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> Thank goodness he never took a clock he'd built into school. Uh... From Steve Jobs's biography: In twelfth grade he [Woz] built an electronic metronome—one
by malisper 11y ago
> Thank goodness he never took a clock he'd built into school.
Uh... From Steve Jobs's biography:
In twelfth grade he [Woz] built an electronic metronome—one of those tick-tick-tick devices that keep time in music class—and realized it sounded like a bomb. So he took the labels off some big batteries, taped them together, and put it in a school locker; he rigged it to start ticking faster when the locker opened. Later that day he got called to the principal’s office. He thought it was because he had won, yet again, the school’s top math prize. Instead he was confronted by the police. The principal had been summoned when the device was found, bravely ran onto the football field clutching it to his chest, and pulled the wires off. Woz tried and failed to suppress his laughter. He actually got sent to the juvenile detention center, where he spent the night. It was a memorable experience. He taught the other prisoners how to disconnect the wires leading to the ceiling fans and connect them to the bars so people got shocked when touching them.
- jameshart 11y agoOf course the difference here is Woz both fully intended mischief, knew he could get in trouble, but in general had the expectation that he would get away with it in the long term.
- slg 11y agoAhmed will "get away with it in the long term" as well. He will probably be even better off after this episode. He is going to have the attention of all sorts of great people including the president. But of course that isn't particularly the problem here. When something like this comes up and catches our attention, there is outrage until that specific situation is fixed. We all pat ourselves on the back for helping this one person and move on forgetting that nothing that allowed this situation to happen in the first place has been changed.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 11y agoI have an extremely unpopular and possibly incorrect notion that you can learn a substantial amount from being treated unfairly.
- tajen 11y agoWell, among all the people who get treated unfairly, maybe some of them learn, but some others take revenge. I was once in a situation which couldn't be managed by laws, and since then I vote extreme right in my country. As much for learning from unfair situations.
- jameshart 11y agoYeah... becoming a media celebrity and political football two weeks into high school is totally going to be nothing but rainbows and kittens for a geeky muslim kid who has made his town government and police look stupid.
- bborud 11y agoConcrete instances are needed to provide examples.
- mikeash 11y agoThere will be some change. Maybe not as much as there should be, but we shouldn't completely discount the effects this story will have. Next time a school administrator or police officer is about to abuse a kid for no good reason, they might pause and think, "Wait, what if this gets me in the national news like those guys in Texas?" It's not going to stop all of them. Or most of them. Or even a whole lot of them. But there are going to be a few people reevaluating their approach.
- hoopd 11y agoThey'll think those thoughts not before abusing students but before doing anything that might offend or hurt the feelings of somebody in a protected group. The good teachers end up with students who should be punished but they're afraid to do it because they might lose their jobs for doing their jobs. The bad teachers will know to aim their abuse at the white males because nobody's watching for that and many who people picture that scenario think to themselves "Good."
- peter303 11y agoIn the 1960s people werent as uptight about in-school murders and international terrorism. However the 60s did have their share of domestic terrorism- leftwing anarchist protesting the war or big government. They deployed bombs.