular blog entry is relevant, and material to the discussion.
If I create a new user for each topic of discussion, what does it matter to you? Does the fact that I'm creating a new account potentially discredit all other new accounts? Is my behavior somehow toxic and counterproductive to the reflected glory you wish to receive for participating on someone else's website? Am I being inconsiderate when I pollute the namespace of their user IDs? Are you simply worried about ycombinator's servers?
Maybe my respose was simply too short for your tastes. Would you like me to go into detail, regarding why I don't buy the story, which seems like fiction, but is reported as possible fact?
Please participate only if you have value to add.
Yes, your response was too short; I would prefer you go into more detail. Otherwise, just vote and leave it at that.