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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

#751

Post by kazinator »

DanBC wrote: post #283
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…

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

Running MS Windows on computers results in wasted electricity.

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

#752

Post by DanBC »

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…

> And who "invents" a clock anyway? It's sort of already-done.

Clocks use a variety of circuit blocks - you need something to keep time; you need something to display that time; you can add other features.

With just "keep time" and "display time" you still have a variety of different methods. You can count mains frequency; you can use crystals and dividers. Displays can be 7 segment LEDs or LCDs or binary or analogue motors. Each require different approaches.

Even if it's just a shop-bought off the shelf kit the student learns a bit of component identification and handling and some soldering skills.

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

#753

Post by [deleted] »

sixothree wrote: post #401
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Having lived in the deep south most of my life I think I understand what's going on here. It's not that they're afraid of things they don't understand. It's that there is a certain type of person they generally don't like. In this case it might have been a man that had some sort of intellectual curiosity, maybe a bit eccentric. And they will use their ignorance as a weapon against those people. The police department…

[deleted]

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

#754

Post by logfromblammo »

jameshart wrote: post #672
VonGuard wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I don't know that Jobs could have made a clock. Woz could have made one that calculated primes and rendered vector graphics, though.

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 that the romantic interest join the existing social gathering in lieu of a date.

I propose that a true nerd's nerd would never choose response A. Geek Night is sacrosanct. And if you bring a date, they had better bring their own deck/controller/dice/pawn.

I think Jobs would have failed that test. It's not just about hanging out with nerds, but actually preferring their company to non-nerds. How many of the people in that photo did Jobs stay in contact with after he became Mr. Big? How many did he materially share his success with?

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

#755

Post by cschneid »

twoodfin wrote: post #375
cschneid wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the teacher level, they are underpaid. My girlfriend is a high school teacher w/ 4 years experience, a masters degree in her topic, and works 12+ hours a day (not kidding, seriously all day). She makes $35k / year. If she wasn't lucky enough to have an engineer paycheck behind her life, she simply wouldn't be able to do the job. It's likely that funding gets allocated in stupid ways, but the whole process is inher…

At the teacher level, they are underpaid. My girlfriend is a high school teacher w/ 4 years experience, a masters degree in her topic, and works 12+ hours a day (not kidding, seriously all day). She makes $35k / year. How much do teachers in her school system who have 25 years experience make? The union-mandated tenure system, which prevents young, talented teachers from making even vaguely competitive salaries, but…

Given 20 years, and a doctorate degree $65k. Beyond 20, it goes to letters on the pay scale, and I'm not sure what the requirements are to move up that.

No teachers in this district are making money suitable to their training and experience.

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

#756

Post by pbhjpbhj »

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.

Do you want to be fired for using your computer for non-work activities?

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

#758

Post by braythwayt »

anigbrowl wrote: post #691
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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."

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

#759

Post by DanBC »

mikeash wrote: post #696
DanBC wrote: post #680

Earlier quoted context omitted.

multiple flagged dead comments for the same kind of race trolling that you're feeding? This comment (about a muslim conference where the speakers were saying it's never acceptable to beat your wife) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10228134 Or this comment abut how SJWs love victim culture: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10228134 Or this comment saying African Americans have an average IQ of 80: https://new…

No, I don't have ShowDead turned on. I guess that enables showing flagged comments as well? That certainly would explain it.

Ah, yes, sorry. ShowDead allows you to see flagged comments.

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

#760

Post by bargl »

eropple wrote: post #729
bargl wrote: post #701

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but you also don't want to be the admin at a school with a bomb where there were "signs a student was creating bombs before he went ape shit". I agree with the color statement, but not addressing the issue at all can be just as bad as an overreaction.

Except there were no such signs, therefore let's not be jerks to a kid .

Obviously someone thought there was a sign, even the teacher told him not to show it to anyone else outside that class. I think saying that a homemade clock isn't a sign is greatly underestimating how the news is capable of skewing things to screw people over.
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