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

#881

Post by phonon » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 9:44 PM UTC

panzagl wrote: post #814

phonon wrote: post #793

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you can easily look up NYC teacher salaries. They start at $50k and go up to $105k. http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/2712AB02-A1EF-4CE2-B879-... When you take into account the shorter work day/work year http://www.uft.org/new-teachers/your-work-day-and-year really good benefits, including a $50-$60k a year pension ( http://www.empirecenter.org/publications/pension-calculator/ ) and essentially tenure...well,…

Why shouldn't it be 'not too bad'? For NYC that's the lower end of middle class- comparable to being in a (unionized) trade. And I can guarantee the teachers put up with more shit than a plumber.

I'm pretty sure plumbers deal with more shit. Literally.

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

#882

Post by conanbatt » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 9:51 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.

They pretty surely do if their costs were measured by someone.

I wouldnt call someone externalizing costs for whatever noble endeavor responsible or forward thinking.

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

#883

Post by anigbrowl » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 9:51 PM UTC

braythwayt wrote: post #758

anigbrowl wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're stuck within such a group, you can wait your whole life for history to prove you right and still be disappointed - better to start planning your exit strategy.

"The market can remain irrational far longer than you can remain solvent."

Precisely - I actually started out with the same quote but trying to articulate a notion of epistemological solvency became unwieldy :-)

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

#884

Post by bruceb » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 9:51 PM UTC

Someone1234 wrote: post #180

vatotemking wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is he handcuffed?

I don't understand why US schools have police in them, and they put little kids in handcuffs. It insanity.

Because in some schools unfortunately there are students who are violent. Can't expect teachers to deal with students who are bigger and stronger than themselves.

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

#885

Post by _ls7m » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 9:54 PM UTC

For the purpose of being fully informed, and because you won't see this photo shown much, here is the homemade clock that Ahmed brought to school. [1] http://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/AP_250782557...

Regardless of what someone looks like or what their name is, if you see them at a school with a device like this and it's beeping, I think it's reasonable to call the police. Allow them to come and have someone with expertise ensure that it isn't a bomb and determine the student's intention. Hopefully the police that arrive do their job well - with diligence, compassion, professionalism, and without animosity or bias.

Police were called, he was detained and questioned, and then released without charges [2]. It's a tragedy that we see bombings and shootings in schools - but we do see them, and far too often. These are the times we live in. So how should this have been handled?

Hopefully Ahmed doesn't lose any passion for science or electronics because of this afternoon, but I think if people handle the situation with rational thought rather than instigation, then he will have a much better chance at that.

1. http://www.wired.com/2015/09/heres-bomb-clock-got-ahmed-moha... 2. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/09/16...

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

#886

Post by mynameisvlad » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 9:56 PM UTC

logfromblammo wrote: post #754

jameshart wrote: post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's Jobs in his high school electronics club: http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm//wp-content/uploads/201... But yeah, I mean, I'm sure he was just there to tell them to use rounded corners on the circuit diagrams and meet girls. Just cos Woz was the nerd's nerd, let's not crap on Jobs too much - he was geeky enough to hang out with Woz, that should be good enough for everyone else, right?

Not for me. I propose a hypothetical test. In this test, the subject to be tested is socializing with his or her normal social circle. During this activity, a potential romantic interest interrupts, and proposes that they go out on a date with the subject, immediately. Responses are classified as follows. A: the subject leaves the gathering for the date. B: the subject declines the date. C: the subject counter-offers…

> How many did he materially share his success with?

I didn't realize that nerds had to suddenly share their success with their nerdy friends to qualify nowadays.

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

#887

Post by phonon » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 9:59 PM UTC

hdctambien wrote: post #865

phonon wrote: post #793

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you can easily look up NYC teacher salaries. They start at $50k and go up to $105k. http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/2712AB02-A1EF-4CE2-B879-... When you take into account the shorter work day/work year http://www.uft.org/new-teachers/your-work-day-and-year really good benefits, including a $50-$60k a year pension ( http://www.empirecenter.org/publications/pension-calculator/ ) and essentially tenure...well,…

Let's talk about the teacher's work day. Your link says it's 6 hours and 55 minutes, including lunch. So 6 hours and 25 minutes is a work day. Plus there's 150 minutes a week (2 and a half hours, or 30 minutes per day) for training, professional development, teacher collaboration, parent engagement and other professional activities. 150 minutes for all of that is a joke, and if any teacher was actually following that…

That's for nurses, etc. It's 6 hours and 20 minutes for regular teachers (including lunch). Actual instruction hours per day are quite a bit less of course.

