14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School • Hacker News Board

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

#561

Post by ja27 » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 5:04 PM UTC

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.

dumb stuff

My wife was on the advisory committee for a local middle school that's struggling. One winner is that they bought SmartBoards for a bunch of classrooms but didn't get stands for them, so they just mothballed them for a year until they could buy stands with the next year's budget.

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

#562

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 5:04 PM UTC

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.

[deleted]

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

#563

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 5:04 PM UTC

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.

[deleted]

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

#564

Post by PopeOfNope » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 5:04 PM UTC

This post is a living embodiment of this CGP Grey video[0].

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc

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

#565

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 5:05 PM UTC

jameshart wrote: post #371

A story. So, this thirteen year old kid with a Syrian father once got flagged up by Hewlett Packard because he was ordering electronic components. I'm sure you can imagine what happened next... Yeah, Bill Hewlett offered him a summer job, he got hooked on making stuff, wound up founding a company out of his garage with his buddy Steve Wozniak, and created the biggest electronics company in the world. Thank goodness h…

[deleted]

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

#566

Post by ArkyBeagle » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 5:05 PM UTC

nerd_stuff wrote: post #518

digler999 wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 350 watt psu, PSU's arent light bulbs. A "350 watt" psu doens't draw 350 watts. That's the theoretical maximum you can draw from it. Sure, SETI was probably drawing a higher load than idle, vs off, but I highly doubt it was drawing 100%. Even more complicated is the heat. If they lived in a cool climate, at least some of the waste heat that was emitted would have been absorbed by the building, which they are (presu…

He lived in Arizona which is hot and a school full of space-heaters (humans) will probably run AC more often than heat. What grandparent commenter showed was the school district's numbers are plausible. I doubt the district entered into a legal battle without first consulting an engineer or two about the electric costs.

I wonder if anybody even so much as plugged a typical computer used into a Kill A Watt and compared with/without SETI running.

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

#567

Post by jeo1234 » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 5:06 PM UTC

The case seems a little reminiscent of what happened to Aaron Swartz, large bureaucracy is unable to understand what someone is doing and so it attacks them. Fortunately it appears that the outcome will not be tragic.

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

#568

Post by exodust » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 5:06 PM UTC

MaulingMonkey wrote: post #396

exodust wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure it's always diatribe when you don't agree. "Asking for trouble" is what I mean. The default processes in the USA are not what I'm talking about, but everyone here is defending his "right to be creative". Nobody is saying "hang on, he put a clock in a case, brought it to school, not part of any school project, advised not to show it around, showed it around anyway and was passive aggro when asked about it". H…

> showed it around anyway A teacher discovered it when it beeped. I'm not sure how you've lept from that to "showed it around". EDIT: > and was passive aggro when asked about it I'm not sure where you got this from either.

> 'I'm not sure where you got this from either.'

The police officer was quoted as saying he was "passive aggressive" when questioned about the device.

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

#569

Post by zyxley » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 5:07 PM UTC

> Update at 11:20 a.m. Wednesday: At a press conference this morning, Irving Police Chief Larry Boyd said Ahmed Mohamed was arrested for bringing "a hoax bomb" to school -- and not a clock, as Mohamed said he repeatedly told his teachers.

> But, Boyd said, "we are confident it's not an explosive device" intended to cause "alarm." Rather, he said, officers determined it was "a hoax bomb" and a "naive accident."

> As a result, he said, no charges will be filed against Ahmed, and "the case is considered closed." He also said "the reaction would have been the same regardless" of the student's skin color.

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

#570

Post by ArkyBeagle » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 5:07 PM UTC

tomswartz07 wrote: post #363

ohitsdom wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> electricity for non-work related causes I wish we could fire teachers for using their computers for Facebook and Amazon shopping during the day.

This question is not intended at all to be snarky. Seriously.

And then you'll hire them?

Gets complicated fast, dunnit?