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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."
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!
The story that he was arrested for bringing a repackaged clock into school, because clocks in custom packaging are like movie bombs to the idiot Hollywood generation?
Or that he lacked the hindsight to design a clock from discrete components in anticipation of global media attention, all to avoid strawmen such as that provided by the idiot article writer?
FWIW I'm a casual electronics geek and I'm shit at building neat boxes. This has always frustrated me, and while it was immediately obvious from the photos that he had just re-used the innards from an old clock, I admired that this young kid was thinking more about the usability and elegance of the finished product than I seem able to. But now have I learnt that my shortcoming is a virtue: any small box containing electronics that doesn't look like an iPad or an iPhone should be regarded as probably the work of a bomber or hoaxer.
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
What was Ahmed's 'accomplishment'?
If Ahmed had taken the clock apart, organized the parts on a tri-fold poster board and could explain what each part did, that would be an accomplishment worthy of showing off - but that's not what he did, he claimed he 'invented' the clock.
If he bought a clock kit off eBay, soldered it together and it worked that would be an accomplishment worthy of showing off - but that's not what he did, he took a working clock and wound up with a working clock!
The only skill evidenced by Ahmed's 'invention' was his application of that engineering reminder - "Righty Tighty, Lefty Loosey" and earned himself a visit to MIT and the White House.
Ken
why does the fact you're not impressed by his tinkering more important than a kid getting railroaded by moronic police and school admins?
your priorities are... stupid. sorry, but that's really the best word for what you think is the important issue here
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So, a kid repackages a clock to look like .... a clock. The kid tells anyone who asks that it's a clock. The police believe it is a clock. The whole "prop bomb" idea was invented whole cloth by the police.
What you are accusing the kid of is pure thought crime.
Who cares? It was a clock. He did not display the clock in any manner that would suggest that it was a bomb.
Perhaps the police and school were being trolled. But like the truism "you can't con an honest man", it's clear that the actions of the police were not motivated by rational thought. Instead, they were most likely motivated by racism. Racism that this device demonstrated most effectively.
What this kid built (perhaps deliberately, perhaps inadvertantly) was a racism detector. Perhaps you would advocate a law against "racism detectors"?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!