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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

#341

Post by masteryupa_ »

mattkevan wrote: post #103
martincmartin wrote: post #34

Earlier 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."

@mattkevan could you provide a citation for this? A quick search nets Arthur C. Clarke's three laws, with the third reading:

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - 1973, Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws

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

#342

Post by codyb »

xacaxulu wrote: post #202
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…

More evidence that school serves to simply stultify the youth. Unschooling is looking more attractive all the time.

I think thats a very cynical view point which reduces to a platitude an extremely complex issue especially when your evidence primarily appears to concern a smattering of cases among a system which serves millions of children a year.

Technology is very esoteric and almost brand new in a sense. It's been as little as two decades since the advent of schools even having computers.

The fact there are misunderstandings, growing pains, and abuse associated with the system that results should be a foregone conclusion.

The answer isn't to give up on the school system or assume bad intentions by administrators, curriculum developers, or legislators. The only thing that can come of that is an even more broken school system.

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

#343

Post by Alupis »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #319
DanBC wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Thousands can be wasted on dumb stuff like bad office-supply purchasing decisions. Those folks don't get fired. Sounds overblown - folks afraid of anything they don't understand.

Would you still consider it "overblown" if he had run, say... a bitcoin miner on all those machines?

Sure, he didn't make profit from the seti@home instances, but he did it without approval, did ultimately cost the district money, and likely caused other issues along the way (like additional wear-n-tear on the machines)

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

#344

Post by interpol_p »

Avenger42 wrote: post #295
interpol_p wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a comment on whether the original scenario was ridiculous or not, but you'd be surprised by how incredibly aware very young people are. Even a three year old can easily understand the significance of signing something. Especially if you, as an adult, place importance on the ritual. Asking toddlers to promise things, to explicitly agree to future events, is a big part of preventing tantrums. Three year olds…

> Especially if you, as an adult, place importance on the ritual. Yes, we adults really place a lot of importance in the ritual of "scroll to the bottom and click 'Agree'". (In case my point is missed in the snark, it's that adults will often sign whatever they're told to sign, especially if worded like "sign this or else you can't [X]", and kids will sign whatever they're told to sign by their parents. If parents we…

I agree that asking a four year old to sign something outside the context of a fun game is stupid.

But I just wanted to make the point that four year old — or even a three year old — can totally understand the concept of signing something and a parent could even use it to enforce a future event (e.g., sign this bath time contract which means you must have a bath after dinner).

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

#345

Post by codyb »

maratd wrote: post #307
baldfat wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People HATE TAXES. People HATE paying school tax when they don't have children in school or never had children in school. We under value in society 1) Education (We make fun of smart people who lack social graces) 2) Science (Scoff at all science and under fund Space Programs) I ran for local School Board in my city. We are a school district with over 90% qualify for free lunch and extreme poverty. Parents pick Chart…

> We need a change in priorities and not freak out about taxes for education. People don't freak out over paying taxes for education. Even if they don't have kids in the system. They freak out over throwing money at a broken system and the solution isn't to throw more money at it. Attach a specific dollar amount to a student. Allow that student to go to whichever school they want. End of story. Stop forcing children…

It's really not that easy. Location and transportation logistics factor in greatly and are hard problems to solve for the disparate network of connections a system like that might create.

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

#346

Post by ohitsdom »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #319
DanBC wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Thousands can be wasted on dumb stuff like bad office-supply purchasing decisions. Those folks don't get fired. Sounds overblown - folks afraid of anything they don't understand.

I'd think administrators would have a very different approach to disciplining a "bad office-supply purchasing" decision versus a well-thought out choice to use school equipment & electricity for non-work related causes.

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

#348

Post by sirtaj »

exodust wrote: post #302
sirtaj wrote: post #71

Perfect trifecta of bigotry, ignorance and cowardice. And at a school too, where any number of apparently educated staff could have verified what the device was in a moment. Great job!

You might have a point if the device was for a school project. But it was his own "invention" which is own engineering teacher warned him against showing around. He not only showed it around, but plugged it in during English class where it made beeping noises. Do you expect the English teacher should need to "verify" a box of wires and circuits? Who would she verify it with if the kid plays aloof when asked of its pu…

Presumably an English teacher has the communication skills to ask any one of the number of staff who were involved in the entire affair. You know, like the engineering teacher. Did he somehow go on vacation in between? And how about the police - they have nobody on staff who can tell the difference between a homemade clock and some sort of "unauthorized device"?

The accusations are justified. Your apologetics are misguided.

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

#350

Post by jrometty »

ryanlol wrote: post #55

What 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.

we don't know wether the teacher made the bad call. (s)he could have updated the principal to ask if it's ok to demo electronics projects in a K-5, only to have the principal think it's a bomb. let's trust everyone until they give a reason not to.
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