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Many Hackers Too Fat For The FBI
CaveDwler writes: "Want to work for the FBI in computer security? Better put down your cheesey poofs and pick up your M16. According to this article over on Wired, you have to pass physical requirements in order to work with FBI in computer security."
for CowboyNeal.
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
Hackers? Too Fat? Say it's aint so!
"Lord, grant that I may always be right, for Thou knowest that I am hard to turn" -- A Scots-Irish prayer
Where are all these fat pasty geeks I keep hearing about? Most I see are scrawny as hell. Yeah okay, so they're pasty, but they could carry a M16(crap, just try to KEEP a geek away from a M16 for Christ's sake).
I'd think the "college degree" required bit would be a bigger limiting factor.
"They will not consider you unless you can carry your M16 through the physical fitness course without killing yourself in the process,"
I think its fair, if you die in the test, they don't hire you.
You can't take the sky from me...
...it's the bind-bogglingly stupid hiring practices in general. And the FBI know it; heck, even this article spends only a little time discussing the physical bit. Most of the article points out other ways in which the FBI shoots themselves in the foot:
At some point it will occur to the FBI that people can specialize in a topic before joining.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
How is playing Counter-Strike going to help me lose weight?
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
"In order to be a good computer security person, you must think like a black-hat hacker and be able to understand the tools and methods of the dark side," Sweeny said.
Oh great. So not only do you have to be able to run the obstacle course but you gotta be able to choke people from a distance and fight little green hyper midgets.
GMD
watch this
One question on the application asked if you'd smoked pot more than 15 times
15 times? A day?
IANAL, but imagine a beowulf cluster of in Soviet Russia all your belong are base to us welcoming the new SCO overlords.
Why is this considered newsworthy? All branches of the military require a given level of physique, same with virtually all law enforcement departments, not to mention fireman, rangers, and private security.
What else did you expect? Next there will be a story on how stupid people can't join the FBI.....
Yet another case of a rather pathetic "zero-tolerance" style "get-tough" policy
You better make that "fifteen-tolerance"..
"One question on the application asked if you'd smoked pot more than 15 times," Sweeny recalled. "Fifteen times? What's up with that? Fifteen is the magic number?"
Ladies, form queue here -->
Its always been my dream, to one day pull a gun and badge on someone and yell "Federal Agent, DONT MOVE!" or something cool like that. Unfortunately here in the UK theres nothing with any really catchy names, "Flying Squad" sounds lame, "MI5" sounds lame, the only cool thing i can think of is "Secret Service" but you would probably have to wisper it because its secret.. :( Even the police dont have cool 4-letter things like NYPD or LAPD. "Swansea Police, FREEZE!"
:)
I think its important for all geeks that want to join the FBI to get fit, and cherish their ability to pull guns and shout catchy phrases even if they have desk jobs. Mulder had to pass the physical, Scully had to pass the... mmmmmmm.. she definatly passed it
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Check out their policies http://www.fbi.gov/employment/policies.htm
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
interesting balance working here.
some of the programmers i know are brilliant at what they do because they have very little interest in social activities, physical activities, or leaving their monitors at all. almost all of there time is spent learning and soaking up new data. -generally- i find them pretty un energetic and hard to work with in groups sometimes.
but, if they were doing physical activities, getting out more, they may be better to work with, easier to pool knowledge, and have more energy and focus.
but would they be as tech smart and on top of things? at what point is the 'geek specialization' hurting the group interaction and thus the goals of forming a unit that works well to serve the fbi and its goal?
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Don't be content to be a fat fuck, and don't let yourself off with "Gee, I'm just too busy to exercise" or "Exercise is for stupid jocks" excuse. There are better ways to flirt with death than to sit on your ass 18 hours a day chugging Dew and eating Ho Hos.
Here's my 20 minute-a-day, 4 times a week solution: Get out and run. Two and a quarter miles or so in about 20 minutes will put you in reasonably good shape. It doesn't hurt to squeeze in some work with free weights, either, but you can work up to that. In any event, start off slow and work up to your goal over a couple of months, and *don't* let yourself plateau too early.
Oh, and good shoes are really important. I highly recommend New Balance.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
.. it was the background check that scared me. What if I was a stupid teen and I did knock over a few mailboxes with a baseball bat [which I didn't..], would they use that against me?
So worse case is I don't get the job and then I get brought up on charges of some stupid thing I did in my youth.
"The Background will routinely encompass your entire adult life (age 18) and earlier years as necessary to fully resolve issues that arise. Information developed of a derogatory nature will be forwarded to FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C., for adjudication."
How many people can answer these questions with a response of No?
1. Have you used marijuana at all within the last three years?
2. Have you used marijuana more than a total of 15 times in your life?
3. Have you used any other illegal drug (including anabolic steroids after February 27, 1991) at all in the past 10 years?
4. Have you used any other illegal drug (including anabolic steroids after February 27, 1991) more than a total of five times in your life?
5. Have you ever sold any illegal drug for profit?
6. Have you ever used an illegal drug (no matter how many times or how long ago)while in a law enforcement or prosecutorial position, or in a position which carries with it a high level of responsibility or public trust?
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Far more inane is the requirement on marijuana smoking.
Well, it's inane to you because (I'm guessing) you feel that marijuana should be legalized. However, we are supposedly at war against drugs so it's actually a consistant stance for the FBI to take. I'd bet that the FBI would reject your application if their background check revealed that you sent a check off to Osama, too. From the FBI's standpoint, using marijuana (even a one-time experimentation) is like giving money to an enemy we're at war against.
Look, personally I believe in legalizing marijuana. But you can't fault the FBI for this requirement. It would be pretty rediculous if the federal government had an official "no drugs" stance against drugs and then the FBI decided they were going to convienently ignore drug use in reviewing applications.
GMD
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D'ya think Am Sexy. D'ya have any baby's around. Which way to the Gent's I've got to leave some evidence...
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
"In order to be a good computer security person, you must think like a black-hat hacker and be able to understand the tools and methods of the dark side," Sweeny said. "Right there, you are in a very gray area, in the feds' opinion."
That's the MAIN problem, hacker are believed to be criminal. Discrimination is a handy tool for people wanting laws passed, ala DMCA.
uncorrected vision not worse than 20/200 (Snellen) and corrected 20/20 in one eye and not worse than 20/40 in the other eye. All candidates must pass a color vision test.
