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Ahmed Mohamed, His Clock, and the Curious Turn of Events
New submitter poity writes: After the news first broke of the 9th grader getting cuffed for scaring school officials with what turned out to be a digital clock, Ahmed Mohamed has experienced a surge of popular support — hailed as a genius and a hero, with college scholarships, internship offers, and even an invitation to the White House by President Obama himself. Now, amid rumors of possible racial discrimination lawsuits against the school and local police, some people have begun to more deeply scrutinize the details of the case, especially on the tech side with regard to the homemade clock in question. Recently, a writer at the creative site Artvoice posted a remarkable analysis of Ahmed's clock project, which raises new questions about the case and the manner in which people and the media alike have reacted. The linked analysis posits that Ahmed's clock started out as another clock, rather than a box of parts, and Ahmed can be said to have repackaged rather than "invented" a wholly new clock, but acknowledges that "none of us were there and knows what happened."
Child invents Islamophobia detector.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
And ignorant authorities are still ignorant. The kid's curious, which will let him go far, provided he can get out of the vise of The System.
and bought it to school. Where's my invitation to the White House and MIT?
He is being hailed as a symbol against prejudice and suspicion. Whether he is a genius or not makes absolutely no difference in this case.
After years of watching Star Trek, I am a veteran observer of control-consoles exploding and taking the lives of precious, non-player-character crew members.
Clearly the LED display on his suit-case clock is a console, ergo it is an explosive weapon.
The real question is: does it explode faster than the speed of plot? That could make it even MORE dangerous.
He's a 13 year old kid, not an engineer.
This story is about a huge over-reaction by fools that can't tell the difference between "Should be questioned/looked into" and "Should be arrested, suspended, and punished".
We have to start holding government employees to a HIGHER standard than they hold non-employees. We should never punish regular citizens, let alone children for appearing to have committed a crime - just for actually doing it. But at the same time we need to start punishing police, principals, and similar people for APPEARING to have committed crimes. That's the only way to stop government over-reach.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Submitter here. Since partisan accusations were quickly thrown when I mentioned this elsewhere, I'd like to just clarify my own view regarding this case: I think Ahmed didn't deserve to be handcuffed, he very clearly wasn't a danger to anyone. I also think he didn't deserve to be glorified and cast as a heroic genius with all this acclaim in the media, as the new evidence suggests.
My takeaway? Reality is complex (in this case perplexingly so), and the media doesn't do well with complexities.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
At best, he built a clock. At worst, he tore the guts out of a clock shell and put it in a briefcase. Genius!
Muslims are currently negotiating for sharia law in Irving TX (Google it) this kid didn't do anything interesting that much was obvious from the start.
The school officials are required to report strange items like his "clock"
But the sheer backlash and media sensation indicates this was planned, I wouldn't be a bit surprised at the "outrage industry" if the 2 were connected.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Nobody got mad because his "invention" was being discredited, or even really cared if a 14 year old claimed he invented something he merely assembled. The reaction to show encouragement and support was to counteract the fact that this young boy might think the whole country would consider him a terrorist suspect for showing interest in electronics. I absolutely don't care if he is a boy wonder or not, lets not treat kids as terrorists because they are brown and like engineering.
The point is he was a kid learning. Of course he didn't invent a new kind of clock, that's redicalus and has nothing to do with anything. The point is a kid trying to learn and building things with the tools around him was assumed to be building a bomb simply because he's brown skinned and named Mohammed. Most kids that age are not creating electronics projects like that. It's not a new clock but he should be rewarded not punished for learning regardless of race or religion
Gotta love the passive agressive accusations in the second article - "I don't mean to accuse him of being a terrorist, but wasn't he acting suspicious, isn't all this a little funny, isn't it kinda like he was a terrorist?".
... and go with what happened.
They didn't evacuate the school, or even the room. They didn't call the bomb squad. They did everything *but* treat the purported "possible bomb" as a bomb.
It wasn't about whether it was a bomb or not, it was about humiliating the brown kid.
If it was a bomb, and it did explode and take out the administration office, Uncle Chuck Darwin would have been smiling. But it wasn't, so it's not even close to a Darwin Award, but rather a damn good example of straight-out racism.
--
BMO
I'm gonna be bold, but he didn't invent shit. At best, from the picture, the "clock" seems more to be a commercial product hacked up in a different case. Why would he add 2 source of power (9V battery + main) ? Why do this on 2 different boards linked up by ribbon cables ?
Ironically, from the looks of the photo, he didn't even really 'build' it, he pulled it out of whatever casing it originally was in, and mounted it in that briefcase. Not trying to be mean to the kid (because the school staff and police were wrong and were big jerks) but I would have been more impressed if he'd actually built a digital clock from scratch.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
OK if a $color kid brought in a suitcase with wires sticking out, which he plugged in and it making a noise and then refused to answer questions what is was exactly, I suspect he would have received the similar treatment.
As noted elsewhere, the authorities in Irving, Texas, didn't act in a way that was consistent with a potential bomb threat. If they found a mysterious unattended package on the street, they would have cleared the area, brought in the bomb squad, and destroyed the contents of the package. But neither Ahmed's school, nor the cops that they called, did any of those things. Either they didn't act to protect the students and teachers in the school (on the assumption that it might be a bomb) or they knew from the outset that the clock wasn't a bomb, in which case it was Islamophobia in action.
and even that dirty garbage-picked black and white TV my parents dragged home that they knew I’d have a blast playing with
I hope I'm not shattering the illusion of a pleasant childhood but if his either of his parents were at all technically inclined, then there's only one reason to provide a kid with a used TV to take apart... and while there probably won't be a blast, I'd certainly expect a loud spark and possibly the smell of burning flesh... :p
So... a 14 year old did not actually build electronic integrated circuits with his own 2 hands. He either assembled or repackaged something commercially available. How is that even relevant? That changes this situation how exactly?
And how does this in any way excuse or even mitigate the behavior of the teachers, administrators & police involved in the situation?
Why don't you come out and admit your reasons... you have too much invested emotionally in the hard right narrative and cannot bear the thought that your side fucked up, and you are now doubling down and rolling around in the mud trying to save face. The though of offering up a simple apology would never occur to your lot.
While I generally support him, the media has been TERRIBLE at reporting this story. The LA Times had a very popular article that kept comparing him to Steve Jobs. JOBS!??! Don't they mean Woz?! The police also release misleading photos making it look like it was the size of a suitcase (it was waaaay smaller than that). I guess once the mass media gets their hands on something their only concern is ad clicks...
Did he refuse to answer what it was? Seems to me he was pretty clear that it was a clock. The only thing he refused is to say was that it was anything other than a clock.
could a digital clock cause such a storm.
TL;DR: No one ever thought it was an actual bomb.
Long version:
Since no one ever actually thought it was a bomb, the fact that the school and police took no action as if it were a bomb does not somehow "prove" it's racism and/or Islamophobia. That isn't to say one or more of the people involved had something in that vein in their minds, but their lack of treating it as a bomb doesn't demonstrate it, since numerous accounts of this story indicate the school and police never thought it was an actual bomb.
