A hoax bomb that looks fake, looks hollywood, is still a hoax. There is no requirement to look completely realistic. A hoax bomb is a prank that goes "too far" and moves from a school issue to a legal issue. A real bomb threat and a hoax bomb are too very different things and both illegal. It was not unreasonable for the police to determine whether it was a hoax or just an unfortunate resemblance. And the police determined it was an unfortunate resemblance. The kid was told not to show it to people by a teacher but he kept doing so, was he trying to get a reaction? That was a perfectly reasonable thing for the police to figure out.
The correct response from the teacher would have been give that to me you can get it back at the end of the day or make the parents pick it up.
Agreed, and the first teacher he showed it to in fact told him to put it away and don't show anyone. Another reasonable coarse of action. Unfortunately the kid did not follow these instructions and kept showing it around. However once one person thinks its a hoax bomb we move from a school matter to a police matter. Did he fail to follow instructions because he was hoping for a reaction? That is a very reasonable thing for the police to determine.
Police should never question a child without a parent or attorney. Booking etc fine but a child can not reasonably waive their rights to an attorney / have not reached the majority to be able to waive their rights.
That may only be true if you intend to prosecute. If you just plan to yell at the kid and have a "what the f' were you thinking moment" before handing the kid over to his parents then it would not seem necessary to wait for legal representation.
There are risks in everything, but it is a safe bet you would change your tune if it was your child facing malaria.
Yes, but does desperation lead to good decision making? Desperation is what faith healers rely upon. Desperation is what the traditional healer that inadvertently helped spread ebola relied upon.
Also science is not *just* about the measurable (i.e. the empirical), it also involves the theoretical and philosophical.
No, its not that simple. A key part of science is being able to test theories. Make predictions, make observations (measurements), determine if the predictions hold, etc. Untestable theories, things that can not be measured are of little interest to science, for example the existence of god and what god's intentions and expectations are. Note that the unobservable is not necessarily unmeasurable, things can be measured by their effect, ex. dark matter's gravitational effect.
In fact the guiding philosophy of nearly every religion is antithetical to the guiding philosophy of science.
That is a historically ignorant statement. Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, etc had no conflict with science. Their knowledge may have been limited, their interpretations of observations wrong, but they had a curiosity and a desire to understand their world. The modern scientific method evolved and was formalized out of their limited but improving efforts.
If there was no intent on the kid's part then it was not a hoax.
That is why the kid was not charged. But the lack of intent, the lack of a hoax, was not determined until after investigation. Prior to that investigation it was a legitimate suspect hoax bomb. That is why the detention and questioning were legal.
Also have you ever seen a bomb?
Yes, improvised and military. Assisted the EOD guy using the later to destroy the former.
It looks nothing like a real bomb.
A hoax bomb does not have to be very convincing, Woz's was a box that ticked. And some real improvised devices have detonators made from ordinary consumer electronics. So the "its just clock parts" is a pretty uninformed argument.
Ah, the "it's the turtles all the way down" defence. Nicely done.
It is kind of amusing that various mythological descriptions of the origin or end of the universe match some of the various scientific hypothesis. However the fact remains that many world class scientists think the multiverse hypothesis is worth pursuing. Apologies if science is perhaps finding an explanation for philosophical questions like what existed before time began, before the universe was created.
"Supporters of one of the multiverse hypotheses include Stephen Hawking, Brian Greene, Max Tegmark, Alan Guth, Andrei Linde, Michio Kaku, David Deutsch, Leonard Susskind, Raj Pathria, Alexander Vilenkin, Laura Mersini-Houghton, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Sean Carroll." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Steve Wozniak built a box that ticked, and then ticked faster when moved, and brought it to his high school. He was arrested and questioned by police for having a hoax bomb.
But students were never arrested for bringing toys to school. That's just stupid.
Steve Wozniak was arrested and questioned for bringing a hoax bomb to school in liberal california. He made a box that ticked, and ticked faster when it was moved. So yes, students have gotten into trouble for this sort of nonsense. And Woz's incident was in the 1960s. Now jump to 2015 with its zero tolerance for anything resembling a weapon, an era where kids get into trouble for pointing fingers at each other.
Some bishop interpreting the old testament came to that conclusion, [...]
