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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

#911

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #908
01Michael10 wrote: post #855

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes... I believe the Mayor of Irving is an elected position by the people. It's a better indicator then being the 4th biggest metropolitan in the country like that matters.

And going 57% for Obama also says something about the people. We're not saying they're bleeding-heart-liberals. We're saying it's a little more complicated than, "Oh well it's the deep South..." Too many people are dismissing this like it's just the norm. It shouldn't be. More people should be asking if Islamophobia is a bigger part of mainstream America than we're willing to admit.

It doesn't say as much as you think. Texas has done gerrymandered itself up pretty good.

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

#912

Post by PhasmaFelis »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #639
lisper wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's both: ignorance is the source of their power, and they are afraid of losing it. (I also grew up in the South.)

> ignorance is the source of their power Ignorance is a source of power only within a like-minded group, and only as long as that group is powerful. Now get out of there and see where ignorance gets you. Or wait until that group washes out into the irrelevance of history.

Saying "don't worry, this group that currently holds power over large parts of the country only holds power currently, and only over large parts of the country" is not as reassuring as you probably meant it to be.

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

#913

Post by krupan »

X-Istence wrote: post #542
austenallred wrote: post #143

This hits way too close to home. Not because I have brown skin, or because I've ever been arrested for making "a bomb" that is not a bomb, but because when you're that age you're constantly surrounded and disciplined by people who don't understand you. Or what you're doing. Or why it's cool. I'd be willing to bet part of the reasoning around his arrest is, "Why would a student need to make his own clock?" I wish I co…

The Hacker Manifesto by The Mentor from Phreak Magazine still applies: http://phrack.org/issues/7/3.html

I can't believe I had never seen that until now. Thank you for sharing.

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

#914

Post by leohutson »

owen_griffiths wrote: post #324
piqufoh wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. To quote the Police spokesman; "He kept maintaining it was a clock, but there was no broader explanation" and "The concern was, what was this thing built for?" Why shouldn't he make his own clock?! Why does there need to be a 'broader explanation'? How can one develop an interest in anything if you must first provide an adequate explanation? sigh

And those guys learning to fly the planes without the landing, why can't that just be an interest! With terrorism, if you want to avoid false negatives, you are going to have a lot of false positives. NB I totally agree it would be a douche move to charge this kid with some BS, but investigating unusual behavior is much more understandable.

> if you want to avoid false negatives, you are going to have a lot of false positives.

Not necessarily, because the more people you alienate, the more enemies you create, and the more genuine threats you will face.

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

#915

Post by 13thLetter »

chejazi wrote: post #235
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 public schools are going to succeed, then many states need to "catch up" when it comes to funding. More funding will attract more teachers, creating a stronger candidate pool. If you look at the average funding per student by state, Texas isn't doing so hot [1], especially for being the second largest state [2]. There's definitely more to it than just funding, but I think that would be a good starting point. [1] h…

So it's kind of unfortunate that when people see a system full of ignorant jerks, they have been trained to always think "let's give the ignorant jerks more money," and never think "let's fire the ignorant jerks."

The incentives are completely upside down when one's entirely avoidable screwups are used as an excuse to ask for more money. That's how we get the current state of public education and, frankly, most levels of government in the United States: hideously expensive bureaucracies run by ignorant jerks for their own benefit.

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

#916

Post by mikeash »

makecheck wrote: post #874
mikeash wrote: post #804

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What danger is created that wouldn't exist otherwise? If people are bringing explosives through and they're being confiscated and thrown in a bin, then without the confiscations those explosives would be making it onto airplanes instead. Having them explode in a bin would be much preferable to having them explode on an airplane. Again, I don't agree with the liquid ban, but it's a problem with the goal, not a problem…

The danger is that, thanks to the act of throwing everything into a bin, there is now a practically-guaranteed way to leave a dangerous substance in the middle of a very large crowd and walk far away with no questions asked. If the person's goal was to bring it on a plane, they're suicidal so they probably don't care if it accidentally blows them up in the security line instead. If instead they expect to set it down…

You're not going to be throwing very much in there. I don't think a bottle full of liquid explosives is going to do much.

I don't recall security lines getting noticeably worse after the liquid ban was enacted. It doesn't take up much time relative to the whole process.

