Uh, if you were so smart you'd understand that this is in response to a school in Texas badly handling a smart kid doing smart kid things. Has any high level official in Texas apologized, or said anything decrying this student's treatment? If not, then it seems like Texas is standing behind this.
I don't recall any Texan politicians decrying cannibalism today, either. I guess we know what that means, right?
Or we could assume for a moment that not every event requires a politician's commentary.
I didn't need to see Obama or Zuck's responses before I had determined (for myself! Imagine!) that the school's actions were absurd, overblown, and counter-productive.
Nor have they decried ten-foot-tall lizard men, but then there aren't any national stories about ten-foot-tall lizard men in Texas right now, are there? The President commented on this, fer chrissakes. I think a few remarks from Texas politicians are warranted.
No, action from Texas educators is warranted: specifically, actions that acknowledge that what happened to this 14-year-old is incompatible with a positive learning environment and a commitment to education and actions to ensure it doesn't happen again.
A pox on the politicians. They'll spin this eight ways to Sunday and nothing will be accomplished.
> not every event requires a politician's commentary.
No, not every event. Just the ones that give the impression that there is an ongoing systemic abuse of the very rights and principles that America is founded on.
The fact that you brush this off as unimportant is exactly the problem here.
"The fact that you brush this off as unimportant is exactly the problem here."
And how does "absurd, overblown, and counter-productive" (my words) translate into "unimportant"?
The words of politicians are generally unimportant, as they are easy to come by and seldom backed by action. That was my point. Must I too engage in today's Two Minutes' Hate to pacify the Outrage Patrol?
Nah, it's just Irving that's a shithole. Most of the cities around it are fine, including Dallas proper.
Last year, an article about the least LGBT-friendly places in the US was published [0]. Irving landed at #2. That same article mentioned that Dallas proper was one of the most LGBT-friendly places in the US. It's not much of a stretch to say that this applies not just to LGBT people but to all kinds of people that the crazy right-wing fundamentalists dislike, including smart people and Muslims. From my personal observation having lived in Dallas and Richardson all my life, I can vouch for this. It's widely acknowledged here that Dallas is a very progressive city and that Irving is a shithole.
Besides, most of our tech industry is concentrated in Richardson [1]. Between UTD, TI, and the Telecom Corridor, Richardson is a pretty damn good place to be if you're smart.
[1] Richardson is a suburb to the northeast of Dallas in the same way that Irving is a suburb to the northwest of Dallas, so it's a pretty apt comparison. Actually, Dallas is kind of shaped like Godzilla: on a map of city limits, Richardson and Irving look like they sit on Dallas's shoulders (though Irving is kinds leaning off the edge).
I live in Arizona, so I understand living in an area that is nationally famous for being a bit backwards. Parts of Texas are absolutely amazing, just like here in Arizona. But we both are paying the price for our states' having a poor reputation.
> It's not much of a stretch to say that this applies not just to LGBT people but to all kinds of people that the crazy right-wing fundamentalists dislike, including smart people and Muslims. From my personal observation having lived in Dallas and Richardson all my life, I can vouch for this
My general observation as an outsider in Texas (Dallas 3 years and Austin 4 years) is way off from yours. It's not a question about right wing hatred, that's just hyperbole. There is an attitude in Texas where if "you aren't one of us", you don't belong here (in a subtle way). That in my opinion is undeniable. I bet if this incident was at Highland park, the result would be the same.
The comment was a sarcastic joke and did not further the discussion. I like that HN is a community that tries to promote insightful comments and not jokes to the top of the comment page.
He disassembled a clock and then reassembled it inside a case that resembled a bomb (however hollywood-esque it may seem). The kid might be "smart" but I wouldn't jump to the "genius" conclusion.
Less "can't" and more "won't". A lot of the most water-wasteful crops (like almonds) might as well be staple foods in your average rich-Californian diet.
Good for whichever school he chooses to go to! Any announcement on that yet, or is he waiting for his letters of admission and full scholarship to all the top private schools in the country? ;)
I'm not sure top private schools would just hand out full rides to a high school student who built a clock... if they do, I went to a really shitty school for nothing.
Neither would you normally get invited to the White House or Facebook HQ for building a clock. But he should definitely take advantage of the 15 min of fame to go to the best place possible. And I mean top private high schools, not necessarily college yet. Pretty sure anyone who builds interesting science projects while in a clearly unsupportive environment would thrive at a top level STEM high-school.
the fucking giant 7 segment LED doesn't make you think "clock"? Or at least "no idiot would put a ridiculously large flashing display on a bomb"?
I mean, he probably needs a bit of advice about mains wiring and safety. He can probably get that when he's being shown the Mars rovers (or any of the other stuff kind NASA people have invited him to)
EDIT (after several comments) I mistakenly thought this was a briefcased sized case, but it's not, it's much smaller. There's a battery connector for scale. So, I shouldn't have said "fucking huge LED". It's just normal size LED clock.
