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Hardware Projects (and Pranks) That Have Scared Observers
In the wake of the arrest of Ahmed Mohamed in Irving, Texas, for carrying to school an electronics project believed by a teacher to look like a bomb, Make Magazine has a timely reminder that Ahmed's project is one of many home-brew efforts that sparked (or could have sparked) extreme reactions. Make's list includes a few from tinkerers -- and pranksters -- that not only looked like bombs, but were fully intended to look that way. ("Back in 1967, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak was arrested for building a metronome and storing it in a friend’s locker. He rigged a tin-foil contract sensor to the metronome in the locker, and set up the device to tick faster when his buddy opened the locker.") The article doesn't note the 2007 incident in Boston in which a guerilla advertising campaign for "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" raised fears of a terrorism and led to two arrests. Gawker has a slightly more pointed article about other students who have specifically brought home-assembled clocks to school, without being arrested.
but nobody invited that kid to the whitehouse. Ahmed's race has gotten media outrage on his side, but what happened to him was not remotely unique. Everything from pointing at someone and going "pow" to chewing poptarts into the wrong shape has gotten kids anything from arrested to expelled. The only commonality is it seems to be universally boys treated this way, likely due to society's compulsive need to pathologize everything about them and ascribe nefarious motivations to their every action.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Here's a guy who reverse engineered the clock he built.
http://blogs.artvoice.com/tech...
In the guerrilla advertising campaign for "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" there were blinkies spread around 12 cities, 11 of which managed to figure out that LEDs are not explosives. Only Boston cops freaked out, locking the city down (despite being told by MIT that there were no explosives) and wasting $millions. Of course Boston cops aren't big on apologizing after their screw-ups; they tend to double down despite reality. The silver lining is that 11 other cities' cops were rational and did the right thing, which is cause for some optimism.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
No, it's really not. In the US, you're more likely to die from toenail fungus than from terrorist attacks.
It just serves the purposes of the plutocrats to have every scared.
The best things you can do for your family's safety is check the wiring in your house and not own a gun.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Young Mr Mohammed seems to have
a) not "built" anything, merely taken the case off a clock, and put it in a box....
b)...which looked astonishingly suspicious with lots of bare wires all kludged in there...
c) which was then closed with a cord (why? Why not just latch the case closed with its latches?)
http://blogs.artvoice.com/tech...
Personally, I don't see this as a binary issue where one has to pick one "side" or the other. ...and the media ate that narrative shit right up.
I believe that:
- Young Mr Mohammed was either deliberately trolling his school authorities, or he was used to do so.
AND
- the authorities overreacted as did the cops who absurdly put a non-threatening willowy boy in cuffs why again?
-Styopa
The teachers believed Ahmed wanted the teachers to believe it was a bomb. The school called the police about a possible bomb hoax, not a possible bomb, as evidenced by the police response that did not include sending the bomb squad to the school and the school's decision not to evacuate.
Can we talk about the really troubling thing about this story - that a 14 year-old high school student thinks removing the case from a store bought clock radio is a process of 'invention' as evidenced by his repeated claims he 'invented' this clock and that he was 'proud' of his project and wanted to show it off to his teachers?
Ken
Today's post 9/11 world is a dangerous one, where terrorist evildoers looking to exploit and destroy the free society we have.
Nice way to spread more Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt there, buddy.
I'm ok with a few innocent people being inconvenienced for my safety and my family's safety
I'm OK with you getting modded down to "-1, Troll" for posting such verbal diarrhea. Know what's really ruining 'the free society we have'? It's not suicide bombers and gunmen screaming 'allahu akbar!', it's people like you who keep spouting bullshit like this. In an ideal United States, there is, of course, going to be potential for abuse, and that unfortunately includes some whack-jobs with guns and bombs. The solution to that problem is NOT 'throw the baby out with the bathwater', however; turning the United States into a Police State is exactly what the extremists want!
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
You must be a terrorist sympathizer then. I do not condone any act that could be perceived as potentially illegal and I support the killing of persons whose actions may harm us.
The UK had over 30 years of terrorist attacks by the IRA, the bonus value of that being they weren't committed by those conveniently of a different race / colour so all of them could be tarred with the same brush of automatic guilt. In all that time we didn't succumb to your pathetic whiny surrendering of common sense, so go fuck yourself you racist coward.
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
A contract sensor? The guy had to sign a NDA before being pranked?
I was with you until you threw that not own a gun thing in there. I'm not sure how you can see right through the terrorism smoke screen but buy the gun lie hook line and sinker.
