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Online Fame Distracts 9th-Grader Who Built That Clock Mistaken For A Bomb (washingtonpost.com)
An anonymous Slashdot reader writes: This week the Washington Post ran a long profile of Ahmed Mohamed, the 14-year-old boy whose home-made clock got him arrested after school officials and the local police mistook it for a bomb last summer. The Justice Department is currently investigating the incident -- while the school district is suing the Texas attorney general, and the boy's family is suing the school district. But Ahmed has just returned back to Texas, and spoke to the press -- including a local Fox news affiliate which later broadcast a commentary saying his family was obsessed with fame and plotted the arrest.
Over the last year Ahmed's read everything that appeared online about him, but never responds because he doesn't want to give in to anger. The Post writes that while some kids at school called him ISIS Boy, "Sympathetic crowdfunders raised $18,000 for his education. He visited the White House, the Google Science Fair and the president of his home country of Sudan (a wanted war criminal, but Mohamed said it would be rude not to accept the invitation)." Though he'd like to return to the U.S. someday for college, he's been living in Qatar, where a government organization paid for private schooling for him and his sister. But the Post says he still sometimes imagines what his life might've been like if the incident had never happened. "By now he could have invented something new -- not just a clock that only took him a few minutes to put together from parts in his family's garage, which was full of '90s-era electronics from when his uncle ran a chain called Beeper Warehouse."
Over the last year Ahmed's read everything that appeared online about him, but never responds because he doesn't want to give in to anger. The Post writes that while some kids at school called him ISIS Boy, "Sympathetic crowdfunders raised $18,000 for his education. He visited the White House, the Google Science Fair and the president of his home country of Sudan (a wanted war criminal, but Mohamed said it would be rude not to accept the invitation)." Though he'd like to return to the U.S. someday for college, he's been living in Qatar, where a government organization paid for private schooling for him and his sister. But the Post says he still sometimes imagines what his life might've been like if the incident had never happened. "By now he could have invented something new -- not just a clock that only took him a few minutes to put together from parts in his family's garage, which was full of '90s-era electronics from when his uncle ran a chain called Beeper Warehouse."
He took a click out of its casing and took it to school at the suggestion of his father, hoping to start a racial incident. They succeeded.
everywhere
By now he could have invented something new
Probably not.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
While repackaging a digital clock may not appear to take much in the way of technical skill to the minds of most of the highly technologically literate folks here at slashdot, truthfully even that is still something that most people would not necessarily think of ever trying to build, or at least not without following some instructions. However small the creative spark might seem here, I'd say that the term invention is still apt.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
And I bet you are a moron.
I can not believe you are all still perpetuating this ridiculous story. He didn't invent anything. He took apart a digital clock from Radio Shack and stuck it into a box. At best he took a normal alarm clock and turned it into a count down timer. You can give him credit for wanting to learn how digital timing circuits work, or how to hack a R/S clock for "other purposes", but you can not say he invented anything. Get real here, did I invent a Computer because I took some hardware and Linux and made a desktop system? Please stop trying to spin this story you are embarrassing yourselves. (I guess it's a slow news day)
Honestly, This is how bad it has become in the USA? This is considered invented?
That means the kids that actually learn Arduino programming and make sumo bots are Fucking Alien Technomancer Magicians!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
For background, answer these two questions with yes or no:
Q1: Can you think of an example of a poisonous snake?
Q2: Can you think of an example of a venomous snake?
Reading these two lines, many people have sudden insight that the words have different meanings. They 'kinda knew, but hadn't realized it yet. They may have read "poisonous" and "venomous" many times and not made the connection, simply because the words are so close in meaning. We almost never bother to look up the definitions, preferring to get the meanings from context.
In the same way, "invent" and "build" have closely related meanings, and it's entirely reasonable for a 14 year-old kid to say he "invented" something when he just takes some parts and puts them together. It's not an "original" invention, but the kid came up with an idea and built it.
It's perfectly reasonable for him to say he "invented" it.