Considering many males are colorblind and many have poor vision, this is another problem. The FBI is shooting themselves in the foot by having overly demanding entrance requirements.
The FBI should hire experts in the field they are going to work in. Have officers with guns do the dirty work and scientists do the research. This is the way law enforcement should work.
Then salaries could also be distributed to be competitive to get the correct people for the job.
-Sean
If you read the think at the fbijob site linked in the article, it will show all the requirements. It serisouly looks like a sucky job, you must have great health, great hearing, great vision, be less than 37 yrs old, and you will get a starting pay of ~45,000. Also, people need to have knowledge in computer science, hard science (phyiscs, chemistry...) foreign language, and other stuff. The big problem (as mentioned in the article) is that the fbi excepts the new recruits to be like normal fbi agents and run around and go after the bad guys in the real world. Have they never heard of specialization? The only way i can explain it is that the fbi are getting deluged by applicants and have ultra high requirements for that reason.
Only dead fish swim with the stream...
They're not just ruling out the fat ones. They're rejecting all the ones that don't have a buff bod and those who wear glasses. Remember, a gentlemen agent not only has to be smart but has to be good looking enough to seduce the sexy Russian and Chinese evil hacker agents that he will undoubtably encounter in exotic locales. Don't you watch the movies, man? Everyone knows this shit!
GMD
watch this
At least to me. The FBI is in the business of finding and arresting the "bad guy". So it makes sense that all of their agents be in top physical condition and that folks work the street for awhile before specializing. That way the agents know how to put together a case from the ground up, and not have it kicked on a technicality.
That being said, I would think that they would try and increase their cybercrime fighting abilities by increasing the number of civvies they hire, and giving them more clout. Course with the egos involved that last one might be a bit of a toughie...
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
but don't forget that they want people who can do more then one thing. It's stupid to hire people that can do one and only one thing well in law enforcement. These are the people who need to be able to do a multitude of things to 'survive' at times.
They are just saying that you should be able to do many, things and may be required to be a 'normal' agent from time to time. If they actually get what they want is another matter altogether.
Maybe the computer job pays really really well compared to a normal agent?
Well, "equally effective" is a bit of a stretch.
Aside from that, pretty much what you're indicating is that you'd be a good researcher but a pretty poor law-enforcement agent (cops, FBI guys, DEA, etc all have one big priority: don't take any chances that might not let you go home that night. This includes killing people you think are threatening you).
Where the FBI really needs to improve, probably, is structurally -- recognize that researchers and experts shouldn't necessarily be inferior to agents and adjust to give them an appropriate amount of influence.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Contraray to what we all like our PHB to believe, most technical skills are not hard to learn. Modern development and administration tools make most of the work fairly easy to do, once you acquire the needed knowledge of the systems. Even a total moron (who has an advanced degree in astrophysics, wa-hey!) can run an app in debug mode until he gets it working. What sets us geeks apart (or has so far, anyway) is the desire to learn this shit.
If the FBI recruits a good person, who won't have an acid flashback or a massive stroke two weeks after getting hired, and won't sell everything he knows to foreign governments in exchange for a box of Cheez-Its, they can train him in on what he doesn't know later.
Besides, in the current market, you can afford to weed out the overweight, the hippies, the criminals, the people who don't clean under their fingernails, and anybody who uses the wrong conditioner for their ph balance, and still have lots of solid candidates to interview.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Two steps:
1. Recognize that your excuses are all self-defeating bullshit.
2. Work up to your goal.
Seriously, the only things keeping 99% of us from being healthy are the convenient little excuses we make for ourselves (some people have medical problem, but few are so serious as to preclude an active lifestyle).
Look around and tell me how many really fat 40 year olds you see. Now, how many 50 year olds? 60? Am I getting through here?
Being active gives you a lot of things: it makes you more physically attractive to most people, you'll have more energy, you'll fit into a single airline seat, you'll be stronger and generally more able to keep up with life, but the biggie is still this: If you're fat, you're going to die before you have to.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
It's really simple. Either a few prodigy agents get through and carry the entire beurau, or they will be duped time and time again by kiddies with half the skill set of a mitnick (and most of what he did was social engineering!)
If the gov't is too stupid to keep up or farm out, then they deserve to be left behind.
and $45k?! Whatever!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
There is, however, an M4A1, which is pretty much the same thing. It's a little smaller, and a little lighter, and it's what the army uses now anyway.
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Thats pretty damn poor vision. The definition of legally blind is being 20/200 with corrective lenses. I can understand the reasoning behind it: lose your glasses and transform yourself into a blind agent. Not cool. If your vision is correctable with lenses then you're good to go. Colorblindness on the otherhand, probably excludes a significant number from participation. I can think of a scenario though where that might be an issue (however unlikely and theatrical it might be): cut the red wire instead of the green wire and transform yourself into a dead agent.
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Open Source Sysadmin
Don't be content to be a fat fuck, and don't let yourself off with "Gee, I'm just too busy to exercise" or "Exercise is for stupid jocks" excuse. There are better ways to flirt with death than to sit on your ass 18 hours a day chugging Dew and eating Ho Hos.
;)
It sounds like you suffer from the false belief that obesity is simply a matter of laziness. Trust me, there are plenty of lazy people who are not obese.
The rise of obesity in American society has many factors, and I think that laziness is a very small one. A much more important factor would be the insane number of carbohydrates that we consume now as opposed to one hundred years ago. Do you know how many millions of gallons of soft drinks (50 grams of carbs per can) people go through in a year? To put it in the proper perspective, consider that humans used to drink exactly zero gallons of soft drinks in a year. And add to that the fact that soft drink manufacturers continue to raise the portion size of their products. Notice that snack makers (carb factories) and restaurants (carb factories) are doing the same thing. It's merely pandering to the "get more for your money" desire which is almost inextricable from the American psyche.
Also, 99% of diets will fail (read: make the dieter gain more weight, not less) if the dieter is already over 100 pounds overweight. Telling these people, "Get off your ass you fat fuck!" does not help. In fact, I think it exacerbates the problem that you deplore.
New balance sucks. Ecco rules the universe! Then again, I'm biased: I value my knees too much to be a runner.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Maybe they want people who already know what the limits of what they can and cannot do are, and how law enforcement generally operates.