In England several people (including children) have been arrested, and prosecuted, (and convicted?) for terrorism offences because they owned things like The Anarchists Cookbook.
(The explorer Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes while on service with the SAS used to work out how to efficiently use explosive, allowing him to keep small amounts after training exercises. He accumulated a small stock of explosive which he used to demolish an ugly damn.
In the photo, there is something that looks like a pouch next to the transformer. If someone thought they might be looking at a bomb, they might think that the explosive is in that pouch.
I bet the guy knows very well that the Sudanese politics are farce and he was just playing along maybe for the limelight or to play the controlled opposition part so Al-Bashir can claim that he wins in a free and fair elections.
It's a bad idea because pretty much ANYONE with a little common sense could have predicted that there would be a realistic probability of a BAD outcome by bringing that to school. Even if it's just a little homemade clock project.
I'm not defending what happened, but I'm just pointing
out that this could have been easily avoided.
No, it couldn't have been. Unless it's easy to avoid being born colored and named Ahmed Mohamed and having a love for electronics. Or unless it's easy to fix systemic prejudice. Saying this blames him for not using "common sense" --
If I walk into a gas station with a ski mask and my hand
in my jacket, I'm not breaking any laws. But I have enough
common sense not to do that.
Let me fix this for you:
s/common sense/privilege/rg
You compared a colored boy who indulged his creativity to someone dressing up as a mugger. See anything fucked up about that? You suggested that it shouldn't be common sense for him to go into school "being who he is" with an electronic device. He's 14 and his name's Ahmed Mohamed and he likes technology. What's common sense here?
You want a better comparison? You are saying "I have common sense not to be a black man loitering in public." As if black men should be harassed by law enforcement at any turn. You are saying "I have common sense not to be a woman dressed (some subset of) the population finds scandalous." As if her body were owned by the public and not herself and as if it weren't her prerogative to dress however she damn well pleased.
The illogical behavior / lack of common sense is completely on the part of the system. There ought not be a suggestion other than "fix the broken-ass system."
You have really terrible reading comprehension. The comment I replied to said "what happened to him was wrong. to suggest otherwise..." -- I did not suggest what happened to him was RIGHT (which would qualify as suggesting otherwise). I said it was PREDICTABLE. Do you understand the difference?
Second of all, I labeled my analogy as "extreme". Perhaps you missed that, or once again maybe it's just that your reading comprehension skills are lacking. I used an extreme example to illustrate my point clearly.
The common sense to not bring a hollywood-macguyver-homemade-electronic device into a school knowing full well there are incompetent, conservative-minded administration who will judge you based upon your name, appearance, and the fact you have a bomb-looking electronic device. Right or wrong, it's PREDICTABLE and puts yourself at meaningless risk with no upside.
Once again, this might be WRONG. But it is PREDICTABLE. This is the concept of idealism vs realism. The way the world is versus the way the world ought to be. Perhaps this type of conversation is above your head though.
I did not suggest what happened to him was RIGHT
(which would qualify as suggesting otherwise). I
said it was PREDICTABLE.
No. Your "extreme analogy" was to illustrate your "point" that he should have exercised "common sense." This is a form of victim blaming and is wrong. It does indicate you think he shouldn't have done what he did. This is "suggesting otherwise" because if he has the right to do something, he shouldn't be shamed or criticized or hurt for it. He shouldn't have to fear for it or operate by your nonsensical "common sense."
Second of all, I labeled my analogy as "extreme". Perhaps
you missed that, or once again maybe it's just that your
reading comprehension skills are lacking. I used an
extreme example to illustrate my point clearly.
No, I did not miss your "extreme" nor your sadly ignorant point.
Once again, this might be WRONG. But it is PREDICTABLE.
This is the concept of idealism vs realism. The way the
world is versus the way the world ought to be. Perhaps
this type of conversation is above your head though.
I'm well aware of what constitutes an ideal and what constitutes reality. Here's reality: he was within his rights to do exactly what he did, he is now better for doing exactly what he did, and you suggesting that he settle for the status quo and suggesting that he made a mistake (because his immediate reality is filled with ignorant people) is not helpful. It's stupid, it blames the reaction he received on him, as if that's something he should have been concerned about. Your comments shame a victim and you're asinine for it.
In no world real or imagined was that something he should have been concerned about. Or the parents. In the real world, you fight the dickwagons who hurt you or your son. And in the ideal world, it never even happens.
To reiterate the point of my previous criticism: the illogical behavior / lack of common sense is completely on the part of the system. There ought not be a suggestion other than "fix the broken-ass system." Don't tell people what to do on the basis of a racist and dehumanizing system. You're perpetuating that shit.
