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14-Year-Old Boy Arrested for Bringing Homemade Clock to School

• it_learnses 11y ago
  The situation sucks, but I find it so amazing, the outpouring of support for the boy from everybody! Hopefully his faith in people will be restored.
• ahmad19526 11y ago
  Go into any Electrical Engineering department at any university and you'll find plenty of students with boxes filled with circuit boards and electronics. Everybody who's played with electronics knows that stuff is brittle and needs to be protected carefully. One wire coming loose renders your entire work obsolete and unlike software, there's no debugger to tell you where you potentially screwed up... Racial profiling and ignorance at it's finest.
  • x5n1 11y ago
    That's not even the issue to me. It's like fine you "suspected" it. How difficult was it to not suspect it anymore? Like did the arrest and the accusations need to happen. It's almost like attempting to traumatize the kid and his peers for no good reason and for what? Security theater? Because he was brown or a Muslim and did not know that brown or Muslim people should not bring electronics that might be suspected with them to school because they should fear being suspected? Perhaps we can excuse his ignorance for not being old enough.
    • peejaybee 11y ago
      It's almost like attempting to traumatize the kid and his peers for no good reason and for what? That's pretty simple -- their "authority" depends on never, ever, admitting that they were wrong.
      • dllthomas 11y ago
        The response is pretty simple. If they can never, ever admit they were wrong, we need to deprive them of their "authority".
        • goldenkey 11y ago
          Who's the we? These administrators are put their by their buddies in city and state positions. They almost never are educators themselves. In order to get competent caring administrators, who know what education is about, we need reform that actually puts educators in the hotseats.
          • dllthomas 11y ago
            Right thinking people? Of course it only works to the degree we have critical mass. But it seems worth encouraging, that we might more quickly get there in more cases.
    • t2015_08_25 11y ago
      > How difficult was it to not suspect it anymore? Excellent observation. It's really about people conditioned to follow scripts. These people were missing the "de-escalation script" in which a teacher laughs, puts their hand on their forehead and says, "Wow, That scared the shit out of me for a minute there. Now let's show you how to make a tidy wooden box for your amazing clock project."
      • x5n1 11y ago
        Well I guess they could logically suspect that he might be doing something more sinister than just bringing around a clock project. So fine get a court order to search his house while keeping him detained at school. Find nothing. Apologize and let him go.
        • WiseWeasel 11y ago
          When did DIY electronics become actionable evidence of terrorism?
          • tomswartz07 11y ago
            "..AAANND HOOOOMME OF THE BRAVVVEEEE!"
        • ashark 11y ago
          I have a feeling a lot of this behavior from teachers and school middle management is driven by fear of having exactly the same sort of irrational punishment come down on them. Didn't treat the clock like a bomb? Might get fired. Did treat it like a bomb, turned out to be wrong, apologized? Might get fired. Did treat it like a bomb, turned out to be wrong, uhhh... maybe if I get the police involved I can make this not my fault? Reasonable errors on all levels are often greeted with harsh punishment and sometimes demonization by news media. It's not just kids who are subject to it. People are rightly terrified of being blamed for errors that anyone could make, and their behavior makes a lot of sense in that context.
          • 11y ago
    • hencq 11y ago
      Exactly! Apparently it's really difficult for some people to admit they were wrong. How difficult would it be to just say: "I'm sorry, we screwed up."? Instead they still insist on calling his clock a "hoax bomb".
  • andrewstuart2 11y ago
    As well as a diversified student body, in my experience. And yet, no bombs.
  • austenallred 11y ago
    To be fair it's a middle school, and most people don't really know what a circuit board is for. I don't think it's outrageous that they asked. It should have never, however, escalated as far as it did. You're going to handcuff a kid who is cooperating and trying to explain what this thing he built is? Give me a break. But worse still they're still not backing down. It's suspension of all logic and reasoning. They should have shown the clock to his engineering teacher and resolved the issue in minutes.
    • marcinx27 11y ago
      Nah, it's a high school. And the reaction really wasn't warranted. He did show it to his engineering teacher before he got nabbed, too. According to the Times, "When Ahmed Mohamed, 14, brought the clock to MacArthur High School in Irving, Tex., on Monday, an engineering teacher suggested that he not show the invention to other teachers. But it beeped during an English class, prompting Ahmed to show his English teacher what it was, according to an account in The Dallas Morning News."
      • austenallred 11y ago
        I mean the initial concern as in "What is that circuit board?" Then it should go, "Oh it's a clock." "Is that true, engineering teacher?" "Yes." "OK cool."
        • knowaveragejoe 11y ago
          That's how it should go, in an ideal world. I think the engineering teacher did the right thing in suggesting he not show it off, given society today. He's aware of racial profiling in a post 9/11 world and how stupid some people are.
      • jkestner 11y ago
        I wonder, did any of the staff actually know the kid? They're acting like he wandered in, and not like any of them could attest to his character.
  • pcote 11y ago
    There were debuggers in the electronics shops that I remember. They were called multimeters. You debugged by deducing where voltage, current, and resistance levels were in your circuit. I've also made my share of brittle programming projects where one errant line could act like a "loose wire" and take down everything.
• mahouse 11y ago
  Say what you will but I would be slightly concerned if Ahmed Mohamed brought this to school http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/northwest-dallas-county/headlines/20150915-nmc_15mohamedahmed2.ece/BINARY/w940/NMC_15MohamedAhmed2 http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/northwest-dall...
  • deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  • ceejayoz 11y ago
    Would you be concerned if Bob McWhiteypants did? edit: The now-flagged parent comment stated that concern was warranted due to the child's name.
  • grardb 11y ago
    Would you be as concerned if it was little Timothy McVeigh?
    • deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  • JosephRedfern 11y ago
    Ermmm... why? Would you be "slightly concerned" if Matt Jones brought that to school? Or Alice Jackson?
    • watty 11y ago
      Because he's profiling, it's a survival instinct. He sees on the news daily about Muslims using bombs and blowing things up and he's associating it with this kid. He believes statistically that Ahmed is more likely to be carrying a bomb than Alice. Is this true? I don't know, maybe it is? It's the same reason I am cautious when I walk alone downtown at night and a stranger approaches me. I act differently because I know statistically that they're more likely to be dangerous compared to at 2:00 PM... well, again... I assume so. The hard part is trying to ignore statistics and the media on things like skin color and religion. It doesn't matter if x color or y religion is more dangerous, you need to ignore it. Thinking differently or acting differently because of these statistics is frowned upon. In this case, it's silly. Of course it's not a bomb, of course the kid isn't dangerous.
• linkydinkandyou 11y ago
  Why not link to the original news article instead of to a blog that quotes it?
  • ahmad19526 11y ago
    Dang it, I should've done that.. I don't post much...
  • wiredfool 11y ago
    Because at least for me, the dallasnews website has been pretty much down all morning.
• radmuzom 11y ago
  Cross-posting from [1] Is there any study to ascertain how these kind of incidents affect children psychologically, the effects of which manifest only years later? (Let's assume that this boy is a gifted engineer, and this incident leaves deep psychological scars not expressed in the next few years, but eventually leads him to take up activities later in life which are harmful for American citizens) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10225962 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10225962
  • kingkawn 11y ago
    makes you hate cops for the rest of your life at the very least
  • Vexs 11y ago
    Honestly, I had a very similar thing happen to me at an even younger age. Almost got expelled for hacking when I was just making stupid shit with batch programming. Similarly, I made a crappy little audio amp a couple years later at the same school, and again, almost got expelled for "making a weapon and bringing it to school" (they thought it was a stungun) All it did was make me anti-establishment at a slightly younger age. The kid in this story knows that what he's going through is bullshit, and he's likely to have something pretty good come out of this due to all the media attention. If anything, I'd suspect it would drive him to create more, because if there's something kids like to do it's sticking it to the man.
    • soylentcola 11y ago
      Nothing quite so extreme for me but I remember being kicked out of class and sent to see our sadistic assistant principal for "trying to cause a panic" in my computer class. This was around 1993 or 1994 and I was in 11th grade. I was in some fairly "bonehead" computer class and we often worked on simple projects and saved them to floppy disks to take home or work on later. At the time, the family computer was still an aging Commodore 128 but I was working mostly in DOS at school so I'd bring home my disks and work on projects on my dad's work laptop. Dad's work laptop included a primitive virus scanner so of course I scanned the disk I'd been using on the school network. The scanner finds some minor virus and cleans it up (in retrospect, I guess it could've easily just been a false positive but who knows). After taking the disk back to school and working on projects again, I scanned it at home the following evening. Virus once again detected. So the next day in class I mention to the teacher that there's probably some innocuous virus on the classroom network and offered to help get rid of it. I was interested in that stuff even if I was still mostly a novice. But instead of giving me a new project, the teacher flipped out. She accused me of trying to start a panic and disrupting class and sent me to see the ass. principal. Now, this dude hated kids (especially the ones who clearly had no respect for authoritah). I had to sit in his office without speaking while he held a (no joke) half hour conversation on the phone with his friend about some fishing trip they had planned for the weekend. Afterward he reamed me out and basically told me I was full of shit because the teacher wouldn't lie about such things. In the end, it was my first lesson in "people who don't get computers or trust them will often avoid dealing with issues that make them uncomfortable and possibly view you with hostility for suggesting otherwise."
• ceejayoz 11y ago
  > Children are encouraged “specifically [to] not bring items to school that are prohibited.” What, clocks? Or the NASA t-shirt he was wearing? (https://i.imgur.com/PMgDR7m.jpg https://i.imgur.com/PMgDR7m.jpg)
  • vatotemking 11y ago
    Why is he handcuffed?
    • ceejayoz 11y ago
      He might poke one of the five responding police officers with those toothpick arms, obviously.
      • mtgx 11y ago
        The officers feared for their lives. He's lucky he didn't get tased, or shot.
    • Someone1234 11y ago
      I don't understand why US schools have police in them, and they put little kids in handcuffs. It insanity.
      • bruceb 11y ago
        Because in some schools unfortunately there are students who are violent. Can't expect teachers to deal with students who are bigger and stronger than themselves.
    • leni536 11y ago
      IANAL, I guess it's simply a mandatory protocol for arresting somebody. US police apparently handcuff every people they arrest[1]. [1] https://www.quora.com/Why-do-American-police-always-handcuff-people-they-arrest https://www.quora.com/Why-do-American-police-always-handcuff...
• PythonicAlpha 11y ago
  With such paranoia as this, you also can bring the inventive genius of a nation down. The US has so much talent, but when such things will continue to manifest, the terrorists already have won!
• Stubb 11y ago
  Stupid kid confused school with a place that supported learning and curiosity. I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't make it through high school today.
  • traverseda 11y ago
    I didn't. Growing up with access to the worlds largest library makes high school even more painful.
• pavornyoh 11y ago
  A picture of the clock in question would have been nice for inquiring minds to see..
  • draugadrotten 11y ago
    Pic here: http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/local/dallas-county/2015/09/15/irving-isd-student-detained-for-device-resembling-bomb/72339246/ http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/local/dallas-county/2015/09/1...
    • pavornyoh 11y ago
      Thanks for the link.. :)
    • danjayh 11y ago
      If you watch the video that pic was taken from, you will find that that is a device 'like' the one taken to the school. Here's an actual pic: http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/10BF6/production/_85589586_16e23342-6ce7-4c4f-b176-88d94cf667b3.jpg http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/10BF6/production/...
• Navarr 11y ago
  It is definitely profiling and I bet his race had a lot to do with it. But I think the same thing would've happened if I had brought such a device to school - having been a super dark dressed goth in school, the fear would've been it's a bomb. Schools are generally very very extra worried about everything these days, suspending him was unnecessary but with it only being three days I don't see it being a terrible thing. The record will get set straight. So then this just falls back to being unfortunate racial profiling.
  • bkor 11y ago
    You really mean suspending him is not so terrible because it was only 3 days? I hope I'm misunderstanding you. The child learns to not trust anyone and that his best intentions are twisted into punishment. I'm pretty appalled by this.
    • Navarr 11y ago
      To explain myself, in a Texas Highschool I was sentenced to In School Suspension INDEFINITELY with my laptop confiscated for having shortcuts to directories on the network that I "shouldn't have had access to." After about a week of that I'd had enough, asked for OSS - got it, which I thought was enough but apparently wasn't. They ended up wanting to reassign me to an "alternative school" (the type with a dress code, specific hours, locked down no talking etc). I managed to get "homeschooled" for 3 months (re: no school work completed) and somehow still managed to actually graduate High School. It was the most ludicrous situation I'd ever been in for navigating a folder hierarchy in Windows. 3 days is lovely.