Some people thought it "looked like" a bomb, and wondered why he would bring it to school, because they don't understand why kids who like things like science and electronics do what they do.
And there are laws dealing with what are called "hoax devices". Many people have gotten into trouble for such things before. Hoax device statutes have been around for many, many years, long before 9/11.
Here is the Texas statute:
http://www.statutes.legis.stat...
The only thing that matters in the hoax device statute is intent â" a feature that is not unique. For example, intent matters when someone is killed. Was it an accident? Was it negligence? Was it premeditated? That is the difference between someone having done nothing wrong, and murder. And it is interviews and investigations and evidence that determine intent.
Even in the original Dallas Morning News article that broke this story â" before it went viral and Ahmed got invited to the White House, JPL, MIT, got scholarships, and become the hero of Silicon Valley â" the only thing the police officials said was that they knew it wasn't a bomb, that Ahmed never claimed it was anything but a clock, and that they were trying to determine WHY he built and AND brought it to school. Once it was determined there was no intent to alarm, scare, or deceive, it was further determined there was no wrongdoing.
Steve Wozniak got in trouble for using a hoax device (with intent to scare), and was arrested and spent a night in jail. I got in trouble with authority figures â" school, police â" for things similar to what Ahmed did several times, when doing nothing wrong. Maybe a little borderline, maybe a little, "What on earth are you doing?" but not illegal. And frankly, some of those came down only to intent as well.
So this little trope misunderstands what happened. Could racism or Islamophobia been an element in anyone's mind? There is no way to know, as much as people desperately want to come to that conclusion. When people say, "What white kid would have gotten in trouble for doing nothing wrong?"
Plenty. Ignore the title, read the article (for those who haven't already):
https://reason.com/blog/2015/0...
His English teacher overreacted by getting the principal's office involved. The school overreacted by calling the police. The school bears almost all of the responsibility here â" not "post-9/11 America", racism, or police. If the police had not been called, none of this would ever have happened â" and Ahmed wouldn't be a celebrity, either.
When police are called for a situation where any of the parties involved are not in perfect agreement, and there is no controversy, even if nothing illegal occurred, I would submit that there are not many times that results in a more positive outcome. The police are there, in part, to investigate and to determine if there was any wrongdoing, which they did. I wish they would have simply handled it at the school, but what I really wish is that the school would not have called the police in the first place.
Except that he didn't refuse to answer questions. He repeatedly stated it was a clock. All while authorities didn't take any sort of measures to protect anyone else, so obviously they either believed him or also knew that it wasn't a bomb.
Except that has no relation to what actually happened. It wasn't in a suitcase, it was in a pencil box (although the police photo was staged to make it look larger than it actually was). There weren't wires sticking out until after the police tore it open. And he didn't just plug it in and refuse to answer questions about it. He brought it to his teacher and said "Look at this clock I made." And then when he was questioned they said he was uncooperative because he was telling the truth! The Principal and then the police asked him what it was, he said it was a clock and they said "We know you're lying." Not only that but the police locked him away and questioned him without his parents or without a lawyer despite him asking for his parents repeatedly, which is a violation of the law. There is no way you can defend the actions of the principal or the police in this matter. They overreacted and violated this kids rights because of their deeply held prejudices and that's it.
It wasn't a suitcase, it was a pencil case. http://www.officedepot.com/a/p.... About 5 by 8 inches.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
How so?
Throwing that word around is an insult to those who have properly earned it.
My first computer program was little more than 10 PRINT "HELLO WORLD", but young me was damn proud at the time of making a computer do something ... anything ... and would have loved to share that enthusiasm with others.
It doesn't matter whether Ahmed built the clock from scratch after forging his own components from rocks in a furnace or disassembled something else and made a small change. Who cares. We all had to start somewhere and a little encouragement goes a long way.
Don't let the know-nothings get you down Ahmed. Keep at it.
I had this same argument the other day on my state's local forums about how the project was just a reassembled clock, not something he built. Liberals were not too happy about it and swarmed like flies on shit using all sorts of nasty names and telling me I'm a horrible person. EFF THAT NOISE! Now I'm going to flaunt this article in their faces.
Damn, Back in 1971 I was building a timer/clock at the age of 14 without ICs and I was no genius. Has the world turned so dumb that someone hooking up a 555 timer, a second IC for counting, and a display driver chip is a genius, and who got the whole schematic from the Internet with little effort.
I suppose that he did have to use a breadboard and since 80% of teenagers and 99.99% of teachers don't know what that is I suppose he is a genius.
Yep, you're absolutely right! Had that situation happened, I'm willing to bet the kid would have received similar treatment to what Ahmed received.
Except Ahmed received it for bringing in a pencil case with no wires sticking out, and he then answered all the questions saying it was a clock, repeatedly.
So, the $color kid would have been treated with suspicion (rightly so) for behaving suspicion, while Ahmed was treated with suspicion despite not acting suspicious.
So what are your motives here in the statement that you made?
You're either ignorant of the circumstances and trying to push an agenda/your opinions despite being ignorant, or you know what the circumstances actually were and are lying to try and push an agenda as well as basing your opinions on an intentional disregard for the truth.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
Don't pretend this doesn't happen to white kids.
http://boingboing.net/2008/09/22/star-simpson-one-yea.html
It looks like a suit case bomb. Just google it, and look at other pictures and how close they resemble this kids "clock". If the kid was such a genius, he would have figured out that maybe SOMEONE, some single person at that school, would see the same thing. It doesn't take a genius to see that. I think he was looking for attention and knew this was a questionable build.
Shit, kids get suspended for making a poptart into a gun shape and the clowns here sit silently. Kids aren't allowed to have toy guns that look real, especially in a school setting... but this is OK? Please, take all your faux outrage and suck on it somewhere else, crybabies.
If we stop and think – was it really such a ridiculous reaction from the teacher and the police in the first place?
Yes.
How many school shootings and incidents of violence have we had, where we hear afterwards “this could have been prevented, if only we paid more attention to the signs!”
Well there are actually not that many school shootings period, as tragic as the ones that do occur are. Furthermore, people generally have a better idea of what a gun looks like than what a bomb looks like.
Teachers are taught to be suspicious and vigilant.
They are also apprently very stupid in that not only do they not know what a bomb looks like, they also don't know that they don't know what a bomb looks like. If we are going to call the cops every time a kid has something that *could* be a bomb, we are going to arrest every kid with a possible cell phone IED detonator, and blow up every backpack with a bomb squad robot. It seems the suspicion and vigilance teachers actually have is very selective and misguided.
Ahmed wasn’t accused of making a bomb – he was accused of making a look-alike, a hoax.
I didn't realize the police were required to deal with known hoaxes. IT seems pretty obvious that the accusation was switched to that of a hoax after it was discovered that it wasn't a real bomb.
And be honest with yourself, a big red digital display with a bunch of loose wires in a brief-case looking box is awful like a Hollywood-style representation of a bomb.
There are a bunch of kids we could probably arrest for being hackers because they match the Hollywood-style representation of a hacker. I don't know why adults are not held to the standard of knowing that reality is different than TV.
