This story is at 1 and 2 on both reddit and Hacker News. Why is this so interesting?
14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School
141–150 of 994 posts
Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School
#142You can't legislate intelligence. Yesterday I went to my daughter's school's open house. When I entered, I was cornered by an administrator and told I had to sign some paperwork before I left. It was the computer policy. After I signed it, the admin said my daughter had to sign it too. She's 4.
The intent is not to legally bind her, which it obviously wouldn't. Usually the idea of having a child sign too is the idea having a child explicitly agree makes them more likely to be invested in complying. Whether or not there's any evidence that works, I don't know, but it's not quite as stupid as it might seem at first glance.
>Usually the idea of having a child sign too is the idea having a child explicitly agree makes them more likely to be invested in complying.
No, it doesn't. If anything, the opposite (if the child is a teenager). If it's 4 it's just stupid.
Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School
#143This hits way too close to home. Not because I have brown skin, or because I've ever been arrested for making "a bomb" that is not a bomb, but because when you're that age you're constantly surrounded and disciplined by people who don't understand you. Or what you're doing. Or why it's cool. I'd be willing to bet part of the reasoning around his arrest is, "Why would a student need to make his own clock?"
I wish I could reach out to the boy and say, "Hey, it gets way better. Later on you can surround yourself with people who not only understand but respect you. You get to spend all day building cool stuff, and you actually get paid very well to do so."
Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School
#144[deleted]
Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
Similar thing happened when my son started kindergarten. His "signature" was in red marker that smelled like cherry, took up half the page and kind of looked like an alligator to me.
What exactly does that accomplish? It's not like it's a binding contract, it's a child.
It makes idiots in offices feel good that their new policies are followed.
Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School
#146Say what you will but I would be slightly concerned if Ahmed Mohamed brought this to school http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/northwest-dall...
Downvoted for xenophobia and ignorance. It looks like every other circuit board. There is no reason to be afraid of an unsheathed circuit board.
you are on a forum of engineers. Most folks would not even know to call it a circuit board..
Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School
#147What the hell is a fake bomb? How does a schoolteacher know what a "bomb" looks like? Are we talking about an IED here? That could be literally any fucking thing. I really doubt that this clock looked even remotely like any of the industrially made ready-to-use explosives. Sometimes I can't help feeling like some people should be forcibly removed from the gene pool.
Aren't lots of bombs in cartoons represented as clocks? Maybe that's how.
Not just cartoons but media in general. Pick a movie with a bomb involved, it's probably a mess of wires and electronic components along with a digital clock of some sort.
Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School
#148You can't legislate intelligence. Yesterday I went to my daughter's school's open house. When I entered, I was cornered by an administrator and told I had to sign some paperwork before I left. It was the computer policy. After I signed it, the admin said my daughter had to sign it too. She's 4.
The intent is not to legally bind her, which it obviously wouldn't. Usually the idea of having a child sign too is the idea having a child explicitly agree makes them more likely to be invested in complying. Whether or not there's any evidence that works, I don't know, but it's not quite as stupid as it might seem at first glance.
You don't have much recent experience with actual four-year-olds, do you?
Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
There's a variant of Clarke's third law which applies here: "Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice."
Hanlons 3rd law ?
Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School
#150What the hell is a fake bomb? How does a schoolteacher know what a "bomb" looks like? Are we talking about an IED here? That could be literally any fucking thing. I really doubt that this clock looked even remotely like any of the industrially made ready-to-use explosives. Sometimes I can't help feeling like some people should be forcibly removed from the gene pool.
From a Dallas News article, Ahmed said “He said, ‘It looks like a movie bomb to me.’” FTA it's unclear who "he" is. I think it's the principal.