.com, either.
That way, the new guy doesn't bollux up an investigation by committing some mistake which a defense attorney can present as a violation of his client's rights and grounds for dismissal. They'd also likely have a better grounding in who and what you're dealing with, on the other side -- and it won't just be against stereotypical "black hats" getting their rocks off by DOSing some high-profile
At least, that's one possible explanation. Another is just that they cut-and-pasted requirements from their other divisions without being overly concerned about it. I'm not a Fed, so I wouldn't know.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
"Even a total moron (who has an advanced degree in astrophysics, wa-hey!) can run an app in debug mode until he gets it working."
Uh, there's some sarcasm there, right?
An *undergrad* in astrophysics requires the same
3 semesters of calculus as any other Physics, or Chemistry, right? Anybody who can pull that off is immune from EVER being called a moron.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
When I was being interviewed by the feds, I asked them about some of the questions on the many-page form. Questions of the format, "Have you ever mutilated small children while dropping acid, selling crystal meth, and joining a right-wing militia/religious cult all at the same time?" etc. I asked, "are you actually expecting a "oh sure, all the time" answer? Have you ever gotten a yes answer? Don't people get freaked out that they're shooting themselves in the foot?"
The representative[*] chuckled and pointed out that the answers you give on the form, and during the interviews, are sealed. They cannot by law turn around and bring you up on charges based on how you answered. (They can deny you the job/clearance/position/whatever because you're a meth-smoking nutcase, but they can't trick you into putting yourself in jail.)
[*]Sweet little old lady on the outside, but damn... there is nothing more intimidating than someone who looks like your grandmother staring you in the eye while asking, "Are you now or have you ever been a member of any organization whose stated goal is the violent overthrow of the United States Government?" and no, she's not smiling.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
well I'd do it.
.45 or with my bare hands, well they'd let me decide, I'm sure ,...oh.uh, wait just a sec, we were talking about a shitty nt4-sp1 (now, stay focussed) socalled-hack-by-terrorists-which-was-in-fact-just -a-bug-exploited-by-some-scriptkiddies-in-the stoneage-or-feature-you're-not-really-sure-but-the -cia-is-shutting-your-mouth -anyhow-so-you-stopped-caring-after-this-thought-r eached-you-which-was-when-you-filled-in-the-realon e(tm)-questionaire (strange how things go sometimes right?)-which-was-recorded-by-echelon-somehow-and- they-approached-you sys-admin-"ish" job here right?
I would sweat my guts out; cough my own blood up during hellish daily 30 mile drills with a 22'' monitor on my back, for 10 months untill I meet the requirements, all for uncle sam!
As long as I can kill people with my
Well, never mind then!
The drug requirement also serves another purpose. By getting someone that has done little-to-nothing wrong during their life they minimize the chance that you can be blackmailed at some point during your career.
I find that I have increased energy and, as an extention, less need for caffine and a generally clearer head (esp. during those hours after lunch when everyone else is half-asleep). IMO, I absorb information much more easily and am better able to "wrap my head" around things.
Fine, fine. Whoop-de-do. Get to the damn point, Man! Are you scoring with lots of naked chicks now or what?
GMD
watch this
"They'll grudgingly let you past if you just do forensics, but they feel you really should chase bad guys with a gun before you chase bad guys with a computer."
No reasoning problems here...
"We don't trust you with a computer, so here's your gun!"
However, mentioning that the duty of the cybercop is to chase bad guys with computer does put the fitness requirements into perspective... Man, computers are a !$%&@ to carry, especially while running, and I'm sure you've really gotta be built to throw that thing hard enough to take out the perp!
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
You might as well ask for politicians who have never lied. (That's a bunch I'd like to see take the lie detector test upon swearing to uphold the constitution)
Such politicians would no doubt pass with flying colors - because they're pathological liars.
The "lie detector" is not actually a lie detector. It is a "polygraph", graphing several physiological indicators of stress, so that a trained operator MAY be able to interpret them to determine when the subject is lying. And it operates on the principle that the subject will be under more stress when lying than when telling the truth - either from guilt or fear of being caught.
But a pathological liar won't be under stress. Because he doesn't CARE about whether he tells the truth. MAYBE he'll care about being caught - but maybe not - or maybe he understands polygraphs well enough to recognize that he won't be caught.
The "calibration" questions at the start are both an attempt to convince the subject that he'll be caught if lying (to cause someone who doesn't care to worry when lying) and to guage how much, if any, stress the subject exhibits when lying (so that pathological liars can just be graded "inconclusive").
I recall such a fellow telling me about his run-in with a lie-detector screening of a population at his job site, looking for a thief. Calibration in this test was to let him pick one of a set of three cards, put it back, then be asked "Is it the [such-and-such]?" and to silently think "No, it is not the [such-and-such]." Then the operator would tell him which card it was. The subject in question was enough of a stage-magician to recognize that the game was honest.
So as the three cards were turned, he thought something like:
"No, it is not the jack of hearts."
"NO, IT IS NOT THE QUEEN OF SPADES!"
"Yes, it is the king of diamonds."
The operator said that there was a curious little blip for the king, but that the card was obviously the queen. "GOTCHA!" thought my acquaintence, who had just been shown that he could beat the machine.
Not that it mattered since he wasn't the thief - he says, in a perfectly calm voice. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
What you said. It's a cultural problem.
Why not allow researchers the time/flexibility to pursue leads with publicly available information, and then pass that information on to agents to do the takedown stuff?
I can think of lots of ways to monitor areas of the 'net for suspicious activity (illegal types of pr0n, spam for illegal types of pr0n, traffic analysis of PGP-encrypted messages, and I'm choosing to ignore software/music piracy) that, while not necessarily actionable in and of themselves, would be the missing pieces that would make open-and-shut cases.
"Agent X, here's a letter. It doesn't matter that you don't understand a word of it. Take this in front of a judge. He may not understand a word of it either, but he'll probably authorize the request. The ISP will understand every word, and will hand you all the evidence you need to take $BIGNUM bad guys down."
(Come to think of it, aside from the legal boilerplate, the subpoena to the ISP need only contain three words: "grep", a regexp, and a filename. The regexp and the filename will depend on what department Agent X works for, but the approach is the same.)
Before anyone says that's unreasonable search and seizure, the regexps I'm thinking of can be based on publicly-posted or freely-given information such as IP addresses, timestamps, and other data given out by the suspect him/herself.
