4 ms·

To be fair, it was the vice principal, not a teacher, who was concerned that "it might be harmful" and notified the police. Certainly, school administrators get

To be fair, it was the vice principal, not a teacher, who was concerned that "it might be harmful" and notified the police. Certainly, school administrators get promoted based not on their teaching or academic credentials, but on degree to which they adopt the "erring on the side of caution" mentality. What's terrifying is that it takes just one call of an ill-informed, over-reacting person to set this kind of disproportionate response into motion. Personally, I think this story has broader implications than simply that American students are discouraged from pursuing interests in science and technology. I think it illustrates two socially destructive trends: 1. To perceive anything science or technology related that has not been marked with the corporate stamp of approval as a potential threat. Any device with exposed wires that are not hidden behind a slick case with a logo must be a bomb. Anyone that's using command-line instead of a slick GUI must be a hacker, etc. 2. To consider perception of safety above all; that is an over-reaction on a massive scale is not considered anything short of normal. It's normal to send a bomb squad to a kid's house on a mere suspicion of a school official. It's normal to close down a major airport because of a battery explosion. And so on, and so on.

rdtsc 17y ago
> that is an over-reaction on a massive scale is not considered anything short of normal. I think it is more subtle than that. If it was about safety, they would cancel cheerleading and football. I know I have been repeating myself in 2 other comments on the same thread, I feel strongly about this, see here http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5538a1.htm http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5538a1.htm for some CDC stats on 2005-2006 ). What seems to happen is that schools are interested not in safety but in avoiding litigation. So they are only concerned with the perception of safety. It all revolves around "Would we get sued?" or "Legally, did we cover our asses?" Schools should just merge with TSA, they both seems to share their delusions about safety.
- georgecmu 17y ago
  I think the key word here is perception: both perception of safety and perception of threat are at play. Sports are not perceived as dangerous, technology -- unless contained as I described above -- is. I'm not sure about degree to which the threat of litigation plays here. Certainly one would think that millions of dollars lost in airport shutdowns would have some weight, but it does not appear so.
  - viraptor 17y ago
    > Sports are not perceived as dangerous Not by AOSSM: "With more and more kids participating in sports, injuries are on the rise – an estimated two million occurring each year, resulting in 500,000 doctor visits and 30,000 hospitalizations" [http://www.sportsmed.org/tabs/newsroom/AOSSMPressReleaseDetails.aspx?DID=636 http://www.sportsmed.org/tabs/newsroom/AOSSMPressReleaseDeta...] "Almost one-third of all injuries incurred in childhood are sports-related injuries." [http://www.chp.edu/CHP/P01650 http://www.chp.edu/CHP/P01650] I'm not going to comment on that - I just wondered what the actual injury rate is and found this.
seldo 17y ago
Memo to terrorists: wrap your next bomb in a shiny white box with an Apple logo. No one will question you.
- rdtsc 17y ago
  Bonus points: Make sure the shiny white box actually turns on and there is pretty graphics on the screen.
- hbien 17y ago
  http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/10/tsa-cant-believe-macbook-air-is-a-real-laptop-causes-owner-to/ http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/10/tsa-cant-believe-macbook-... =]
  - andreyf 17y ago
    In the TSA grunt's defense, the training course probably involved something like "look for the hard drive, it's blue with a circle thing", "look for the battery, it's green", etc. Replacing a hard drive with C4 could yield a pretty sizable explosion...
chrischen 17y ago
I think it's less of a reaction to technology than it is to the post-9/11 terrorist scare. Ever since then America's developed severe allergies to everything bombs and explosives or dangerous. What's worse is an incompetent TSA that's trying too hard all in the wrong places. The only reason the recent terrorist attempt failed was because the guy just happened to be as incompetent as the TSA. Or maybe the plane would have landed on my house and killed me (and would have disrupted my stream of consciousness; I live in the Detroit area) and so in my universe he failed. But to be completely fair, China's TSA seems to be just as incompetent, probably more so since they really don't have as many terrorist attacks to test their strategies. I had a really small bottle of children's Moltrin confiscated, but it got through USA TSA. I wouldn't be surprised the next time I get on a flight with two sticks to be stopped and questioned. God forbid I start a fire by rubbing the sticks and burn everyone to death while they are sleeping.

rdtsc 17y ago

> that is an over-reaction on a massive scale is not considered anything short of normal. I think it is more subtle than that. If it was about safety, they would cancel cheerleading and football. I know I have been repeating myself in 2 other comments on the same thread, I feel strongly about this, see here http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5538a1.htm http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5538a1.htm for some CDC stats on 2005-2006 ). What seems to happen is that schools are interested not in safety but in avoiding litigation. So they are only concerned with the perception of safety. It all revolves around "Would we get sued?" or "Legally, did we cover our asses?" Schools should just merge with TSA, they both seems to share their delusions about safety.

georgecmu 17y ago
I think the key word here is perception: both perception of safety and perception of threat are at play. Sports are not perceived as dangerous, technology -- unless contained as I described above -- is. I'm not sure about degree to which the threat of litigation plays here. Certainly one would think that millions of dollars lost in airport shutdowns would have some weight, but it does not appear so.
- viraptor 17y ago
  > Sports are not perceived as dangerous Not by AOSSM: "With more and more kids participating in sports, injuries are on the rise – an estimated two million occurring each year, resulting in 500,000 doctor visits and 30,000 hospitalizations" [http://www.sportsmed.org/tabs/newsroom/AOSSMPressReleaseDetails.aspx?DID=636 http://www.sportsmed.org/tabs/newsroom/AOSSMPressReleaseDeta...] "Almost one-third of all injuries incurred in childhood are sports-related injuries." [http://www.chp.edu/CHP/P01650 http://www.chp.edu/CHP/P01650] I'm not going to comment on that - I just wondered what the actual injury rate is and found this.

seldo 17y ago

Memo to terrorists: wrap your next bomb in a shiny white box with an Apple logo. No one will question you.

rdtsc 17y ago
Bonus points: Make sure the shiny white box actually turns on and there is pretty graphics on the screen.
hbien 17y ago
http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/10/tsa-cant-believe-macbook-air-is-a-real-laptop-causes-owner-to/ http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/10/tsa-cant-believe-macbook-... =]
- andreyf 17y ago
  In the TSA grunt's defense, the training course probably involved something like "look for the hard drive, it's blue with a circle thing", "look for the battery, it's green", etc. Replacing a hard drive with C4 could yield a pretty sizable explosion...

chrischen 17y ago

I think it's less of a reaction to technology than it is to the post-9/11 terrorist scare. Ever since then America's developed severe allergies to everything bombs and explosives or dangerous. What's worse is an incompetent TSA that's trying too hard all in the wrong places. The only reason the recent terrorist attempt failed was because the guy just happened to be as incompetent as the TSA. Or maybe the plane would have landed on my house and killed me (and would have disrupted my stream of consciousness; I live in the Detroit area) and so in my universe he failed. But to be completely fair, China's TSA seems to be just as incompetent, probably more so since they really don't have as many terrorist attacks to test their strategies. I had a really small bottle of children's Moltrin confiscated, but it got through USA TSA. I wouldn't be surprised the next time I get on a flight with two sticks to be stopped and questioned. God forbid I start a fire by rubbing the sticks and burn everyone to death while they are sleeping.