      • protomyth 11y ago
        Neither is acceptable I swear, if I was rich, I would have a PAC specifically for school board elections and go after these idiots and their supporters on the school board.
      • dalke 11y ago
        And getting only a few toes amputated due to gangrene would be lovely to someone who lost a leg for the same reason. That doesn't mean losing a few toes isn't terrible. I don't think it would be hard to find people who would have rather have faced what you suffered than what they went through. (Kalief Browder might have been one.) That doesn't mean they would be right to say that what happened to you was "lovely."
• davidgerard 11y ago
  Engineering While Brown.
  • TheCondor 11y ago
    And while jade helm is still in effect.... The kid with the homemade clock was how "it" was to begin.
• snarfy 11y ago
  This really needs to end in a civil lawsuit.
  • rasz_pl 11y ago
    In fairness it was probably staged by the father to end in civil lawsuit. "His father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, came from Sudan and is famous for arguing against anti-Islamic policies"
    • HarryHirsch 11y ago
      It wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Rosa Parks was staged to go to suit, as was Lady Chatterley.
    • jcromartie 11y ago
      His father has been in the news several times. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/muslim-at-koran-trial-says-he-didnt-know-the-holy-book-would-be-burned/2011/04/05/AFKNR3oC_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/muslim-at-koran-trial-s...
      • TheRealDunkirk 11y ago
        That puts the whole thing in a different shade of light. Seriously. I wrote the kid on Anil's support page, but this makes me feel like there was more going on here than is being reported. I know, surprise, surprise, right?
    • DanBC 11y ago
      Or the pooice know the father and are looking for ways to fuck with the family.
      • jcromartie 11y ago
        They'd be stupid to confuse him for someone dangerous. He's benign.
• userbinator 11y ago
  Apparently the authorities have determined that the best way to stop terrorism is to discourage any manifestation of personal intelligence, so that the population turns into mindless sheep. "If you don't know how to make a clock, you won't know how to make a time bomb" is their reasoning. It is seriously disturbing. I am reminded of stories of kids opening a command prompt and being accussed of "hacking", only this is a far more extreme case.
  • martincmartin 11y ago
    "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
    • iwwr 11y ago
      Stupidity is not an excuse for being an asshole.
    • nathos 11y ago
      In this case, we're dealing with malicious stupidity. Edge of the razor?
    • vezzy-fnord 11y ago
      Hanlon's razor doesn't apply to politics.
    • jessaustin 11y ago
      That's for dealing with authentic human beings, not with mindless order-followers.
    • mbrutsch 11y ago
      "Two things can be true" - me
    • sp332 11y ago
      Stupidity does not adequately explain why they are considering bringing charges of a "hoax bomb", or sent this letter home with the other students: http://www.irvingisd.net/cms/lib010/TX01917973/Centricity/Domain/9/ParentLetter_SuspiciousLookingItematMacArthur.pdf http://www.irvingisd.net/cms/lib010/TX01917973/Centricity/Do... [PDF] Therefore, malice.
• norea-armozel 11y ago
  I just been reading about this morning and all I can say is what the hell is going on in Dallas? I mean when I was a kid I brought to school a model rocket with some solid rocket engines and all that happened to me was the rocket and engines were held by the principal until my parents could pick them up. But a kid making a clock gets arrested? Seriously, wtf is going over there in Dallas?
  • ams6110 11y ago
    My school had a rocketry club. Bringing this kind of stuff to school was encouraged.
    • norea-armozel 11y ago
      I bet today the principal and staff would think you guys were terrorists planning to siege the local strip mall. /s
  • talmand 11y ago
    It's not Dallas, it was Irving.
    • norea-armozel 11y ago
      Thanks for the correction.
• ams6110 11y ago
  Things are so different now. When I was in high school, all of the following were common: - Boys carrying pocket knives/hunting knives. - Boys with firearms in their cars/trucks so they could go hunting after school. - Access to a wide variety of chemicals in chemistry class. - Access to a wide variety of electrical and electronic components in physics class. - Access to a wide variety of power and machine tools in industrial arts/vocational classes.
  • sageabilly 11y ago
    Tell me about it. The county sheriff came and taught skeet shooting to my 10th grade Health and Wellness class. The pigeon thrower was mounted on the back of the police cruiser and we shot 20-gauge shotguns on the practice football field. This was rural NC in the 90s.
  • bryanlarsen 11y ago
    I regularly brought my pocket knife to elementary school. Nobody blinked an eye. It was dull because I used it for digging and prying more than for cutting, but nobody would have cared even if it was sharp.
    • swagswag 11y ago
      Back in my day, I'd see friends with their glocks at school. Teachers didn't even bat an eye.
  • disposition2 11y ago
    See Columbine and the influx of 'zero tolerance'. I was actually in school to see the before and after, unfortunately, the after has become less tolerant and more reactionary and so we have what you see here (and really just about every day in the school year in the US you'll find a similar story).
    • A_COMPUTER 11y ago
      After the OK City bombing my school banned wearing camouflage. They were afraid of school shootings at some point so they banned coats that were "tool long" or "too bulky". A friend of mine got in trouble for wearing a leather jacket. Maybe this kid WAS singled out because he had brown skin, but school administrators were overreacting to stupid shit decades ago, in ways that obviously weren't connected to "racism."
• TomGullen 11y ago
  It really saddens me that this kid (or other kids in similar circumstances) could find the experience so traumatising that they lose the motivation/interest to pursue these creative activities.
• chipgap98 11y ago
  That letter from the school just adds insult to injury. > talk with your child about the Student Code of Conduact and specifically not bringing items to school that are prohibited Since when can you not bring a clock to school?
  • bargl 11y ago
    If the school and the police had acted in the correct way this would be no big deal. Hey, we have a device here that could be a bomb. Police show up, call bomb specialist. Bomb specialist laughs in a few peoples faces, the school apologizes, the kid keeps tinkering. But no they had to go and dig in. Which makes this really wrong on their part. I hate it when organizations take a stance around stupidity.
    • txru 11y ago
      Or even better- start by quietly calling him to the principal's office. Ask him about his clock. Tell him people were thinking he might be wanting to pull some bomb pranks, and that would be a very bad idea. Ask him to tell his teachers the day before the next time he wants to show off his gadgetry. Send him back to class.
      • eropple 11y ago
        Or don't do that, either, because it is not right to assume people are going to pull off bomb hoaxes. (Doubly so when the only real reason for the suspicion is skin color.)
        • bargl 11y ago
          Yeah but you also don't want to be the admin at a school with a bomb where there were "signs a student was creating bombs before he went ape shit". I agree with the color statement, but not addressing the issue at all can be just as bad as an overreaction.
          • 11y ago
• punnerud 11y ago
  The letter to this parents: https://twitter.com/jkfecke/status/644094380534591488/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/jkfecke/status/644094380534591488/photo/...
  • draugadrotten 11y ago
    Just in case it "disappears" from twitter here it is archived - https://archive.is/1wJhp https://archive.is/1wJhp
    • tcbawo 11y ago
      It's unfortunate that students are encouraged to report 'suspicious' things, but not 'exceptional'. Only bad things can come of it, never good.
• hoopism 11y ago
  I think we're making too big of an issue of this. The trial has already taken place and the boy was found to not float... so it turns out he must be guilty. God forbid that an officer drops his walkie talkie and discovers that IT TOO IS A POTENTIAL BOMB! I mean, it has wires and circuits... The ignorance here is astounding. I suppose he's lucky they didn't also try him as a warlock for summoning electricity from a magical box.
• VincentEvans 11y ago
  Personally, i wasn't surprised at the display of racially-biased fear at the sight of device that appears to a bystander to look like a bomb. People are people. But why did it need to lead to arrest, hand cuffs, finger printing after an interview and a casual examination of the device clearly demonstrated it was a clock (there was an engineering teacher who could easily collaborate)? It was an outright excessive reaction to further compound what was a regrettable mistake.
  • deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
• zaphar 11y ago
  In the article it mentions that his engineering teacher advised him to hide it from the other staff. Which is confusing to me. The teacher obviously knew it wasn't a bomb and obviously knew the other staff would misinterpret this. So why didn't the teacher preempt this whole thing by advising the school that "Yes, this kid brought in a clock to show me. No, it's not a bomb no matter how scary it looks."
  • draugadrotten 11y ago
    It must be one hell of a clock if a teacher actually told the student to hide it from plain sight! EDIT: A picture of the actual device is here. http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/local/dallas-county/2015/09/15/irving-isd-student-detained-for-device-resembling-bomb/72339246/ http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/local/dallas-county/2015/09/1... https://archive.is/Q0OLb https://archive.is/Q0OLb
    • dec0dedab0de 11y ago
      This article is the only one to show that the kid did anything wrong. That was plug it in during English class, The appropriate response is to have it taken away for the rest of the day, and possibly a detention if it was really loud enough to disrupt class.
    • danjayh 11y ago
      That is not a picture of the actual device. That's an example of something else he had laying around. Here's what he actually brought to school: http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/10BF6/production/_85589586_16e23342-6ce7-4c4f-b176-88d94cf667b3.jpg http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/10BF6/production/...
  • mikeash 11y ago
    I'm sure this isn't really an isolated incident in this school, it just happens to be one that got bad enough to make national news. The place is probably crazy even on a good day. The teacher probably didn't want to stick his neck out.
  • slayed0 11y ago
• cphoover 11y ago
  This is outrageous... They need to offer a public apology to this kid, and take punitive actions against the administrators involved.
  • jerf 11y ago
    "They" are the administrators involved. Don't hold your breath.
• rogual 11y ago
  The look on the kid's face in that first photo says it all, really. Welcome to Earth, kid. These will be your fellow human beings. Enjoy your stay.
  • Raphmedia 11y ago
    Hell, the kid has a NASA shirt, is a thin nerdy type and brought a science project to school to show it off (instead of whatever illegal things kids bring to schools these days). I really, really hope someone will pick this up and offer that kid some kind of internship somewhere, if only to keep his moral and spirit up.
    • ceejayoz 11y ago
      Five cops, the device presumably in another room, and they needed a kid who looks like his arms are made from toothpicks in handcuffs?
      • fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
        What if the kid had gotten his hands on a detonator button transmitter thing? It could have been a disaster. I'm being sarcastic, but I fear that one of these tools might use a similar excuse if you questioned them.
    • Raphmedia 11y ago
      It seems like a few big figures did pick this it up and offer the kid some awesome opportunities. Obama, Facebook, NASA, etc.
• ryanlol 11y ago
  What the hell is a fake bomb? How does a schoolteacher know what a "bomb" looks like? Are we talking about an IED here? That could be literally any fucking thing. I really doubt that this clock looked even remotely like any of the industrially made ready-to-use explosives. Sometimes I can't help feeling like some people should be forcibly removed from the gene pool.
  • jessaustin 11y ago
    If you really want to tie them in knots, get a bunch of small "Amazon"-type (empty) cardboard boxes, and write "BOMB" in bold letters with a magic marker on the sides. Distribute the boxes in slightly-hidden spots, like Easter eggs. Fun times! EDIT: Thanks Mike, that's a great improvement!
    • mikeash 11y ago
      Make three boxes. Label them BOMB 1, BOMB 2, and BOMB 4. Put them in various places around the school. Grab some popcorn and a comfy chair.
      • chopin 11y ago
        Wow, what an evil plot. You shouldn't be caught sitting in your comfy chair eating popcorn though...
      • alandarev 11y ago
        And then die slow death from NSA interrogation, great plan.
      • happyscrappy 11y ago
        And then you will complain when they bring charges against you.
        • mikeash 11y ago
          For something like this, "I never imagined the authorities could possibly be this stupid" ought to be an affirmative defense.
• god_bless_texas 11y ago
  You can't legislate intelligence. Yesterday I went to my daughter's school's open house. When I entered, I was cornered by an administrator and told I had to sign some paperwork before I left. It was the computer policy. After I signed it, the admin said my daughter had to sign it too. She's 4.
  • oldfatslow 11y ago
    Similar thing happened when my son started kindergarten. His "signature" was in red marker that smelled like cherry, took up half the page and kind of looked like an alligator to me.