You need to get with reality. Look at the fricking photo of what the kid brought.
It's inside a small case, with exposed wires, and a digital display. You're really naive if you don't think that's going to raise any eyebrows.
If some kid is passionate about cooking, should he bring in his homemade flour in small unmarked plastic baggies and start selling it to all his classmates? Completely within anybody's right to do that, but OBVIOUSLY a stupid idea. That's the category this kid's homemade clock falls under.
Continue shaming a 14 year old boy for doing something within their rights.
The only OBVIOUSLY stupid thing (/ person) is you suggesting that he shouldn't have done what he did because of a very wrong status quo.
Your analogy is nearly as dumb as you. More accurate is "if a kid loves cooking, should he bake cupcakes and bring it in for his classmates? YES."
Should a kid get arrested for bringing in cupcakes? Obviously not. And if there are assholes in the school who arrest kids who bake cupcakes? Well, they can suck it, and hopefully people don't sit around and let it happen without a response. #thanksobama You don't call kids who bring cupcakes to school stupid.
--
What you construe as "reality" and what you judge as stupid or smart adds nothing to the topic. If the intent of your post was to say "the status quo of conservative america sucks," you're saying something everyone knows. If you're saying (and this is what your text ends up conveying) "it's stupid to exercise your rights," this is the problem. You don't get to blame victims. Nowhere in your commentary are you saying the aggressors are responsible for changing course. You only say the kid should have changed course. You call him stupid for his actions. Do you yet see how that's shitty of you?
The pictures I've seen look like the guts of a cheap digital alarm clock. I'm a little disappointed; from initial reports, I was hoping it was something he'd actually cobbled together using discrete logic or a microcontroller. :)
Does anyone else think that this story seems a little bit contrived? There are so many photos of the incident at each of the various stages -- it makes it look like it was engineered as a news story. The youtube video comes across as prepared and polished and the response (no talking without a lawyer present etc.) seems like something you'd see on PR wire.
I'm not saying that the whole thing isn't ridiculous, but I'm skeptical that this is the full story. Honestly, I'm as familiar with working on circuit boards as the next guy, but if I saw someone (anyone, any race) carrying something like that in an airport, it'd raise an eyebrow.
His father is also an pro-Islamic activist according to some of the news articles. It is quite possible that the father is taking advantage of his son's interests to further a political cause.
edit: I am not commenting on whether the father is righteous or malevolent; simply positing an idea which may explain why there is so much video, documentation, and attention on this event.
If you trace back the source for these facts, the source is a tweet referencing an interview with Mohamed's father. These "facts" get bubbled up the chain until they make it into reputable news services without verification. It may be true that he asked, but I guarantee you that some of the critical "facts" you're reading about this will turn out not to be true.
These are not the critical facts. The news media wants you to be outraged because it drives eyeballs. That's why it is in their interest to write the story in such a way that you think these are the critical facts.
You're debating that he was at an airport? Or that he didn't keep the thing in his backpack?
Both of those were reported by the school itself. And the tweet came from a reporter at the CNN.
I'll grant that CNN isn't the best, and has had issues, but for the purposes of this convo, I don't know how that is relevant (it's not like anything you or I say is going to matter to anyone anyway).
A school isn't an airport. And he ASKED to show his ENGINEERING teacher a project he had created. It's not as if he just showed up with an assortment of PCB's and wires that he whipped out in class.
In short, yes, it perhaps wasn't the greatest idea for Ahmed to be walking around in school with something that could be perceived as a bomb, but you'd think the police/school administration would have figured out he meant no harm after he told them several times that it was simply a clock. The outrage here is over the extreme reaction, not over the wisdom of his actions.
> In short, yes, it perhaps wasn't the greatest idea for Ahmed to be walking around in school with something that could be perceived as a bomb
This part of the issue has been less focused on than the racist angle, but the fact that kids are scared to tinker because of the zero-tolerance hyper-sensitivity of schools is in my mind the more interesting part of the story.
You're probably not wrong, but it's hugely sad to me that you consider it a bad idea to bring in a personal project, with permission, advance notification, and repeated clarifications of what it actually is, simply because it "could be perceived as a bomb" (which means it has wires?). I can't think of a better way to discourage kids from tinkering around with electronics.
I absolutely agree with you and was going to post a comment to similar effect but couldn't really find the right words. I'm presently a university student so I'm really just a few years removed from Ahmed's age and mindset. It's tragic to me that the default position of figures of authority toward students who are interested in technology (even in today's increasingly technology driven world), is one of suspicion and fear.
While I suspect that a lot of this is due to a generational divide between administrators and students, the message this sends is that students should not be interested in science and engineering because those topics sort of abstractly distant and scary. Students should be ENCOURAGED, not punished for being creative and inventive, even if it means they're being a little bit subversive or have viewpoints that run counter to those in people of positions of authority.
