This Is What a Real Bomb Looks Like

Looks like... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-21 07:53 · Score: 5, Funny

a clock to me

Re:Looks like... by jfdavis668 · 2015-09-21 08:26 · Score: 5, Funny

Looks like a classic Doctor Who villain to me.

Silly story... by Austerity+Empowers · 2015-09-21 08:01 · Score: 5, Insightful

Real bombs can look like anything. The ones that get the military right now look like anything from dolls to bits of debris by the side of the road. Telling people what bombs really look like is misleading. The limitations governing shape and size come primarily from the intended use: if you want to kill a few soldiers by tricking them, then you disguise the bomb to look like something innocent, hiding the trigger and explosives from view. If you want to blow up a big building at a certain time or on a certain command, then you're limited by the amount of explosive and whatever sort of elaborate trigger mechanism you want to ensure it doesn't get disarmed, can be safely transported to its deployment area, and can be activated by your favorite method. If you want to drop one from a plane, launch one from a missile, or drop one on a sub, you additionally have other problems...

Re:Silly story... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-21 08:24 · Score: 5, Interesting

I used to be a security officer and I had training on IED identification.
You're completely correct. And that's assuming you can see the thing in the first place. Sometimes the IED winds up under something. I heard of one case where a guy lost his leg kicking an IED that was hidden under a fried chicken bucket.
The only thing you can do is to look for something that has what appears to be the requisite components to be an explosive device.
What people don't realize is that the easy part is making a device that will explode, the hard thing is making it explode when you want it to.
Re:Silly story... by PolygamousRanchKid+ · 2015-09-21 08:37 · Score: 2

I was thinking more my romantic youth visions of a Roadrunner Wile E. Coyote bomb. It looks like a black bowling ball, with a big fuse sticking out of the top. On the side, in big white capital letters is written: "ACME BOMB".
As for the Klock Kid, he should have taken a cue from a Magritte painting, and written "Ceci n'est pas une bombe" on his clock. At least the French teacher in the high school might have been able to have figure out that is wasn't a bomb.
Maybe.

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Re:Silly story... by DaHat · 2015-09-21 08:37 · Score: 4, Insightful

Plain out-and-out racism and denying this kid his civil rights.
You have specific evidence that he was singled out because of his race? Or is that your own bias showing?
If so, why then so much less outrage & support for the kid who pointed a chicken finger at another student, or the pop-tart gun kid, or the kid who wrote a story about shooting a dinosaur? I don't think any of them got invited to the White House.

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Re: Silly story... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-21 08:52 · Score: 2, Interesting

And thousands of Black men were lynched, but only one resulted in a Supreme Court trial.
You want a world of equal results? Good luck.
Re:Silly story... by PopeRatzo · 2015-09-21 08:55 · Score: 4, Insightful

The only thing you can do is to look for something that has what appears to be the requisite components to be an explosive device.
I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure one of the "requisite components" of an explosive device is some fucking explosives.'

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You are welcome on my lawn.
Re:Silly story... by PopeRatzo · 2015-09-21 09:00 · Score: 3, Funny

At least the French teacher in the high school might have been able to have figure out that is wasn't a bomb.
It was Irving goddamn Texas for chrissake. You think they have a French teacher?
The closest thing they have to foreign language studies is sophomore Biology.

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You are welcome on my lawn.
Re:Silly story... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-21 09:06 · Score: 2, Interesting

I won't say for a second that authorities didn't overreact in each of those cases - there's an obvious lack of intelligence/discretion on the part of the schools/authorities. It's fantastically beyond how any reasonable person should have responded. That being said, in all those cases, the kids in trouble were imagining / play acting a fictional situation that, if true, would have been cause for alarm. Also, none of the kids demonstrated any level of ingenuity - they were just kids being kids.
In this current situation, the kid presented the clock as a clock, and insisted the whole way through that it was a clock. If he had brought it in, and pretended it was a bomb - then yes some reaction would have been warranted. Also, he was demonstrating an interest in learning, and demonstrated a level of technical proficiency in building a clock.
Re:Silly story... by Obfuscant · 2015-09-21 09:07 · Score: 3, Informative