(..) turning the United States into a Police State is exactly what the extremists want!
Which extremists are you referring to? Those very, very, very few extremists that carry bombs around? Those countless uniformed, power-abusing idiots that bully the rest of society? Or the even more dangerous idiots higher up in the chain of command?
tea party prank that went wrong been terrorising the world in the name of HAVING to buy shit every since.
It's really too bad Ahmed's clock is in fact not a home brew one. He just took an existing radio alarm clock from the 80's and moved the parts to a suitcase. He didn't even rewire anything.
Wow, just wow. I'm certainly not OK with inconveniencing people for my safety. That's a load of crap - and you must know the old quote about giving up freedoms for safety or security and what you then deserve. The thing I found odd about this is that just a year and a half ago my son had an engineering class in high school where they all had a project that they had to do (some in teams, some alone with just a parent helping out). Many of them could be mistaken for something nefarious just like this poor kid's project was. All the teams had to take prototypes and final designs to and from school on multiple occasions to show them off and also to a final evening event for kids, teachers, and parents. Nobody got arrested and nobody freaked out about any of them. Here's what parts of my son's looked like. Notice one of them is a digital display atop a protoshield on an Arduino. That one looks more like a "Hollywood bomb" than the thing Ahmed had. https://goo.gl/photos/qby6x5kQ...
The best thing he can do for his country's sake is to lock himself in his house and duct-tape anyplace where that nasty old oxygen can get in.
Home of the Brave, Hmph!
1776 was potentially illegal your founding are disgusted at your lack of support for their tax evasion. Coward!
I was with you until you threw that not own a gun thing in there. I'm not sure how you can see right through the terrorism smoke screen but buy the gun lie hook line and sinker.
GP is supported by evidence. I didn't even have to look hard - it was the first result of my first google search. tl;dr; you and/or your family members are more likely to die if you have a gun in the house.
Now, if you are a person who respects the lethality of a gun, are responsible enough to keep it in a safe place when not in use, and are mindful enough to teach the rest of your family how to properly handle and respect the weapon, your experience might be quite different. But let's be honest - the average person likely does none of those things. And even if you do everything right most of the time - it still takes only one lapse for things to go bad, hence the emphasis on responsibility.
Mod parent up!
Today's post 9/11 world is a dangerous one
No, it's really not. In the US, you're more likely to die from toenail fungus than from terrorist attacks.
But the topic at hand is that the post 9/11 world is more dangerous. Why bring up unrelated topics like terrorists?
In a post 9/11 world it is provably more dangerous as your more likely to die by minding your own business and being shot by a cop for doing absolutely nothing wrong than you are to die from any of the crap you listed!
Pre 9/11: No chance of dying to a terrorist, little chance of dying from toe fungus or cops.
Post 9/11: No chance of dying to a terrorist, little chance of dying from toe fungus, extremely high chances of being killed or imprisoned for going out to get the mail.
That is clearly more dangerous
Basically, in the USA, if you are carrying something that is not a bible, or a gun, or a gun with bible verses on it, people will be scared.
Wrap up anything in the bible, or the american flag, or both, and people will accept it, just look at most of the government surveillance programs.
Bibles, Guns, and Flags, you can wrap up shit in any one of them, and Americans will line up to eat it.
From the pictures it looked like the 120V from the power cord was not protected in any way. If you plugged it in and touched the wrong place you could have had a nasty shock.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
In the 90's, came home from work for lunch and the fire dept. and bomb squad (with spherical steel-container on truck) had shut off my apartment building. Maintenance people went into an apartment and saw a bomb on the coffee table and called 911. Bomb squad was actually fooled for a while but it turned out to be fake. Turns out, the guy made fake bombs as a hobby. He didn't show them off, just kept them in his apartment.
The police looked at how he could be charged but there is nothing illegal about having a home-made fake bomb in the privacy of your own home.
OK it wasn't that portable. But I stripped an NES and put it in a casset tape case with enough D cells to get it to run. Then I took one of those small Casio pocket TV's and connected it. I also put in a car adapter plug since it didn't run long on batteries. It was pretty cludged together but we could play NES games in the car during long road trips.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonsai_Kitten
I remember animal rights groups getting up in arms about this a decade and a half ago.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
>
The best things you can do for your family's safety is check the wiring in your house and not own a gun.