It's also perfectly reasonable for the teacher to tell him to put it away, and perfectly reasonable for him to disobey at age 14, in class because as we all know school classes are BORING.
I'm really not getting all the hatred aimed at the kid here. People are measuring him with the ruler of adulthood, requiring his idea to be original and useful to be termed "invented", to be conversant with what's right and reasonable as an adult, and when he doesn't measure up he's completely villified.
I seriously don't get the rationale here.
But then, I'm not a liberal.
And I bet you are a moron.
You'd lose that bet.
Do you even know what a moron is?
So you mean the Internet has reacted in such a way that has blown his ordeal out of proportion and is now affecting his life far beyond what it should have because a bunch of assholes are over reacting ...
I'm pretty sure thats exactly what started this whole mess ...
Drop the damn subject and let the kid be, its over. It was a shitty mess and stupid on all those assholes at the school/police involved ... but within 6 months of being at a new school, without the Internet, his life would have been normal, even if that school was just on the other side of town. I'm not saying that it makes any of what happened to him OK ... but it would have been better for his life as a whole if thats what would have happened. 100% the publicity has done nothing actually useful for him other than turn him into a political puppet for the gain of someone else.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
wasn't it simpler in some aspects?
Can't get the genie back in the bottle, have to find some solemn place in the mountains - or something like that.
Will it work?
What was the stunt? Taking a non-bomb to school and waiting for the over-reaction from ignorant police? Seems the fix should be applied to the ignorant cops, not the child that taunted them. If the cops were competent, this would never have made the news. It would have been handled in a manner that didn't make a national event out of a clock.
Learn to love Alaska
When I first saw the circuit board, I was very impressed. The soldering job was quite good for an adult. It would be amazing for a mere 14 year old to pull off a soldering job of that caliber....
The circuit board coming from a commercial clock is much more realistic. A person smart enough to come up with a circuit for a board that big would be more intelligent than to call it merely an 'invention'.
Or Steve Jobs.
If "invented" means what he did with his original thing which was "stuffed some over the counter parts in a box". I "invented" lots of shit like that as a kid. Turns out tearing apart electronics is not only fun, but pretty easy. ...
However it is also not inventing and nothing this kid has done is worthy of news or praise.
It's spelled "Mormon".
Welcome to the internet. It's full of stuff that is intended to make you angry. Most kids don't learn this until they're much older.
Something like I can spend all my points to mod down a BS article like this one. If, I dunno, 3 others also go all in to mod down, the article is removed.
Tho moding down one like this would take away all the double fun arguing BOTH the 'not an invention' and the 'did it to get self-SWATed' sided.
It wasn't made to look like a bomb. At most, it was made to look like an idiot's conception of a bomb: A circuit board with scary glowing red clock display. Anyone who actually gave it three seconds of thought would realise that it's missing any form of explosive. Even the school officials knew it wasn't a bomb, because if they had thought it was a bomb they would have immediately confiscated the device, physically kept him away from it, evacuated the building and called in the bomb disposal experts. This is not what they did: A teacher confiscated the device, he was sent before the principle, and local law enforcement were summoned to question him. They then arrested him for instigating a bomb scare. At no point in the process did any individual actually believe the device to be a bomb. Everyone involved was just concerned that someone else might think it could be a bomb.
Ahmed is a genuine nerd, just as I was at his age. When I assembled and installed alarm systems from salvaged alarm parts I stated clearly and honestly that I had "built" them. To an electronics beginner even taking something apart and re-presenting it in a novel way gives great satisfaction. There is nothing fake-ass about any of it. It saddens me to read all these arbitrarily constructed harsh judgements here, which NONE of you would ever apply to your OWN children. At that age you have to compare the desire to handle and understand electronics to the act of doing nothing at all, watching television, or tunelessly strumming a guitar imagining you're a few songs away from screaming fame.
The totality of the response by the school was a surprise to the boy... who may have been aware that his project might stir some suspicion but the boy also honestly believed he could 'diffuse' such concerns with the power of his own words, and the simple fact that the truth was on his side. It was a small thing, and (maybe) fun to give a little push back to any alarm. The fact that his science teacher had seen and approved of the project underscores this.