    • kedean 11y ago
      What exactly does that accomplish? It's not like it's a binding contract, it's a child.
      • coldtea 11y ago
        It makes idiots in offices feel good that their new policies are followed.
        • god_bless_texas 11y ago
          This is what I was assuming was the case.
      • interpol_p 11y ago
        Maybe they're trying to be cute? Toddlers love imitating their parents and doing "grown up" things.
  • vidarh 11y ago
    The intent is not to legally bind her, which it obviously wouldn't. Usually the idea of having a child sign too is the idea having a child explicitly agree makes them more likely to be invested in complying. Whether or not there's any evidence that works, I don't know, but it's not quite as stupid as it might seem at first glance.
• tcfunk 11y ago
  They can probably change the title to "14 YO boy arrested for not being white and having the name Ahmed Mohamed".
• witty_username 11y ago
  > The newspaper quoted a police spokesman, James McLellan, as saying that Ahmed never claimed his device was anything but a clock, and the police have no reason to think it was dangerous. But officers still did not believe Ahmed was giving them the whole story. “We have no information that he claimed it was a bomb,” Mr. McLellan said. “He kept maintaining it was a clock, but there was no broader explanation. “It could reasonably be mistaken as a device if left in a bathroom or under a car. The concern was, what was this thing built for? Do we take him into custody?” Duh, the thing tells the time. And are they saying that if I don't explain why I made something it can be presumed to be a bomb? (especially given "and the police have no reason to think it was dangerous.")
  • tcbawo 11y ago
    If he had taken the plastic case off an existing electronic clock and brought it in, would they have had the same reaction? If it was a different kid?
  • monroepe 11y ago
    >“He kept maintaining it was a clock, but there was no broader explanation." Did it really need a broader explanation? It's a clock.
    • deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    • jodah 11y ago
      People tend to assume that everyone else thinks like them. Because the arresting officer couldn't wouldn't build a clock for the enjoyment of learning (as opposed to some "broader purpose" like blowing up a building), then nobody else should either. Simple explanation, but likely true.
  • aqme28 11y ago
    "It could reasonably be mistaken as a device if left in a bathroom or under a car." Okay, so charge him with a hoax bomb if he does that, but he didn't so what's the deal?
• wolfwyrd 11y ago
  More discussion here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10226196 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10226196
  • josefresco 11y ago
    ...was wondering how not one, but two stories rocketed to the top (#1 and #2) of the front page.
• ja27 11y ago
  Students all over the country should bring digital clocks and circuits to school this week as a protest.
• sirtaj 11y ago
  Perfect trifecta of bigotry, ignorance and cowardice. And at a school too, where any number of apparently educated staff could have verified what the device was in a moment. Great job!
  • exodust 11y ago
    You might have a point if the device was for a school project. But it was his own "invention" which is own engineering teacher warned him against showing around. He not only showed it around, but plugged it in during English class where it made beeping noises. Do you expect the English teacher should need to "verify" a box of wires and circuits? Who would she verify it with if the kid plays aloof when asked of its purpose? Just because "authorities apprehend 14yo Muslim kid for home-made clock" doesn't mean you need to start making accusations of bigotry, ignorance and cowardice.
    • sirtaj 11y ago
      Presumably an English teacher has the communication skills to ask any one of the number of staff who were involved in the entire affair. You know, like the engineering teacher. Did he somehow go on vacation in between? And how about the police - they have nobody on staff who can tell the difference between a homemade clock and some sort of "unauthorized device"? The accusations are justified. Your apologetics are misguided.
    • mikeash 11y ago
      Bigotry, maybe. There's a chance (which I'd estimate at smaller than 1%) that there was no racial motivation here. But I don't see how you can say there's no grounds to make accusations of ignorance and cowardice. Being unaware of what a bomb looks like is clearly ignorance, and being so terrified that you get an innocent kid arrested for it is clearly cowardice.
      • exodust 11y ago
        Handcuffs went too far. But that's a protocol issue for US lawmakers etc. We've all seen protocol out of control in the States for a host of different incidents. No need to react so much in the other direction either, making this kid an ambassador of "freedom to pack electronics in a case and bring it to school" or whatever. He made an error of judgement going against his teacher's advice, and a ton of bricks came down on his head way too hard. Hopefully everyone can learn something from this. But you can't deny that "radicalization of young Muslims" isn't a thing these days. No point of covering your ears and insisting everyone wants to get along.
• fsloth 11y ago
  Are the authorities here abnormally incompetent or is there something really wrong in the community where this happened?
  • jessaustin 11y ago
    There is something really wrong in this nation. Texas is just in a leadership position.
• jschwartzi 11y ago
  When I was in high school there was a guy there we all nicknamed terrorist because he always played for the terrorists in Counterstrike. When the school found out they expelled him and sent the cops out to his place. The cops found nothing, and the school didn't actually have anything to go on, but they still kicked him out for a week, all over a nickname.
  • muzmath 11y ago
    Holy shit... Is there any follow up on this?
    • jschwartzi 11y ago
      Not really. It was just a thing that happened and when the administration backed down nothing else really came of it.
• troels 11y ago
  Is it legal to search and interrogate a juvenile, without the parents present, in Texas?
  • jimktrains2 11y ago
    In most states children in a school have little to no rights as the school is assuming responsibility for the welfare of the children.
• davewasthere 11y ago
  I used to make FM transmitters (very small 'bugs') and take them to school to sell. But I was white, so unlikely to get arrested/expelled.
  • swah 11y ago
    I was thinking of buying one of those on Ebay - do you see any better alternatives these days?
• AC__ 11y ago
  Honestly, when I was 14 I would have thought it was cool as hell to have a realistic looking suitcase bomb if I had the skills to make one. I am kind of leaning towards this being a publicity stunt, as a digital clock project really wouldn't require much circuitry, wiring or case space(with the result looking nothing like a bomb ). That being said I find it absurd for the child to be detained over any of it.
  • HCIdivision17 11y ago
    In the little video, it looks like a lot of it was just cannibalized parts. I'd be interested in the actual thought process that built the monstrosity (and I say that as a person who just loves that sort of gizmo work). When I was his age, I didn't know anything about proper electronics, and so I only took stuff apart and tried to figure out how to get it combined. I remember one of the big problems I had was figuring out enclosures, and frankly a $5 box from Target really would be the perfect thing; the other stuff likewise followed similarly. Think of it as the Git-R-Done philosophy, like installing Postgres for a single two column table. It ain't elegant, but I wouldn't make a kid feel bad for trying.
• mbreese 11y ago
  The real question here is: how can we help this kid? I'm not talking about from the legal perspective, but rather what can we (me, you, the larger tech world) do to make it so that this kid and others like him keep tinkering. He needs to know that what he built wasn't wrong, it was awesome.
  • rorykoehler 11y ago
    Exactly my thoughts. Depending on the kid, this experience could be so traumatizing to the point of killing his enthusiasm and curiosity. We need more tinkering not less. It starts with teachers. Too many teachers turn up in body only. Teaching is a role that should be held in much higher esteem than it is but instead we irrationally hold high paying but stupid money jobs like finance in high regard and leave the teaching jobs to the 'failures' of society.
  • sp332 11y ago
    Offer support: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ws7e8WyQvrsLfhSFvdGot3n9NWKfY3XLPBgbHaZDy3k/viewform?c=0&w=1 https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ws7e8WyQvrsLfhSFvdGot3n9NWK... Sign up to be notified when some plans are made: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1zCtwhsEh_zB4PkuwlgAVZRTFV4IxueXZmvrBb-0VjC4/viewform https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1zCtwhsEh_zB4PkuwlgAVZRTFV4I...
    • mbreese 11y ago
      This needs to be at the top of this thread.
      • sp332 11y ago
        Here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10226632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10226632
    • nickhalfasleep 11y ago
      Perhaps we can all pitch in on an airplane ticket to someplace he can get a tour of a facility where people like him are valued and rewarded. SpaceX? Mountain View? Cape Canaveral? Also, if/when he considers higher education I'm sure there are plenty of alumni who could consider opening doors for him.
• ceejayoz 11y ago
  A similar example: http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/florida-teen-girl-charged-with-felony-after-science-experiment-goes-bad-6521288 http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/florida-teen-girl-charged-... / http://magazine.good.is/articles/people-are-awesome-teen-arrested-for-science-experiment-now-heading-to-space-camp http://magazine.good.is/articles/people-are-awesome-teen-arr...
• deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
• earleybird 11y ago
  It seems Amazons recommendation system has acquired 'irony' - it's recommending http://www.amazon.ca/Elements-Computing-Systems-Building-Principles/dp/0262640686 http://www.amazon.ca/Elements-Computing-Systems-Building-Pri.... If I acquire it, I will then have to hide it from my son lest he build something and show it to his high school teacher.
• ausjke 11y ago
  I have kids at school and I'm actually for the responses from the teachers, yes it's overacting and could be dealt with _much_ better, but being overly alert on this is better than ignorant. and it's better to show it at his house instead of at school for things like this I feel.
  • slayed0 11y ago
    "things like this" Please clarify. Things that are relevant to what you are studying in school and have been approved by your teacher for you to bring into class? For someone who is speaking out against ignorance, this statement sure comes across as... ignorant.
    • exodust 11y ago
      Where did you get the idea it was "approved"? Let's look at the facts... 1. His own engineering teacher "suggested that he not show the invention to other teachers." He should have listened, but... 2. During his English class the case made beeping noises. Not smart bringing it to English. 3. When questioned, he didn't explain what it was all about, and was described as playing "passive aggressive". 4. He calls it an "invention", but a digital clock in a case is not an invention. He's 14 years old, not 8. There's nothing inventive about it. 5. Admitted in the video he chose a "simple cable" to lock the case so it "wouldn't look threatening". So let's be clear, he did think about the possibility of it looking threatening, and his own teacher warned him about it. Are the pieces coming together for you? if he's smart, which apparently he is, then he should move on from clocks in cases to something that approaches an actual invention.
      • slayed0 11y ago
        "Ahmed, for his part, wanted to bring the clock to show an engineering teacher. Because it consisted of a board with a digital display and a tiger hologram on the front, the teacher recommended he hide it from the rest of the staff." This statement implies there was a conversation with the teacher before bringing it in and that the teacher told him to bring it, but to not bring it out in other classes/in front of other teachers. Your other points are not even worth replying to and border on trolling. You're upset that he didn't invent something new at 14? Building a homemade clock is too simple for his age and only 8 year olds should do it? This is one of the most insane posts I've ever seen on HN.
• deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
• mikehollinger 11y ago
  It's remarkable the difference that ~20 years can make. In middle school, someone's science fair project was building an actual briefcase bomb (with clay). It had a variety of sensors, and laid out (on a tri-fold poster board, of course) the guts of how each one worked.
  • Someone1234 11y ago
    Even 20 years ago that is still unusual. And even pre-9/11 I'm still not sure what the legal status of that is. Since it was designed to be a "bomb," even if it is inert, several laws do cover that. Essentially as soon as you describe a pile of distinct legal parts as a "bomb" you've now got a class of controlled weapon even if it has no explosive components.
    • aianus 11y ago
      > Essentially as soon as you describe a pile of distinct legal parts as a "bomb" you've now got a class of controlled weapon even if it has no explosive components. Source? If I describe a chicken finger as a gun, is that also a controlled weapon?
• eldude 11y ago
  > In short, Ahmed was arrested for making while brown. This sort of demagoguery masquerading as journalism has got to stop. Upvoting exploitative personal political propaganda like this contributes to an atmosphere of narrow-mindedness on HN that plays to the bigotry of its readers, with the majority of comments here responding in like. I'm certainly not defending it, but in reality this sort of (over) reaction, is perfectly explainable when you consider the risk of government employees responsible for the lives of children NOT reacting and being wrong. Yes, those involved need some education, but no more so than the author regarding journalistic ethics, or the commenters here stirring up a witch-hunt. You can see all the anti-Texan/Conservative/School/Government-ists overreacting here right on cue.
  • mikeash 11y ago
    You're right that the reaction is explainable by pervasive CYA and the risk of not reacting and being wrong. However, you're missing that pervasive and institutional racism is a big part of that risk. Imagine a kid brings an actual bomb to school, the authorities don't react, and he detonates it. Then what? The kid's race is going to play a huge role in how that decision is analyzed afterwards. If the kid was white then the discussion is likely to be of the form, "We need better mental health treatment to catch this stuff early!" If the kid was the wrong shade of brown then it's going to be, "He was obviously a terrorist and the administration should be thrown in a hole for not taking appropriate measures."