> While I suspect that a lot of this is due to a generational divide between administrators and students
I'm sure this is part of it, but the theory[1] that schools in general are built around churning out uncreative, docile workers for the industrial economy has been around for a long, long time. Hell, "Another Brick in the Wall" was, what, 1978?
[1] Note that I'm specifying that this is a theory since I've never done enough research on both sides to feel certain that this is a particularly well-founded belief. What little I've heard is fairly plausible.
I'm not implying its a "conspiracy." It happened, but likely not in exactly the way it is being reported in the news.
From what I've seen, this looks like it was engineered for sensationalized media consumption. The photos, press conference, celebrity/politican PR releases etc. indicate to me that someone wanted this to blow up to make a point -- it didn't really happen organically in the way that the press is making you believe. If you are actually interested in how these stories end up making headlines, I would recommend reading "Trust Me, I'm Lying." It completely changed my perspective on our media and why it emphasizes the things that it does.
A good question is did the kid take apart an alarm clock and just rebuild it in another case or did he make a synthesis of many different parts? In that Brad Pitt movie about the Dalia Lama, the later had to take apart a clock to learn how it worked, I think the quote is "the best way to learn how something works is to take it apart." However, in this case the kid might have put together several different parts such as an LCD screen, the circuit from an alarm clock, and something that rings to act as the alarm. I don't think the point is that the kid is some type of genius but rather that he is doing it and not until today afraid to do it. That at 14 he started the process of learning so in 10 years at the age of 24 he can be at the top of a career in EE. It's not the skill level that is impressive it's the passion.
The article has one picture of the device (obtained from the police), one of Ahmed being led away in handcuffs (probably from someone's phone), and two that look like they were taken after this became a media sensation. Are there others?
You don't think a 14-year-old or their parents would know better than to talk to the police without a lawyer, especially after what's happened so far? Or that they haven't been contacted by dozens of lawyers wanting to represent them?
This is just an off the shelf alarm clock disassembled and crammed into a box from Target. I see an AC cord going to a bridge rectifier, a transformer, 9v battery holder, a display driver board and a long thin PCB for buttons. Here is a similar clock with a 2.5" tall display: http://i.imgur.com/1FceYfG.jpg
This is going to be one hell of a college letter. You know, the one that all colleges ask you write? He could write it today or he could wait to write it after he met the President.
If this kid applies to the University of North Texas TAMS program... he has the highest letter of recommendation coming his way from not only the POTUS but Zuck too.
Your phrasing kinda implies the "Zuck" person of your sentence is more important than the "POTUS" person.
Does having something happen to you instantly qualify you to receive insightful recommendation letters from strangers though?
The Internet has developed an overly powerful hero amplification beam it shines down when things happen to someone, but does it necessarily reflect the person themselves?
Sudden unrelenting Internet-powred fame (either as the receiver or the giver of fame) can drive some people a bit mad after the fact too.
>>Your phrasing kinda implies the "Zuck" person of your sentence is more important than the "POTUS" person.
I like Obama 'n all, but in today's world of technology(this is about a student building a clock, unprompted)... I believe the opinion of Facebook's CEO tech-geek outweights Obama's.
Hmm, I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand everyone goes crazy because of the arrest/suspension claiming racism and unfair treatment.
Now Zuck and even the President invite him to visit for the same reasons (because he is a muslim who created a clock and brought it to school) and everyone is excited about this.
In my opinion both acts are seemingly being done for the wrong reasons. It's sad really, because now the boy will never know if he is being invited out because he created a cool clock, or because helping minorities is good PR. It's also disappointing because of all the other kids out there who are working hard on making things that will never get attention because they are not being discriminated against.
They're not inviting him because he's a muslim who made a clock. They're inviting him because he's a kid who was wronged, and the situation is representative of the rotten american education system.
Put yourself in a 14-year old's shoes. If you had a passion for electronics and invention and were snubbed this badly for building something cool and taking it to school, how would you feel? I, for one would have been devastated. At best, I would have lost interest in school and developed deep mistrust of teachers. At worst, I would have developed an aversion to being a maker and started neglecting my grades. Mind you, 14 years is when people are hyper-aware of such things. If this had happened in college or in primary school, most of us would have weathered it.
Zuckerberg, Obama, Clinton, Dash, and others are overcorrecting for this in order to ensure that the kid doesn't get dejected and discouraged from being a maker.
There's already far too much ostracizing of nerds and geeks in school to add powerful adult actors like school principals and police into the mix. I don't see any room for 'mixed feelings' here.
We just have to hope that the kid comes out of this as happy or happier and as or more successful than he'd otherwise have been.