James Ussher gets a lot of crap for this, and I think it's quite unfair. He didn't just use the Hebrew sacred texts, he actually used all ancient texts at his disposal, such as Greek mythological texts, and found that they all stopped at around the same point. When you consider the constraints that he was working with, this is actually quite a scientific approach. Moreover, 4000 BCE is probably close to the limit of human cultural memory, given that writing wasn't developed until about 3000 BCE.
Ussher was neither the first nor the last person to try this and come up with a similar figure. We probably wouldn't remember Ussher's chronology today if it weren't for some idiot adding it to annotations in the King James Bible.
The problem is not the historical post-genesis chronology. The problem is the literal interpretation of a "day" in genesis as a 24 hour period. That is the critical flaw. Saying that about 6,000 years ago a homo sapiens sapiens named Adam was the first given a "soul" and thus became the first "true man" and things get quite a bit less controversial. Then we're squabbling about 200,000 vs 6,000 years with respect to common ancestors of modern humanity. A bit of an improvement over 13 billion vs 6,000 years.
And Lemaître was horrified when people would associate his religion with the science he did.
Well, yes, because some of the great "scientific" minds of the day were rejecting his theory because he was a priest, because his theory "smelled of creationism" as one eminent man of science, a leader in the field, had said. He knew that the closed minded existed in both the religious and non-religious camps, that personal politics is heavily involved in science.
What kind of a bad ass do you have to be to get the MOH twice?!? Did he single handedly kill Hitler?
Its a matter of luck, bad and good. Bad luck to be in a situation where the award of a Medal of Honor is appropriate. This happens far more often than such awards suggest. Good luck in the sense that two people witnessed your actions, and that they survived. Many MOH recipients accept the award in memory of those whose actions were as brave or braver than theirs but were never reported or properly witnessed.
There are far more heroes that are unknown rather than known.
Because it happened to Woz does not mean it was right. This device had no obvious explosive to be a hoax.
Neither did Woz's. The argument is not that it was "right". The argument is that this is a long standing type of occurrence, one that does not involve racism and islamophobia. Keep in mind Woz's incident was in the 60s, now in 2015 with US school's zero tolerance towards anything resembling a weapon, including kids pointing fingers at each other, things get even weirder. Something **resembling** a bomb component more likely to cause a reaction.
And again, one the police are notified there is nothing weird about them talking to the kid for hours to determine if it was a prank or an accidental unfortunate resemblance. If the kid disregarded the first teacher who told him not to show it to anyone because, well, disregarding adults is something kids do, or if he was determined to get a reaction out of someone. And upon determining that it was all accidental it ends there. Well the legal stuff, not the media circus that misrepresents it all.
...and yet nothing was needed to start god. curious that.
God preexists this universe because he moved in from a parental universe that spawned the current universe, various multiverse theories and such. See, no conflict with science.:-)
"As for atheists, many are "believers" just like christians"
Lack of belief is not belief.
Atheists with a more agnostic disposition don't seem to be the topic. Atheists who offer a firm "there is no god" position are. They are believers.
... it wasn't a unicorn in the sense of those that claimed to have seen one on earth.
Well someone may have seen one on earth in the sense that they misinterpreted fossilized remains. Fossils are believed to have contributed to many mythological creatures. Even modern paleontologists have misidentified remains and put together a creature using fossils from two different species that were coincidentally found together. Some such composites sat in museums unchallenged for decades.
Disassembled clock parts wire together in an adhoc fashion and found in an ordinary box unrelated to time keeping looks like the detonator to an IED.
Until you pull your head out of your ass and ask where the explosive is that the wires are hooked up to. Guess you didn't make it that far.
Actually you're the one falling a little short with respect to thinking things through. A hoax does not require identifying all components, and a resemblance is sufficient. Again, Wozniak had a box that ticked, no fake explosives visible. What we do have is a kid told not to show it to anyone else yet kept doing so. Its reasonable to wonder why and what reaction he was hoping for. A childish joke is one possibility. As is disregarding instructions and an unfortunately coincidental resemblance. You know what determines which is the case, an investigation.
Now consider the current state of public education in the US with its zero tolerance policy of anything remotely resembling a "weapon". Kids getting in trouble pointing their fingers at one another. Again, it is you whose thinking is stopping a bit short.