Investigators (maybe "investigators" isn't the right word. "Oracle" sounds nice. As in, the Agent asks the Oracle where to get leads for such-and-such a kind of case, and an anonymous voice from within the Oracle says "Start looking here") could be given $$$ bonuses based on the number of successful takedowns Agents made, and Oracles who provide too many bum leads get fired. Agents could continue to get the fun stuff like like kicking down doors and shooting badasses.
I presume their forensic people don't have to be crack shots and marathon runners. Why require the same for people doing what are essentially "computer forensics"?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
The chronic daemons out there would know that you might have to smoke pot up to 15 times before you build up enough of a reverse tolerance to get high. So, I'm guessing that the reasoning behind the FBI choosing 15 as their "magic number" is that if you've toked up that many times, then you must have gotten high at least once, but decided it's not your thing. People who could turn down weed after getting high off of it would then be less likely to care about defending its users or advocating its legalization than somebody who smoked the stuff continuously for a period of their life.
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
They don't mention the many other requirements. While it says you need a college degree, you would need to have gotten it without doing drugs, writing subversive papers, or anything else that a college student would do.
Being a former member of the armed services that held a Top Secret clerance my entire career (and honorably discharged, before you ask), the "requirement" is there, but, provided that you are HONEST with your interviewers and stay off the stuff during your tenure, you will pass this part just fine.
The real source for trouble is financial dealings. If you've bounced checks, forget about it. Money, not sex, drugs, or ideology, has been the root of most espionage cases over the last 40 years.
At any rate, I was honest with my screeners, didn't touch drugs while I was in, and I had no issues with this area. Now, my ex-wife on the other hand...
Wu-Tang Name: Half-Cut Skeleton Get your own Wu-Na
> People fail on diets because they are weak and don't follow the diet plans.
Bullshit. The reductionists want to reduce diets to simple matters of protein, carbs and fats, but the explosion in obesity during the past decade proves just how fallious their arguments are.
Diets fail because they fly in the face of what humans (and other mammals) evolved to handle. E.g., as the recent Time magazine article mentioned, if you have a mixture of about the same protein, carbs and fat rats will eat a modest amount of each. If you go heavy on the carbs, e.g., as recommended by most diets (but not the Adkins, Zone and Carbohydrate haters' diets), the rats will stuff themselves. Do that enough, and you have very fat rats.
From a macronutrient perspective, this makes no sense. From an evolutionary perspective, this is obvious - it's behavior designed to take advantage of seasonal windfalls.
But as others have pointed out, this is a disaster in an age when water fountains have been removed from many offices, but free soda is readily available in the refrigerator.
Another good point that the Time article made is that milk isn't just fatty sugar water. The presence of calcium in milk affects the way your body processes sugar and fats (I don't recall the details), so if you switch from soda to low-fat milk you may have more calories and definitely more fat, but you'll lose weight because your body handles it differently than it does carbs alone.
So, if the best nutritionists in the country are admitting that they're having to revisit almost everything they think they knew, who the hell are you to pronounce everyone who's failed to lose weight on a diet a weak-willed loser?
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Fat? I'm all angry muscle.
The FBI can kiss the toned, buff ass that sits atop my sculpted, mighty thews.
At my home-office, when the bull-shit exceeds my tolerance level, I get off the chair, hop on the tread-mill that's facing the window and the tension fades while the sweat pours off.
At the office, I go for a jog on the Jersey City waterfront and glower at the hole that Bin Laden and his mental midgets gouged out of the sky-line.
I have showers ten feet away both a home and at the office. I don't stink.
The FBI are Bozos who'se buffonery is matched by the myopia of the CIA and the ineptitude of the US foreign policy.
Once again they have ALL fucked up and Al Qeda is on the move, metastasizing because they were forced to instead of being somewhere fixed where we could spy on them, intercept their communications and catch them when they tried to get out.
Somewhere like Afghanistan where they and the Taliban would have been a drain on Islamic resources.
They couldn't feed themselves and they were too busy killing each other over the length of their beards (really tough on the women,) to maintain any medical, military, civil-engineering, communication or any damn other infrastructure.
They would have ended up as shining beacon of religious folly. Islam carried through to its ultimate conclusion:
A patheic bunch of socio-psychopaths squatting around in a circle jerk on top of a smoldering pile of rubble.
It would have been relly hard to point to that with pride.
But NO! Bush, et alia, had to make fuckin' Islamic martyrs out of 'em. Now they're like cock-roaches living under the stove and fridge and in the pantry.
We'd have to FIND them. But that takes longer than a term, it costs money and it requires dedication.
Its much easier to go after another fixed target instead.
Yeah. Right Dubya... "IRAQ is EEE-VILLL. Ah'll kick they ass like mah daddy did." What a moron. The best part of him ran down his mother's leg.
Next we'll be reliving M.A.S.H.instead of just watching the fucking re-re-re-runs. Bet'cha Korea's next.
Meanwhile you'd better get ready to take it in the shorts because anybody can get into the US anywhere the cops ain't looking at that very moment.
And they can buy box-cutters at Staple's and ram high-jacked Greyhound busses into gasoline storage tanks. Two of the faithful dead, thirty or so other passengers roasted to a crisp and a million gallons of fuel up in flames. That's not a bad payoff for people who normally strap some dynamite to their chests and "go hangout with the Yids down at the mall."
The only good religious leader is some geek with big bad hair hipocrically crying crocodile tears and confessing in front of the audience that "Ah have Sinned! "
The diffrence between "Blow-Job" Roberts or any of the other fat lying bastards selling "Jayzus" and Mullah Omar is one of opportunity. That's all.
Don't agree? I don't give a fuck. I just read the history books and the obituaries. I HATE being right.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
"The FBI does have non-agent positions for people who are highly skilled in areas such as computer forensics (collecting evidence from computers). Those who don't qualify for agent positions can still serve as civilian employees, according to an FBI spokeswoman."
Now the "security consultant" says non-agents are "at the bottom of the food chain." Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. But that doesn't seem to be the issue everyone has with the way the FBI operates. It sounds to me like people are upset that they can't be a Special Agent, and carry a badge and a gun, unless they are qualified to carry a badge and a gun. So sweeny can still be an FBI full-time employee specializing in computer security. Whats the problem?