This, a thousand times over. We Europeans know this. We do not allow people to own guns. People do not need weapons, and they do not need "freedom of speech". People need unity and purpose. We Europeans follow our leaders without question, just as it should be. If they say welcome migrants, we do it. If they say do not, we do not do it. Absolute obedience to centralized authorities are the ONLY way to peace and tranquillity. You illiterate merican simians could never understand that.
it's a simple statistical fact that owning a gun increases the danger to you and your loved ones, it does not decrease it
people who leave barrels of gasoline around their property don't suffer from fuel shortages, but they tend to have problems with inhaling vapors, increase in cancer, and the occasional accidental fire. it's a joke analogy but i have to make it because the propaganda around guns is so deeply ingrained simple reason on the topic disappears
if you understand keeping dangeorus things around your living area might increase the danger to you, like barrels of gasoline, then maybe you can also understand the really simple concept that someone with a gun *may* be a hero in a crime situation, but is way way more likely to have an accident/ have a tragedy. the gun owner may kill his son sneaking in the window because he forgot his keys. is that more or less likely than stopping a crime? well, that's only one scenario, there are thousands more accidents and tragedies that can occur, all "acceptable" even though more likely, because so many morons think they live in a dirty harry movie
guns don't protect you. they increase the danger to you
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You really should read more than the headline... the study started by looking at households where a death had already happened and then asking if there were any firearms in the house and so largely ignores the rest of the homes where firearms exist safely and without killing anyone.
Correlation != causation.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Way to completely discount the rather significant # of defensive uses of firearms which appear to out number offensive uses: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/ar...
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
"Absolute obedience to centralized authorities"
Sort of like how you swear allegiance to the flag, constitution, and god?
just make having some hero worship and nothing else, much like every other self masturbatory article on that pretentious site
tl;dr; you and/or your family members are more likely to die if you have a gun in the house.
I do statistics for my day job, and have looked into the "gun ownership" statistics extensively.
What you are citing is narrowly chosen numbers to support one side of the issue. It's one of a vast sea of misleading statistics used to promote one side of the gun control issue. (And the other side does the same thing.)
To show the fallacy, note that this particular statistic can be applied to vaccinations. "You are more likely to die from an allergic response to than to actually get the disease".
Does this mean you shouldn't get vaccinated?
A better statistical view is to look at society as a whole, and all causes of death.
While having a gun may raise your family's chance of death, it *lowers* the chance of death for everyone in your neighborhood. Having someone who could grab a gun and come out onto the porch gives a measure of protection to the neighborhood. It encourages criminals to go elsewhere.
And that particular statistic you cited isn't about "likely to die", it's "likely to die by gunshot".
Even though the likelihood of "death by gunshot" goes up, the total likelihood of death goes *down* with gun ownership.
This is because "total likelihood of death" also takes into consideration things like reduction of lifestyle after being robbed. That $300 from your wallet has to be made up somehow, and the after-effects show up in things like reduced nutrition and health care.
None of this is obvious to the public because there's so much political wrangling on both sides.
But when you look at the total picture, the statics seem to show that gun ownership as a whole, for a society, seems to decrease the mortality rate.
And even if you do everything right most of the time - it still takes only one lapse for things to go bad, hence the emphasis on responsibility.
Exactly the attitude that led to arresting Ahmed.
the number of defensive uses of fire arms is way way smaller than the number of accidents and tragedies
that's the simple point
most people just want to steal your stuff. you have a big head about yourself if you think hannibal lecter is lurking around every corner (and that you and your trusty gun will stop a genius, or even a moronic serial killer, who has the element of surprise)
more likely, you turn a situation where you lose your tv, into a situation you escalate to mortal one, where you or someone dies oe is grievously injured. you're a perfect shot? your gun won't jam? you have the element of surprise? he has no accomplices? it is n't your jkid sneakin gin the window because he forgot his keys?
nevermind the simple fact that even if i had a gun, i'd rather just lay in bed and go "take the tv asswipe, leave me alone or i'll shoot you" because i don't want to deal with the red tape of a dead guy in my house, nevermind having to clean bits of brain matter off my living space, and have to redo the wallboard. better to just lose the tv and get the insurance money
but so many mouth breathing morons have a hard on with these dirty harry fantasies of stopping crime. it happens. it also happens orders of magnitude less than the accidents and tragedies. nevermind successfully killing a guy fucking sucks, just in terms of cleaning up that shit. which i would rather do less than lose a fucking tv
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
A friend of mine owns a large metal machine that powers itself by a series of small explosions. It can travel upwards of 100 MPH, and weighs over a ton. Similar machines have been responsible for well over a dozen of deaths already, yet he thinks nothing of riding it to work every day. The police have never questioned him about his giant metal death machine.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Your "I'm so much smarter than you" attitude makes me wish I could downmod you as a person rather than only downmod your posts.