"Disassembled clock parts wire together in an adhoc fashion and found in an ordinary box unrelated to time keeping looks like the detonator to an IED."
Or it looks like some shit a 14 year old might throw together, being unlikely to have training in bomb creation and access to the explosives required to make that little box dangerous. It depends if you have a basic grasp of Occams Razor and a rational thought process,or watch a lot of Fox news and believe Muslims are the latest scourge of ne'er do wells looking to kill whitey and rape his woman.
The same can be said for Wozniak's hoax. Yet a white kid in the 60s had to spend some time explaining things to the police too. For a box that ticked, with no visible fake explosives. Now move the clock forward to 2015 with its zero tolerance against anything resembling a "weapon", where kids are disciplined for pointing fingers at each other. Racism and Islamophobia are not necessary to explain events, standard policy and a historical track record explain things quite nicely. A fan of Occams Razor should realize this.
If recognized as a hoax there would be no reason to evacuate, yet as a hoax there is still a legal violation.
Or if recognized as the Easter Bunny. There was no hoax. If Ahmed had made the slightest crack about it being a bomb, you would have been hearing about that from Day 1. That didn't happen.
Cracks about a bomb are not required, resemblance is sufficient. He was told not to show it to people by one teacher yet he kept doing so. Whether a hoax or not is something determined through investigation, by determining if there was "intent". This is something the police do every day. And sometimes there is no intent, no crime, just unfortunate coincidences and people are free to go uncharged. Happens every day.
10 PRINT "Which is how we know he didn't do that, what with him not being charged with doing that and all."
"As for whether what this kid did was a hoax bomb"
20 GOTO 10
Line 10 contains a logic error. People knew the kid did not bring a real bomb based on observations. However people did not know whether he brought a hoax bomb until AFTER he was questioned and it was determined to be an unfortunate accidental resemblance. Its appropriate for the police to do such questioning. To investigate whether an element of a crime, intent, exists.
If anyone thinks that parts from a consumer device are obviously not a threat, go find an Iraqi/Afghan vet and ask them what sort of parts detonators of improvised explosive devices are sometimes made from.
Until they ask you where the explosive is that the wires are hooked up to, and after that, when they ask you what kind of moron you are.
A hoax bomb is also illegal, so even if it is recognized as a hoax there is still a legal problem and spending some time with police answering questions is a thing that often follows. Its reasonable for police to determine if there was an intention hoax or an unfortunate accidental resemblance. Steve Wozniak, cofounder of Apple Computer, spent some time answer such questions when he brought a box to school that made ticking noises.
Considering that an alarm based timer is fsking trivial yea, the device lacked anything that looked like an explosive, the most dangerous part was the exposed mains.
Keep in mind that a hoax bomb is something illegal to bring to school. Even if recognized as a hoax it is reasonable to the police talk to the kid to determine if it was an intention hoax or an unfortunate accidental resemblance. Even if the "explosives" are missing there is the question of whether a kid who brought one major component had brought two. And once again I'll add, Steve Wozniak, cofounder of Apple Computer, spent a few hour with police when he brought a box that ticked to his high school. This sort of zero tolerance stuff has been happening for quite some time.
"If anyone thinks that parts from a consumer device are obviously not a threat, go find an Iraqi/Afghan vet and ask them what sort of parts detonators of improvised explosive devices are sometimes made from. "
Nobody thinks that. We think that 14 year old boys bringing in clocks that they have torn apart and rebuilt in a new case for science class are not a threat, even if they might be Muslim!
Its not a Muslim thing. Your logic could also be applied to a situation where a white teenage high school student of the 1960s brings a box that ticks to school. Yet that white teenage student had to spend a few hours with the police too. The student's name was Steve Wozniak, later co-founder of Apple Computer.
Again, its illegal to bring a hoax bomb to school. Even if something is recognized as a hoax there is still a violation of the law. Taking someone down to the police station to find out if it was an intentional hoax or an unfortunate accidental resemblance is something that has happened without race or religion being a factor. Note that one teacher told him to not show it to anyone, yet he continued doing so. Its perfectly reasonable to wonder if he continued to do so because he was playing a joke or something.