As someone who was once 16 and suspended for much the same reasons, I developed a severe mistrust of authority, became a libertarian, and am pretty highly successful in my adulthood because of it. Unfortunately, it doesn't make me very popular at parties - Most people seems to have some strange stockholm syndrome for the shitty teachers they encountered.
> Now Zuck and even the President invite him to visit for the same reasons (because he is a muslim who created a clock and brought it to school)
Wait....what? You think they're inviting him to visit because he's a Muslim student who made a clock? Do you really think he's the only Muslim student who's made a clock? I'm pretty sure it's because he was a student whose school reacted to his inventiveness by having him arrested (and of course because Obama/Zuckerberg heard about it). Even aside from the racism side of things, it's a fairly explicit symbol of the endemic squashing of children's creativity that makes the American school system such a (relative) disaster.
While you, I, or anyone else might debate the novelty or inventiveness of what the kid made, I'm sure he genuinely thought it was cool, and was excited about it.
Then, after asking if he could bring it in and show it off, he was wronged.
I want to believe they're inviting him because they don't want to stifle his spirit, and that not only is it good PR, it's also a message to kids who are interested in technology that they should absolutely pursue it, and to not get discouraged.
You may be right that the kid doesn't deserve all the attention he is garnering. But he did go to jail unjustly. He deserves something. To say otherwise is being a dick.
I believe this child, who was a complete stranger to me before any nationally publicized incident, would make a fantastic candidate to your programs at (school).
I have no knowledge of their abilities other than that he has an obvious interest in electronics, and that my PR group said that this would be a fantastic opportunity to remind the public at large just who I am, and the power I can exert.
Please accept this child; also I would request that you would be reminded of this recommendation should any world-changing positive developments come of it, and my part in those events.
If this child should be a dud, please dispose of this letter and any public recollection of it.
-Signed (all the people who wish to piggyback onto this terrible situation for the sake of publicity)"
Maybe some big powerful person should be talking to the people that caused this situation, rather than promising the world to the victim? Misunderstandings like this are going to keep happening until way after the worlds' elite run out of personal stock for their recommendation letters.
Not that this actually matters but out of morbid curiosity - did he actually assemble a clock kit or did he simply disassemble a regular nightstand clock and put it into a little carry case?
I mean it is good he is learning how things work inside but I don't think he actually made anything and actually was fooling around with an openly exposed 110VAC transformer. He definitely needs some guidance and help with this stuff before he hurts himself or burns the house down.
This is like that woman at MIT who had a circuit board clipped onto her clothes and went to pick someone up at the airport and almost got murdered by security.
Looking at the photo it looks like he put a nightstand clock into a case.
I did this a lot as a kid -- removed broken stuff, poked around to fix it, glued it into a different box. It's one of the reasons I went into electrical engineering.
Yeah I was fortunate to have grown up when Heathkit had stores, they blew away Radio Shack. Could never afford anything in there but the catalogs were fun to read and store was amazing to browse.
It's a shame we have nothing like that today, electronics are just "magic" to people now that is made elsewhere.
Given that the original freakout on the part of the English teacher was precipitated by the alarm going off while the clock was in his bag, I'm thinking it was battery-powered, not plugged in. Power cords are cheap, easily accessible wire that are not necessarily always carrying grid voltage. Although that picture certainly shows a plug, so who knows? I do wonder how the alarm went off - if that isn't just embellishment after the fact.
That said, I certainly fooled around with live power when I was his age. The house didn't burn down because we had a competent electrician install circuit breakers when we built it.
I have fond memories of learning to repair old black and white TV sets over the summer with my uncle at 14. We both managed to give ourselves some pretty hefty zaps. I still look back at the experience as one of the more fun times I had.
> Not that this actually matters but out of morbid curiosity - did he actually assemble a clock kit or did he simply disassemble a regular nightstand clock and put it into a little carry case?
Either way, he is 14. Like the saying goes, 'everything is a remix'.
At 14, all that matters is you are willing to learn, persevere, and have the courage to create something. (Actually, that's all that matters at any age of one's life.)
Hopefully the town remembers this next time they vote for their school board. The principal and the superintendent are answerable to these elected people, and almost no one cares who wins.
Lucky boy, to have parents so committed and willing to stand by him, and help him grow into his talent. Unlucky boy, to have to do it in a place filled with bigots and morons. On the other hand, this kind of setback builds character. It teaches clever children of the tyranny of petty adults with petty authority, so they know what to distrust, and what to not become themselves.
I am (yet again) embarrassed to be from Texas. If you read what Steve Jobs did in high school, if that was today and he was Muslim, he'd never started Apple. Here we are looking at diversity in the face, a young engineer proud of his learning, and the hicks in Irving brand him as the next Osama. That stupid mayor's tweet is classic.