Everyone jumped to play the race and religion cards and try and paint the teachers and police as idiots and bigots
Because many of us are pretty sure we (if not muslim looking) could have (and did) bring/make similar looking things to school without issue.
, but in my mind, they were probably acting responsibly and erring on the side of caution to protect the rest of their students, just in case.
I don't think it's reasonable or responsible to assume that a bunch of electronics is a bomb, any more than it is reasonable or responsible to assume that a cell phone is an IED detonator.
“This wouldn’t have happened if Ahmed were white,” they say.
I agree
We’re supposed to be sensitive to school violence, but apparently religious and racial sensitivity trumps that.
You can and should be sensitive to school violence. You should also know your own limitations in discerning the credibility of potential threats. And if your sensitivity to potential bombs is heavily affected by the way the the kid holding the bomb looks or what his name is, then you are probably a bigot. Just like if your sensitivity to gang violence causes you to only suspect blacks and mexicans, you are still a racist even if you hide your racism behind the pretense of violence mitigation.
At least we have another clue about how the sensitivity and moral outrage pecking order lies.
When non-muslim looking/named kids start being suspected of making bombs simply for being interested in electronics, then maybe the conversation will be different.
Kudos for figuring out that the clock was actually just an existing clock taken out of it's original housing. But to me this illustrates even more how ridiculous it is to overreact to this "bomb". Maybe we need the teachers to be trained on "what the insides of common things look like", so they don't need to freak out that something is a bomb just because it's not in it's original housing.
I don't want to fault people for being cautious in dealing with a potential bomb. I am criticizing people for being incompetent and racist in their method of determining which potential bombs are credible.
Not that it matters, but in the first article that I read on this story when it first happened it said exactly this, that he took apart an old clock and reassembled it.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
I honestly cannot see a downside to this hoax. Plan A, set yourself up for a future in engineering. Plan B, if the hoax is discovered, set yourself up for a future in business school.
More seriously though, a lot of people were sympathetic to the headlines because it mirrors our own fears. At least, that was the case for me. I'm the type of person who mails my neatly packed and disconnected electronic components ahead of me whenever I have to fly somewhere. Why? Because the risk of having some ill informed airport security agent misinterpreting my hobby is too risky. Heck, I've been questioned about not-so-common (but equally not-so-uncommon) consumer electronics, such as graphics tablets. Now I wouldn't go so far as being afraid about bringing my electronics projects to school, but: (a) I'm an adult who has had background checks to work within public schools, and (b) my skin is the perfect shade to be unsuspicious (i.e. not brown, nor pasty).
and made a small change
That's the point. He didn't even make a small change. Unless you count stuffing it into another box as a "change". That's literally all he did. And people are acting like he's some kind of super genius whiz kid for doing that.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
He put an existing clock into a different case.
I need to be on the FBI's watchlist. I can (gasp) assemble a computer from parts. I can also (don't tell anyone!) install the OS, and use it. I better now share any other skillz I has. :-P
AMMalena (www.Malena.net) "The avalanche has already begun. It is too late for the pebbles to vote." (Kosh, B5)
I find it hilarious that a community that prides itself on the supposed intelligence of its userbase not only published a piece so obviously designed to obscure the real issues while pushing a blatantly racist right-wing agenda.
The fact that so many here have taken the bait and gotten on board with the ridiculous "it was a hoax perpetrated by the left wing media" line just because this 13 year old kid didn't solder his own ICs is mind boggling.
The kid was frog-marched out of his school in handcuffs because he had a clock repackaged in a pencil case and his name is Ahmed Mohammed. That is the story. All of it.
The fine article contains some speculation as to whether it was really intended to be a clock, because it's a poor design for a clock:
Well, that makes me wonder if the kid who made the clock mounted the display to be viewed with the case open, or if he cut a hole in the side of the pencil box and mounted the display to be viewed the other way.
Someone familiar with how LED clock displays look from the front and from the back: can you tell which way the clock display was mounted? Was it in fact mounted such that you can't read the time without opening the case?
If you really can't read the clock without opening the case, then it really is an odd design for a clock. If form follows function, then what indeed was the intended function?
I'm wondering how often the kid brought other projects to school, and what the other projects were. I can well imagine a kid that age making a fake bomb to troll everyone, but I can also imagine someone who is just a hobbyist, so I am not going to draw any conclusions here at all.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
So are we just ignoring the fact that the father is a Muslim activist and blames Republicans? He also shows up at churches with the Koran and disrupts. This was a clear provocation. Just like Charlie Hebdo and the Texas cartoon contest, a reaction was not only expected but inevitable. At least nobody died this time.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
reading the article.. it seems that his "clock" was in fact fabricated. alongside that, but the "police" photo looked identical to the one that was from the manufacturer's website... ?!?
this seems like it was a "fake" story in regards to what is on the national news.. am I wrong?
OK if a $color kid brought in a suitcase with wires sticking out, which he plugged in and it making a noise and then refused to answer questions what is was exactly, I suspect he would have received the similar treatment.
Yes, that's right.
But reason and perspective don't feel nearly as good as finally finding them some "backlash".
... realized yet that his father is an activist? Ran twice for president of Sudan (from the US!)? Debated that FL pastor who burned a koran?
I knew this was too "perfect" the first whiff of it I got, and the more details come out, the more right I was.
What happened is that a muslim was mistakenly profiled as a potential terrorist and now the apologists are lining up to make amendments by hailing him as a hero and a genius, offering him college scholarships and arranging a meeting with the president. If anything this just shows how pathetic western civilizations are when faced with any hint of racism accusations and the muslims in particular. If it were a white kid, noone would give a flying fuck about what happened to him.
Children should be strongly discouraged from doing anything remotely like Ahmed did with this clock. You should *never* disassemble or modify a mains-powered appliance. In the photo you can clearly see the stepdown transformer just laying loose in the box, and the box has metal all around it. It is a very dangerous electrocution and fire hazard. And I second what has been stated technically here, which is that he pulled the guts out of a clock and stuffed them into some other enclosure (which is what I've said in the previous two stories about this).
I had expected a bit more of an example of technical ability, Its pretty obvious he just took a retail alarm clock and pulled it out of its case. But he is just a kid, I know that's basically how I started out. A clock or some other electronic device would stop working or its backup battery wouldn't function so I would pull it apart, I usually just put it back in its original case after (attempting) to fix it instead of wasting a perfectly good storage case. That said I don't see why this is an issue, the kids technical abilities aren't all that important, the knowledge and competence of school and police officials is. The second you open the case its obvious to anyone above a 4th grade comprehension level that its not a bomb, why they would pursue the matter with apparently no evidence of malicious intent is very troubling.
But to the cop, this visit to the school was the most interesting part of his week so far. So maybe he wanted to spend a few more hours browbeating this kid and seeing if he could get a confession.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/17/geoffrey-mcgann-arrest-oakland-airport_n_2149963.html
arrrested at airport for watch with toggle switches http://www.geoffmcgann.com/design-photo-product/#/product/ Also , Ahmed's father is activist. They are Sufi Moslems, the most liberal, almost like Unitarian Universalist Christians in doctrinal liberality. The video of the police said he was handcuffed "for his own protection". Enjoy your internet.