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
If the army can admit people with eye correction needs so can the FBI. That restriction is a crock of shit...
Also, if your getting your eyes smacked, it don't matter if you have glasses or not, yer not gonna be seeing straight afterwards either.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
What makes you think they don't do this already? They have lots of non-agent employees. What makes you think some of them aren't "Oracles"?
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
Wow, if you want to be a federal law enforcement agent you need to pass a physical and background check. Is anyone really surprised? These agencies hire civilians to do specialised work who don't have to meet the physical requirements. If they are hiring geeks just to support tech law enforcement they don't need to be federal agents just support staff. The actual agents who carry guns, get out of the office, and arrest people probably do need to go through training which preclude the grossly obese. Also on background checks: as someone who has gone through the process elsewhere they aren;t looking to eliminate people because they swiped a chocalate bar when they were 10 but more to weed out those who have ideologies and weaknesses that preclude them from doing the job of enfocing the law and maintaining loyalty to the govt.
If 45 - 60k isn't enough to put food on the table, I think that weight problem may still be an issue.
The peer-reviewed studies are unambiguous, even modest amounts of exercise have a profound effect on mortality rates.
As for your earlier attempt to run, ignore the assholes. Start by walking 30 minutes. Do that for a few weeks then try jogging for 30 seconds and walking for a few minutes. Over 6-8 weeks you'll slowly build up your muscles, tendons and cardiovascular system so you can run the entire distance. This isn't my idea, it's the plan developed by Dr. Kenneth Cooper, "father of aerobics," and adopted by the military for training their own people.
A variant of this is to start by walking, then shift to a stationary bike so you can have a constant load instead of the start-and-stop load from the run-walk approach. Again, after 6-8 weeks you can run it, but in this case you'll need to be careful about number of reps since you haven't strengthened the load-bearing tendons and such.
Finally, I do something like this when coming off of idle periods. I might spend a month on the stationary bike, but I'm developing the ability to work out continuously for an hour at a decent load, then can jump straight into ~7 mile runs on the treadmill.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
uhh.. 20/200 is pretty bad, requiring correction... 20/800 is legally blind i believe.
for those that don't know, 20/200 means what you can read at 20 yards, i can read at 200 yards (or a bit further as i have 20/13 vision)
ehintz
Interesting argument, that one is. One of the reasons the British intelligence agencies got penetrated so thoroughly in the 50s and 60s was because they made homosexuality a dismissal offence (as well a a criminal one).
This provided the Soviets with all the leverage they needed - because while homosexuality was still officially a crime, it was a crime to which a blind eye was generally turned. But agents could be trivially turned by supplying them with an attractive man, getting photos, and threatening ruin.
So on one hand, sure, recruiting agents who are squeaky clean can help make it hard for others to exploit them against you, having recruitment standards out of whack with social norms can arguably make the problem worse.
Oooh Mr. Big-Shot knows all his numbers and he's gonna tell us how un-healthy we all are.
You are an abberation, I'm sorry.
Consider yourself lucky that you didn't get the hypo-metabolic end of the gene stick.
You gotta deal with us... you're the freak.
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
You can. You can join the forensics lab or other civilian support positions. You can only become an Agent - with all the legal powers thereof - if you can do everything an Agent needs to be able to do.
The problem the people are whining about in the article isn't that they're being prevented from working in a specialised area in the FBI, it's that they want the prestigious positions without doing the work required. Kind of like people thinking they should be adminning server farms because they installed Linux at home once.
How about a scenario where you have, oh, say, a drug dealer with a LAN which is not connected to the 'net and have to go on location to get access to it? At that point, if I were an Agent, I wouldn't want to be looking out for some lard-arse specialist, I'd like to know the guy doing the specialist work could cover my back in a firefight.
(* If you're fat, you're going to die before you have to. *)
Can you show that the total free time lost to excercise makes up for the extra life span?
Table-ized A.I.
but i cant run as you suggest, especially 2 miles, i can barely walk 1 mile (if i can at all).. if i ran id pass out after about 100 feet. so whats your suggestion?
It's easy...
1. Get out the front door, and carry a bit of chalk.
2. Jog (don't flat out run) as far as you can.
3. Mark the footpath with the chalk.
4. Tomorrow, jog as far as you can - push yourself and make sure you go past the line of chalk.
5. Make a new line.
6. Goto 4.
7. ???
8. Profit!
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
The FBI just does not want to pay for two seats when the fly you. It has nothing to do with caring for your health. If you croak early it is less pension forked out.
Table-ized A.I.
When I see things like:
"They will not consider you unless you can carry your M16 through the physical fitness course without killing yourself in the process," Sweeny, maintainer of the PacketAttack website, said. "Most of the geeks I know view exercise as carrying the 80-ounce cola, pager and cell phone all at the same time."
and
"You won't get a position in computer security until you've worked at least five years on the beat, preferably in physical investigations," Rosenberger said. "They'll grudgingly let you past if you just do forensics, but they feel you really should chase bad guys with a gun before you chase bad guys with a computer."
Then I realize that it's no wonder that the FBI lags so far behind the terrorists that they're trying to catch, or that important pieces of information slip through their fingers with lethal side-effects. If they refuse to hire the best people for the job, or upon hiring them refuse to let them work in their chosen field then they deserve everything bad that happens to them.
The war on cybercrime and cyberterrorism is already lost because all of the smart guys are working for the other side. It seems that's the way that the FBI wants it.
There are still many agencies that are in need of agents with 1337 skills, and they don't have as strict requirements as the FBI. US Customs, the IRS, BATF, INS (Immigration) all have field agent/technician jobs. Their physical fitness requirements are secondary to qualifications and experience. Basically you need to be able to run a mile in under 15 minutes, then do 100 situps and 50 pushups. While that might preclude some people, it's not exactly the pinnacle of human fitness. They are pretty hardcore on the background check, though, but they're moving away from the polygraph since they're smart enough to realize it doesn't work. (Secret Service and FBI poly the most)
As far as your college degree, what was told me to directly by a hiring manager for US Customs is that they aren't as interested in criminal justice degrees as they are science/finance/tech degrees with maybe a few CJ courses or a minor thrown in. Anyone can learn the depth of Federal criminal code in training classes. It's harder to learn the skills that matter in 26 weeks of training.