This is of course the instinctive response of all small-minded persons challenged in their "authority".
In the face of opposition, never change course! It's the ultimate downfall of bureaucracy, humans will burn down the world before admitting their mistakes.
I disagree. He seems level-headed and focused enough that he could take this as motivation. If he was arrogant, he would have capitalized on it, created a social media account and a gofundme. He seems humble to me.
Source: 17-year old who faced similar media attention, it did inflate my ego a bit despite attempts to remain humble.
So, should we consider this event a net negative because this poor teenager got perp walked by a bunch of people who were quite likely racist and apparently too dumb to tell a circuit board from a bomb? Or should we consider this event a net positive because he's almost certainly going to end up at a much better high school after getting to meet the president and Mark Zuckerberg?
On the one hand, no one should have to go through what he did. On the other hand, the fourteen-year-old version of me would've happily put himself in handcuffs for a chance at getting out of my cow-town high school.
Its a negative situation (and almost certainly symptomatic of a system and culture which produces other, less noted, negative situations), but one which -- because of the notice is has attracted -- is likely to be net-positive for the person who was the direct victim of the initial negative consequences, and might (one hopes) raise some attention that might be directed toward dealing with the underlying problems.
Its not a simple positive or negative -- it depends on what people do because of it, only some of which is now known.
The public intervened, and I think it is a net positive. Bad that it happened, sad similar things happen and don't get reported on. Would do us well to try to find similar, more pernicious failures, (kinda like the FAA does when there is an accident). Glad it is getting reported on in this instance.
As usual, the results are positive only if your story happens to have whatever peculiar mix of characteristics make it get picked up by the media. Especially with the advent of crowdfunding, a person who's been wronged and whose story goes viral very often ends up "net positive" (e.g. the old lady chaperoning a bus who was verbally abused by her students and ended up having strangers send her almost half a million dollars.
The far more important subtext (and the reason that most of these stories take off) is that they are often indicative of larger phenomena. Most kids facing racism or having their creativity stifled by their schools _don't_ have their stories blow up and so their stories are nothing but "net negative".
The more I think about it, the more I'm skeptical that the teachers were too dumb to tell a circuit board apart from a bomb. He could have gotten in trouble for making something that looked like a bomb even if nobody that it was one. Just as in most schools kids get in trouble for making (or even drawing) things intended to look like guns even when it's totally clear to everyone that it isn't an actual gun.
That's a stupid policy too, but a different kind of stupid.
The first teacher who saw the clock told him not to show it around. They definitely knew it wasn't a bomb. It's not even that hard to have some sympathy for the teachers or even school administrators who are subject to all sorts of stupid policies. The insane thing seems to be that in the entire chain of escalation from teacher to principal to police nobody appears to have thought of some better way to resolve the situation than handcuffing a 14 year old at school and carting him off to juvie.
In the ideal world, the school administrator would be reprimanded and a note put into their personnel file. The best punishment for a lifelong bureaucrat is to put them in fear for their job.
They however will just say they were following the rules. The rules put student safety high on the list, and events like Columbine and others only make the risk/fear higher.
Schools are limited in what they can do to/for problem students. What that means in practice is that to limit the threat from a problem student they suppress the privledges of all students. This avoids the stigma of "singling out" someone for special rules.
In a more functional system the rules would allow for things like electronics projects and pocket knives and what not, and when a student did some damage that student would be pulled from the school and moved elsewhere. Unfortunately that puts students with an unstable home life more at risk of being expelled than students with a stable home life, and if, through suspension, you end up segregating the school along student problem lines, it often correlates with other student traits which you can specifically not discriminate against. You can take on the burden of defending a bunch of lawsuits from suspended students, or you can just strip all the students of the opportunities.
And this leads to zero tolerance policies for non-obvious reasons.
What we haven't internalized as a society yet is that this is much more damaging to the societies eventual stability than the whole segregating thing would be. We have yet to learn how to run a system where people can readily move back and forth from the 'offender' side of the street to the 'cooperates' side of the street. Thus a trip to the offender's side leaves a stain that gets harder and harder to erase, regardless of maturity, later. It can be really hard to listen to people who have been imprisoned for life because of a mistake they made in their teens, which now prevents them from ever reaching their potential.
When I was in HS, I did Bot Ball. Our robot was powered by a HandyBoard, which definitely looks like a bomb: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HandyBoard_GJP.jpg. Remember going through the airport with it on the way to finals, joking around about how it looked like a bomb. Didn't get in any trouble despite being brown. And it wasn't just us--thousands of kids did school projects with the HandyBoard over the years. It was very popular.
I'm tempted to believe that people are just dumber than they were when I was a kid, but the truth is that this sort of thing is a freak accident. A hundred kids bring something like this into school and it's virtually guaranteed that one will eventually hit school administrators that are low on the bell curve.