I stand corrected...
OK, so say my teenage boy takes a comb/switchblade to school. Suspended? Ya, likely. Arrested? Depends. Clock/bomb? Ya likely. Any difference? Nope.
I'd put money that this kid was race baiting, as he went and showed the 2nd teacher.
And the Danish cartoons and the cartoons drawn in Garland.
You can call me Islamaphobic, but that doesn't mean there aren't muslims willing to kill me over a cartoon.
Get ready for a wall of text. All of this happened in a small town in Washington state, for reference.
I've had similar things happen to me for dicking about with electronics and I'm as white as you can get.
I had my desk and backpack searched in grade school because "some kids" reported me to the principal talking about fireworks (It was July) and told him I was looking up bombs on the computers (Electromagnets are apparently bombs). Of course I had random PCBs from shit I took apart in my backpack and that was damning enough evidence to call my parents and suspend me for a week (For "Disrupting the learning environment, a copout term when you piss off school administration but technically didn't break any rules). Cops were threatened but weren't called.
I was also (Without my parents knowledge) placed into a "special" class, consisting mostly of the "slow" kids where we got to talk about our feelings (By pointing to an expression on a plush cube). This was run by the school counselor.
According to her it was wrong to enjoy the things I enjoyed at the time (Average kid stuff for the most part. Drawing guns, playing video games, playing with soldering irons). I learned a few years ago after talking with my parents that she literally told them that I would be the next "Columbine kid" if they didn't put me on drugs to "fix" me (They didn't).
Same thing in middle school, again was looking up AVR tutorials in the library and a number of kids would come up behind me and yell out "IS THAT A BOMB!?" and variations of that. Again, all of my stuff searched, escorted by security, etc. Suspended for a few days for "abusing school computer privileges" because "School computers are not for learning whatever you want, your activities must relate to classwork".
In highschool I finally got a break, amazing teacher who had a back room lined with soldering irons and breadboards. We even started a F.I.R.S.T. robotics team before I graduated.
So please, don't give me bullshit about this only happening because of the color of his skin. Blame the school's lack of understanding and zero tolerance policies. Blame the culture of fear in this country, don't buy into this stereotypical "LOOK! LOOK! AMERICANS ARE RACIST" crap.
If anything, I would bet the only reason this story has taken off is because he was brown and race politics are all the rage these days.
There are a lot more victims of "Zero tolerance" policies than what you see in the news, stories like this and the poptart gun kid are more common than most people think.
So are we just ignoring the fact that the father is a Muslim activist and blames Republicans? He also shows up at churches with the Koran and disrupts. This was a clear provocation. Just like Charlie Hebdo and the Texas cartoon contest, a reaction was not only expected but inevitable. At least nobody died this time.
And my father is a Christian preacher. Seriously? Sins of the father? That's what you think is the most important issue to discuss right now? And not that the kind of people who judge based on the sins of the father are the actual real problem that caused this mess in the first place.
If the teachers/cops thought the box was a credible threat, the school would have been evacuated and the bomb squad called in, they do the evacuation part even if they think it is a prank call. Neither action was taken here, yet they had physical 'evidence' of the bomb. To me this indicates they thought the kid was being a smart-arse and gave him the "scare the naughty boy" routine. The only thing different about the millions of other kids around the world who have received a traditional "official scare," is that this time it backfired on the officials. Which IMO is a good thing, since the practice does nothing but stamp the "might is right" message on its hapless victims.
The odd thing here is that one teacher knew he had the clock and it knew was harmless, that teacher "saw something", why did he not speak up when the others thought it was a "credible threat"?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I gotta say, after sampling the noxious comments on this story, I feel really sad. Even the geeks, who should be siding with this poor kid, are jumping all over each other to paste him with partisan talking points.
He's a kid who was excited about technology and wanted to show his teacher. Now look.
I'm surprised by comments that Ahmed "just" took things apart and put them together. Do you remember getting your first chemistry set, or bicycle, or learning how switches work? I'll bet that you tried things out, many times.
If you played basketball, I bet you went out to shoot baskets, just because you could.
If you took shop class, did you invent wood, or drills, or nails? I bet you did things that somebody showed you.
If you played a musical instrument, I bet you played the same practice pieces over and over.
Those activities are "play" and most mammals do that. They practice their skills, even if they are not immediately needed to survive. That is a developmentally appropriate thing to do! There are parts of your brain that are not wired up to the rational, language using parts, and those parts need to develop.
I don't care if all Ahmed did was take something apart and put it together again. That was encouraged in me, and I hope it will be encouraged in others.
Don't mess with The Phone Company. Piss them off and you'll be using two tin cans and a piece of string.
This is another fake story be our evil government. I'll bet the kid, his family and the school are in on it. This is another hoax like Sandy Hook.
Ahmed never said it was a bomb, never joked about it being a bomb. So all this hoax talk is a non-sequitur. "But but but it could have been a bomb" - what did the Boston Marathon Bombers drop off their pressure cookers in, again? Yet schools didn't ban backpacks.
Everybody has one.
.
But some people (such as "the linked "analysis") seem to offer an opinion for purposes of fame rather that educational discussion.
The current story is that it started beeping in a different class, and he was made to show the teacher what it was. But the device as we see it has no way to beep, unless it was plugged into the mains. The 9volt battery snap on these old LED alarm clocks powers the battery back-up, which allows the clock to keep time while the power is out, but not run the display or the alarm.
Which brings me to an important thing - the first teacher to see that device should have impounded it, and given the child an important lesson about electrical safety!
'The linked analysis posits that Ahmed's clock started out as another clock, rather than a box of parts, and Ahmed can be said to have repackaged rather than "invented" a wholly new clock, but acknowledges that "none of us were there and knows what happened."'
..
What really happened was in this politicly correct day-and-age the teachers were desperate to not really get fired
Those old wall clocks were wall powered with battery for backup (which also appears non existent).
Sorry - but the worst label you could put on him is a designer - and having seen the Apple 1 I think he did a better job than Jobs and 'Woz when they were much older so get a grip.
If I cam across someone of his age doing what he did - i'd stop and happily give him some time and encouragement. There's every possibility that he could turn out something fantastic in his future - as long as the US education system does not beat his desire to tinker out of him. You really have to question the intellect and ability of the teachers who escalated this, and the police who thought handcuffs were justified.
Or has the USA reached such a low point that a balloon with the word 'bomb' written on it would spook everyone?
America - the rest of the world is ROTFLMAO over this
This seems an easy way to setup law enforcement for a hearty lawsuit, knowing how they overreact to everything these days. He didn't "BUILD" a clock, he just took one apart and moved it into a pencil box. Many ten year olds could do this. He showed it to everyone knowing someone would freak. He refused to talk and explain things to the police, thus insuring his arrest. Now we've got media attention, donations from bleeding hearts, all kinds of attention, possible scholarships, and even a promised trip to the white house. I wouldn't be surprised if there were adults involved who helped him plan this out. Easy money.