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They did that once, but it took so long to get rid of J Edgar they decided not to try again.
Running isn't the only form of exercise. I'm 5'9" and used to weigh close to 200 pounds. Now I weigh around 160. Four years ago I decided enough was enough and made some changes, some big and some small:
The point is, it didn't take a massive, up-front dose of self-discipline to point myself in the right direction. I started off slow and built up over time, and now I'm in the best shape I've been in nearly 20 years. I'm maybe a bit more stubborn than some, but fundamentally anyone could do what I've done.
I wouldn't know for sure, but if the bennies that you get for working with the FBI are the same that the Air Force is offering, 45K is well within reasonable and 60K would nicely cover your expenses.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
I recall looking awhile ago, and I remember that to be a field agent you have to have better than 20/200 vision before correction. I bet this would disqualify most of us too.
What?
If you start counting, and break out in the giggles halfway through, you probably won't pass, unless you can recover and explain what was funny about that time without ratting on your friends.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
MY health insurance premiums are higher because of skinny little pricks whose mouths write checks their butts can't cash. I used to bounce at a rough little bar in NY and call the ambulance a couple times a week to pick up the bruised, unconscious form of tiny scrappy little goofballs like you. Inside, I was smiling every time. I have to pay for YOUR mouthiness and lack of self-discipline. I hope your head explodes in a decade, you deserve it.
This message brought to you by the Council of People Who Are Sick of Seeing More People.
Let me recommend Clifford Stall's "The Cuckoo's Egg". If you are not familiar with it, it is an account of the year he spent tracking down an interloper at the lab he worked at. As he tracked the interloper he realized it wasn't just some local teenager with a modem and an attitude. It was an experienced guy with a checklist. Stoll watched him use his lab's computer to try to tap into military computers and steal military secrets.
The FBI are responsible for counter-intelligence, so he phones his local FBI office.
Now Stoll first went looking for the interloper because of a 75 cent discrepancy between two different user billing and accounting packages.
The FBI guy isn't interested in the fact that Stoll seems to have discovered a spy. He asks Stoll how large a monetary loss he can document. "Um. Seventy-five cents." "Well son, call us back when it gets to half a million dollars."
Stoll's documentation of tracking the interloper was doggedly methodical and scientific. This all happened about fourteen years ago. I wonder how much more clueful the FBI is now.
Stoll did mention meeting one FBI guy who was clueful about computers. Unfortunately, he wasn't all that senior. So he couldn't always co-operate, because of stupid FBI internal politics.
Stoll's account is quite funny. Highly recommended...
I could swear I've seen a report or two before that walking briskly is actualy healthier than running. It's less stress on the system over all (espesialy joints) and because it's not as tiring, you're more likely to continue doing it.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
The way to avoid screwed up knees is to avoid cement and stick to running on blacktop, or better yet, dirt.
The cake is a pie
You are not factoring in "free" time.
Besides, having a few extra hours today may be worth more than living longer later in life. It depends on the individual. Many don't look forward to their later years that much anyhow. IOW, quality, not quantity.
Table-ized A.I.
- They want to make sure that you're honest. If they ask if you've ever smoked pot at some point in the past and you say that you have, even if you doubt they could prove otherwise, you're being honest with them. If they disqualified everybody who had ever experimented with pot at one point or another in their youth, there would be a lot of empty offices at the J. Edgar Hoover Building. Nobody cares (well, almost nobody) about youthful indiscretions like this, so long as they do not represent current behavior patterns. What they care about is that you're honest enough to answer the question truthfully.
- They want to make sure that you've got nothing "on" you that can be used to blackmail you. This is a bigger issue for higher security clearances (i.e., Top Secret/SCI and above) than it is for general background checks. There are all sorts of obvious things that fall into this category such as extramarital affairs and the like. If you've got anything in your past that somebody else may be able to hold over your head and get you to compromise your position, you can bet that those boys are going to want to know about it.
- Finally, yes, they do need to weed out the undesirables (pun intended.) If a person who is a current drug dealer, wife-beater, or alcoholic applies with the FBI, then obviously they're a moron.
The point is this: You don't need to be an angel to pass a background check or get a security clearance. It might help, but it's not a requirement. What you need to be is honest. The chances of you getting brought up on charges for something stupid you did in your youth are virtually nil; the FBI has far more important things to do, particular these days.We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
At that point, if I were an Agent, I wouldn't want to be looking out for some lard-arse specialist, I'd like to know the guy doing the specialist work could cover my back in a firefight.
I know quite a few 'lard asses' (myself included) who could do a great job dropping the mouse and grabbing the gun. Heck, us fat guys better know how to shoot, we sure as hell can't run!
Besides, where do you think you are going to tap the LAN from? The dealer's closet? Just snake a cable downstairs or, better yet, let the gung-ho guys arrest the clown and take his computers back to HQ where you can crack them while eating your doughnuts and playing some MP3s...
Viv
Gmail invites for ip
"Dancing. A little under three years ago a friend at work turned me on to ballroom dance, and it's how I get most of my exercise now. It's proof positive that exercise is not necessarily a hideous, awful affair."
/."
That was number 4 on "things I will never see on
Quick, someone bash Microsoft before it gets normal in here.
It is a good point, though.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
The FBI probably has the ability to take DNA samples from skin cells on one's resume and see if sender has a genetic propensity for obesity.
Then again, the donut crumbs and grease stains are probably a less expensive clue.
Table-ized A.I.
An experienced computer security person (BS plus 5 years experience plus security-specific training) in his/her late twenties can easily command $90K+ from private industry. For most people,the priviledge of carrying a gun and a badge isn't worth the salary cut (and those for whom it is worth it, hopefully they fail the psych tests).
I don't have anything against helping the government catch real (violent) criminals, but if the feds are interested in hiring people with real-world experience, they are going to find it difficult to compete with the salary offered by private industry for experts in this field.
Forget the disdain from the "Special Agents"...
A more personal issue that has not been mentioned, is the special hatred all hackers, white or black hat (or any shade in between), hold in their hearts for the turncoats who dare to "sell out", going to work on the side of the prosecution.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Why, fat can make a wonderful weapon. You fall on the enemy and sufficate them. Plus, it serves as padding when you fall down. In fact, if you are fat enough, there is no such thing as "falling over". A ball cannot "fall over".