The kid's circuit had no explosive and was plain to see it wasn't a bomb as a result.
What, specifically, does "explosive" look like? Or more important, what would you LIKE it to look like?
I mean, with C4 (looks like putty) you can mold it to have any shape you want and then paint it, or stuff it into a container. You can make it into a pencil box and then paint over it with a stiff epoxy paint to make it hold its shape.
Or nitroglycerine. It's a liquid. Looks like water. Put it in a water bottle. Put a little caramel coloring in it and put it in a Coke bottle. Dye it green and it's Mountain Dew!
Tannerite looks like a grey powder. I'm guessing you could put a little resin in with it and press it into any shape you want to, and paint it so it's not gray.
Nitrocellulose looks like, well, cellulose but it has a bunch of nitrate groups bonded to it. I had a few bottles of it when I was young, it looked just like shredded coconut. But I could dissolve it and turn it into something that looked like paper. Nitrostarches look like flour. "That's not a bomb, it's a bag of flour."
This Hackaday article is stupid. It is showing us what one particular bomb looked like. It can't show us what every bomb looks like, because there is no defining visible property that you can say "that's what a bomb looks like". Even this "plain to see" it has no explosive statement is just ridiculous.
Do you know what a Campbell's Soup Can looks like? Doesn't look like a bomb, does it? Well, slip a hand grenade with the pin pulled in one and it makes a dandy bomb. Kick the can, the grenade pops out, the handle flies off, and in a few seconds, boom! Is that an electrolytic capacitor there on that circuit board, or is it a small amount of explosive in a metal can? (Or is it both!)
How about a soda straw? No explosive there, right? Plain to see. Well, when I was TEN I was making time delay fuses out of soda straws and nitrocellulose. Absolutely trivial. You couldn't tell by looking it wasn't just a soda straw anymore.

Everyone treated the thing as "not a bomb" but treated the kid like a terrorist anyway.
Being a terrorist doesn't require actually having a bomb, all it takes is pretending. That's why bomb HOAXES are illegal, too.
Re:Silly story... by FranTaylor · 2015-09-21 09:09 · Score: 2

You have specific evidence that he was singled out because of his race?

My anecdotal evidence is that I did pretty much the same thing at the same age and nobody ever accused me of doing anything wrong.
I bought a clock kit from an ad in the back of popular electronics and put it in a radio shack case. I duct-taped the battery to the bottom. If anything my clock looked a lot more like a bomb than his did.
Re:Silly story... by amRadioHed · 2015-09-21 11:14 · Score: 4, Insightful

Sorry you're wrong. Leaving a suspicious looking object unattended is a completely different situation from carrying something around in your bag and telling people it's a clock when asked.

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Re:Silly story... by TsuruchiBrian · 2015-09-21 12:43 · Score: 2

You have specific evidence that he was singled out because of his race? Or is that your own bias showing?
Everyone is biased. So I am biased into thinking other people are biased, and that's probably a good thing.
You can call it bias, or just intuition. I think pretty much everyone had the same intuition that these teachers factored in Ahmed's race/religion/name/etc into their internal calculation of whether what he had was a bomb.
The courts can weigh the evidence. I think people are totally justified in having their own intuition and expressing their beliefs until the evidence is properly weighed.

If so, why then so much less outrage & support for the kid who pointed a chicken finger at another student [www.cbc.ca], or the pop-tart gun kid [huffingtonpost.com], or the kid who wrote a story about shooting a dinosaur [examiner.com]? I don't think any of them got invited to the White House.
Those are not the same. Those are instances of ridiculous zero tolerance policies gone amok. I don't think anyone involved in those incidents sensed a hint of danger. I don't doubt that some of these teachers really thought this clock was a bomb. But it's just very easy for everyone who is actually aware of typical biases to see how Ahmed was probably treated differently than if some nerdy white or asian kid had a bunch of electronics, and pointing out this double standard.