    • eldude 11y ago
      I'm not ignoring institutional racism, merely not assuming it, which is consistent with the American justice system tenet of never presuming guilt, even when you really want to and everyone around says you should. You're making a lot of wild assertions that really are tangential and not intellectually consistent with my original point that there are no facts specific to this case to support the author's narrative, merely the assumptions and presumptions you espouse.
      • mikeash 11y ago
• nadams 11y ago
  If anyone is actually surprised by the administrations intelligence - I should remind you of 3 events: - A teacher confiscates Linux CDs claiming that the student was essentially distributing illegal copyrighted software - because no software is free [1] - A system administrator was fired for installing/running seti@home on school computers. There is a lot of controversy about this case - but I read one news article (that I can't find right now) where the administration said they would have been ok with cancer research folding@home rather than searching for aliens with seti@home. This combined with the backpedaling of "oh actually he was a bad employee, stole things, and cost the school millions in extra in electricity costs!" makes me believe that they just wanted to use it as an excuse to fire him and make the position open for a friend/relative. [2]. - Or an honor roll student suspended for buying candy from another student [3]. His statuses were only restored after it caught media attention. I would go into my rant about the education system but you should just watch this video [4] [1] http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2008/12/linux-stop-holding-our-kids-back.html http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2008/12/linux-stop-holding-our... [2] https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/forum_thread.php?id=5169 https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/forum_thread.php?id=5169 [3] https://web.archive.org/web/20080313141623/http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/03/12/skittles.suspension.ap/index.html https://web.archive.org/web/20080313141623/http://edition.cn... [4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U
  • t2015_08_25 11y ago
    Great list. How about teacher Julie Amero, whose browser was apparently hijacked, possibly while students used it while she was out of the room resulting in students seeing nudity briefly and uninentionally [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_v._Amero https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_v._Amero
    • HarryHirsch 11y ago
      Wikipedia says she pled guilty to disorderly conduct and handed in her teaching license because the school board wouldn't pay for IT support that would have kept the naked ladies off her computer. Incredible.
• dovereconomics 11y ago
  Honestly, more and more, I challenge the idea of ever having a child: bright and smart kids have never been so intimidated. Many of the hacks I did as a child could have gotten me in jail today. Something 'silly' or 'funny' becomes dangerous/offensive/harassment; creativity, ingenuity and imagination are turned into dullness, self-hatred and nihilism.
  • rhino369 11y ago
    Ironically, you are engaging in the same sort of fear mongering and paranoia that these schools and police are engaging in. You are taking a rare event (idiotic profiling or terrorism) and concluding they are very common. These sorts of overreactions are very uncommon. That isn't to say these sorts of zero tolerance, jail what you don't understand, actions shouldn't be strongly condemned. But there are probably hundreds of thousands of kids who are into tinkering and hacking who haven't ever been bothered.
    • DanBC 11y ago
      Hang on: the route from school misdemeanor to criminal justice is well known and much talked about. The combination of zero tolerance with police stationed in schools means many children end up with criminal records for very minor events. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jan/09/texas-police-schools http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jan/09/texas-police-sc... > In 2010, the police gave close to 300,000 "Class C misdemeanour" tickets to children as young as six in Texas for offences in and out of school, which result in fines, community service and even prison time That feels pretty common. It doesn't feel rare. It's known as the School to Prison Pipeline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School-to-prison_pipeline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School-to-prison_pipeline
      • rhino369 11y ago
        How much of that is actual bad behavior. The school to prison pipeline is a worthy discussion. But this sort insane, zero tolerance of total normal behavior is much more limited. I agree we shouldn't be using the criminal system of kids who bring pot to school or who get into fights. But it's a different issue than a kid getting arrested for being a hacker.
• carrja99 11y ago
  Well this is what happens when you blare Islamophobia from all the twenty-four hour "news" channels.
  • venomsnake 11y ago
    No, this is what happens when you have stupid police and school officials that are tough on everything. There are enough outrageous cases in the last year for students of a lot of different backgrounds.
    • mikeyouse 11y ago
      In this case it's definitely about the Muslim thing.. Their mayor is known nationally for being an ignorant bigot.. http://frontburner.dmagazine.com/2015/03/20/anti-muslim-sentiment-bubbles-up-in-irving-and-the-imam-who-has-to-tolerate-it/ http://frontburner.dmagazine.com/2015/03/20/anti-muslim-sent...
      • nsxwolf 11y ago
        Was the mayor involved in this?
        • mikeyouse 11y ago
          Yep, she spearheaded it.. http://www.wnd.com/2015/03/mayor-wont-back-down-from-muslim-brotherhood/ http://www.wnd.com/2015/03/mayor-wont-back-down-from-muslim-...
  • jcromartie 11y ago
    How do you define Islamophobia?
• sakri 11y ago
  This story is at 1 and 2 on both reddit and Hacker News. Why is this so interesting?
  • coldtea 11y ago
    Because it's a person making something, authority denying him that for stupid reasons, etc. It has all the elements of something that appeals to hackers (in the "maker" sense). But seriously, if you have to ask you will never know. This is more of a "you get it or not" thing, related to how HN's targeted demographic feels on such issues.
    • sakri 11y ago
      I'm not a banker or a lawyer, I get the story bro, I just don't recall ever seeing a story reach 1&2 in both places at the same time. I would maybe expect the discovery of extra terrestrial life to get that kind of fascination.
  • teach 11y ago
    I don't understand it either. One-off events in the world don't really interest me. I believe that on any given day in the US, some public school administrator does something stupid where a student is involved. And also the majority of public school administrators are very competent and handle similar situations without blowing things out of proportion. There's no evidence of a trend. This isn't a sign of a shift in culture or of the impending [DOOMSDAY SCENARIO]. I just ignore the headline and move on.
  • TallGuyShort 11y ago
    Many of us were the nerdy kid in school at his age, and we got bullied by people because of it. That fact that he's being bullied by his school administration and the police is just disgusting.
  • venomsnake 11y ago
    Because every hacker on hacker news has done stupid shit with science and technology. And the majority of us got away with it. When a kid is brutally harassed over double nothing, we can both link with him AND cry for the experimental culture that is dying the death of a thousand cuts.
• austenallred 11y ago
  This hits way too close to home. Not because I have brown skin, or because I've ever been arrested for making "a bomb" that is not a bomb, but because when you're that age you're constantly surrounded and disciplined by people who don't understand you. Or what you're doing. Or why it's cool. I'd be willing to bet part of the reasoning around his arrest is, "Why would a student need to make his own clock?" I wish I could reach out to the boy and say, "Hey, it gets way better. Later on you can surround yourself with people who not only understand but respect you. You get to spend all day building cool stuff, and you actually get paid very well to do so."
  • piqufoh 11y ago
    Exactly. To quote the Police spokesman; "He kept maintaining it was a clock, but there was no broader explanation" and "The concern was, what was this thing built for?" Why shouldn't he make his own clock?! Why does there need to be a 'broader explanation'? How can one develop an interest in anything if you must first provide an adequate explanation? sigh
    • soggypretzels 11y ago
      Why are you trying to teach me English? This teacher should be arrested for trying to overthrow the government... What is the "broader explanation" for this English textbook?
      • swagswag 11y ago
        Communicate with others.
        • masklinn 11y ago
          Sounds like a way to organise the overthrow of the government. Are you some sort of community organizer?
          • _nedR 11y ago
• deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
• makecheck 11y ago
  Of course the reaction to this is completely insane but what's even sillier is that they're continuing to assume that real threats would be things that they can see. If someone wanted to blow up a building they could hide a bomb in a backpack among hundreds of others and never show it to anyone. It's the same crap they pull at the airport where you must throw out your bottled water; and then their solution is to toss this bottle, which was classified a minute ago as a serious threat, into a pile of other unverified "threats" in the middle of a densely-populated area of the airport. How this kind of thing has gone YEARS without any serious backslash is amazing to me. It is so out of hand. While certainly bad things have happened and could happen, statistically modern society is pretty safe and we all have to stop being so damn scared of every little thing.
  • TillE 11y ago
    To be completely fair about the stupid liquid rule, it was prompted by fears about someone making TATP on the flight. The precursors are not particularly dangerous on their own.
    • makecheck 11y ago
      Given that control of liquids was a reactionary measure to an event that didn't actually harm innocent people or endanger an airplane (and was incredibly unlikely to begin with), it's debatable if it warranted any attention at all.
      • rhino369 11y ago
        TAPT is somewhat commonly used in terrorism, most well known attack was the 2005 subway bombings in London. The plan that caused the liquids ban called for 500ml of each component. The TSA certainly is reacting to a threat, but I'm not sure how much of an over reaction it is.
    • jimktrains2 11y ago
      But, between you and a buddy or two, that's still a lot of precursor. It's not like they've actually solved any problems; they've just made the 3oz toiletries industry boom.
• venomsnake 11y ago
  I guess he realizes how lucky he is, that he had not had his soldering gun on him. He would have been shot on sight. /not sure if sarcastic, sadly. And back in the day we played with sodium, benzene, nitroglycerin, nitrogen triodide as part of the curriculum. With the way current students are treated - the surprising thing about pupils going postal, is that so few of them are. On the other hand that is a great way to incubate terrorists. Local and organic.
• samsnelling 11y ago
  QOTD from dallas news article: http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/northwest-dallas-county/headlines/20150915-irving-9th-grader-arrested-after-taking-homemade-clock-to-school.ece http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/northwest-dall... "He’s vowed never to take an invention to school again.” what a place of learning!
  • jcromartie 11y ago
    That's always the lesson from these sorts of things: don't try, don't explore, or possibly don't trust people in authority to know anything.
    • goldenkey 11y ago
      Remember to get a hall pass!
    • InclinedPlane 11y ago
      Which is a double whammy considering all of the other ways schools crush enthusiasm and willingness to explore. Because grades are a measure of "achievement" that discourages people from exploring new subjects or taking challenging courses outside their comfort zone, since that could lower their GPA. And because all course work factors into your grade, not just your ultimate competency in the material, that creates even more incentives to not try anything new. Struggling with new material for even a week or two could irreparably harm your GPA.
• chromaton 11y ago
  I'd love to send this kid a gift certificate for some free waterjet and laser cutting. Does anyone know how to get in touch with the family?
  • marnett 11y ago
    https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ws7e8WyQvrsLfhSFvdGot3n9NWKfY3XLPBgbHaZDy3k/viewform?c=0&w=1 https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ws7e8WyQvrsLfhSFvdGot3n9NWK... here is a google doc where you can tell them just that yourself (:
• deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
• werber 11y ago
  I guess we can add science-ing while brown to the list of de facto racist laws in america
• andrewpi 11y ago
  This really reminded me of the Star Simpson case. The police actually held her at gunpoint so it was perhaps even worse: http://tech.mit.edu/V127/N40/simpson.html http://tech.mit.edu/V127/N40/simpson.html
  • chippy 11y ago
    She ended up with a criminal record, had to plead guilty, and had to state that she feels like she did the wrong thing. This case put me off living in the USA.
• kazinator 11y ago
  "You are under arrest for making a circuit board with a clock display, while bearing a name such as 'Ahmed Mohamed' and exhibiting a brown appearance."
• peeters 11y ago
  This is the crux of the issue: > “We have no information that he claimed it was a bomb,” Mr. McLellan said. “He kept maintaining it was a clock, but there was no broader explanation." Creative people don't need to have a good reason to make something. They create things because there is joy and satisfaction in creating things. It's a shame Mr. McLellan had such a boring childhood.
  • frobozz 11y ago
    I don't understand what broader explanation one could possibly give, without starting to sound extremely sarcastic. It's a clock, you know, for telling the time, because if I made a sundial and brought it in, it wouldn't work because of the walls and roof.
  • TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
    The only broader purpose is "fun".
• riebschlager 11y ago
  What's incredibly sad to me is all the kids whose parents wouldn't let them leave the house with a homemade clock. "What are you doing? If you take that to school they'll think it's a bomb!" Even Ahmed's engineering teacher advised him not to show his clock to any other teachers. Fear and suspicion are the default now. That's heartbreaking.