Also, I'm seeing a lot of "Texas" in comments to this story. It's really unfair. I'm here in the DC metro surrounded by highly educated latte liberals, and they're some of the most paranoid parents in the country. Don't think for a second this wouldn't happen in, e.g., Silver Spring (where those parents got CPS called on them for letting their kids walk home from school).
I don't think people are dumber now. They're just scared of different things. This generation has the boogie man of terrorism, and last generations had DnD and Satanism.
I guess your HS days were in the period of pre 9/11, right?
It is not about race or skin color. The kid was arrested because he's a Muslims and Muslim terrorists are wreaking havoc around the world and he was profiled and treated unjustly because of this, don't you agree?
The mayor still stands by police. Madness, pure madness. Public officials, more and more, are a self-selecting group populated only by some of our worst thinkers.
When a story has already had major attention on HN (which this one has: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10226196), we treat follow-up posts as dupes unless they add significant new information.
Maybe the original article has expanded, but this seems to have more information to me: his invitation to the whitehouse, the fact that the mayor stands by the police, and that he is still suspended and will change school.
For the first few months I used HN I didn't read the comments. Now, occasionally I just read the comments and don't read the article, if there's an interesting thread that sidetracks me that doesn't really require knowledge of the article.
My apologies; I submitted this one because there was a press conference with a lot of new info that came out, not covered in the other story or in the comments: Specifically that he wasn't going to go back to the school, that he was suspended, and that he had been interrogated without his parents present.
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[ 1.9 ms ] story [ 184 ms ] threadTake the reddit stereotypes back to reddit.
-Smart, civic Texan with smart Texan friends.
Or we could assume for a moment that not every event requires a politician's commentary.
I didn't need to see Obama or Zuck's responses before I had determined (for myself! Imagine!) that the school's actions were absurd, overblown, and counter-productive.
Perhaps you should do some research as to the response of some Texans to this travesty (e.g. http://motherboard.vice.com/read/dallas-hackers-are-already-... ) before you resort to the tired "Texas means backward and stupid" meme.
A pox on the politicians. They'll spin this eight ways to Sunday and nothing will be accomplished.
No, not every event. Just the ones that give the impression that there is an ongoing systemic abuse of the very rights and principles that America is founded on.
The fact that you brush this off as unimportant is exactly the problem here.
And how does "absurd, overblown, and counter-productive" (my words) translate into "unimportant"?
The words of politicians are generally unimportant, as they are easy to come by and seldom backed by action. That was my point. Must I too engage in today's Two Minutes' Hate to pacify the Outrage Patrol?
Last year, an article about the least LGBT-friendly places in the US was published [0]. Irving landed at #2. That same article mentioned that Dallas proper was one of the most LGBT-friendly places in the US. It's not much of a stretch to say that this applies not just to LGBT people but to all kinds of people that the crazy right-wing fundamentalists dislike, including smart people and Muslims. From my personal observation having lived in Dallas and Richardson all my life, I can vouch for this. It's widely acknowledged here that Dallas is a very progressive city and that Irving is a shithole.
Besides, most of our tech industry is concentrated in Richardson [1]. Between UTD, TI, and the Telecom Corridor, Richardson is a pretty damn good place to be if you're smart.
[0] http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/11/22/247-...
[1] Richardson is a suburb to the northeast of Dallas in the same way that Irving is a suburb to the northwest of Dallas, so it's a pretty apt comparison. Actually, Dallas is kind of shaped like Godzilla: on a map of city limits, Richardson and Irving look like they sit on Dallas's shoulders (though Irving is kinds leaning off the edge).
My general observation as an outsider in Texas (Dallas 3 years and Austin 4 years) is way off from yours. It's not a question about right wing hatred, that's just hyperbole. There is an attitude in Texas where if "you aren't one of us", you don't belong here (in a subtle way). That in my opinion is undeniable. I bet if this incident was at Highland park, the result would be the same.
Maybe try to see the merit in someone else's post instead of being butthurt. No one cares where you're from, soryr.
I mean, he probably needs a bit of advice about mains wiring and safety. He can probably get that when he's being shown the Mars rovers (or any of the other stuff kind NASA people have invited him to)
http://www.cbc.ca/news/trending/ahmed-mohamed-arrested-clock...
EDIT (after several comments) I mistakenly thought this was a briefcased sized case, but it's not, it's much smaller. There's a battery connector for scale. So, I shouldn't have said "fucking huge LED". It's just normal size LED clock.
> The principal threatened to expel him if he didn’t make a written statement, he said.
> “They were like, ‘So you tried to make a bomb?’” Ahmed said.
> “I told them no, I was trying to make a clock.”
> “He said, ‘It looks like a movie bomb to me.’”