Not a real story by MobileTatsu-NJG · 2015-09-21 08:05 · Score: 5, Insightful

The PD didn't even think it looked like a bomb, that's why the school wasn't evacuated.

Yes, it's a neat story, but no there was zero reason to tie this into recent events.

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"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

Re:Not a real story by Iamthecheese · 2015-09-21 08:25 · Score: 4, Insightful

> you don't joke around about stuff like that. Ever. Fuck this paranoid bullshit. Until terrorism is a real actual problem that harms people as much as say, falling into pools accidentally there's no reason for this allergic reaction of a response.

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If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Re:Not a real story by ScentCone · 2015-09-21 08:37 · Score: 2

So, you're cool with someone deliberately putting a fake bomb on a bench in a shopping mall, no legal consequences? Please be specific. Are you also OK with waving unloaded guns in people's faces since, you know, they won't actually die, so who cares what they think?

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Re:Not a real story by R3d+M3rcury · 2015-09-21 10:52 · Score: 2

So, you're cool with someone deliberately putting a fake bomb on a bench in a shopping mall, no legal consequences?
Depends on who decided it was a bomb and who decided it was a fake bomb.
If I'm a jerk who makes a "fake bomb" (i.e., something that might look like a bomb to an uninformed person) for the express purpose of making people think it was a bomb, yeah, I certainly deserve the legal consequences of my act. However, if I happen to leave my backpack sitting under the bench and someone sees it and thinks it might be a bomb and calls the bomb squad and they examine it, discover it's not a bomb, and find my address inside the backpack, I'd appreciate it if they returned it to me. I shouldn't face legal consequences.
In short, I'm not responsible for your misinterpretations.
Re:Not a real story by bobbied · 2015-09-21 11:04 · Score: 2

Hmmm... And in Irving we had some kid's "clock" getting plugged in and going off in third period after his first period teacher says "Wow, nice. Some might think it looks like a bomb so put it away, don't show it to anybody, just take it home and don't bring it back to school." After which, this thing went off in English class. One would assume this boy knew it could/would go off when he plugged it in so IMHO it's likely this bright kid INTENDED it to disrupt English class, I know I would have loved to do that when I was his age. Hindsight says he didn't intend to do the Hoax Bomb thing, but how's the English teacher know that? She doesn't so she reported it per policy, and the process starts....
There is at least *some* justification for a bit of alarm on the part of the third period English teacher who reported it. The school administrator shows up, looks at the device and says (that sure looks like a hoax bomb) and at that point we where all victims of the process, regardless of what young 14 year old boy *says* he build or intended. The school has to run the "possible bomb hoax" process which goes something like, isolate the student, collect the device, and call the cops. Then the Cops have *their* procedures, "Bomb hoax complaint" with the Juvenile addendum which goes something like: Detain suspect, confiscate the device, Question suspect and witnesses, gather evidence and determine if a "bomb hoax" actually took place, then follow the evidence until you figure out what really happened. Which in this case was nothing so you release the suspect.
I'd like to remind everybody, before my karma get's tanked further on this topic, that we only have heard ONE side of this story from the boy's family. The Cops and the School both are prohibited by their policy from discussing the details of exactly what happened because it involves a minor. They have stated that they have additional information on this story that they'd like to release, but they need the family's permission to do so. So far, their requests for permission have not been even acknowledged by the press of the family.
IMHO this whole thing is being used as a PR campaign, not because anybody did anything actually wrong (including the kid) but because it advances a specific narrative...

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"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101

Re:Impossible to disarm? by medv4380 · 2015-09-21 08:06 · Score: 4, Informative

They tried that with a shaped charge of C4, but the few sticks of dynamite he put in it for just in case they tried that caused the TNT to explode.

How to handle by alvinrod · 2015-09-21 08:06 · Score: 4, Interesting

Since this is something that seems like it would be difficult to defuse or even work on, what would be the best way to handle the situation where it's found in a location like this? The linked article indicates that attempts to diffuse the bomb failed and it left a five-story crater in the building where it was located, which is probably less than ideal.