The more information that leaks the clearer it becomes that this was a planned hoax to achieve exactly the outcome that it did. To wit:
1) Ahmed claimed he invented the clock - now we know he simply repackaged it.
2) Mark Cuban on Bill Maher's show said that he spoke with multiple individuals in the school district (Cuban lives in Dallas) and they claimed that Ahmed took it upon himself to take his "invention" out of his bag in every one of his classes and it was only in the 6th class that a teacher became suspicious, in English clash.
3) That teacher repeatedly asked Ahmed to explain what his invention was and to put it away and Ahmed failed to engage and respond to the teacher.
4) Mark Cuban had a long conversation with Ahmed on the phone and said he could hear Ahmed's sister advising him how to respond to each of Marks' questions as he asked them
5) New stores leaking imply that Ahmed's parents are muslim activists, although there is weak confirmation of this.
Mohamed said "I built the clock to impress my teacher. But he didn't "build" anything. Instead he took a working alarm clock out of it's cabinet and mounted the components into a pencil case (a small briefcase). Because he omitted a single step (he neither tied a detonator to the clock alarm wires nor packed the briefcase with explosives/shrapnel) it legally/formally is not a bomb. But it likely could be made a bomb in minutes.
He spoke of it as an "invention" but he almost undoubtedly knows better. I would never have spoken of such a device as an "invention" at the age of 10, much less 14 - to me it would have been "a disassembled clock" and no "invention" at all. Mohamed's English is too good for him to not know the true meaning of "invention".
Considering that Mohamed's father is a fervent islamist and after reading fuller accounts of the incident such as the article linked to above, it appears to me, at this time, that the authorities were probably correct and that Mohamed and his father are likely guilty of an attempted bomb hoax.
According to police reports, all he said was "It's a clock" - in response to ALL questions.
Police: What is this?
Ahmed: It's a clock.
Police: Why is it this case?
Ahmed: It's a clock.
Police: Why did you bring it to school?
Ahmed: It's a clock.
See? Being uncooperative will get you arrested for even the silliest accusations, because you aren't actually defending yourself from them. Just imagine, if he had actually bothered to explain what he supposedly did and why, so that there was the opportunity for the people in authority to make reasonable decisions.
But in this case, he was arrested by default, because he was accused of something and didn't explain.
ok hes not a genius
but its not like you did it either
Ahmed's Father: Hey Ahmed, look what I found. An old digital clock.
Ahmed: Cool.
Ahmed's Father: It would be funny if you made it into a vest and wore it to school.
Ahmed: Nah.
Ahmed's Father: How about a shoe?
Ahmed: Nah.
Ahmed's Father: Hmmm... Put it into a pencil suitcase?
Ahmed: Awesome! You're the best, dad.
Something else to consider is this kid's history. Is he a prankster? Or, has he shown anti-social behavior, written long rambling notes about how he'd like to kill the teachers and other students? Is he on anti-psychotic drugs? The schools keep records on that kind of stuff, they should know.
If he had no troubled history, there was no reason to think he'd suddenly turned into an angry, dangerous teen, and was about to enact a murder-suicide revenge fantasy. The school's reaction was way over the top, and cowardly.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
But in this case, he was arrested by default, because he was accused of something and didn't explain.
The default is to not arrest somebody.
Furthermore, he did explain. It's a clock. That is a valid answer to all those questions.
He and his parents stand zero chance of winning any lawsuit.
Why, because Texas is the land of Jesus, Guns and Football!
nuf sed
Adults should be smart enough not to drink and drive, adults should be smart enough not to give personal information to someone over the phone, adults should be smart enough to study politicians before voting for them, adults should be smart enough not to use real names when signing up for sites promoting and assisting with infidelity, adults should be smart enough to know that Gambling favors the house every time, adults should be smart enough to use protection to reduce the chances of contracting and spreading diseases, but countless adults do just that.
Very few people have actual experience with explosives in fact. I'm betting you really are not that much smarter, just that you feel guilty because this guy was Arabic and of course it's only them white kids that blow up schools and commit mass murder right?
It's really odd that so many people defend the actions when it's white kids with Nerf Guns and Pop-Tarts expelled from school, you know.. we can't take the risk and zero tolerance means zero tolerance. But when it's a Muslim we are supposed to be hands off? You are simply an apologist.
To me regular americans seem like hardworking, business minded people. But america as a country seems to have a problem when it comes to trust. As a european tourist i feel myself treated as a terrorist upon entering the US. When u treath someone as X, it is possible that they will become X; in any case u probably won`t many friends. Security is good, distrust and maybe paranoia not. Media, gun control, respect, education, employment are important in a broader sense. As a said before, american people are fine, but u need mutual trust.
When there is a bomb scare, you don't evacuate the school. Since as early as the 50's we've known that you should Duck... and Cover!
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
How could anyone not tell the difference between the parts of a disassembled clock, and a bomb. I don't believe for a minute that US teachers are really this stupid. The teacher concerned was likely just a vindictive individual, probably with some kind of personal dislike to this particular child. For what reasons, who knows. I think that that school will now have to seriously look at disciplining or sacking that teacher.
Really, it's pretty unlikely that some kid is going to come to school with a bomb - particularly one that can do serious damage. I know that America is not as safe as more developed and civilised countries, and I'd certainly never bring up my children in such a terrible country, but violence with seriously offensive weapons is still quite unlikely even there.
This story also underlines the rotten state of the media in America. Nothing like spreading stories about bombs, whether they are real or not, to keep the population living in fear.
Remarkable analysis? You mean complete lack of appreciation of the fact that for a fourteen year geek, repackaging IS inventing, just as for many fourteen year olds, writing about lovelorn teenage vampires is becoming an 'author'.
The article makes some good points and some not so good points. Here's the TL;DR version of this whole affair as best anyone can tell from the evidence so far:
- Ahmed brought disassembled clock to school for show and tell
- Ahmed never claimed it was a bomb
- Neither the school nor police actually thought it was a bomb (if they had, the entire event would have gone down much more dramatically)
- Given that, it's entirely possible the whole affair was racially motivated (or some idiotic zero-tolerance thing where they thought scaring him would teach him a lesson)
- Ahmed did not build the clock in question, he merely disassembled a store bought clock
- Ahmed is a fledgling tinkerer and may have a productive career in engineering when he grows up...if he doesn't crack from the pressure of being a world-renowned boy genius and shining jewel of Muslim-Americans
- Disassembling a clock at 13 does not a boy genius make. Even building a clock from a microcontroller at 13, while nothing to sneeze at, would fall short of the title of "genius".
- Obama's presidency will be ending soon, but the memories (and pictures/videos) of him inviting a kid that disassembled a clock to the White House are forever
You have tried to support your argument with faulty reasoning! Go directly to jail; do not pass Go, do not collect $200!
A school kid would be arrested if he did that here. We no longer live in a time where you can take a box of electronics which looks like a bomb in to a public place. Did he tell the teacher? No. How did he teacher find it? When it started beeping. Right. This kid needs a swift kick up the ass or a night in a cell. If this kid tried this stunt here he would be suspended. Meeting the leader of the country for this? Now we know things are out of control.
