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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

#351

Post by jodah »

monroepe wrote: post #229
witty_username wrote: post #63

> The newspaper quoted a police spokesman, James McLellan, as saying that Ahmed never claimed his device was anything but a clock, and the police have no reason to think it was dangerous. But officers still did not believe Ahmed was giving them the whole story. “We have no information that he claimed it was a bomb,” Mr. McLellan said. “He kept maintaining it was a clock, but there was no broader explanation. “It coul…

>“He kept maintaining it was a clock, but there was no broader explanation." Did it really need a broader explanation? It's a clock.

People tend to assume that everyone else thinks like them. Because the arresting officer couldn't wouldn't build a clock for the enjoyment of learning (as opposed to some "broader purpose" like blowing up a building), then nobody else should either. Simple explanation, but likely true.

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

#352

Post by jussij »

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…

> If anyone is actually surprised by the administrations intelligence

Unfortunately this is not a lack of intelligence, which in fact it was, but instead it is a Christian right society that fears everything and anything.

The USA has become a country that is now scared of it's own shadow.

The problem started when someone with a Muslim sounding name brought something clicking to the school and naturally everyone though it was Muslim terrorist with a bomb.

Luckily it was not a bunch disenfranchised white youths, carrying hand guns, machine guns and grenades as they would have walked straight through the security check, because they had the correct skin color.

Here is a simple lesson for the people of the USA. Clocks don't kill guns kill.

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

#353

Post by briandherbert »

Wow, this thread makes me ashamed to be nerd. It's all bashing the intelligence of administrators/educators while hypocritically trying to make the point that we shouldn't scorn groups of people. "Hey, kid, if a person can't tell a clock circuit from a bomb, it invalidates all their motives and education."

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

#354

Post by smcl »

lallysingh wrote: post #277
xacaxulu wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The nice thing about private school is that the student and parents are customers.

Let's not turn this into a private/public school thing

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

#355

Post by mostlystatic »

masteryupa_ wrote: post #328
sp332 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stupidity does not adequately explain why they are considering bringing charges of a "hoax bomb", or sent this letter home with the other students: http://www.irvingisd.net/cms/lib010/TX01917973/Centricity/Do... [PDF] Therefore, malice.

I'd like to jump on the back of this and make the point that, referring to the clock project in question, it seems a lie to label the item as a "hoax bomb" as if it were actually intended to even be a bomb, let alone an article of the hoax variety. Not to mention the obvious claim of guilt by association that the prosecuting argument seems to imply, I would add that it also useful to distinguish the reality of the si…

Not sure if there's a formal definition, but this page distinguishes between a scare and a hoax:

"Though city prosecutors eventually concluded there was no ill intent involved in the placing of the ads, the city continues to refer to the event as a "bomb hoax" rather than a "scare." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_bomb_scare

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

#356

Post by peatmoss »

jordigh wrote: post #208
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…

> I am reminded of stories of kids opening a command prompt and being accussed of "hacking", only this is a far more extreme case. Happened to me when I was a kid. Opened a DOS prompt. Was labelled a dangerous mind.

Oh my, I don't even want to think of the horrors I unleashed upon the various Apple ][, DOS, and Mac Classic systems in my public school. Nothing like malware--just really lucky I never bricked anything. On the other hand, I did learn some valuable lessons such as that LinuxPPC in the mid/late 90s was not appreciated as Mac OS 8 by my peers.

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

#358

Post by pathdependent »

I posted this once regarding a related incident, but it's appropriate here too.

One day in college, a friend and I decided to pack a plastic bottle with dry ice and hot water. In our hung over state, we thought this would be fun to watch. I was in my apartment. It took all of five seconds to realize that I couldn't rip apart the bottle. So, if the force of this explosion was sufficient to do so, it was probably really fucking dangerous. I figured it was too late to take the cap off -- the bottle was already making weird sounds. So, I threw it in the bathroom tub, and shut the door. Two minutes went by, and I felt momentarily foolish. Almost as I thought "nothing is going to happen," it exploded. The force knocked my friend to the ground. Granted she was tiny, and it was partly from fear, but I felt the shock wave rattle my bones.

I lived in the more expensive apartment building on campus. No one even came to say, "what's going on." If they did, they would have seen the bent metal of the tub's faucet.

And, that was accidentally but very literally a bomb.

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

#359

Post by baldfat »

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…

> Attach a specific dollar amount to a student. Allow that student to go to whichever school they want. End of story.

Allow it to go where there is little to no public over sight, no public school board or checks and balances, under performing scores, teachers paid $20,000 less with no pension, and CEOs making millions. Charter Schools are a part of the problem with American education. Sure some Charter Schools are good so are some Public School but as a whole Charter Schools are not for America's children but for the non-profit and for profit companies that run them.

PUBLIC SCHOOLS are the back bone of our educational system and democracy. Sending to school that take monetary advantage of our tax money with no over sight is wrong for everyone but the people who get the money.

Who is running America's Charter School: https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2015/07/22/whos-actua...

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