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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
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!
His accomplishment was repackaging a clock using a box of his own design. To me, this is more creative than simply soldering a kit off eBay. It's also an accidental flavour of what made Jobs great: he identified someone else's decent electronics and repackaged it in a way that caught the attention of the world!
Since clocks were invented thousands of years ago, and digital clocks decades ago, it is up to you to not deliberately misinterpret the word "invent" just to start a pathetic Internet argument with a 14 year old boy who can't even answer back. He "invented" it in the simple sense that he designed and built a style of clock packaging that did not exist before. Similarly, the original creator of the innards did not "invent" the digital clock - merely lay out a familiar design. His invention was that design.
Now, this previously non-celebrity non-English-professor child could have chosen words that were harder to deliberately misinterpret, to deal with people like yourself who would surely come out with the perfect choice of language. The availability of pictures demonstrates that he did not want to mislead, though, so who cares?
You seem salty about the fact that he got (I wouldn't say "earned") a visit to the WH and MIT. You do realise that he wasn't invited because of his accomplishment, but as a message to encourage people to carry on tinkering even in the face of authoritarian dullards? Sometimes people enter the limelight, even if only for a few days, not because of what they did, but because of what was done to them. Unless you're an eternally bitter sort, there's no need for this to bother you so.
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!"
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.
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
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
Exactly this. Let's say that Ahmed's story ended with his arrest and release. No White House invite or national social media attention. Let's also say that his clock project wasn't even that impressive. He had shown interest in taking things apart, seeing how they work, and putting them back together again. That's at least the first step towards actually building something himself.
Post-arrest, however, he would be reluctant to do this again. Taking things apart and seeing how they work could be associated in his mind with getting in serious trouble so he might think it's better to just buy everything his needs pre-packaged and stop trying to figure out how things work. This wouldn't be a good outcome. Maybe he'll never be a great engineer. Maybe he'll never even be a mediocre one. However, he deserves the chance to test out the limits of his abilities without some school administrators and police freaking out because "wires equals Hollywood-style bomb so this must be dangerous."
Moreover, once his story DID get massive attention, how many kids would have been discouraged from exploring simply because they knew Ahmed got in trouble? Better to end his story on a positive note (trip to the White House/NASA/etc) than on a negative note (hauled off to jail for building a "bomb"). The response to his story isn't a reaction to his skill but to his potential and to the negative reaction to someone who had been exploring on his own.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.