If you want to make "the Clock" yourself .
http://blogs.artvoice.com/techvoice/2015/09/17/reverse-engineering-ahmed-mohameds-clock-and-ourselves/
http://www.amazon.com/Vaultz-Locking-Pencil-Inches-VZ01479/dp/B001BXZ28K
http://www.ebay.com/itm/MICRONTA-Large-Red-Display-Digital-Alarm-Clock-w-Battery-Backup-63-765A-VINTAGE/291565559523
Really I think the reason people are putting him down is because a lot of the maker community immediately jumped to his defense, then felt deceived when they learned he hadn't even made the thing himself. Of course this response is directed at the wrong party - the ones who were deceptive was not Ahmed but the media that blew the whole story enormously out of proportion and made him look like a boy genius. Nevertheless, feelz.
You have tried to support your argument with faulty reasoning! Go directly to jail; do not pass Go, do not collect $200!
I don't get any of this. Any school I ever was in got evacuated if there was even slightest suspicion that there is anything explosive inside and a bomb squad got called in. This school just carried on with the classes while the boy was locked in a room with his clock. So these "erring on the side of the cation" arguments must be wrong too.
I invented first ever bubble radar when I was 12.
I was ever so proud.
I somehow managed to perforate a jam jar lid, mount a lamp in the middle and put the leads through water and connect the circuit to a battery.
The water bubbled and the radar shines like no other radar ever did producing bubble of gas as it churned away.
Does it require an in depth analysis as what this writer troll did?
So many Muslim bomb makers out there... a muslim kid repackages a clock in a briefcase.
I think it is perfectly reasonable to question the motive for building such a device. Certainly, a clock can and has been used as a trigger for bombs.
Nothing wrong with questioning it at all - if nothing is found, it's all good and well. Life goes on.
What the hell is the president wasting his time on a non-issue? Does he have nothing better to focus on? Government needs a thorough cleansing - just too many career politicians spinning wheels for money.
First projects should be celebrated even if minor
Sure. But by the whole fucking world? You do realize that this is international news because the media had a selling point (the kid was brown! omigosh don't you feel bad?!)
Had the kid not been a Muslim this would not have been blown up the way it did.
He knew his repackaged clock would get a reaction. Did I tear stuff apart as a kid? Yeah when I was in elementary school. by high school I was tearing apart different broken things to make a working thing... Obviously he was seeking attention.
Just look at it: It had several of the necessary components of a scary-looking movie bomb, like wires and power-hungry LEDs. For all we know, when you turned it on it probably started counting down seconds until the detonation time.
Seriously, this is more a testament to the idiocy of the adults that looked at it than the genius of a 14-year old. It's not even close to being a good fake movie bomb. There's no block of something that looks like C-4 with blasting caps that could be pulled out easily or otherwise rendered harmless just by cutting the wires, and no schematic somewhere that could uncovered and interpreted by someone over the phone to some colorblind sweaty guy with wire cutters to disarm it at the last possible second. I bet the kid didn't have a troubled back-story or even an evil laugh.
The kid isn't a genius, but he IS trying to be creative. Kind of like Sid in Toy Story, but for electronics, and without the nastiness. The proper thing to do here was give him some guidance to focus his interests. "Hey, this is cool but it needs polish: you needs to clean up your wiring so it's not a fire hazard, and the display needs an opening so you can read it from the outside. Let me show you how to use a Dremel tool."
Instead of becoming those fondly-remembered favorite teachers who helped him grow as an artist or electrical engineer, these will be the people who got him dragged off to the police station, made him the center of a debate about prejudice and intolerance, and kid will probably end up as something terrible - like a lawyer.
Exactly, as a kid some of my "inventions" were quite similar. But it gave me experience and encouragement and the *desire* to do something bigger and better. I was just learning how things worked. Taking something apart and transplanting it, without breaking it in the process, lets you observe all the parts inside that you need to make it work. Then you start learning about those parts, maybe replacing them with others to see what happens, taking the parts off and making them work individually, putting them together to make something else... This is all part of the learning process and some people learn more visually and more hands-on than with theory. Your first project ever as a kid won't be the most amazing thing that's for sure.
Twinstiq, game news
Most reasonable people agree that some adult authority figures made serious mistakes. These mistakes suggest a combination of islamophobia, teenagemalephobia, plain old racism and technophobia. For Ahmed, our binary political rhetoric collapsed into two states and since Ahmed's accusers were wrong, then Ahmed must be right.
I can't think of any of my science or engineering friends who would have made it through school in the 70s and 80s under such a zero tolerance system. But I do have a number of questions: Does Ahmed deserve the praise he is getting or is he merely being used as a political campaign? Put another way, if you had done something like this and Obama stood up and declared you brilliant and innocent, would you feel worthy or would you feel a tiny bit of guilt over the fact that you lie somewhere on the spectrum between guilty and genius?
With all that has been written on Ahmed and his clock, I have a number of unanswered technical questoins:
Nobody said anything about the Pop Tart gun kid.
What does it matter. The kid is a little geek, all of us have been. Even if he just took apart a clock and put it back in a box, that's a good attempt to build confidence. He didn't choose to have police come to school and he didn't choose to get invited to the White House. He was just playing and making a project.
This is it, this is the moment this whole security theatre turned from ridiculous to ridiculously stupid, again.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
This whole thing is a testament to a failure of the so-called adults involved rather than the genius of a 14-year-old.
They should have immediately seen that this wasn't a bomb, or even a decent hoax. The display doesn't have enough power-hungry LED digits for a scary-looking hh:mm:ss countdown to detonation, and there isn't a block of something that looks like C-4 with blasting caps that could easily be pulled out or wire-clipped. I bet the kid didn't even have a schematic hidden somewhere that could be remotely interpreted over the phone to a sweaty colorblind guy with wire cutters who could somehow manage to disarm it anyway - but only at the last possible second.
The kid isn't a genius; he's just an average 14-year-old trying to be creative in a Toy Story-Sid way, but for electronics instead of toys and without the nasty. The proper thing to do here wasn't to call the cops, but instead to tell him "Hey, this is pretty cool but let's make it better. Your wiring needs to be cleaned up so it's not a fire hazard, and the display needs an opening so you can see it from the outside. Ever used a Dremel?"
But no: instead of becoming fondly-remembered teachers who helped him become an artist or electrical engineer, they called the cops and got him dragged down to the police station. Now he'll probably end up on a long slide towards a law degree.
Doing an internet search only returns those low quality news stories.
If misbehaving means doing something that not related to listening to the teacher, I misbehaved a lot, but that doesn't mean that it was disruptive.
It is described as a pencil case because it is one.
Take a look at the pics with the standard 110v pronged cord next to it to get an idea of the actual size.
The case is like 8 inches across, tops. It's just styled like a protective case, but the thing is smaller than a lunchbox.
Some points to consider:
- The "clock" in question does look like classical time bomb. It is therefore perfectly reasonable to have the device investigated even without "islamophobia" or "racism".