Even for someone without more advanced degrees (fyi you do not need a PhD to cap out.) you cap out at $93k. Agreed that teachers (particularly beginner teachers) put in a lot of hours outside school. 10 hours a week? More? So a 40-50 hour workweek during the school year? (But with predictable scheduling, which not all professionals have.)

A roughly $1 MM dollar annuity when you retire isn't so horrible either.

Lesson planning takes less time as you get more experienced, plus you reuse your old lesson plans.

175 hours every five years for required professional development? http://www.uft.org/q-issues/maintaining-your-professional-ce...

Did I miss anything? COL in NYC is definitely higher...but you do not have to live in Manhattan. There are many affordable areas in NYC.

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

#888

Post by fao_ » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 10:00 PM UTC

logfromblammo wrote: post #663

tmsam wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to point out that homeschooling and unschooling are not the same thing. From: http://www.pbs.org/parents/education/homeschooling/unschooli... "Unschooling is a branch of homeschooling that promotes nonstructured, child-led learning. There’s no set curriculum or schedule."

Unschooling is a subset of homeschooling. In ordinary homeschooling, the parents set a curriculum, and direct the learning. In unschooling, the student decides what to learn, and the parent provides resources to support that. If the kid gets into dinosaurs, a regular homeschooling parent might add a dinosaur module to the science/biology part of the curriculum. The unschooling parent might ask, "How would you like it…

  Unschooling is a subset of homeschooling.

No, Unschooling is a subset of Home Education. So is Home Schooling. The distinction is important, since while both count as education, only one is school-at-home.

The rest of the post is rather accurate though, although I would say that with the robotics, the unschooling parent would probably take the kids to a local Radioshack (Or Maplin's, if you're in the UK!) and buy a book on electronics, along with a few bits and bobs (motors, etc), encourage the kid to experiment, and encourage them to join a local engineering group :D

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

#889

Post by Peaker » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 10:02 PM UTC

logfromblammo wrote: post #792

masklinn wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wouldnt they have consumed some portion of the said electricity no matter what? Some yes, but there's a lot of difference between a machine idling at 0% CPU and one fully loaded with SETI or Folding and running 100% all the time. Would be even more worse now with deep sleep states and GPGPU, but even back then the difference between an idle and a fully loaded machine was absolutely significant.

During the winter months, the electric heaters that were also performing computation would supplement the normal dumb heaters. The cost of electricity or fuel saved on heating should therefore be subtracted from the cost of running @Home. Likewise, additional cooling costs would have to be added for the summer months. Once those kWh are used in the CPU, they don't just disappear. They become heat. http://www.technolo…

Is heat turned on around the clock?

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

#890

Post by hdctambien » Wed, Sep 16, 2015, 10:02 PM UTC

rebootthesystem wrote: post #841

hdctambien wrote: post #785

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no teacher unions in Texas. Texas can not only get rid of incompetent teachers, it can also get rid of any teachers that rock the boat or question the administrators or make someone look bad by going an extra mile for a student. Public schools will never pay $100k+ to someone to teach Computer Science, so how will they ever get someone that actually knows Computer Science to be a teacher[0][1]? Instead they…

Well, the other thing we need to do is look and treat schools differently. To me every dollar legitimately (with a HUGE emphasis on the legitimate part) spent in schools is a valuable investment in the future. I hope that is a statement that cannot be disputed. However, we've performed badly enough and have wasted so much money that we are in a situation where someone who thinks teachers ought to be able to make $150…

I totally agree with you. I don't necessarily think that people who are currently teachers should make >$100k. But if teacher pay was competitive with industry pay then we would have more smart people competing for teaching jobs.

The problem with education is that old saying "people that can, do; people who can't, teach" but it's more like "people that can, do even if they would be really good at teaching because teaching doesn't pay nearly as much as anything else you can do with the same skills"

The way things are right now, who cares about tenure! If you fire all the bad teachers who are you going to replace them with? The only people that want those jobs are the applicants that weren't as good as the people that just got fired!

And like you said, an additional problem is that every state gets to decide what the goals for education are and those goals can get very political (see: evolution vs creationism, civil war vs war of states rights).

And the biggest blind spot for HN readers concerning education is that most of the students in school are not like you! Public (and some Private) Schools are full of students that would stare blankly into space all day rather than watch one Khan Academy video. It takes a lot of work and effort to provide an education to both the low achieving and the high achieving students, especially with 25:1, 30:1, sometimes 35:1 student to teacher ratios.