The only thing I can really think of would to try to build some kind of reinforced blast cage around it in order to minimize the amount of damage it can do or perhaps try to direct the explosion to minimize hard, much like a gun directs the force of a blast out of the barrel.

Also, would scanning it even be safe as what's to stop someone from building some kind of trigger that would respond to x-ray exposure? Even if there weren't such a trigger, could anyone even call that bluff?

Re:How to handle by medv4380 · 2015-09-21 08:17 · Score: 2

A large volume of Liquid Nitrogen might do the trick. I think the biggest problem with that would be the contraction of the metal before the explosive became stable might have caused the aluminum foil to complete the circuit and explode.
Re:How to handle by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-21 08:40 · Score: 2, Funny

> The linked article indicates that attempts to *diffuse* the bomb failed and it left a five-story crater in the building where it was located, which is probably less than ideal.
They diffused the bomb real good, and diffused half the Casino as well
The *defusing* part didn't go too well, though.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/diffuse
Re:How to handle by SuricouRaven · 2015-09-21 08:43 · Score: 2

X-ray triggers are exotic parts even today, and very hard to get in 1980. A bomber would have to go to some lengths to get hold of one, and it might be possible to track the purchase afterwards.
I can think of two possible ways to disarm it: The way they tried, or the liquid nitrogen mentioned below. TNT gets less sensitive when cooled - if you get it down to well below zero, it should inactivate or at least have a greatly reduced yield. At which point you use your low-tech rope set it off - hopefully resulting in a small explosion and a lot of scattered bomb parts.
He did miss an obvious sensor though: Light. A simple light sensor inside would be enough to trigger the bomb if someone did manage to open it, and would have been easy to include even with quite basic technology. He also had an obvious weakness in the split-container construction.
The biggest mistake of all though was in expecting the police to actually pay up - that never happens. Of course he'll get dodgy money - it'll be dummy, or contain timed dye packs, or be covered with some slow-developing dye that turns bright purple two days after exposure to oxygen, or printed on paper 10% too large, or some combination of the above. It wouldn't matter if he locked some kidnapped schoolchildren inside the bomb: There's no way he's getting that money. If you pulled the same thing today you could try asking for payment in bitcoin, but law enforcement would just stall for time while they 'get the coins' in order to have a shot at finding you - and they'd rather let the bomb go off than pay up. Even with a child locked inside.
As the shaped charge resulted in detonation, I expect he put the battery in the bottom half with all the explosives.
Re:How to handle by gman003 · 2015-09-21 08:55 · Score: 2

Since this is something that seems like it would be difficult to defuse or even work on, what would be the best way to handle the situation where it's found in a location like this? The linked article indicates that attempts to diffuse the bomb failed and it left a five-story crater in the building where it was located, which is probably less than ideal.
Step one: Protect people. Evacuate the entire blast radius. This was done.
Step two: Protect property. If the bomb can be moved, move it to a remote area and detonate it. A bomb is not 100% inert until it has exploded, because until then it has chemical potential energy. This was not possible.
If the bomb cannot be safely moved, attempt to render it safe to move. This was not possible.
If the bomb cannot be rendered safe to move, attempt to disrupt its mechanism. They attempted to do so with an explosive charge, but were thwarted by a trap they had no knowledge of or way to discover. Today it's often done with an anti-materiel sniper rifle, but in this case that would probably not be used. The only tool I can think of that *might* work is a high-pressure water cutter, but even that might not have worked.
Re:How to handle by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-21 09:10 · Score: 2, Informative

there was a toilet float attached to a switch to prevent a fluid fill, plus the foil, plus vibration switches, plus boobytrapped screws, plus decoy switches, plus shape charge defeating explosives in the detonator housing. McGuyver couldn't have stopped this one from happening.
Re:How to handle by Okian+Warrior · 2015-09-21 09:20 · Score: 4, Informative