- These kind of electronic clocks have actually been used as time bombs (the signal from the buzzer cords works as the ignition trigger) in exactly this kind of briefcase configuration.
- The kids father is sheik Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, a known islamic apologist (to put it mildly).
- The "islamophobia" story came out on CNN and written by Haroon Moghul, another islamic apologist.
- We do not who actually built the "clock". After all, it does look a little bit too well made in order to be a kids project.
So let's speculate a bit. Could it be that the kid did not actually build the "clock" but it was something he found laying around somewhere and it indeed was a timing device for an explosive? Or could it be that the kid was told to bring a bomb-looking device to school in order to trigger the "islamopohobia" outrage we are witnessing?
In any case, this story is very fishy and is obviously blown out of proportion. Obama made a fool out of himself.
I think I'll bring a clock I had taken out of it's plastic case.... Put it in a much bigger small brief case... Bring it to school... Set it off to go in the middle of my class... For no particular reason... Than being an American Islamic attention seeking teenage turd...
The linked analysis posits that Ahmed's clock started out as another clock, rather than a box of parts, and Ahmed can be said to have repackaged rather than "invented" a wholly new clock, but acknowledges that "none of us were there and knows what happened." Yes, because the issue here is who invented the clock... Idiots.
The problem is that there is a significant minority of Muslims who are willing to kill to spread or defend (including against the slightest of insults) their interpretation of Islam. Historically moderates who were quite happy to interact and trade with non-Muslims would keep these guys in check. Moderates who in fact considered these fanatics Islamic heretics. This is not my interpretation. This is how members of the Saudi royal family explained things to TE Lawrence during the first world war. According to these Muslim royals once or twice a century these heretics would rise and have to be put down by the moderates who correctly understood Islam. Lawrence was then advised to travel in Bedouin clothing with a Muslim guard because if spotted by one of these fanatics he would be killed for nothing more than being a Christian in Muslim lands, even though he was under the protection of the Saudi King in Mecca.
Now if the billions of moderate Muslims would do something about the hundreds of thousands of fanatical heretical Muslims causing trouble, then the narrative about Muslims would change very quickly. Right now these fanatics are allowed to thrive and expand and dominate the news, to create the misperception of Islam. Its not Fox news creating this misperception, its these fanatics doing so. It would also be beneficial to moderate Muslims to do so not only to correct the public misperception but due to the fact that Muslims are far more often the victims of these fanatics than anyone else.
A modern twist on things, some of the modern heretics in Saudi Arabia have access to oil profits and being a bit smarter than some of their peers have taken a more low key and long term approach. They have taken a path of evangelism rather than direct action. For many decades now they have used these oil profits to build mosques and madrasas and support like minded imams to promote their heretical interpretation of Islam. While these "educational" efforts are not necessarily producing fanatics who take terroristic actions they have been increasing the percentage of Muslims who while not fanatical themselves are somewhat more tolerant of fanatical interpretations of Islam, considering such interpretation old fashioned but valid rather than heretical. Tolerance for the heretics has been increasing over the decades. Admittedly still a minority opinion but a disturbing trend. A trend that should disturb and motivate moderate Muslims to actions as well.
A person with a middle-eastern name tries to bring a ticking electronic thingy on board a plane. Does anyone actually think he wouldn't have been wrestled to the ground, possibly injured, and put on the do-not-fly list before they even figured out what the thing was? Are school administrators any smarter or less wary? The kid showed extremely poor judgment. Period. He's lucky he's still alive.
So I wonder does MIT, Facebook, etc. still want to host him and reserve science-fair spots for him knowing that he didn't actually build anything but simply unscrewed the cover off the original clock and placed the loose parts in a box? Is there a chance they will respond now that they know? How did they not realize nothing was "invented" or "built" in the first place from looking at the pictures? Did they knew the whole time but saw a chance for media attention and marketing?
.."that doesn't mean it was disruptive ".... Said every disruptive kid who just doesn't get it...
Only boring people are ever bored.
is to distract from the overt racism at that school, and the fact that everyone that works there, from the teachers to the administration, are bigoted, racist, religious fanatical pieces of shit.
It is sad that paranoid F-students get jobs like English teachers, Chief of Police, and the President of the US - Richard Nixon.
I lay even money that the English teacher is gay and was upset that Ahmad refused his sexual advances, so the English teacher called the Police for help.
I find it frustrating that so much of the focus of this discussion has been on one of two things:
1: Political and Social History of Islam and of Islam in the US including the degrees of ignorance and intolerance in this or that place.
2: The merits of the chid's work and wether such work merits X or Y consideration given that the child may/may not be gifted and/or talented
These are both irrelevant to the problem at hand. I will first address the inevitable barrage of "how can X be irrelevant..." and then, as simply as possible, address the idea of gifted and/or talented children and the evaluation of the work of those and other children by non-educators. The political history of an entire society and its associated religion are of no consequence to the fears that drive behavior. Most people are barely cognizant of the history of their own country and aware of little more than what the news might mention concerning that particular nation or ideology; if they are lucky, they might even know a bit about some dish or other that has become shorthand for an entire culture (think Tacos:Mexico and Ethnic Food nights). No, fears do not come from knowledge but from ignorance; however, the worst fears come from the sort of informed ignorance that makes one think they have some form of awareness with which to judge the life experience and conditions of others. Our culture has become dramatically distorted by the absurdly insular nature of the mass media outlets -what happened yesterday in a small city two states over? Nothing? Something? I would venture to guess that no one outside of a radius of a few hundred miles is aware -even within their own state. Further distortion has been caused by the hypocritical pandering by the mass media to subpopulations of all sorts seeking the more elusive than ever advertising dollar. Thus, Fox News may spout all manner of ignorance -and do so at a louder volume than any other television station; however, it is ignorance that may or may not be believed by those spouting it in what I personally consider an irresponsible manner precisely BECAUSE they are certain (they have the surveys to back it up to their advertisers) that their core audience DOES believe the particular nonsense is the truth. Think I am wrong? Ask around, George Washington did not have wooden teeth! They were Ivory stained by his, normal for the time, consumption of port wine; however, I am certain that only a modest percentage will know that or that the Battle of Bunker Hill was not fought on Bunker Hill or that when Theodor Roosevelt charged up San Juan hill, neither him nor his troopers rode horses; they had been left behind because there was no space on the ships carrying the invasion force for them. Too old? How many people in certain places still think President Obama is, all evidence to the contrary, not a natural born citizen and Muslim?
The work of children, I am pained to say, is rarely evaluated on its proper merits by adults who are not educators. It is easy to be dismissive, as I once was, of the simplistic and repetitive nature of the material that is presented to children and the manner in which it is presented -from the point of view of an adult. In the past, I have dismissed almost all of the science presented to children in middle school as "WOW! Science" and the experiments that children perform in high school as simplistic outside of the most advanced AP and Honors classes. Moreover, even then, out of expediency, sometimes, even that is dumbed down. However, I was WRONG. Children need the exposure to wow! science and generally, cannot infer from the abstractions that may be presented, the same information as an adult. This difference is far more dramatic the more educated the adult with the added problem that it is often these adults that are asked to judge X or Y competition at the school. Taking something apart and putting it back together without pieces left over and with the original function intact is not something to be taken lightly. Looking back, I can see a
Well, in my case, I was never sent to the principal's office, so there's evidence that it wasn't disruptive.