I am gonna grab more donuts and Ho Ho's and become the best damned agent that ever rolled into an FBI recruiting office. I will even hand them a round resume instead of a rectangular one to be more memorable.
I'll show them.
Table-ized A.I.
Dead employees tend to present management problems. They don't argue much but you can't say much good about their results... ;-)
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
You don't seem to be factoring in "reality".
Because in "reality" people who regularly exercise report enjoying life more, and senior citizens who continue to exercise report enjoying life more than their sedentary counterparts. IOW, quality in quantity.
You seem bent on this hypothetical person who is 4 standard deviations from the mean who has plenty of energy, feels great all the time and is readily willing to give up a few hours now at the expense of years in the future (both raw numbers of years of life, and quality of those twilight years).
Does your hypothetical person forego showers so that they can enjoy more quality time now?
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
I know this is just a troll, but you obviously don't take martial arts at all if you can't see the connection between them and dancing. My jujitsu sensei is very accomplished at Greek dancing, and we often use it to warm up; it's more difficult than what most in this country are used to due to the "odd" time signatures (plus, you're dancing in a big circle, so everyone has to keep up).
Additionally, being a good dancer requires a lot of strength, flexibility, and balance. Unsurprisingly, some of the best martial artists I know are also dancers.
(Interesting historical note: at various points in time, martial arts were forbidden in certain countries, probably because the leaders knew that the martial artists were the ones most likely to start revolutions. The teachers were smarter than this, however; they created dances which allowed the martial arts moves to be practiced without giving away what they were doing. My Pentjak Silat teacher refers to this as "Silat in the flowers".)
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
It's discriminatory, dammit. I don't think being metaphysically challenged should present a barrier to employment.
Why is this such a big suprise to everyone?
The purpose of agents in the FBI are for law enforcement purposes, specifically, the enformcement of federal laws. All agents need to be able to handle, or contribute to, any type of criminal case, not just the one they have a specialty in. Just becasue you are a computer expert doesn't mean you won't be working a kidnapping or bank robbery. You have to be able to meet the standards that any other agent meets. Plain and simple. This is especially true for major events like the federal building bombing in Oklahoma and the 9/11 investigations. During these times most agents were retasked to assist in these investigations. It's not like you are going to refuse because "I don't do bombings, I do computer fraud." You're not a team player with an attitude like that and the FBI and other federal agencies don't need people like that.
Also, I've been reading about the compensation comments here. Yes, we'd all like to make more money, but money is not the reason you join a group like the FBI. I can't think of one specialty in the FBI that wouldn't pay more on the outside world. There are many reasons people join the FBI (other other agencies):
* Patriotism
* The opportunity to work with 'the best'.
* The opportunity to do things that only working at the federal level will allow you (protecting the President (USSS), protecting Air Force One around the world(USAF SP), developing unique CPUs (NSA), seeing what's really involved with regard to world events (NSA, CIA, State Department), etc.)
* Love of a particular field (e.g. law enforcement)
* The best training in the world in your field.
Besides, people with backgrounds in the FBI will be able to make very good money once they leave/retire.
Very interesting analysis of that question.
. Telling these people, "Get off your ass you fat fuck!" does not help. In fact, I think it exacerbates the problem that you deplore.
While I might take issue with the use of 'these people' I have to say that being told to get off my fat lardy ass worked for me - I'm 70% my former weight and feeling and coding better for it.
Whichever shoes I wear, a 20 - 30 min run every other morning and a swim once a week do the trick. Oh, and I never have any soft drinks, which must help!
I almost always go to bed a little hungry because I refuse to eat after 8pm unless Im out for dinner - I read somewhere that some boxer had this rule, eat a truckload for breakfast, a bundle for lunch and a snack for supper, and nothing after 8.
Doesn't matter what you eat - eat anything - just dont eat much of it after 4pm, and none after 8pm. And go for a run in the morning.
Oh, and you can usually fiund a hash chapter in most places in the world. I doubt whether it has started up yet in Afghanistan, but they are already in Uzbekistan and Pakistan as well as many places closer to home.
See my journal, I write things there
My I recommend the Couch to 5k running plan?
None of the comments here have mentioned the possibility that the fitness test is not there as an end in itself. I would suspect that the primary purpose of checking that candidates for desk jobs are in shape is to ensure that they are in control of their lives and have the right attitude. Being fit and healthy is a very good indicator that you will turn up to work on time, don't go out on the piss too often, get a consistent and reasonable amount of sleep and so on. All of these things are desirable characteristics for a federal employee. And the bottom line is that if you want to be a federal agent, and you can't pass the test then unless you hit the gym and get in shape, you obviously don't want to be a federal agent badly enough.
"The new wave is not value-added; it's garbage-subtracted" - Esther Dyson, Dec 1994
Never trust anyone whose VCR blinks 12:00
Then there was the line from Night of the Comet "*Daddy* would have bought us *Uzis*!"
Offtopic, I know, but I loved that movie.
The other really good dialogue is
"You're crazy!"
"I'm not crazy, I just don't give a fuck!"
In a desperate attempt to claw back on topic, I have to think here that the FBI are right about demanding a certain level of physical fitness from their employees. They have a perfect right to do that, and this entire piece is just another example of geeks whining when they don't get things all their own way.
"Information wants to be paid"
I tried going for a run a few months ago. After about half a mile, I just collapsed. [...]
As for dying without 10-20 years. Good. Anything to bring an early end to my miserable existence.
Don't run, walk. If you can't even walk a mile, you're already half dead, but as long as you can still move, you can improve gradually, it's really quite a fast process. And a miserable existence? Feeling bad all the time? Well, duh, that wouldn't have anything to do with not being fit, would it. Being fat makes you feel miserable, because you don't have the energy for anything.
You have a choice: force yourself to do a little exercise a few times a week (perhaps feeling miserable the first few weeks), or force yourself to feel miserable all the time, the rest of your life.
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
I'll agree with the dancing part & women. I'm adding it to my list of weekly activities. Salsa dancing looks like the way to go; lots of body contact.
Dance is not recommened for geek girls looking for dates though. A former girlfriend of mine was shocked to find that most of the men who were attracted to dance clases were gay or talked into going with thier wives. I ofcourse laughed -- most real men at night are at the gym, a bar, or home watching something blow up on TV. Yet, you can't argue with the ratio -- just don't look gay if you're not.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
He's always lifted weights, and got me into it too. As you can see on his site, he's done a damn good job of trimming down. If you have a question, I'm sure he'd be happy to answer it.