X-ray triggers are exotic parts even today, and very hard to get in 1980. A bomber would have to go to some lengths to get hold of one, and it might be possible to track the purchase afterwards.
Just a footnote to what you said: Any semiconductor diode will detect X-rays, and bigger devices will have a larger capture aperture than smaller ones.
Just sawing the cap off of a transistor will work as a detector. A 2n2222 in metal case has a tiny aperture, but a 2N3055 power transistor has an aperture of about a square CM. I've personally used both as detectors.
As many people have found out, CCD camera arrays are sensitive to X-rays and can be used as detectors. The areas aren't much bigger than a power transistor, but the interface is usually trivial - just process the image and look for bright specs.
I don't disagree with your post at all. Making an X-ray detector would be a separate project and require some electronics expertise, and it seems that people who make bombs are largely ones who don't otherwise have marketable skills.
But if a STEM-educated bomber were to suddenly appear, it's not unreasonable for them to include an X-ray detector.
Re:How to handle by FranTaylor · 2015-09-21 09:27 · Score: 2

On my end i was thinking about something that would eat through the metal, thermite maybe, although i think its ignition is kinda hard?
liquid metal would complete the circuit and set off the explosive
Re:How to handle by FranTaylor · 2015-09-21 09:43 · Score: 3, Insightful

no deaths, no injuries, and one less casino. Sounds like a good deal to me.
Re:How to handle by sims+2 · 2015-09-21 10:25 · Score: 2

Why would you need to? With enough ln2 just make a box around it on the floor and fill that box it will either seep in or chill the internals down to ln2 temperature eventually. Less than a half hour I would think.
Although I still think the rapid change in temperature might cause enough pressure change to trip the atmospheric switch.

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Re:How to handle by Lehk228 · 2015-09-21 12:11 · Score: 2

thermite would make the trigger redundant and detonate the explosives directly.

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Snowden and Manning are heroes.

That's what one bomb looks like... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-21 08:06 · Score: 4, Insightful

If it weren't for the recent unpleasantness in Texas this article wouldn't have appeared here. I in no way condone this kid being hauled off to prison without more cause but let's not act like "that's not a bomb, this is a bomb" about it. These devices take all kinds of shapes, sizes and formats. Let's not let one example dismantle an entire range of possibilities. It's an unfortunate trait anymore, this idea that if our ideal vision of something doesn't fit the reality of it all then it's not worth considering the possibilities. This is why we get into endless (read: pointless) shouting matches about education, politics and many social constructs.

We're not going to rise from the quagmire we're in by thinking this way.

Re:Impossible to disarm? by chris200x9 · 2015-09-21 08:13 · Score: 2

They caused the TNT to explode by using C4, if they would have cut the wires instead of using explosives on a bomb it would have worked.

Re:More like....this by Tablizer · 2015-09-21 08:14 · Score: 5, Funny

No, more like:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi...

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Table-ized A.I.

Re:Impossible to disarm? by medv4380 · 2015-09-21 08:21 · Score: 5, Interesting

Cutting open the case to get to the wires would have cause the aluminum foil to complete the circuit. The only option was the cut open the case and the wires simultaneously. To do that required a shaped charge. This is the only detonator that the FBI has come accost that couldn't even be disarmed by its creator for a reason. The ransom was just for the switch code to disable the tilt switch so they could move it to a safe place to explode.

Ah, yes.. by ilumits · 2015-09-21 08:26 · Score: 3, Funny

It was disguised as an IBM copy machine in order to sneak it into the casino after hours.

..so that's what they look like.

They Never thought he had a bomb... by mrops · 2015-09-21 08:35 · Score: 4, Insightful

Read this somewhere, humor with a hint of truth (and I paraphrase):

Girl: They thought he had a bomb
Guy: No they didn't think he had a bomb
Girl: Yes they did
Guy:
They didn't evacuate the school like you would if he had a bomb.
They didn't call bomb squad like you would if he had a bomb.
They took pictures of the contraption which you wouldn't have time for if it was a bomb.
They put the contraption in a cop car which you wouldn't do if he had a bomb.

They didn't think it was a bomb.

