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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

#601

Post by Tepix »

jevinskie wrote: post #403
raarts wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After living in the US as a European for 1.5 years, I've come to the conclusion that americans tend to be more afraid in general. For example I've never heard in Europe of recommendations like 'when selling stuff through craigslist always meet at a starbucks but never at home' either. Also being smart and/or nerdy actually is valued in Europe. It may also be a Southern thing though.

At least for your craigslist example, the fear is not unfounded. [0] That one example happened just last month in my town. The weapon in that case need not be a gun, a knife or baseball bat wielding friend hiding in the bushes would work well too. Perhaps better than Starbucks would be the police department parking lot. That is actually a preferred place for private gun sales - if the buyer is uneasy about conducting…

The funny thing is that people buy guns because they are afraid, yet that makes the whole situation more dangerous.

The reason why you don't have to be afraid when dealing with Craigslist in europe is that guns are rare, as is gun violence.

But I'm sure some will just buy another gun to feel safer. Isn't that the standard argument after a serial shooting? The first victim should have had a gun, then this wouldn't have happened... that's as perverse as it gets!

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

#602

Post by elektromekatron »

lloyd-christmas wrote: post #411
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…

I wasn't allowed to do my high school science scholars project on electromagnetic propulsion because it was around the time of Columbine: "You could potentially make a gun out of it".

I used to use the bench power supplies to fire nails across the classroom with a coil. This wasn't for a project, I was just bored.

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

#603

Post by mef »

burkaman wrote: post #523
kmfrk wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, people would rather that part of his heritage weren't brought up, leaving us with Michael Fassbender portraying him on the big screen.

Really, that's why? Or is it because most people would rather watch a movie where the actors look like the characters? I don't know of any Syrian actors that look like Steve Jobs. And I definitely don't know of any Syrian actors who could play him as well as Fassbender could.

The reason you don't know of any is because they're not cast in big roles, because leading roles almost always go to white actors.

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

#604

Post by powertower »

pfg wrote: post #408
hnpc123 wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sad that you're being downvoted (and probably flagged) for expressing a reasonable opinion. Hacker News has been a left-wing echo chamber ever since the crazies started flowing in during that period when every story on the front page was NSA related. Now it's nearly impossible to have a reasoned discussion on any non-technical issue without SJWs using the voting system here to silence dissent.

Maybe he's being downvoted because the so-called facts he's basing his suspicion on can be easily disproven, as demonstrated by the other replies? I don't get how this can possibly be about left vs right. Common sense hopefully doesn't depend on which side of the political spectrum you fall into.

> Maybe he's being downvoted because the so-called facts he's basing his suspicion on can be easily disproven

Which of the 3 points have been dis-proven?

Also take into concideration that -

1. The kid had a metal box containing PCBs and probably large components, all tide together around with a wire, and it was making beeping noises in class.

2. The school body and school district is almost 90% non-white, with the majority being "brown".

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

#605

Post by austenallred »

mynameishere wrote: post #546
austenallred wrote: post #464

Here's a photo of the device he was arrested for having: http://i.imgur.com/upANL9d.jpg

What an odd picture. Not sure why you didn't link to a real source. This seems to have a similar looking circuit board: http://fusion.net/story/197958/irving-texas-police-arrest-mu... But then this article has a completely different picture: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/09/15/student... If it was really mounted in that case in your picture, it's indeed a little funny looking. I mean, all of this pol…

That is the photo the police provided to reporters by police. He did hold it in a "lunchbox-like" case

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

#606

Post by Tepix »

ahmadss wrote: post #600

Here's President Obama's tweet on the matter -- "Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It's what makes America great." https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/644193755814342656

Amazingly clever twist!

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

#607

Post by exodust »

mikeash wrote: post #420
exodust wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Bigotry, maybe. There's a chance (which I'd estimate at smaller than 1%) that there was no racial motivation here. But I don't see how you can say there's no grounds to make accusations of ignorance and cowardice. Being unaware of what a bomb looks like is clearly ignorance, and being so terrified that you get an innocent kid arrested for it is clearly cowardice.

Handcuffs went too far. But that's a protocol issue for US lawmakers etc. We've all seen protocol out of control in the States for a host of different incidents.

No need to react so much in the other direction either, making this kid an ambassador of "freedom to pack electronics in a case and bring it to school" or whatever.

He made an error of judgement going against his teacher's advice, and a ton of bricks came down on his head way too hard. Hopefully everyone can learn something from this.

But you can't deny that "radicalization of young Muslims" isn't a thing these days. No point of covering your ears and insisting everyone wants to get along.

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

#608

Post by thwest »

ZachWick wrote: post #475

This hits close to home for me too, and I am as WASP-y as it gets. Just over a year ago I was flying to the middle of US with some prototypes for an agriculural automation system in my checked luggage. Going through DTW and O'Hare to my final destination was fine and went without incident. On my way back, again with a checked luggage bag of protypes and tools, this little airport in northwest IA got evacauted and I w…

I also travel with custom imaging equipment that sometimes has exposed PCBs. My recommendation is to carry it on, so that you can open it and explain it. Twice I have approached the gate well ahead of my flight, and offered to show TSA the equipment. Both times they took only a cursory glance at it.

I'm surprised they don't just mandate the spectrogram swab on every piece of electronics that comes through, consumer or custom.

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

#609

Post by DanBC »

mikeash wrote: post #543
[deleted] wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

To have a bomb you need explosives . Did this "looks like a bomb" have anything that looked like explosives? No. Therefore it did not actually look like a bomb. I assume that you meant to google image search IED. Doing so, I see one image with an exposed PCB. I see several images with cell phones. One shows a Coke can. Are we to believe that an exposed Coke can also "looks like a bomb"? Or should we maybe believe tha…

You may want to check comment history of the account you're replying to.

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

#610

Post by throwaway1967 »

tschlossmacher wrote: post #480
tomjen3 wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to do a little more than reach out to him. He is a nerd and we should protect members of our tribe who are in trouble. Can we make a go found me for getting him into a private school?

AMAZING IDEA.

That's a great idea, get it started and the kid will have $100 from me.
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