Fitness and nutrition work for EVERYBODY, it's just a lot of large people don't have the resolve to follow-through. I know I don't, so I'm still 50lbs more than I was in HS - but that's better than the 90lbs more I was last year.
But I can still jump cubes, so maybe Bishop will give me a job :P (Obscure movie ref)
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
Jeez, you guys are so paranoid about your privacy that you get all bent out of shape when Microsoft sneezes. How would you feel signing your entire private life over to the agency? Think they won't check out every single detail in your past, especially nowadays? My aunt told me that they were one big family, and that they stood behind each other like a family. Sorry, that didn't appeal to me, and kind of creeped me out. I am not of the "club" or "fraternity" mentality.
There are two areas in the FBI - support and agents. Agents are the ones who have to carry guns, and go through the more intense training. Support personnell can range from linguists to translators, to computer people. But the agents are what everyone aspires to be, even though they couldn't do their job with the massive amounts of support personnell.
You can get into the FBI and not be an agent. Just be prepared for what you would be signing away if you did join. I don't think most hackers/crackers/script kiddies would be willing to do it.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Well....at least you're 17. The rest of it is BS, of course.
...The Close-Quarters Weapons System (CQWS). It's a variant of the M4A1 Carbine that will potentially replace the MP4-N (made by H&K) currently used by the Marine Corps. The primary difference in our variant is that it uses a rail system for adding just about any crazy little accessory that you could ever imagine (M203 grenade launcher, flashlight, laser sight, diopter sight, etc). The diopter sight is standard and I had the opportunity to try it out at Quantico's Weapons Battlion's range with the guys of the Marine Corps Scout-Sniper Instructor School (the FBI Academy is a half-mile up the road, ironically enough). I fixed their computers all the time when I was stationed there, so this was their way of thanking me.
The weapon is about as perfect as one could ask. And the diopter sight? Awesome. Forget iron sights. This little puppy has a suspended red dot and all you have to do is put the dot on the appropriate part of the target (chest-level @ 200M, shoulder-level @ 300M, head-level @ 500M) and you'll hit center mass every time. I even went crazy trying to get improper sight-alignment and/or sight-picture and miss - it didn't happen. If the dot appears to be on the target, you'll hit it. One of the best weapons systems I have ever used (other than the Mk-19: imagine a heavy machine gun that fires grenades) and I hope the Marine Corps adopts it.
Have you ever looked at the hard numbers collected by university researchers? No offense, but your experience (and any other single person's experiences) really don't mean squat since there's too many unknowns - are you successful because you're still in your 20s and have high hormone levels, or perhaps you and your friends eat at a local restaurant that uses products with an unusually high selenium level. (Not that selenium actually helps, but it's been named as a possible micronutrient that helps weight loss.)
That's why I said that the macronutrient approach is bullshit. It might work for some people, but even a cursory glance at any public space will show you that it's missing something very important.
To be honest, the rate of obesity today reminds me (and others) of cigarette consumption in the 60s and 70s -- by then everyone knew that it was dangerous, everyone "knew" that all it took to quit was "will power," yet tobacco consumption remained high. Plenty of people tried to stop smoking, but the relapse rate was around 98%. Today we know that obesity is extremely dangerous, we all know "easy ways" of losing weight, yet something like 98% of all people who attempt to lose weight regain it (and usually more) within a year. At the same time, over half of the population is overweight or obese.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
(* Because in "reality" people who regularly exercise report enjoying life more, and senior citizens who continue to exercise report enjoying life more than their sedentary counterparts. *)
That is hardly scientific. For one, it does not determine the cause. It is like the old battle over whether violent people watch more violent TV because they get off on it, or because the extra TV made them violent.
I don't feel noticably different between periods when I excercise a lot and times when I have vegged for a while. I might lose say 5 pounds and be able to bend about a little easier, but beyond that, I don't feel noticably different.
In the short term, excercize makes my joints stiff and sensative.
Table-ized A.I.
Why bother? If you just want to hack and carry a gun you can do that at home. If you really want to you could form some sort of militia that hunts down bad guys. Get enough kick ass hackers with automatic weapons and maybe we can start our own government. Finally be able to hunt down those RIAA bastards. ;) If you just want a paycheck then go work at Pizza Hut.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Good post. Like you suggest, you don't need a formal exersize program. Exersize for the sake of exersize is hard for some of us to justify, but there are a lots of useful tasks that also function as exersize.
Gardening is a good way to get started, for example. Get some fresh air, some exersize, and you end up with some nice healthy vegetables to supplement your diet and save money.
Don't tell ME, that it's all from lazyness. Some people are geneticly prone to being fat, while others like me are prone to being skinny. I want to loose a couple of kilos, because I don't like the love handles I'm starting to get, and I don't like the fact, that I have ~1 cm of fat covering my breast muscle. I CAN loose that weight - my brothers can't.
Doesn't help. Like I said, I eat more than they do. At one point, I actually ate more than both of them, when they were both on a diet.
For some people, it's their life that causes their obesity, for other people it's their genes. Kinda like intelligence - some have it, some don't.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
Learning how to break a comfort-habit is hard, but it takes a lot of will power. Comfort habits are typically dangerous to your person as well.
There is a big problem I see with your take on this issue (and this really goes for everything you've written about it thus far).
What exactly is a "comfort habit"? It sounds to me like a layman's description of why a person does a repetitive action. I think the reasons why a person overeats can be many, can be complex, can be different from person to person, and, almost always, come from years and years of psychological training. How "strong" does one have to be to be able to break that training? How does one measure the "strength" required to be able to do so? For some people, I think it may be a simple matter of willpower. For others, I don't think there is any amount of willpower which will allow them to overcome their "comfort habit," as you call it.
I think the problem boils down to this: we don't understand well why some people overeat, and we barely understand how to measure human intelligence at all. I think it's unkind and inaccurate to label these people as "weak." I think "stupid," or "crazy" would be more accurate (but no less kind).
In the future, we will have discrete quantifiers for all kinds of human intelligence and behaviors. It's a shame that with our astounding knowledge of physics and technology that we really are so bone-headedly ignorant of neurology and psychology.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.