  • meric 11y ago
    The war on terror is over. Terror has won. The people of America are terrified. Osama bin laden has successfully dragged U.S. into conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq(there would be no war if not for 9/11), ISIS(who appeared from power vacuum left by U.S.) and Syria. U.S. has spent trillions fighting wars and maintaining bureaucracies' expansions that feed on the terror of the American people, and in return through security theatre further encourage this terror. U.S. is in a positive terror feedback loop. It is a kind of hell the U.S. nation state will never escape. On the plus side, where the end is coming into sight, so is a new beginning.
• sklogic 11y ago
  Why would anybody be surprised by a pumpkin-positive cop? They're explicitly selected this way: http://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836 http://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/sto...
• xacaxulu 11y ago
  The Nanny State didn't Show Up, You Hired It. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/3095062/posts http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/3095062/posts
• notNow 11y ago
  What really strikes about this story is the fact that Ahmad was the party who came forward to the teacher and notified him of his invention and even demoed it but that wasn't enough for the school staff to deter suspicions since and this elementary school logic level if he were intent on doing harm, he would have concealed completely the fact that he built such a device and kept the info to himself without sharing with anybody till the operation is carried out. But apparently everything is indeed BIGGER in Texas and this applies to stupidity, ignorance and prejudice as well.
• pppp 11y ago
  If police really thought this was a bomb, why didn't they evacuate the school and call the bomb squad? Their motives are suspect.
  • drjesusphd 11y ago
    It's all about showing everyone who's boss.
• narner 11y ago
  So, what can be done to help this kid? What can be done to make sure he doesn't lose his love of learning?
• deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
• powertower 11y ago
  There is likely more to this story. I'm basing this on 3 facts: 1. In 2015 it's highly unlikely that you could build a home-made clock that would be of the size and shape resembling a bomb - that is, unless it was made to look like a bomb. 2. Ahmed, his father, and anyone else with a phone camera (that is on Ahmed's side) would have posted a picture of the clock, or given a full description of it (size, shape, etc), in defense of Ahmed - that is, if it made sense, otherwise they would not. And I have not been able to find an image, nor a good description. 3. The initial teacher told him not to show it to anyone. You can break this down into that teacher having one of two opinions: A) It really did look like a bomb or B) its all about racism / hate / being anti-Muslim / anti-brown in that school (check the school's panel http://www.irvingisd.net/domain/2031 http://www.irvingisd.net/domain/2031 - that school is half brown and black).
  • Gigablah 11y ago
    At 1:13 in this interview, Ahmed shows a product page for the case that he put his clock in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mW4w0Y1OXE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mW4w0Y1OXE It's a "Vaultz Tiger Pencil Box". Here's a video review of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e40YqLF1Rs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e40YqLF1Rs
  • lucretian 11y ago
    re: #2, the device was confiscated. it's in the hands of the police now, presumably.
  • jandrese 11y ago
    #3 could be that the engineering teacher knows some of the other teachers and administrators are a bunch of panicky idiots and will freak out when "the brown arab kid" brings in something they don't immediately recognize.
  • hnpc123 11y ago
    Sad that you're being downvoted (and probably flagged) for expressing a reasonable opinion. Hacker News has been a left-wing echo chamber ever since the crazies started flowing in during that period when every story on the front page was NSA related. Now it's nearly impossible to have a reasoned discussion on any non-technical issue without SJWs using the voting system here to silence dissent.
• digitalneal 11y ago
  And now, every time that kid thinks about pushing the limits of his own personal education, he will reflect on this event and think twice. Will his effort be worth the outcome. Sad day. Very sad day.
• lotor 11y ago
  From eastern europe... If a gypsy kid walks behind you you better keep guarding your belongings. Is that racist ? Yes maybe it is. But it is because most of the time THE gypsy kid is really trying to steal something from you. Should you start being careless because somebody tells you that it's racist ? Do you people really want to live in a world where gays,transgenders,gypsies,blacks,hispanics,yellows,purples are favoured and put on pedestal because some hundred years ago a white cowboy enslaved them and made them to pick a cotton ? Ever heard of positive discrimination ?
  • maxblackwood 11y ago
    What the hell are you talking about? Even if you ignore race, it's still ridiculous to arrest a kid for bringing a clock into school because someone believed it to be a bomb.
  • dopamean 11y ago
    We don't have a problem with Muslim children bringing bombs to school in America. I am dumbfounded by the idiocy of this comment.
    • lotor 11y ago
      I bet you are the one screaming for taking the guns from people.
  • s_kilk 11y ago
    This is the dumbest thing I've read all week. You're getting downvoted, rightly, but I wanted to explain why that is. > Is that racist ? Yes > Do you people really want to live in a world where gays,transgenders,gypsies,blacks,hispanics,yellows,purples are favoured and put on pedestal You've got a pretty distorted view of all this. No-one (sane) is advocating for putting any group on a pedestal, we're just asking people to treat others as if they were human beings, which they are. It's really not that hard to grasp. For example, in this case we are discussing no-one is asking for the kid to get special treatment because of his race, instead they are pointing out that he should not be actively discriminated against because of his race.
• joesmo 11y ago
  So how do we get his idiot school admin fired? That's the only way to fix this now. He's essentially marked the kid for life now with an arrest record because of his own stupidity. If our society doesn't punish these people (and it doesn't) then this would be a good use for Twitter shaming. He deserves to lose his job.
• exodust 11y ago
  Sounds like he was asking for it. Notice in the video he says "he used a simple cable to lock it so it wouldn't look like a threat". People are forgetting that there's nothing impressive about a "clock in a case". He called it an "invention". Sorry kid, you're 14, not 8. Nothing inventive about sticking a digital clock in a case. His own engineering teacher suggested he not show it to other teachers. So what does he do? Takes it to English class where it makes beeping noises. Real smart kid, real smart. It's a clock in a case. NASA are not interested. Then, when first questioned he was apparently "passive aggressive", not explaining why he made it or why he brought it to school. Gee kid, you're really making all the smart moves. Ask yourself, why would his own teacher suggest he not show it to other teachers? Here's why... his "invention" looked dodgy as all hell. Hashtag "I'm not standing with this kid, not this time".
  • ajross 11y ago
    I can't see anywhere in that diatribe where he was asking to be arrested. The outrage is at the reaction here, not the kids level of martyrdom. We still aren't supposed to arrest 14 year old jerks with PCBs.
    • exodust 11y ago
      I'm sure it's always diatribe when you don't agree. "Asking for trouble" is what I mean. The default processes in the USA are not what I'm talking about, but everyone here is defending his "right to be creative". Nobody is saying "hang on, he put a clock in a case, brought it to school, not part of any school project, advised not to show it around, showed it around anyway and was passive aggro when asked about it". He was asking for trouble, and got it.
      • MaulingMonkey 11y ago
        > showed it around anyway A teacher discovered it when it beeped. I'm not sure how you've lept from that to "showed it around". EDIT: > and was passive aggro when asked about it I'm not sure where you got this from either.
• marnett 11y ago
  This whole situation screams a breach of the poor boy's liberties. According to TEX. FAM. CODE §51.095 [1]: In order for a custodial written statement to be admissible, the following sequence of events must occur: 1) the officer must take the child to a magistrate; 2) the magistrate must then inform the child of his rights to remain silent, to have an attorney appointed and present during questioning and to terminate the interview at any time; 3) the child must knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily waive his rights; 4) the officer may then take a statement from the child; and 5) upon completion of the statement, the child shall be taken before the magistrate again and sign the statement in the presence of the magistrate (and outside the presence of the officer), who will then certify the statement. This makes me sick that this kid was seemingly wrongfully interrogated. Sad to see that 'doing science while brown' results in him being treated as a second class citizen. [1]http://www.tmcec.com/public/files/File/Course%20Materials/FY13/Judges/Tyler/Johnson%20-%20Juvenile%20Statements%20for%20Magistrates%20-%20BINDER.pdf http://www.tmcec.com/public/files/File/Course%20Materials/FY...
  • Karunamon 11y ago
    How in the unholy bleeding fuck is a child supposed to understand the ramifications of the right to remain silent?!
    • goldenkey 11y ago
      Well even if he did it wouldn't matter much. 5 police officers, multiple school officials in a room, he's the only child. And effectively being bullied, manipulated, into feeling like a guilty sack of shit that should count his blessings and admit their version of his intent and give thanks and apologies. Par for the course. Public school systems are ran by political patsy thugs when you inspect the few ranks below the top.
    • kbenson 11y ago
      By having them explained by someone who is supposed to be impartial (a magistrate), and has a vested interest in making sure that the child understands the rights, because it's mandated by law that they do, and being known as the judge that takes advantage of small children is not a reputation you want to have.
• skbohra123 11y ago
  Many comments here on HN seem to feel that this is an issue with Education system or schools. But I as a non American feel is that a common American is too afraid of anything non American or anything strange. The main objective of terrorist organizations is to instill fear in the minds of people and I think they have succeeded in it to a greater extent.
• SimplyUseless 11y ago
  This is so wrong! Instead of encouraging tinkerers, schools have become a dumbing-machine.
• conjugate 11y ago
  when he described his invention by showing pictures on google images i immediately understood why the teacher was alarmed: spaghetti wire, aluminum briefcase, digital display of some numbers it could very well be that his intention was to create a hoax bomb
• jrarredondo 11y ago
  Texas Education Agency (TEA)'s Accountability Report shows "NO DISTINCTION" for Science at MacArthur High School in 2015. You would think these teachers would appreciate all the help they can get to earn some distinction in Sciences. http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/perfreport/account/2015/static/summary/campus/c057912003.pdf http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/perfreport/account/2015/static...
• fasteddie31003 11y ago
  <sarcasm>Hey maybe bomb making might be correlated with success in Silicon Valley http://valleywag.gawker.com/peter-thiel-admits-the-paypal-mafia-built-bombs-in-hi-1632734435 http://valleywag.gawker.com/peter-thiel-admits-the-paypal-ma... </sarcasm>
• wdhilliard 11y ago
  Why is there never any intelligent person with enough of a moral compass to intervene and tell these people to leave the kid alone?
• briandherbert 11y ago
  Wow, this thread makes me ashamed to be nerd. It's all bashing the intelligence of administrators/educators while hypocritically trying to make the point that we shouldn't scorn groups of people. "Hey, kid, if a person can't tell a clock circuit from a bomb, it invalidates all their motives and education."
• deleted 11y ago
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• pathdependent 11y ago
  I posted this once regarding a related incident, but it's appropriate here too. One day in college, a friend and I decided to pack a plastic bottle with dry ice and hot water. In our hung over state, we thought this would be fun to watch. I was in my apartment. It took all of five seconds to realize that I couldn't rip apart the bottle. So, if the force of this explosion was sufficient to do so, it was probably really fucking dangerous. I figured it was too late to take the cap off -- the bottle was already making weird sounds. So, I threw it in the bathroom tub, and shut the door. Two minutes went by, and I felt momentarily foolish. Almost as I thought "nothing is going to happen," it exploded. The force knocked my friend to the ground. Granted she was tiny, and it was partly from fear, but I felt the shock wave rattle my bones. I lived in the more expensive apartment building on campus. No one even came to say, "what's going on." If they did, they would have seen the bent metal of the tub's faucet. And, that was accidentally but very literally a bomb.
• fudgy73 11y ago
  Being handcuffed is the worst thing I have ever felt. It is inhumane and should not be practiced in a civilized society. The fact that a 14 year old child with that look on his face felt it makes my blood boil.
• noobie 11y ago
  Reminds of that time where I ordered an Arduino online only to have it stuck and ceased at customs because terrorists that's why.
• jameshart 11y ago
  A story. So, this thirteen year old kid with a Syrian father once got flagged up by Hewlett Packard because he was ordering electronic components. I'm sure you can imagine what happened next... Yeah, Bill Hewlett offered him a summer job, he got hooked on making stuff, wound up founding a company out of his garage with his buddy Steve Wozniak, and created the biggest electronics company in the world. Thank goodness he never took a clock he'd built into school.
  • deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
    • rmnoon 11y ago
      Wrong decade...
    • jameshart 11y ago
      Good job his surname wasn't Wozniak, then.
  • deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  • kmfrk 11y ago
    Of course, people would rather that part of his heritage weren't brought up, leaving us with Michael Fassbender portraying him on the big screen.
    • fudgy73 11y ago
      In Arabic, "fass" means fart. That's right, he's a Fart-bender, which I suppose is a type of airbender.
      • edkhalid1 11y ago
        you're already bending fass into faswa. Not cool.