guns don't protect you. they increase the danger to you
Mode up. We Europeans have learned it well. You do not need guns. Moreover, we have to think about the risks to society against risks to individuals. A citizen is killed by a criminal? Yes, it is a tragedy but a small one. It's vastly preferable to have an irrelevant number of civilians killed every year rather than liberalize firearms possession and imperil society. Europe is greater and more important than any individual. It is the duty of every European citizen to lay down their lives for Europe.
i'm not that smart and there's plenty in the world i don't know about
but on this topic, and to whom i am talking to, i am indeed more intelligent and knowledgeable
if you say my attitude doesn't help regardless, i'm not sure how coddling a propagandized moron helps either
if you say something stupid, i'm calling you stupid. if you don't like that approach i take, you are free to not read my comments
you don't have to like my attitude. i'm not a nice person. but you're not compelled to interact with me. so fuck off asswipe
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
His attitude is correct since I, a European citizen, agree with him. You should understand that as a European I'm smarter and way more learned and sophisticated than you could ever imagine. Shut up and let adults speak.
thank you
this australian makes a mockery of all the retarded american arguments about guns so well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
highly recommended watch. at least for americans who have to slog through so much propaganda and ignorance on this topic
someday we will have sane gun laws in the usa. stupidity can't reign forever
but it's a long hard slog uphill against a fierce wind of pure propaganda and ignorant shit
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
;-)
I mean, he was just a curious youth and his project was mostly harmless, right?
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
ah, i see, let's make it a joke. because tens of thousands of pointless deaths every year in the usa due to easy guns is a joke, not really a problem
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You have had countless IRA bombings in England, as well as car bombs and other events, as well as mass shootings (for instance, the 80 children killed at a Norwegian summer camp or the school shooting that compelled bob geldof to write the song "I don't like mondays" a few decades ago.
The us has a staggering number of 'suicide by gun shot' cases a year, which is matched almost exactly proportionately by an equally staggering number suicides in Europe by means other than gunshot. Suicide is as prevalent in Europe as it is in the US, the presence of more guns means suicidal people don't need to jump in front of a train, hang themselves in a closet, slash their wrists in tubs or take pills - they simply get a gun.
The lack of private gun ownership simply redirects 'the bad guys' to accomplish their goals without guns.
and profits. Ahmed is just a nasty little misogynist who does not like white women telling him what to do. How has that got anything to do with pranks between friends by talented geeks?
No. That attitude led to them investigating his device. This is appropriate if someone has a concern. Arresting him was some combination of pig headed stupidity, racism, and a "double down" attitude of the police.
Play Command HQ online
What's that quote about trading freedom for security again?
Seriously, though. How many terrorist attacks have there been in the US since 9/11? We've turned into a nation that jumps at our own shadow and that lets political leaders exploit our fears for their own gain. ("Only the TRX-9000 can stop airport terrorist attacks so we need to buy a million units. Nobody look to see the kickbacks I'm getting from sales of the TRX-9000." "If you vote for my opponent he'll let the terrorists kill your kids. You don't want the terrorists to kill your kids, do you? Vote for me.")
Freedom means that we'll always have some risk of terrorist attacks. When I go to the mall, what assurance do I have that some terrorist isn't walking in with a bomb? After all, I'm freely walking into the public location. Maybe we need TSA-level security at every mall entrance and exit. And at every public park. And at the entrance to each and every major city. (Have you and your completely searched to enter/exit a city.) And why stop at cities? Every town, building, and other location could have TSA-level security as well to "protect us from terrorists."
Sure, we won't be able to walk anywhere without presenting papers proving that we are good citizens, but destroying our freedom ourselves is a small price to pay for keeping terrorists from destroying our freedom, right?
(For the record, in case the AC thinks this is a great idea, that was massive sarcasm.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Tens of thousands of pointless deaths due to guns?
you should review the stats before saying such sh*t.
Yes. Long life the collective Comrade.
/sarc
Individual freedom. Individual Rights are meaningless.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Was the school evacuated?
Was the bomb squad called?
Did the student visit the Principal's office with the device?
Did he ride in police car with the device?
My son, who certainly appears white and has an innocuous whitish name, got suspended from middle school for making a "knife" out of Lego pieces. Ahmed's case does seem to have some additional factors, but I believe that boys are being demonized in traditional schools.
Note to those whose job it is to detect bombs and such things:
Real bombs do -not- have Big Red Numbers on them. That is just Hollywood fakery for movies. 8-)