So was this for a science fair, science club, class project or did he take it upon himself to just show up one day with a suitcase clock?! And I think the authenticity of this clock project is relevant and should be objectively reviewed. And if it turns out to be dishonest then there should be further questions about the motivations behind the incident and what responsibility the parents should be held accountable for. Or do we want our children's schools to become more tolerant about suitcase clocks just showing up unannounced?
No, people are acting like he deserves encouragement more than handcuffs.
I love pop tarts!
Did he refuse to answer what it was? Seems to me he was pretty clear that it was a clock. The only thing he refused is to say was that it was anything other than a clock.
I can see it now "What is it? Well, it's a flat panel LED numerical display, hooked up to an IC driver, which is being run from a clock IC which is fed from a power supply which runs either off the mains via a transformer and bridge rectifier with a pi filter, or a battery powered backup which will drive the clock chip but not the display, and..."
"???? KNOCK OFF THE GOBBLEDEGOOK KID, WHAT IS THIS THING???"
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Nonsense. His engineering is worthless unless he picked up all the atoms individually and assembled them into molecules.
the Israeli military uses them to blow people's heads off, yet kids take'em to school all the time! It's a security nightmare...
It turns out my younger siblings had always given me more credit than I deserved for taking things apart and putting them back together - they apparently hadn't realized how few of the things I took apart were the same things that got put together (though I did reuse parts), and the things that I did successfully put back together were mostly ones I didn't aggressively disassemble. (So the vacuum-tube amp from the old record player - this was back when those were current or a bit old, as opposed to retro - did get a bunch of different things attached to it, but the dead TV mostly had parts unsoldered, back when parts were still big enough to recognize and reuse.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Yup. It's clearly an attempt to deflect from the obvious demonstration that there's too much racism* and Islamophobia around, as well as too much of the "Zero Tolerance - Panic About Everything" movement. Probably the most vilely opportunistic part of it I've seen was the "#HalfABomb" crowd - well, duh, a "movie set bomb" or "hoax bomb" has something that looks like a timer, and something that looks like an explosive, and maybe also some wires of different colors so Our Hero can create extra dramatic tension about which wire to cut.
* It's probably more Islamophobia than racism, though both of those were part of it, but for instance one of the cops who shows up in the "Ahmed in NASA T-Shirt" picture is black, and the mayor of the town is a well-known Islamophobe. ( And ok, I partly emphasized racism in the Subject line because there weren't enough characters to fit Islamophobia.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
He's doing pretty well for a 14-year-old who also hacks go-kart engines. Sure, if you're trying to build a production thing, custom circuit-boards are the way to go, but if you're doing a quick learning project, bread-boards are the way to go. From my perspective, if he'd used a project-specific circuit board, it would have looked more like one of those beginner education projects you could get from Radio Shack until they went bust (and I'm not criticizing that; I've used some of those in the past couple of years), but if he'd done that, the same crowd would also be dissing his work, because the objective is to draw attention away from how badly he was treated.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Sounds more like he discovered the art of re-branding electronics... His future is bright it seems.
It kills me to say this, but if the steel briefcase in the picture is the "clock," Sarah Palin was right, he was asking for it. He should consider himself lucky the cops didn't shoot him on the spot, no matter where his parents were from. Considering every major school shooting I can remember was perpetrated by white people, I'd doubt skin color is what makes school cops trigger-happy.
So, allow me to untangle this web of shit, and call a spade a spade. The teacher is a racist bafoon, and the cops were A-typical Robo-Pigs incapable of offering any intelligent advice, diplomacy, or helpful mitigation tactics, and instead do what dummy cops always do when they don't know what to do.... Hauled an innocent man off to jail, because apparently the public and the innocent must are required to pay for the under-training and lack of intelligence and social skills of cops with our freedom!!!
But lets take a step back and look at who failed this briliant young man, and where?
So, allow me to untangle this web of shit, and call a spade a spade. The teacher is a racist bafoon, and the cops were A-typical Robo-Pigs incapable of offering any intelligent advice, diplomacy, or helpful mitigation tactics, and instead do what dummy cops always do when they don't know what to do.... Hauled an innocent man off to jail, because apparently the public and the innocent must are required to pay for the under-training and lack of intelligence and social skills of cops with our freedom!!! But lets take a step back and look at who failed this briliant young man, and where?
So, as I was saying Mohammed and justice were failed, long before the arrest ever took place. Justice had been failed long before any of the actors whom had parts in this Greek Tragedy even got up for work or school that day. Let's start with the racist and ever-so-enlightened supposed educator, whom was too stupid to realize was not a bomb, and was such a horrible coward and educator that he could not control his classroom or students well enough to conduct the simple investigation into whether a student of his had a bomb on his person or not!!! It gets no more pathetic than this loser, want-to-be educator whom felt a need to call the police and have an innocent boy arrested. And why? Because the teacher is ignorant and a coward, and so a young genius must suffer for this cowards lack of gonads or intelligence!!! What's worse is this idiot is supposedly an educator! Granted, the true bad guy here is the media, and how they portrey young Arab men... Among many other groups, which due to a clear lack of intelligence was consumed, believed, and adopted as being realistic and a possibility inside the tiny brain of this "teacher." It was these images and ideas which the media constantly broadcasts, both settley and not so settley, all the time that installed the irrational fear in the mind of some one so seseptable to irrational fears. Granted, one hopes our educators would be more intelligent and enlightended. At least enough to know better than to allow their racist fantacies of discovering a secret Alcadia sleeper cell in the 9th grade room full of barely pubecent young teenagers! If the media had not been pumpig this idiot teahers head so full of bullshit, this could had and should had been easily avoided!!!
Next, the under trained Robo-pigs, whose relationship with the community, youngsters, and inability to defuse the situation by way of interjecting an authoritative voice of reason, is so freaking A-typical that this could had happened any where. Had the cops had any of the training that all modern cops seem to be lacking (Along with the social skills to enact that training), the cops could had arrived on scene, made a judgement and educated call (THAT THERE WAS NO FREAKING BOMB!), calmed the teacher and school administration down, and we would never had heard of Mohamed or his clock. But instead we get these Robo-pigs, who going off either the orders or suggestion of the school administration haul an innocent young man into jail for having a genius science project, because they themselves are idiots!!!! This is what they mean when they say "Community Policing." Had these cops had brain one in their heads, they could had defused the situation by they investigating as to whether the was a bomb or not, but they were incapable of this, and the proof is the arrest of Mohammed. Moreover, you can obviously tell that the rapore and communication between the cops and piblic is abismal to outright non-existant. The fact that the cops arrested a kid, this time for literally just being smarter than them (LITERALLY), is proof of how this kid and justice were both failed by the ignorance and lack of training of these robo-pigs!!!