If recognized as a hoax there would be no reason to evacuate, yet as a hoax there is still a legal violation. The police could still become involved to determine if it was an intentional hoax or an unfortunate and accidental resemblance. Given that there were no charges it seems unfortunate resemblance was the result of the investigation. Keep in mind that people are also taken to the police station as part of an investigation.
Slashdot Mirror
A hoax bomb that looks fake, looks hollywood, is still a hoax. There is no requirement to look completely realistic. A hoax bomb is a prank that goes "too far" and moves from a school issue to a legal issue. A real bomb threat and a hoax bomb are too very different things and both illegal. It was not unreasonable for the police to determine whether it was a hoax or just an unfortunate resemblance. And the police determined it was an unfortunate resemblance. The kid was told not to show it to people by a teacher but he kept doing so, was he trying to get a reaction? That was a perfectly reasonable thing for the police to figure out.
The correct response from the teacher would have been give that to me you can get it back at the end of the day or make the parents pick it up.
Agreed, and the first teacher he showed it to in fact told him to put it away and don't show anyone. Another reasonable coarse of action. Unfortunately the kid did not follow these instructions and kept showing it around. However once one person thinks its a hoax bomb we move from a school matter to a police matter. Did he fail to follow instructions because he was hoping for a reaction? That is a very reasonable thing for the police to determine.
Police should never question a child without a parent or attorney. Booking etc fine but a child can not reasonably waive their rights to an attorney / have not reached the majority to be able to waive their rights.
That may only be true if you intend to prosecute. If you just plan to yell at the kid and have a "what the f' were you thinking moment" before handing the kid over to his parents then it would not seem necessary to wait for legal representation.
Why the hell would the police need to be involved to figure out if a kid was looking for trouble?
Because a hoax bomb is a criminal issue, not a school regulations issue.
There are risks in everything, but it is a safe bet you would change your tune if it was your child facing malaria.
Yes, but does desperation lead to good decision making? Desperation is what faith healers rely upon. Desperation is what the traditional healer that inadvertently helped spread ebola relied upon.
I suspect that the Texas schools that tend to do better with science tend to do better with history too.
Also science is not *just* about the measurable (i.e. the empirical), it also involves the theoretical and philosophical.
No, its not that simple. A key part of science is being able to test theories. Make predictions, make observations (measurements), determine if the predictions hold, etc. Untestable theories, things that can not be measured are of little interest to science, for example the existence of god and what god's intentions and expectations are. Note that the unobservable is not necessarily unmeasurable, things can be measured by their effect, ex. dark matter's gravitational effect.
In fact the guiding philosophy of nearly every religion is antithetical to the guiding philosophy of science.
That is a historically ignorant statement. Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, etc had no conflict with science. Their knowledge may have been limited, their interpretations of observations wrong, but they had a curiosity and a desire to understand their world. The modern scientific method evolved and was formalized out of their limited but improving efforts.
If there was no intent on the kid's part then it was not a hoax.
That is why the kid was not charged. But the lack of intent, the lack of a hoax, was not determined until after investigation. Prior to that investigation it was a legitimate suspect hoax bomb. That is why the detention and questioning were legal.
Also have you ever seen a bomb?
Yes, improvised and military. Assisted the EOD guy using the later to destroy the former.
It looks nothing like a real bomb.
A hoax bomb does not have to be very convincing, Woz's was a box that ticked. And some real improvised devices have detonators made from ordinary consumer electronics. So the "its just clock parts" is a pretty uninformed argument.
Ah, the "it's the turtles all the way down" defence. Nicely done.
It is kind of amusing that various mythological descriptions of the origin or end of the universe match some of the various scientific hypothesis. However the fact remains that many world class scientists think the multiverse hypothesis is worth pursuing. Apologies if science is perhaps finding an explanation for philosophical questions like what existed before time began, before the universe was created.
"Supporters of one of the multiverse hypotheses include Stephen Hawking, Brian Greene, Max Tegmark, Alan Guth, Andrei Linde, Michio Kaku, David Deutsch, Leonard Susskind, Raj Pathria, Alexander Vilenkin, Laura Mersini-Houghton, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Sean Carroll."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Steve Wozniak built a box that ticked, and then ticked faster when moved, and brought it to his high school. He was arrested and questioned by police for having a hoax bomb.
But students were never arrested for bringing toys to school. That's just stupid.