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

#917

Post by phonon »

hdctambien wrote: post #903
phonon wrote: post #880

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, average actual hours worked in the US is around 1800 (that's net after sick days, vacation, personal days, etc.) https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=ANHRS Given (in NYC) a school day of 6.33 hours (including lunch) and a school year of 18x days, then subtract personal days and the like...well. Also, most teachers don't need to do as much planning after a few years. Is if fair that longer serving teach…

Most teachers aren't teachers after a few years[0] so most teachers do not benefit from having old lesson plans, most teachers are not making the upper levels of salary, and most teachers will never collect on their not-social-security-pensions. The school day may be 6.33 hours (including lunch) but do you only count football players as working 3 hours a week when you watch them on TV? Teachers have to do a lot of "u…

It is a crying shame that there is so much teacher churn...why is that? In the article you reference, it's actually not primarily related to compensation, but to autonomy, support, and student behavioral issues.

Yes, of course, like I said, there are many outside the class hours. And in fact, 6.33 hours/d are not the "hours in front of the camera" (I assume you mean instructional hours.) The exact number is a bit hazy, due to self-reporting issues, but it seems to be about 700 h/y. http://cbcse.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/The-Mi...

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

#918

Post by tbrownaw »

maratd wrote: post #858
shkkmo wrote: post #748

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but just for a second, consider that {insert for-profit college name} is providing a service that people want and that's why people are choosing it. Are you aware of how extremely predatory many of these for-profit colleges have been? Their students aren't getting something they want. I don't disagree with vouchers in general, but you can't just ignore the risks when using public funds to have private institution p…

> Are you aware of how extremely predatory many of these for-profit colleges have been? Their students aren't getting something they want. I don't know what this statement means. If you're suggesting that people attend these institutions and then aren't able to find work in that field, I would say that's true of many other institutions as well. Those majoring in English in a standard non-profit college aren't likely…

I'm taking it as an accusation of false/misleading advertising.

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

#919

Post by justanman »

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…

To be fair, your 'agriculural automation system' components likely could be used for an explosive device.

On the other hand, I once had an airport security agent delay me because I had a transparent purple Game Boy Color in my carry-on. He (an older Filipino gentleman) seemed genuinely confused about what it was. It was pre-9/11, coincidentally also in Texas.

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

#920

Post by rebootthesystem »

hdctambien wrote: post #890
rebootthesystem wrote: post #841

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tea…

I would love to teach. I am very good at it. But I am also an entrepreneur to the core and hate, hate, hate bullshit.

I am one of two engineering mentors for our local FIRST FRC robotics team. Brilliant kids fully motivated to learn. I love it. We've built a bunch of neat stuff. I happen to own a lot of nice manufacturing equipment so we've taken advantage of that with the kids learning such things are running CNC and manual milling machines as well as soldering SMT, using DSO's etc.

Anyhow, one day I get hit with this business of having to register as an official school system volunteer in order to be able to be a mentor for the team. Mind you, FIRST has no such requirements, this is the school system bureaucracy meddling with things.

What did it entail? Filling out a bunch of forms that nobody could email me. I had to go to the main office and get them. And then they need to do a full-up background check, blood test and other crap. The process takes months. Oh, yes, and I have to pay for it.

Being that part of my work is in aerospace there are certain things I just can't do, at least not without involving certain checks and balances.

I flat out told the school system folks to go stuff it. I further threatened to fully fund the robotics team myself and pull it completely out of the the school. FIRST does not require teams to be attached to schools, so, technically, we could run it out of my warehouse and we'd be fine. The school folks took a few steps back and figured out a way to allow me to continue to be a mentor (after two years of doing it) without red tape. I suspect someone is making money somewhere by having this team be at the school. We are required to have a teacher associated with the team (one who knows nothing about nothing). My guess is he is getting extra bucks for having his name on a list somewhere.

This is just one example of why they don't attract better talent. We could have a lot more engineering mentors in this team but everyone recoils at some of the red tape they toss in front of you.

I know I and other practitioners could be amazing teachers and sources of inspiration for students. Yet, none of us has any interest in dealing with bullshit. And the school systems are permeated by it.

I mean, imagine the idea of having someone like Elon Musk do a physics lecture at a High School even once per semester. Think of the inspiration and effect that would have on kids. The effect would be very similar if you had passionate practitioners, perhaps less well known than Elon, yet passionate about their work, contribute to the education of our kids.

Money, to some degree, isn't the problem or the solution. We just don't have a good system. Teachers could be professional "inspiration organizers" who pull-in from the local and distant communities with the goal of blowing away kids with the passion, wonder and possibilities of the subject at hand, whether it is music, mathematics or physics. That. Something even a little bit like that. Would be amazing.

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