    • 11y ago
• nsxwolf 11y ago
  I don't understand where the race angle is coming from. How is this definitely a case of "making while brown"? What's the evidence, besides the kid's brown skin? I would "stand with Ahmed", but if that means being attached to race baiting and Islamophobia accusations, I won't.
• ilamont 11y ago
  Ahmed and his family have started a twitter account, @IStandWithAhmed: https://twitter.com/IStandWithAhmed https://twitter.com/IStandWithAhmed
• jbob2000 11y ago
  All parents should send their kids to school with clocks tomorrow as a show of support.
• curiousjorge 11y ago
  only in america
• rebootthesystem 11y ago
  > Ahmed was arrested for making while brown This line really bothers me. Probably because I simply don't think this way. I don't see color in people. It is because of this, perhaps wrongly, that I can't accept the idea that this kid was arrested because he is brown. I think a white kid would have been arrested just the same. Why? Because the problem, as I see it, is our schools, in some areas, are bastions of ignorance. And this goes beyond K12 into colleges and university. The problem in this case is an "Engineering" teacher who probably isn't anything close to an engineer. In other words, incapable of evaluating what the kid actually built. For this teacher what was in this little box might as well have been alien technology. Why do I say this? Because it would have taken any engineer all 30 seconds --if that-- to understand what this kid built. This could not have been the first time this kid brought some of his work to school. It sounds like he is really into making stuff. His "Engineering" teacher should have known this and should have known his profile. My oldest kid had a "robotics" class in middle school. In quotes because the teacher would come into the room, sit down and browse the 'net on her iPad while the kids did whatever they wanted. She got to earn extra cash by pretending to teach this class. The union protected her from any potential consequence of her ineptitude. The only reason the other kids learned anything is because my son actually taught them (we have an FLL table in our living room). Now in college, he's come across the same sort of thing. A calculus 1 "professor" who quite literally copies from the book onto the blackboard and will not answer any questions during class. Students are asked to write the questions down and they might be answered during the next class. She clearly knows nothing. And, to be politically incorrect, is likely to have gotten her job due to "equal opportunity" rules. If I didn't devote a serious amount of time to help my kid Calculus he would have come out of that semester way behind in his understanding. I feel sorry for the other kids if they didn't have a parent with the requisite knowledge and the time to do the teacher's job at home. Yet in another case, a professor in an arts class devoted half of nearly every class meeting to a monologue about her ongoing attempts to become an actress, professional dancer, whatever. No tests. No teaching. Just ranting about various aspects of her personal life every class. At the end everyone got an A. Sad. Truly sad. There are many problems with our schools. I feel a huge part of it has to do with ignorance, incompetence and union contracts that prevent us from a "survival of the fittest" approach to evolving good schools with truly intelligent, well-informed, balanced, knowledgeable teachers. Then there's the deeper political element. Teaching, K12 through University, is largely populated with a wide spectrum of people of Liberal ideology. There was a study [2] that concluded some majors have a ratio of 44:1 in favor of left to extreme-left teachers. And, with that, comes the use of their position to indoctrinate kids --consciously or not. If you don't think this is a problem, please take a moment to go through the mental exercise of inverting that ratio. How about 44:1 extreme right teachers? Or, today's favorite punching bag, 44:1 Islamic extremist teachers? Right. The extremes are not good for anybody. Before you jump-up in joy if you like the idea of academia being permeated by left-leaning teachers you need to take a rocket up to low earth orbit and consider what that looks like from many points of view and what the consequences of a mono-ideology might have on society. As an Atheist and moderate Libertarian I feel I am firmly rooted somewhere around the center of both ideologies in many ways. I am with most Liberal social ideas while wanting to see less government intervention and a Conservative fiscal approach to things. Having a 44:1 ratio of teachers pushing one ideology on the kids is a bad thing, no matter where you are standing. And so, there's also a high likelihood that the teachers who are ignorant, acted like morons and had this kid arrested are Liberal and highly intolerant [1]. Nobody wants to talk about how, for some strange reason, the Left has become the most intolerant group over the last several decades. Principles are great to put down on paper, but, if you don't follow them, what do they mean? This kid was arrested due to everyone around him being ignorant morons. A few videos to consider: [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTd4-WXw2SM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTd4-WXw2SM [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVE-7OFk_tk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVE-7OFk_tk
• brianmcconnell 11y ago
  Next time he should build a cuckoo clock that shouts Allahu Akbar.
• minusSeven 11y ago
  this is fucked up beyond belief.
• BurningFrog 11y ago
  Some true stories go viral because they "confirm" what a lot of people think is wrong with society. Because they go viral, there is a lot of talk about them, which "confirms" even further that this is a Big Problem, and that it is caused by What I've Been Saying All Along. In reality this is one single idiotic decision by some local knuckleheads. As a social science study, it has a sample size of 1 and a huge selection bias. The problems you think it "shows" may well be real, but retelling this anecdote does not prove that.
• bkeating 11y ago
  Make Magazine should put him on the cover of their next issue.
• unfamiliar 11y ago
  Something doesn't seem quite right about this story. He made a clock and then chose to store it in a metal briefcase with the numbers on the outside. In other words, he built something that looks exactly like a bomb from a movie: briefcase with red numbers on it. Maybe this appearance was entirely accidental; but I would bet that he originally intended it to look like a bomb, probably for humour.
  • pfg 11y ago
    Where are you getting the "numbers on the outside" bit from? I didn't read/hear that anywhere. Also, it was a pencil case, this one specifically: http://i.imgur.com/1SZH7JM.jpg http://i.imgur.com/1SZH7JM.jpg Doesn't exactly scream "dangerous bomb", does it?
  • panzagl 11y ago
    And it started beeping in class- depending on the kid's history/attitude sending them to an administrator is not an over-reaction. The zero-tolerance b.s. that happens next is the problem, but even there it's hard to blame administration- I'm sure there's zero tolerance for anything that looks like a weapon, and unfortunately a beeping case full of electronics qualifies.
• postitnotecode 11y ago
  Their twitter page promoted their first "maker space" which I have trouble squaring with this story. Is the message the school wants to send: creation, making, and learning is very very dangerous and only allowed under strict supervision? https://twitter.com/MacReads/status/643784222394552320/photo/1 https://twitter.com/MacReads/status/643784222394552320/photo...
• joeclark77 11y ago
  So... kid with an Arabic name, whose father is a belligerent Islamist known to the townspeople to rail against imagined anti-Muslim racists in the town square, shows up at school with a homemade electronic device with a timer on the front of it. He takes someone's bad advice to conceal it under his clothing, and walks into a classroom where it starts beeping. I think reasonable people can understand why the police might have been called. It was of course unreasonable for the police to have actually arrested the boy, once they found out what they were dealing with. Reading between the lines though, maybe the article's use of "arrested" just means they took the kid home to his parents.
  • strangecasts 11y ago
    Reading between the lines though, maybe the article's use of "arrested" just means they took the kid home to his parents. He was cuffed and interrogated: https://twitter.com/OfficalPrajwol/status/644011809351962625/photo/1 https://twitter.com/OfficalPrajwol/status/644011809351962625...
  • kaitai 11y ago
    The father is an anti-Islamist. Anti. It means opposite. The guy is sufficiently anti-Islamist to go run for president of Sudan. That takes some dedication. Muslim != Islamist, just as Christian != Westboro Baptist.
    • joeclark77 11y ago
      The article said the father is outspoken against (presumably imaginary) anti-Islamic policies. You may not know this, but Sudan is ruled by its Muslim, Arab north and is often quite happy to enslave or murder the black Christians in its south. Hardly a model of an anti-Islamist republic.
      • jcromartie 11y ago
        I'm not sure what kind of policies he's outspoken against, but if someone is against policies that they perceive to be hostile to Muslims, how does that make them Islamists who want to establish Islamic rule? He is a Sufi (mystic, esoteric) and more than a bit eccentric. I saw his brand of Islam described as "New Testament" elsewhere. He has tried to argue (contrary to most Islamic scholarship) that the earlier peaceful Meccan sections actually abrogate the later warlike Medinan sections of the Quran. I don't think he's any sort of Islamist at all. "He says he has serious issues with the hardline, traditional readings of the text, and he's writing a book about his reading of the Koran -- with working titles like Jesus Among Us With the Quran, or The New Understanding of the Quran." http://www.dallasobserver.com/news/why-mohamed-elhassan-the-dallas-imam-who-played-defense-attorney-in-quran-torching-church-says-he-admires-terry-jones-7130292 http://www.dallasobserver.com/news/why-mohamed-elhassan-the-...
• Peter_K2 11y ago
  I guess Ahmet could be the person pictured in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=9&v=zi-nhO77uvo https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=9&v=zi-nhO77uvo People don't like the fascist Islamic mendality and are quick to judge anyone who looks islamic.
• crikli 11y ago
  Public educators frequently make stronger arguments for home-schooling than I ever could.
• CodeSheikh 11y ago
  And then teachers (some of them at least) complain why are they getting paid less? Go figure...
• austenallred 11y ago
  Here's a photo of the device he was arrested for having: http://i.imgur.com/upANL9d.jpg http://i.imgur.com/upANL9d.jpg
  • mynameishere 11y ago
    What an odd picture. Not sure why you didn't link to a real source. This seems to have a similar looking circuit board: http://fusion.net/story/197958/irving-texas-police-arrest-muslim-teen-clock/ http://fusion.net/story/197958/irving-texas-police-arrest-mu... But then this article has a completely different picture: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/09/15/student-detained-police-mistake-clock-fake-bomb/72348060/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/09/15/student... If it was really mounted in that case in your picture, it's indeed a little funny looking. I mean, all of this politically correct rage is misplaced if the fucking thing actually did look like a bomb. You gotta know that's not something to take into a school... And who "invents" a clock anyway? It's sort of already-done. I mean, 50 years ago kids were putting together AM radios with electronic kits. At least that's sort-of interesting. It picks up signals from a 1000 miles away--cool! I mean, a clock? Why not invent an inclined plane next? Oh, well. The media needs to push its narrative.
    • austenallred 11y ago
      That is the photo the police provided to reporters by police. He did hold it in a "lunchbox-like" case
    • DanBC 11y ago
      > And who "invents" a clock anyway? It's sort of already-done. Clocks use a variety of circuit blocks - you need something to keep time; you need something to display that time; you can add other features. With just "keep time" and "display time" you still have a variety of different methods. You can count mains frequency; you can use crystals and dividers. Displays can be 7 segment LEDs or LCDs or binary or analogue motors. Each require different approaches. Even if it's just a shop-bought off the shelf kit the student learns a bit of component identification and handling and some soldering skills.
• jkestner 11y ago
  1) Nerdism is stronger than religion or race. 2) We need younger teachers who don’t think circuitboards are bombs.
• ZachWick 11y ago
  This hits close to home for me too, and I am as WASP-y as it gets. Just over a year ago I was flying to the middle of US with some prototypes for an agriculural automation system in my checked luggage. Going through DTW and O'Hare to my final destination was fine and went without incident. On my way back, again with a checked luggage bag of protypes and tools, this little airport in northwest IA got evacauted and I was very forcibly questioned about why I was flying with these things. What struck me was that the larger airports (DTW and O'Hare) couldn't have cared less, but this 5-gate airport in IA freaked out that somebody flying with three laptops in his carryon would also have a bag of tools and equipment. The best part out of all of this was after everything was cleared up, I asked the head TSA person what I should do in the future to prevent getting searched and interrogated. His answer was "just open your bag and show the luggage agent what is in it." I still don't understand how that would help - I envision that the conversation would go something like "Hi, these look like pipe bombs. They aren't. You can trust me." and I would immediately be detained. (Edited for formatting)
  • leesalminen 11y ago
    At the age of 14, I had to fly solo from LGA to ORD for my uncle's funeral. I had a one-way ticket purchased 18 hours before the flight. We all assumed that because of my age and appearance it wouldn't be suspicious. Wrong! I was stopped and questioned for an hour before being allowed to board.
    • ZachWick 11y ago
      I can only imagine the effect of an interrogation like that on a 14yr old. I was 24 and was completly drained by mine. I was questioned by each of the TSA, the local sheriff, and the plane's pilot and an airline rep. Three different interrogations all asking the same questions just to determine if I was going to be allowed to fly.
      • deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
  • 11y ago
• ChuckMcM 11y ago
  This sort of thing is very sad, and a symptom of a larger problem. School district policy is a largely political process with a variety of actors with their agendas involved. Making effective change involves people with children in those schools coming together and making their opinions known. We have had a couple of successes in the bay area using NextDoor as a communication portal for this sort of activism.
• eastbayjake 11y ago
  This seems like a great opportunity for us to show our support for kids who build things. Would anyone be interested in a GoFundMe to get Ahmed some Arduino gear or send him to an electronics camp? (I would just create one but I'm not sure what people would most readily donate toward -- gear or scholarship funds.)
• electic 11y ago
  Frankly, if someone showed up with a clock and a circuit board with wires leading to a box on the board, what would people think? Keep in mind, there have been multiple mass shootings at schools already this year. They have to investigate it. What if someone showed up to the mall with a gun in an open-carry setting? People panic.[2] The setting matters. Especially if the setting in question, a school, has been a victim of mass violence numerous times. This is not a HP lab. They were right to take a look at the device with police. However, this is where things went terribly wrong: > When Ahmed was called out of class, he said he was brought into a room with four police officers, one of whom said, "Yup. That's who I thought it was." [1] Frankly, the school and police should have been more professional. They weren't. What is more disturbing, is the police have inadvertently admitted they are profiling people in this community. There is far more details in the CNN article: [1] http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/16/us/texas-student-ahmed-muslim-clock-bomb/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/16/us/texas-student-ahmed-muslim-... [2] http://www.fayobserver.com/news/local/fort-bragg-soldier-armed-at-cross-creek-mall-sparks-gun/article_01e2e2a6-2fd1-5e88-bd0f-ee0d3990ed63.html http://www.fayobserver.com/news/local/fort-bragg-soldier-arm...
  • zardo 11y ago
    Frankly, if someone showed up with a clock and a circuit board with wires leading to a box on the board, what would people think? I don't think we should assume that everything we don't understand is a weapon. I don't understand a lot of things, the vast majority of which are not bombs.
    • electic 11y ago
      Did I say that? Don't think I did. You are basically arguing that they should not have investigated?
• chrisBob 11y ago
  People are so worried about terrorists. Guess what: they won! If you don't believe me then try getting on a commercial flight, or try bringing a cool electronics project to school some time. The hoax bomb charge that they are still considering doesn't make sense to me. As someone who has seen a lot of improvised explosive devices[0] "hoax" means something very specific. I occasionally encountered hoax devices which were deliberately placed to monitor our response. Finding one meant you could be sure you were on camera. Here the police seem to use "hoax" to mean someone got scared of an empty cardboard box, or in this case a cool electronics project. The difference is intent just like selling oregeno or baby powder can get you in trouble for selling drugs if you are portraying it that way. Having something suspicious means it should be investigated, but it shouldn't be a crime unless it is intentionally portrayed as an illegal object. [0] Roughly 100 in Baghdad in 2005.
• kyleblarson 11y ago
  Texas doesn't deserve this young man. Come on up to Seattle.
  • saryant 11y ago
    By all means, paint 20 million people with the same brush.
    • panzagl 11y ago
      I'm so open minded I know all Texans are racist /s
    • vacri 11y ago
      You make it sound like Texas has no other stories about a regressive education system.
      • saryant 11y ago
        Having grown up in the California school system and then moved to Texas I can assure you that is not an attribute unique to Texas.
• cldwalker 11y ago
  If you're angry with the school's horrible reaction to this, let Jose Parra, http://www.irvingisd.net/Page/3010 http://www.irvingisd.net/Page/3010, know: (972) 600-5001 / jparra@irvingisd.net. He can fire the principal of that school - Dan Cummings
  • scottshea 11y ago
    Hey they were recently acknowledged for their use of cutting edge technology! http://www.irvingisd.net/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&DomainID=4&ModuleInstanceID=7900&ViewID=047E6BE3-6D87-4130-8424-D8E4E9ED6C2A&RenderLoc=0&FlexDataID=8876&PageID=1 http://www.irvingisd.net/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&Domain...
• rsingel 11y ago
  Why is this a link to an aggregation piece by TechCrunch, rather than the original reported story by Dallas Morning News? http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/northwest-dallas-county/headlines/20150915-irving-ninth-grader-arrested-after-taking-homemade-clock-to-school.ece http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/northwest-dall...
  • kochb 11y ago
    The Dallas News version was submitted at least 4 times, TechCrunch was the one that stuck: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10224216 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10224216 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10224223 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10224223 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10224649 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10224649 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10224747 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10224747
    • rsingel 11y ago
      Thanks for checking that. I wish the mods would replace the link, since rewarding original reporting makes more of it, and rewarding aggregation makes more of that.
• aarestad 11y ago
  Hey Ahmed - if you're reading this, post the plans to your clock. I'd love to build one in solidarity with you.
  • TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
    It's not quite the same, but WIRED linked to some videos of how to make clocks: http://www.wired.com/2015/09/make-homemade-clock-isnt-bomb/ http://www.wired.com/2015/09/make-homemade-clock-isnt-bomb/
• PopeOfNope 11y ago
  This post is a living embodiment of this CGP Grey video[0]. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc
• marze 11y ago
  Sounds like the four "arresting officers" were so ignorant they didn't know that you need explosive material, not just a trigger, to form a bomb.
• jeo1234 11y ago
  The case seems a little reminiscent of what happened to Aaron Swartz, large bureaucracy is unable to understand what someone is doing and so it attacks them. Fortunately it appears that the outcome will not be tragic.
• zyxley 11y ago
  > Update at 11:20 a.m. Wednesday: At a press conference this morning, Irving Police Chief Larry Boyd said Ahmed Mohamed was arrested for bringing "a hoax bomb" to school -- and not a clock, as Mohamed said he repeatedly told his teachers. > But, Boyd said, "we are confident it's not an explosive device" intended to cause "alarm." Rather, he said, officers determined it was "a hoax bomb" and a "naive accident." > As a result, he said, no charges will be filed against Ahmed, and "the case is considered closed." He also said "the reaction would have been the same regardless" of the student's skin color.
• sgustard 11y ago
  This is the logical result of "if you see something, say something." And, I can assure you that almost any science fair project found in a bathroom or under a car would look suspicious. So would a backpack or cardboard box.
• QUFB 11y ago
  Looks like he's been invited to the White House: https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/644193755814342656 https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/644193755814342656
  • carbide 11y ago
    I just experienced a moment of pride in the leadership of our country
• d0ne 11y ago
  President Obama has extended an invite to Ahmed to show his clock off at the White House: https://twitter.com/potus/status/644193755814342656 https://twitter.com/potus/status/644193755814342656
  • elektromekatron 11y ago
    It's about time. (sorry)
  • swagswag 11y ago
    potus done good
  • onedev 11y ago
    Zuck also invited him to Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10102373304096361 https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10102373304096361
  • deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  • NovaS1X 11y ago
    Major win. This is fantastic PR and a great response to this situation. I hope people learn from this.
  • muhuk 11y ago
    Shouldn't he have done proper presidenting to make sure this didn't happen? I see only PR here.
    • mbreese 11y ago
      The President doesn't control what officials in Texas do... But this is a cool move. It's PR, but it's the best kind of PR, especially from the President that called on the country to become a "nation of makers". https://www.whitehouse.gov/nation-of-makers https://www.whitehouse.gov/nation-of-makers
  • zappo2938 11y ago
• ipsin 11y ago
  Perhaps the correct response would be to ban circuit boards and items containing circuit boards from school grounds. This would be quite educational, as everyone learned the hard way that cars, clocks, cell phones, loudspeakers, and so forth are packed with "threatening" fake bombs.
• InfiniteEntropy 11y ago
  'Murica.
• noipv4 11y ago
  I feel so sorry for the kid :( I used to make my own beeping LED flashers with BC109C transistors and AA batteries when I was his age, and brought them to school to show my friends how cool electronics is.
• andygambles 11y ago
  POTUS liked it https://twitter.com/potus/status/644193755814342656 https://twitter.com/potus/status/644193755814342656
• jobu 11y ago
  "Because it consisted of a board with a digital display and a tiger hologram on the front, the teacher recommended he hide it from the rest of the staff." Anyone know why the teacher had him hide it? Are they restricted from having electronic devices and toys at school? Is it because the teacher thought it looked suspicious? Either way it's unfortunate that the teacher didn't just ask to hold on to it until after school was out. If one reasonable adult had stood up for him before another adult freaked then it may not have been an issue.
• joncp 11y ago
  No, he was arrested because his name is Ahmed Mohamed. The clock was just the pretense.
• ahmadss 11y ago
  Here's President Obama's tweet on the matter -- "Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It's what makes America great." https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/644193755814342656 https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/644193755814342656
  • Tepix 11y ago
    Amazingly clever twist!
• InclinedPlane 11y ago
  Did they call the bomb squad? Nope, they never believed it was a real bomb. Did he ever claim it was a bomb? Nope, never. Somehow they still claim that Ahmed made a "hoax bomb".
• ambrop7 11y ago
  When I was in high school (in Slovenia), I have actually brought a home-made "bomb" to school. It had an LCD and a keypad, you would arm it and it would count down while beeping with increasing frequency, unless you entered the correct deactivation code. Nobody mistook it for a real bomb and nobody had any trouble with it, except for when it was set up in the middle of class to annoy the teacher :) A later improvement was the addition of "detorator circuit" based on the flash electronics for a disposable camera, and you could hook up something like a resistor to it which would then be fried by who knows how many volts...
• keithflower 11y ago
  President Obama just tweeted: "Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It's what makes America great."
• elektromekatron 11y ago
  "What are you doing out?" "Walking," said Leonard Mead. "Walking!" "Just walking," he said simply, but his face felt cold. "Walking, just walking, walking?" "Yes, sir." "Walking where? For what?" "Walking for air. Walking to see." "Your address!" "Eleven South Saint James Street." "And there is air in your house, you have an air conditioner, Mr. Mead?" "Yes." "And you have a viewing screen in your house to see with?" "No." "No?" There was a crackling quiet that in itself was an accusation. "Are you married, Mr. Mead?" "No." "Not married," said the police voice behind the fiery beam, The moon was high and clear among the stars and the houses were gray and silent. "Nobody wanted me," said Leonard Mead with a smile. "Don't speak unless you're spoken to!" Leonard Mead waited in the cold night. "Just walking, Mr. Mead?" "Yes." "But you haven't explained for what purpose." --- Excerpted from Ray Bradbury's short story 'The Pedestrian'. For fairly obvious and somewhat depressing reasons.
  • mikeash 11y ago
    Until I got to "viewing screen" I thought this was going to be a transcript of some real police encounter. (I didn't notice "but his face felt cold.")
• EmpressNicole 11y ago
  I really hope that the teacher gets fired for this stupidity
  • vermooten 11y ago
    +1
  • seanalltogether 11y ago
    The press release from the school tells you everything about how they view this situation. They took a bad course of action, and now they're going into overdrive to justify why everything the adults did is ok. They'll probably add even more restrictions on what students can bring to school to make sure they don't look like fools again.
  • panzagl 11y ago
    The teacher has very little to do with this stupidity- zero tolerance and post-Columbine hysteria are not the fault of an English teacher.
• richardwigley 11y ago
  14 year old boy is going to meet POTUS and he can bring his cool clock. https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/644193755814342656 https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/644193755814342656
• ignoramous 11y ago
  I find 'Refuse to be Terrorized' by Bruce Schneier to be an excellent account of mindset of people in a post 9/11 world: http://archive.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2006/08/71642?currentPage=all http://archive.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securi...
• wedesoft 11y ago
  At my school somebody did build a small time bomb and he made it go off in the dust bin at the playground. Even then the police didn't get involved.