Steve Wozniak was arrested and questioned for bringing a hoax bomb to school in liberal california. He made a box that ticked, and ticked faster when it was moved. So yes, students have gotten into trouble for this sort of nonsense. And Woz's incident was in the 1960s. Now jump to 2015 with its zero tolerance for anything resembling a weapon, an era where kids get into trouble for pointing fingers at each other.
The orthogonal fields being reality and bullshit.
No. The measurable and the philosophical. Your dogma is interfering with your understanding, you are so amusingly like some fundamentalist christians.
Some bishop interpreting the old testament came to that conclusion, [...]
James Ussher gets a lot of crap for this, and I think it's quite unfair. He didn't just use the Hebrew sacred texts, he actually used all ancient texts at his disposal, such as Greek mythological texts, and found that they all stopped at around the same point. When you consider the constraints that he was working with, this is actually quite a scientific approach. Moreover, 4000 BCE is probably close to the limit of human cultural memory, given that writing wasn't developed until about 3000 BCE.
Ussher was neither the first nor the last person to try this and come up with a similar figure. We probably wouldn't remember Ussher's chronology today if it weren't for some idiot adding it to annotations in the King James Bible.
The problem is not the historical post-genesis chronology. The problem is the literal interpretation of a "day" in genesis as a 24 hour period. That is the critical flaw. Saying that about 6,000 years ago a homo sapiens sapiens named Adam was the first given a "soul" and thus became the first "true man" and things get quite a bit less controversial. Then we're squabbling about 200,000 vs 6,000 years with respect to common ancestors of modern humanity. A bit of an improvement over 13 billion vs 6,000 years.
And Lemaître was horrified when people would associate his religion with the science he did.
Well, yes, because some of the great "scientific" minds of the day were rejecting his theory because he was a priest, because his theory "smelled of creationism" as one eminent man of science, a leader in the field, had said. He knew that the closed minded existed in both the religious and non-religious camps, that personal politics is heavily involved in science.
What kind of a bad ass do you have to be to get the MOH twice?!? Did he single handedly kill Hitler?
Its a matter of luck, bad and good. Bad luck to be in a situation where the award of a Medal of Honor is appropriate. This happens far more often than such awards suggest. Good luck in the sense that two people witnessed your actions, and that they survived. Many MOH recipients accept the award in memory of those whose actions were as brave or braver than theirs but were never reported or properly witnessed.
There are far more heroes that are unknown rather than known.
Because it happened to Woz does not mean it was right. This device had no obvious explosive to be a hoax.
Neither did Woz's. The argument is not that it was "right". The argument is that this is a long standing type of occurrence, one that does not involve racism and islamophobia. Keep in mind Woz's incident was in the 60s, now in 2015 with US school's zero tolerance towards anything resembling a weapon, including kids pointing fingers at each other, things get even weirder. Something **resembling** a bomb component more likely to cause a reaction.
And again, one the police are notified there is nothing weird about them talking to the kid for hours to determine if it was a prank or an accidental unfortunate resemblance. If the kid disregarded the first teacher who told him not to show it to anyone because, well, disregarding adults is something kids do, or if he was determined to get a reaction out of someone. And upon determining that it was all accidental it ends there. Well the legal stuff, not the media circus that misrepresents it all.
...and yet nothing was needed to start god. curious that.
God preexists this universe because he moved in from a parental universe that spawned the current universe, various multiverse theories and such. See, no conflict with science. :-)
"As for atheists, many are "believers" just like christians"
Lack of belief is not belief.
Atheists with a more agnostic disposition don't seem to be the topic. Atheists who offer a firm "there is no god" position are. They are believers.
... it wasn't a unicorn in the sense of those that claimed to have seen one on earth.
Well someone may have seen one on earth in the sense that they misinterpreted fossilized remains. Fossils are believed to have contributed to many mythological creatures. Even modern paleontologists have misidentified remains and put together a creature using fossils from two different species that were coincidentally found together. Some such composites sat in museums unchallenged for decades.
Until you pull your head out of your ass and ask where the explosive is that the wires are hooked up to. Guess you didn't make it that far.
Actually you're the one falling a little short with respect to thinking things through. A hoax does not require identifying all components, and a resemblance is sufficient. Again, Wozniak had a box that ticked, no fake explosives visible. What we do have is a kid told not to show it to anyone else yet kept doing so. Its reasonable to wonder why and what reaction he was hoping for. A childish joke is one possibility. As is disregarding instructions and an unfortunately coincidental resemblance. You know what determines which is the case, an investigation.