Re:They Never thought he had a bomb... by Guspaz · 2015-09-21 08:37 · Score: 4, Insightful

They never claimed it was a bomb. They claimed it was a bomb hoax.
Re:They Never thought he had a bomb... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-21 08:43 · Score: 2, Informative

They couldn't admit that they were inbred redneck racists.
Re:They Never thought he had a bomb... by PopeRatzo · 2015-09-21 08:51 · Score: 3, Insightful

They never claimed it was a bomb. They claimed it was a bomb hoax.
They claimed it was a "bomb hoax" four hoursafter they arrested the kid and had examined the clock to discern it's arcane meaning.
They claimed it was a bomb hoax to try to cover their stupid cracker asses.

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You are welcome on my lawn.
Re:They Never thought he had a bomb... by Shadow+of+Eternity · 2015-09-21 09:37 · Score: 4, Insightful

So if this was because he was muslim then surely the dozens to hundreds of other kids arrested and expelled for things even more asinine, like chewing a poptart into the wrong shape, must have been because of their race too... right? I mean surely you aren't holding a double standard here only for your precious designated victim class...

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A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Re:They Never thought he had a bomb... by amicusNYCL · 2015-09-21 11:55 · Score: 3, Informative

They claimed it was a bomb hoax to try to cover their stupid cracker asses.
What a stupid cracker may look like.
By all means though, this story doesn't have nearly enough racism. Please continue to add more.

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"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Re:They Never thought he had a bomb... by TsuruchiBrian · 2015-09-21 12:19 · Score: 2

So if some people aren't racist, then nobody is racist?
Re:They Never thought he had a bomb... by PopeRatzo · 2015-09-21 12:43 · Score: 3, Informative

What a stupid cracker may look like
I guarantee that whoever that cop in the picture is, he wasn't the one deciding what kind of charges were to be brought against Ahmed.
Here is a picture of the police chief of Irving, Texas:
http://cdn5.img.sputniknews.co...
And here's a picture of him standing with his posse:
http://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm...
[note: Take a look at the faces in that photo. Now remember that Irving, Texas is 60% minority. Get the picture?]
Here is a picture of the mayor of Irving, Texas, who has been giving speeches about how Muslims are gonna take over the US legal system:
http://cdn3.freedomoutpost.com...
Yes, I stand by "stupid cracker". If you have a more apt term, I'm keen to hear it.

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You are welcome on my lawn.
Re:They Never thought he had a bomb... by TWX · 2015-09-21 13:04 · Score: 2

All teenagers have the capacity to be attention-whores, and it's worse when they're in an artificial environment that forces a whole bunch of people to interact with each other that would not have chosen to be around each other. The class-clown mouthing-off to the teacher is an attention whore. The football player that wears his letter-jacket with pride is an attention whore. The goth with her white Manic Panic foundation and dark cherry lipstick is an attention whore. The geek, with his shit that he figured out how to work with and brings it is not really any different than the rest.

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Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Re:They Never thought he had a bomb... by TWX · 2015-09-21 13:06 · Score: 2

Salim Abu Aziz: Do you know what this is?

Harry: I know what this is...

[Salim smiles]

Harry: This is an espresso machine.

[Salim frowns]

Harry: No, no wait. It's a snow cone maker.

[Salim approaches Harry]

Harry: Is it a water heater?

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Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Re:They Never thought he had a bomb... by Ol+Olsoc · 2015-09-21 13:50 · Score: 2

All teenagers have the capacity to be attention-whores, and it's worse when they're in an artificial environment that forces a whole bunch of people to interact with each other that would not have chosen to be around each other.

Odd you mention that. The same people who are all up in arms calling him an attention whore, are probably applauding the media whoring of that woman in Kentucky who won't sign gay marriage certificates, and now has been caught altering them - a definite crime.