• SovietDissident 11y ago
  So he has a Muslim name, which is why this story went viral. Because racism. I hope everyone is equally outraged by the nonsense that happens all the time[0][1] to kids who aren't named Mohammad in public schools. Sending your high IQ kids to school with adults who are batting 85 should be regarded as parental malpractice. And the notion that people defend public schools and tell us taxpayers they just "need more money!1!!1" flies in the face of reason and the facts (per pupil spending since the 60s has tripled with no change in test scores).[2] Public schools suck by their very nature as state-controlled entities. If education is so important (especially today), why do we allow our kids to be taught and schools administered by the equivalents of DMV employees? Of course the poorest kids with broken families suffer the most. And what happens when charter schools actually succeed? The Teachers Union is there to try and shut them down, with the help of sympathetic politicians (see NYC and de Blasio)[3] [0] http://www.roanoke.com/news/columns_and_blogs/columns/dan_casey/casey-not-pot-leaf-gets-th-grader-in-big-trouble/article_67dc2868-0f0a-53c0-96ad-595a88391aa3.html http://www.roanoke.com/news/columns_and_blogs/columns/dan_ca... [1] http://wjla.com/news/local/family-of-md-boy-suspended-for-pop-tart-gun-wants-his-suspension-record-expunged-106748 http://wjla.com/news/local/family-of-md-boy-suspended-for-po... [2] http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2015/mar/02/dave-brat/brat-us-school-spending-375-percent-over-30-years-/ http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2015/mar/02/da... [3] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/16/nyregion/success-academy-charter-schools-force-mayor-bill-de-blasio-to-confront-new-law.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/16/nyregion/success-academy-c...
• TheRealDunkirk 11y ago
  The real problem here is that everyone in positions of responsibility in the government -- the school and the police -- feel the need to justify their existence by doing... something. The default action of the school is to call the police, and then what? You have only 4 outcomes once the police are involved: 1) nothing, 2) citation, 3) arrest, 4) death. How many times do the police just walk away from something? That's right. So (1) isn't really an option at all. Citation? For what? They were trying, but you don't write tickets for making "hoax bombs." Killing a scrawny 14-year-old kid is extreme, even for the most jaded cop, so that leaves (3), arrest. Then the legal system has to justify IT'S existence, and, well, we know how this goes. Then the ACLU has to get all up in it, and probably CAIR, and the Justice Department. All because everyone has abandoned their common sense and replaced it with fear and deference to the State since 9/11. Thanks, Bush AND Obama.
• Animats 11y ago
  What probably happened here is that the kid bought one of the many digital clock board kits available.[1][2] The problem is that these look just like the TV/movie version of bombs, because, of course, prop people use the same boards. Not real bombs, though. Richard Marcinko, the founder of Seal Team Six, once wrote that he'd blown up a lot of things in his career and he'd never seen a count down timer with glowing numbers. [1] http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-a-digital-clock-kit-based-on-Atmel/ http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-a-digital-clock-... [2] https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10930 https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10930
  • danjayh 11y ago
    Thanks! I was curious about this, because having volunteered for FIRST robotics, I can tell you that the number of HS students in the US with the skills to design and build a digital clock is pretty much 0. Looking at the picture, I think that maybe he re-homed a commercial clock into a different case and added some leads to run it off a battery ... which is still beyond the capabilities of 99% of US HS students. Either way, congrats to Mohamed for being curious about how things work, shame on his teachers for not doing due diligence (maybe asking the electronics teacher to take a look before calling the police?), and I wish there were more information available about exactly what Mohamed had done, because I find that to be the interesting part of the story. Not that the response was appropriate, but I'm pretty sure that if I'd taken a similarly looking device into my very WASP-y suburban school, even though I'm white as a sheet, my school administration would have had a similar response. People are really paranoid these days, and right or wrong, we all have to deal with it.
• rflrob 11y ago
  I don't want to suggest that what the school and police did to this guy is anything but terrible, but I suspect that he'll actually be fine in the long run. If I were an admissions officer at MIT, I'd jump at the chance to admit someone with an essay "I was arrested for building a clock". I think the bigger concern is all the people who get in trouble with the powers that be, and don't have media savvy parents with time or knowledge or connections to get something in the local paper and/or get in touch with civil rights organizations.
• frederickf 11y ago
  The Irving ISD Student Code of Conduct, which the principle alleges the student to have broken, can be downloaded at http://www.irvingisd.net/Page/5183 http://www.irvingisd.net/Page/5183. I couldn't find anything in there prohibiting a clock or other non-communication related electronic devices. I didn't read every word so maybe I missed something. I did find the following under the prohibited items section: "Any articles not generally considered to be weapons, including school supplies, when the principal or designee determines that a danger exists." But that would seem to create a dilemma in this situation. If it was a bomb it wouldn't be covered by that stipulation, but if it was a clock then no reasonable person could consider it to be dangerous. If we're being charitable we could assume the principled believed it was a bomb at the time, in which case it would have been covered by other stipulations in the code. But if that is the case then I would think the school should have been evacuated. I don't know if that happened or not. Also, good lord, I don't ever remember having to sign something like that document (it's a 44 page document that reads like a contract) when I was in school. Is it even legally binding to have a minor sign that?
• fapjacks 11y ago
  This isn't surprising to hear coming from Texas, the state where legislation has titles like "The Save Orphans of Firemen Act" but actually when you read it, you find out they just want to bulldoze some poor peoples' homes on the east side of town to build a dump. And the bill includes some gerrymandering in the Ferengi print. Texas is like that.
• thebouv 11y ago
  My daughter is about to work on a IoT-ish wearable using conductive thread, a LilyPad Arduino board and battery pack. As a school project. I'll report back if she ends up in prison. It's not Texas, but Indiana isn't much brighter unfortunately. (Thankfully the school is more hippy than dippy, and the teachers are aware and excited about the project).
• CIPHERSTONE 11y ago
  When tasked with the protection of human capital, it's not a big surprise that the administration takes the most extreme response when confronted with uncertainty. That being said, the Engineering professor could have prevented the whole situation if he had just kept it in his class for the rest of the day instead of advising the student to "hide it".
• deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
• confiscate 11y ago
  The police knew it wasn't a bomb the moment they saw it. Otherwise they would have called in the bomb squad right away. The fact that they continued to play games and arrest the kid is not for "safety". It's clear they arrested him because of racism.
  • latj 11y ago
    My favorite clip is of the police who said something to the effect of, "When we asked him what it was, he only said it was a clock he didnt tell us why he brought it to school..." so they arrested him for a hoax bomb. That statement reeks of a story made up after the fact. You can imagine them sitting around their police station after they let the kid go. Police A: "Oh shit, this kid was just bringing in a clock to show his engineering teacher. There are several witnesses who heard him tell us it was just a clock. And now everyone in the world is watching. We're fucked." Police B: "Nothing's fucked, bro. Be cool. Think. Think. Wait, he never told us whhhhy he brought the clock to school." Police A: "Why does that matter? he told us it was just a clock and it is just a clock! Did we even ask why he brought it?" Police B: "I didnt ask why. Did you? Even if you didnt, its still somethin' you could say." Police A: "That is so stupid." Police B: "Still, you know... it is somethin' you could say." Police A: "That is so stupid. You are stupid. And, we are fucked!" ...later at press conference clears throat Police A: "...he told us it was a clock buuuuut, he never told us whhhhy he brought the clock..." glances over at Police B who has the stupidest grin on his face
• danjayh 11y ago
  Anyone have any actual technical details on what Mohamed built? Judging from the pics I've seen, it's clearly a commercial PCB. I'm wondering if maybe he worked out a power supply or display driver himself or if he simply re-homed a commercial clock into a cooler case... I don't expect that anyone in the 'news' actually cares enough to go into detail.
• Macsenour 11y ago
  When I was ten, 1971, I asked my father for a chemistry set for Christmas. My parents were divorced so when vacation was over, I had to return to living with my mother. This involved a short plane ride from SoCal to NorCal on PSA. I was traveling by myself. I recall putting my bags on a table so they the airlines people could look at what I was taking on the plane. When the FLIGHT ATTENDANT looked at my chemistry set, she turned to another official and said: "He could make a bomb out of these chemicals", My first reaction was to laugh. I waited a minute while the adults thought it over and said: "I'm 10, I don't know how to make a bomb or anything. I jusy got this for christmas!" They taped it up and made me check it, so I could not carry it on to the plane. To this day I marvel at the idea that a child would be suspected of making a chemical bomb.
• mc32 11y ago
  Making while brown, really? That's the best explosive phrase they could come up with? Maybe it was stereotyping of one kind of another or maybe not. When Asians or whites are arrested under questionable judgement is it also appropriate to say making while while or Asian? Dammit, there is an injustice here, but going inflammatory is not helpful. Who does the editing for tv? Are the awol?
• aresant 11y ago
  Reddit turned up a picture of the clock http://i.imgur.com/jGZ8RBU.jpg http://i.imgur.com/jGZ8RBU.jpg
• beauSD 11y ago
  For the purpose of being fully informed, and because you won't see this photo shown much, here is the homemade clock that Ahmed brought to school. [1] http://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/AP_250782557912-582x462.jpg http://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/AP_250782557... Regardless of what someone looks like or what their name is, if you see them at a school with a device like this and it's beeping, I think it's reasonable to call the police. Allow them to come and have someone with expertise ensure that it isn't a bomb and determine the student's intention. Hopefully the police that arrive do their job well - with diligence, compassion, professionalism, and without animosity or bias. Police were called, he was detained and questioned, and then released without charges [2]. It's a tragedy that we see bombings and shootings in schools - but we do see them, and far too often. These are the times we live in. So how should this have been handled? Hopefully Ahmed doesn't lose any passion for science or electronics because of this afternoon, but I think if people handle the situation with rational thought rather than instigation, then he will have a much better chance at that. 1. http://www.wired.com/2015/09/heres-bomb-clock-got-ahmed-mohamed-arrested/ http://www.wired.com/2015/09/heres-bomb-clock-got-ahmed-moha... 2. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/09/16/they-thought-it-was-a-bomb-ahmed-mohamed-texas-9th-grader-arrested-after-bringing-a-home-built-clock-to-school/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/09/16...
  • cheald 11y ago
    > if you see them at a school with a device like this and it's beeping, I think it's reasonable to call the police. Or...you know, ask them about it. A bomber wouldn't carry a Hollywood-looking bomb in a Hollywood-looking secret agent suitcase. They'd conceal it in their backpack, which is just like the other thousands of backpacks in the school. Calling the police is not an appropriate first response to this.
  • NhanH 11y ago
    For the purpose of being fully informed, and because you might forgot you have seen this photo, this is what happened when the police arrived: https://twitter.com/OfficalPrajwol/status/644011809351962625/photo/1 https://twitter.com/OfficalPrajwol/status/644011809351962625... Regardless of what someone looks like or what their name is, if they did not do anything wrong and is 14 years old, I think it's reasonable to expect them not being handcuffed and parade out of school in front of their peers. It's hard to take in good faith that the police have done their job well - with diligence, compassion, professionalism, and without animosity or bias. Police were called, kid were arrested, detained massively erroneously, interrogated without the present of an attorney [0], and potentially having his life turned upside down, or side way (for better or worse). It's a tragedy that we see people without understanding of Bayesian statistics (or frequentist, for that matter) - but we do see them, and far too often. These are the times we live in. So how should this have been handled? Hopefully some will learn that reasonable and probable cause needs to have some basis in certain priori, and that opportunity cost and the boy who cries wolf are really and very harmful issue. I think if people handle the situation with rational thought rather than instigation, and understand that P(massacre | kids = 14 years old in the US) is some number that probably is smaller than IEEE floating point error, then everyone will be better off for that. [0]: http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/16/us/texas-student-ahmed-muslim-clock-bomb/ http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/16/us/texas-student-ahmed-muslim-...
• slr555 11y ago
  When they outlaw clocks only outlaws will be on time.
• sarne777 11y ago
  This doesn't surprise me. People are paranoid about bombs and terrorism, and most average people have never seen an exposed circuit board. To them anything with a circuit board and wires looks like the bombs they've seen on TV. I've had an arduino hooked up to an ipod for an art installation confiscated by police. Of course part of the problem was lack of communication by the administrators who had given approval for the project.
• dang 11y ago
  Since [1] arguably counts as significant new information [2], I guess we'll leave that one on the front page and demote this one as stale. I don't feel strongly about this other than not having the story occupy more than one spot on the front page, so if people have strong objections otherwise, we can adjust. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10230696 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10230696 2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10230555 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10230555
• moo 11y ago
  Why aren't these good officers out looking for Flavor Flav? I mean, let's stop all this nonsense.
• jonnyisbad 11y ago
  Condition 1. As long as teachers are drawn from most the lowest deciles of the graduating class, this will continue. Condition 2. As long as we fail to value the education of children, Condition 1 will continue Condition 3. As long as the majority of parent perceive that the life outcome of their children are less important than the parent's own desires for money, assets, sexual intercourse and self validation, Condition 2 will continue Condition 4. As long we are humans, Condition 3 will continue. Iterate ad infinitum ( or recurse if you love Lambda )
• thisway 11y ago
  This guy fucks