Now consider the current state of public education in the US with its zero tolerance policy of anything remotely resembling a "weapon". Kids getting in trouble pointing their fingers at one another. Again, it is you whose thinking is stopping a bit short.
Apologies for accidentally responding AC
Or it looks like some shit a 14 year old might throw together, being unlikely to have training in bomb creation and access to the explosives required to make that little box dangerous. It depends if you have a basic grasp of Occams Razor and a rational thought process,or watch a lot of Fox news and believe Muslims are the latest scourge of ne'er do wells looking to kill whitey and rape his woman.
The same can be said for Wozniak's hoax. Yet a white kid in the 60s had to spend some time explaining things to the police too. For a box that ticked, with no visible fake explosives. Now move the clock forward to 2015 with its zero tolerance against anything resembling a "weapon", where kids are disciplined for pointing fingers at each other. Racism and Islamophobia are not necessary to explain events, standard policy and a historical track record explain things quite nicely. A fan of Occams Razor should realize this.
Or if recognized as the Easter Bunny. There was no hoax. If Ahmed had made the slightest crack about it being a bomb, you would have been hearing about that from Day 1. That didn't happen.
Cracks about a bomb are not required, resemblance is sufficient. He was told not to show it to people by one teacher yet he kept doing so. Whether a hoax or not is something determined through investigation, by determining if there was "intent". This is something the police do every day. And sometimes there is no intent, no crime, just unfortunate coincidences and people are free to go uncharged. Happens every day.
10 PRINT "Which is how we know he didn't do that, what with him not being charged with doing that and all."
20 GOTO 10
Line 10 contains a logic error. People knew the kid did not bring a real bomb based on observations. However people did not know whether he brought a hoax bomb until AFTER he was questioned and it was determined to be an unfortunate accidental resemblance. Its appropriate for the police to do such questioning. To investigate whether an element of a crime, intent, exists.
Until they ask you where the explosive is that the wires are hooked up to, and after that, when they ask you what kind of moron you are.
A hoax bomb is also illegal, so even if it is recognized as a hoax there is still a legal problem and spending some time with police answering questions is a thing that often follows. Its reasonable for police to determine if there was an intention hoax or an unfortunate accidental resemblance. Steve Wozniak, cofounder of Apple Computer, spent some time answer such questions when he brought a box to school that made ticking noises.
Considering that an alarm based timer is fsking trivial yea, the device lacked anything that looked like an explosive, the most dangerous part was the exposed mains.
Keep in mind that a hoax bomb is something illegal to bring to school. Even if recognized as a hoax it is reasonable to the police talk to the kid to determine if it was an intention hoax or an unfortunate accidental resemblance. Even if the "explosives" are missing there is the question of whether a kid who brought one major component had brought two. And once again I'll add, Steve Wozniak, cofounder of Apple Computer, spent a few hour with police when he brought a box that ticked to his high school. This sort of zero tolerance stuff has been happening for quite some time.
Nobody thinks that. We think that 14 year old boys bringing in clocks that they have torn apart and rebuilt in a new case for science class are not a threat, even if they might be Muslim!
Its not a Muslim thing. Your logic could also be applied to a situation where a white teenage high school student of the 1960s brings a box that ticks to school. Yet that white teenage student had to spend a few hours with the police too. The student's name was Steve Wozniak, later co-founder of Apple Computer.
Again, its illegal to bring a hoax bomb to school. Even if something is recognized as a hoax there is still a violation of the law. Taking someone down to the police station to find out if it was an intentional hoax or an unfortunate accidental resemblance is something that has happened without race or religion being a factor. Note that one teacher told him to not show it to anyone, yet he continued doing so. Its perfectly reasonable to wonder if he continued to do so because he was playing a joke or something.
If recognized as a hoax there would be no reason to evacuate, yet as a hoax there is still a legal violation. The police could still become involved to determine if it was an intentional hoax or an unfortunate and accidental resemblance. Given that there were no charges it seems unfortunate resemblance was the result of the investigation. Keep in mind that people are also taken to the police station as part of an investigation.