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The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Re: They Never thought he had a bomb... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-21 17:01 · Score: 5, Funny

Maybe the clock was the source of the alarm... ;)
Re:They Never thought he had a bomb... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-09-21 20:25 · Score: 2, Insightful

"Cracker"? What the fuck year is this? Don't drag us back in time by promoting racism, and don't dismiss your fellow man because of your own bigotry.
You seem to think too many white people in a group should be called out. Or maybe that minorities (in this case a white person 40%) shouldn't be in position of power? Do you think all white people share the same mind so treating them like a group instead of individuals is justified?
Or do you think being Muslim = race and so that is why you brought racist terms to the table? Your words represent what educated people should fight against.
Re:They Never thought he had a bomb... by amicusNYCL · 2015-09-22 05:46 · Score: 2

Yes, I stand by "stupid cracker". If you have a more apt term, I'm keen to hear it.
How about literally any other term that doesn't make it sound like the race of the person is the real problem? Their racism might be the problem, but their race is not the problem. Maybe "racist" might be a better term than a racist term.
Am I seriously explaining this?

They claimed it was a bomb hoax to try to cover their racist asses.
Look at that, now it's a statement that you don't have to be racist to agree with.

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"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black

Sweet! by wardrich86 · 2015-09-21 08:42 · Score: 4, Informative

Damn Interesting has an awesome write-up all about this bomb. Definitely recommend this site for anybody interested. They've actually got a lot of really awesome articles there.

Confidence in your design by belthize · 2015-09-21 08:43 · Score: 3, Interesting

When I'm working around live wires I will frequently test the circuit, trip the breaker and then re-test the circuit just to be sure. And even after all that I still will occasionally brush wires to frame to make sure I haven't over looked something. I'll readily admit to a bit of irrationality where all that is concerned.

That said I can't imagine buttoning up all that Rube Goldberg contraption, transporting and then setting it to armed without a lot of trepidation that it would just go boom. Maybe the tilt mechanism got stuck in the contact position, maybe there was a short somewhere, maybe maybe maybe.

I'm really curious what his heart rate was the second he threw the switch. Did he have 100% confidence in the design or did he flinch.

Re:That's *A* Bomb by goodmanj · 2015-09-21 09:14 · Score: 2

That's the point: there's all kinds of bombs for all kinds of purposes, and very few of them look like this one, and none of them look like movie bombs.

This is a pretty cool bomb though, if you like bombs. Which you shouldn't.

Re:That's *A* Bomb by FranTaylor · 2015-09-21 09:17 · Score: 2

Good engineering is always interesting. The same technology could be used to create a server system that self-destructs if you try to open it.

Re:Impossible to disarm? by FranTaylor · 2015-09-21 09:25 · Score: 4, Informative

Couldn't they use a drill made of non-conductive material to drill into the case?

you didn't RTFA closely enough, the agents considered this but chips from the drilling process would have completed the circuit regardless of the drill's conductiveness.

Direct yes, contain no. Containment causes explosi by raymorris · 2015-09-21 09:59 · Score: 4, Insightful

> The only thing I can really think of would to try to build some kind of reinforced blast cage around it in order to minimize the amount of damage it can do or perhaps try to direct the explosion to minimize hard, much like a gun directs the force of a blast out of the barrel.

Directing the blast is certainly a reasonable approach. You can't really contain it. The container has to be maybe 1,000 times as big as the bomb, and very strong. So not feasible in most cases.

A great many explosives only explode BECAUSE they are confined. If you light a pile of gun powder in the open, you get fire. If you light the same quantity of gun powder inside of a container such as a cannon ball or gun, you get an explosion. The explosion occurs when the pressure gets high enough to burst open the containment.

Other explosives can self-confine - provided there is a significant quantity, the part in the middle is contained by the explosive around it, and that can start a chain reaction of pressure.

All that to say - if it were near an outside wall, assembling a vault around it to direct the energy through that wall would be the way to go. Maybe go ahead and cut a hole in the wall too.

Re:What everyone is missing... by imidan · 2015-09-21 11:10 · Score: 3, Funny

And no I've never heard of Timothy McBay. Is he the guy that makes all the shitty movies with the explosions in place of plot ?

What about Ted Stravinsky, the tunabomber?

Re:Impossible to disarm? by nuckfuts · 2015-09-21 21:58 · Score: 2

Not sure how far they would have got by drilling holes anyway, but perhaps a laser could have punched some holes without completing the sandwich circuit.

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