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14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

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Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#281

Post by interpol_p »

barkingcat wrote: post #200
vidarh wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is as stupid as it sounds. 4 year old will listen to instructions and if they disobey you take away toys or have silent time, etc. But signing something? That's just really stupid. It's not enforceable and not even understandable.

While the scenario described does sound ridiculous, I disagree that it's "not even understandable." (My understanding is that you meant the four year old wouldn't understand?)

Many toddlers younger than three could grasp the idea of signing something as a promise to do that thing in the future. A three or four year old could easily understand it.

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#282

Post by baldfat »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #230
t2015_08_25 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great list. How about teacher Julie Amero, whose browser was apparently hijacked, possibly while students used it while she was out of the room resulting in students seeing nudity briefly and uninentionally [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_v._Amero

Wikipedia says she pled guilty to disorderly conduct and handed in her teaching license because the school board wouldn't pay for IT support that would have kept the naked ladies off her computer. Incredible.

Trust me the "Technical Experts" for prosecution are a joke. long story but my friend was jailed for 6 years based upon stuff like this concerning his IP address and it 100% identifies him though it wasn't the same IP address. What jury knows anything about IP addresses and how they don't identify a person?

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#283

Post by DanBC »

nadams wrote: post #121

If anyone is actually surprised by the administrations intelligence - I should remind you of 3 events: - A teacher confiscates Linux CDs claiming that the student was essentially distributing illegal copyrighted software - because no software is free [1] - A system administrator was fired for installing/running seti@home on school computers. There is a lot of controversy about this case - but I read one news article…

Running seti / etc on the school computers does result in thousands of dollars spend on extra electricity. He was number one on SETI for years, running the client without approval on 5,000 machines. It's not surprising that people get fired for increasing costs by that much without getting approval first.

See also http://www.securityfocus.com/news/300

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#284

Post by tomswartz07 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #242
HarryHirsch wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia says she pled guilty to disorderly conduct and handed in her teaching license because the school board wouldn't pay for IT support that would have kept the naked ladies off her computer. Incredible.

And people wonder why its so hard to find teachers. Because the job conditions are terrible!

Working in a school district, doing IT, I can agree.

My buddies do the same sort of stuff I do and make 1.5x my salary.

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#285

Post by skbohra123 »

Many comments here on HN seem to feel that this is an issue with Education system or schools. But I as a non American feel is that a common American is too afraid of anything non American or anything strange. The main objective of terrorist organizations is to instill fear in the minds of people and I think they have succeeded in it to a greater extent.

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#286

Post by OliverJones »

userbinator wrote: post #21

Apparently the authorities have determined that the best way to stop terrorism is to discourage any manifestation of personal intelligence, so that the population turns into mindless sheep. "If you don't know how to make a clock, you won't know how to make a time bomb" is their reasoning. It is seriously disturbing. I am reminded of stories of kids opening a command prompt and being accussed of "hacking", only this i…

C'mon, this is prejudice. If the kid's name were Jack or Sean or even Claudio, nothing would have happened except his teacher would have said "cool!"

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#287

Post by atom-morgan »

vatotemking wrote: post #115
ceejayoz wrote: post #11

> Children are encouraged “specifically [to] not bring items to school that are prohibited.” What, clocks? Or the NASA t-shirt he was wearing? ( https://i.imgur.com/PMgDR7m.jpg )

Why is he handcuffed?

Hey, they're just doing their jobs. /s

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#288

Post by makecheck »

TillE wrote: post #221
makecheck wrote: post #154

Of course the reaction to this is completely insane but what's even sillier is that they're continuing to assume that real threats would be things that they can see. If someone wanted to blow up a building they could hide a bomb in a backpack among hundreds of others and never show it to anyone. It's the same crap they pull at the airport where you must throw out your bottled water; and then their solution is to toss…

To be completely fair about the stupid liquid rule, it was prompted by fears about someone making TATP on the flight. The precursors are not particularly dangerous on their own.

Given that control of liquids was a reactionary measure to an event that didn't actually harm innocent people or endanger an airplane (and was incredibly unlikely to begin with), it's debatable if it warranted any attention at all.

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#289

Post by cschneid »

dopamean wrote: post #258
chejazi wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If public schools are going to succeed, then many states need to "catch up" when it comes to funding. More funding will attract more teachers, creating a stronger candidate pool. If you look at the average funding per student by state, Texas isn't doing so hot [1], especially for being the second largest state [2]. There's definitely more to it than just funding, but I think that would be a good starting point. [1] h…

I'm always find the "more funding" idea to be somewhat dubious. Don't we already spend a ton of money on education? Perhaps even more per pupil than other developed countries?

At the teacher level, they are underpaid. My girlfriend is a high school teacher w/ 4 years experience, a masters degree in her topic, and works 12+ hours a day (not kidding, seriously all day).

She makes $35k / year.

If she wasn't lucky enough to have an engineer paycheck behind her life, she simply wouldn't be able to do the job.

It's likely that funding gets allocated in stupid ways, but the whole process is inherently expensive. Managing thousands of employees, dozens of buildings, updating equipment, training, etc, etc. It's a hard problem, and we've basically just decided that only "dedicated" workers should do it, which is code for "willing to be underpaid compared to qualifications".

Re: 14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

#290

Post by jaegerpicker »

ceejayoz wrote: post #11

> Children are encouraged “specifically [to] not bring items to school that are prohibited.” What, clocks? Or the NASA t-shirt he was wearing? ( https://i.imgur.com/PMgDR7m.jpg )

That picture is infuriating. GAH! How in the holy hell are we supposed to grow as a nation or people if we keep destroying the passion of the very people that will move us forward!? Sorry I know this sounds ranty but I just can't understand the depth of ignorance this requires. I keep picturing me as a teen or my son who is showing so much passion and love for learning and science and what this could do to him. The fact that because we are white and the actions would be so much less severe makes it even more disgusting to me.
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