Ahmed's father was another story. There was certainly a gleam in his eye as he participated in the project, knowing of the unique social forces and ugly escalating institutional response that was possible. Ahmed needs to come to the firm conclusion that his own father is an asshole. Please do not judge the kid for his father being an asshole.
If his father has not apologized to him at least privately, his father is a flaming asshole.
And some of the responses in this thread indicate the presence of flaming assholes as well.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
That link doesn't work, and also come on just reading the title makes me vomit in my mouth a little.
The school district legally can't go public with the information about the case because the kid is a minor. What information we have is from the family, and is heavily biased in their favor. If the family truly believed they were in the right, they would authorize the school to release all of the facts. That they refuse to do so tells you all you need to know.
It seems like the device he took to school basically looked like a bomb timer.
When you are looking for a bomb timer, everything looks like one. Even if deliberately designed to look like a bomb timer, when the police got there and determined that it wasn't, they should have left and told the school it was an administrative matter, not a criminal one. Then this whole thing would never have happened.
The police seem to only ever escalate a situation to an absurd level, and don't strive to diffuse the situation. That's the problem. Not the child that is implied here, was manipulated by his father into taking a "bomb" to school.
Learn to love Alaska
the only thing distinguishing it from a bomb is 10 seconds, and igniter, and a charge. wire the speaker to an igniter and place the charge inside the bomb casing that he had already built, now he has a time bomb
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
So, if the school only called the cops to make it seem like an important matter, why did the police arrest him? If it was so obviously a hoax designed to gain attention, why did the authorities indulge him?
Learn to love Alaska
"a clock that only took him a few minutes to put together from parts inside a Radio Shack Clock " Fixed That For You.
Right - so convinced were the teachers and school administrators and police that:
The teacher picked up the bomb and walked with it to the office,
The administrators stood around the bomb and never evacuated the building,
The police never sent the bomb squad to the school,
just like happens everytime a suspected bomb is found in a school building.
Ahmed was arrested because he refused to answer any questions about either his 'invention' or his intentions until the police took him in to custody.
BTW, it's kind of interesting to note we're what, a year out and STILL the Dept. of Justice is still 'investigating' this case... What's the hold-up? They are only investigating an event that transpired over the course of 4 or 6 hours - how long can it take?
He wasn't arrested' he was taken in for questioning, since he refused to answer questions at school. There isn't one action that Ahmed did that morning that was intended to resolve the issue, at every opportunity he choose to act in a manner that made his situation worse.
Would it surprise you to learn that Ahmed was in a program at MacArthur High School intended to help at-risk students get a chance at going to college? He wasn't gifted, he was a borderline student that needed help to get ready for college.
What you point out in saying what you are is that it's missing all the parts that make it a bomb and not a clock which is exactly my point.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
I take it you're in favor of firing all the faculty and administration officials involved, then, for keeping children in the same building (heck, the same classroom) as a probable bomb.
Either it looked like a bomb, and the school officials acted extremely foolishly, or it didn't, and the school officials acted extremely badly. Pick one.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
In which case the teachers and administration at the school should be fired for keeping children in the same building as a possible bomb.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
He wasn't arrested'
He was taken away in handcuffs, fingerprinted, and put in a cell. He was never charged, but he was arrested.
he refused to answer questions at school.
He asked for his parents to be present, and didn't sign the confession to a crime he was given to sign. That's being uncooperative. Even though the school and police were violating his rights.
Would it surprise you to learn that Ahmed was in a program at MacArthur High School
I know two ex-principals of that school and am much more familiar with it than you are. The background of this has nothing to do with how poorly the school and police handled it.
Learn to love Alaska
Taking a non-bomb to school and waiting for the over-reaction from ignorant police?
No, he made a really crappy bomb hoax, and got punished for it. No one believed it was a bomb. They believed Ahmed wanted them to believe it was a bomb.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.