[1]https://twitter.com/AnneClaireCNN/status/644158607035133952
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7030096.stm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-33705944
(The explorer Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes while on service with the SAS used to work out how to efficiently use explosive, allowing him to keep small amounts after training exercises. He accumulated a small stock of explosive which he used to demolish an ugly damn.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranulph_Fiennes
)
Anyone have a guess what that thing actually is?
Ergo, bomb.
I'd love this to be parody, but it seems to be the literal explanation here - with a side order of revenge for having an uppity father:
http://www.vox.com/2015/9/16/9339063/ahmed-mohamed-elhassan
I bet the guy knows very well that the Sudanese politics are farce and he was just playing along maybe for the limelight or to play the controlled opposition part so Al-Bashir can claim that he wins in a free and fair elections.
A little common sense (by the kid, his parents, his teachers, etc) could have prevented this situation entirely.
I'm not defending what happened, but I'm just pointing out that this could have been easily avoided.
Let me provide a more extreme analogy to illustrate my point:
If I walk into a gas station with a ski mask and my hand in my jacket, I'm not breaking any laws. But I have enough common sense not to do that.
A tiny modicum of common sense from the police or school authorities would go a long way here.
"If you didn't want to get raped then you shouldn't have dressed that way."
How he was treated (and profiled based on his skin color and name) was wrong. To suggest anything otherwise is victim-blaming.
You want a better comparison? You are saying "I have common sense not to be a black man loitering in public." As if black men should be harassed by law enforcement at any turn. You are saying "I have common sense not to be a woman dressed (some subset of) the population finds scandalous." As if her body were owned by the public and not herself and as if it weren't her prerogative to dress however she damn well pleased.
The illogical behavior / lack of common sense is completely on the part of the system. There ought not be a suggestion other than "fix the broken-ass system."
Second of all, I labeled my analogy as "extreme". Perhaps you missed that, or once again maybe it's just that your reading comprehension skills are lacking. I used an extreme example to illustrate my point clearly.
The common sense to not bring a hollywood-macguyver-homemade-electronic device into a school knowing full well there are incompetent, conservative-minded administration who will judge you based upon your name, appearance, and the fact you have a bomb-looking electronic device. Right or wrong, it's PREDICTABLE and puts yourself at meaningless risk with no upside.
Once again, this might be WRONG. But it is PREDICTABLE. This is the concept of idealism vs realism. The way the world is versus the way the world ought to be. Perhaps this type of conversation is above your head though.
In no world real or imagined was that something he should have been concerned about. Or the parents. In the real world, you fight the dickwagons who hurt you or your son. And in the ideal world, it never even happens.
To reiterate the point of my previous criticism: the illogical behavior / lack of common sense is completely on the part of the system. There ought not be a suggestion other than "fix the broken-ass system." Don't tell people what to do on the basis of a racist and dehumanizing system. You're perpetuating that shit.
It's inside a small case, with exposed wires, and a digital display. You're really naive if you don't think that's going to raise any eyebrows.
If some kid is passionate about cooking, should he bring in his homemade flour in small unmarked plastic baggies and start selling it to all his classmates? Completely within anybody's right to do that, but OBVIOUSLY a stupid idea. That's the category this kid's homemade clock falls under.
The only OBVIOUSLY stupid thing (/ person) is you suggesting that he shouldn't have done what he did because of a very wrong status quo.
Your analogy is nearly as dumb as you. More accurate is "if a kid loves cooking, should he bake cupcakes and bring it in for his classmates? YES."
Should a kid get arrested for bringing in cupcakes? Obviously not. And if there are assholes in the school who arrest kids who bake cupcakes? Well, they can suck it, and hopefully people don't sit around and let it happen without a response. #thanksobama You don't call kids who bring cupcakes to school stupid.
--
What you construe as "reality" and what you judge as stupid or smart adds nothing to the topic. If the intent of your post was to say "the status quo of conservative america sucks," you're saying something everyone knows. If you're saying (and this is what your text ends up conveying) "it's stupid to exercise your rights," this is the problem. You don't get to blame victims. Nowhere in your commentary are you saying the aggressors are responsible for changing course. You only say the kid should have changed course. You call him stupid for his actions. Do you yet see how that's shitty of you?
This is what happens when people in charge have no clue anymore what is inside electronics. Computers and smartphones are just "magic".
I'm not saying that the whole thing isn't ridiculous, but I'm skeptical that this is the full story. Honestly, I'm as familiar with working on circuit boards as the next guy, but if I saw someone (anyone, any race) carrying something like that in an airport, it'd raise an eyebrow.
Welcome to 2015. I think Ahmed is just really sharp and articulate.
edit: I am not commenting on whether the father is righteous or malevolent; simply positing an idea which may explain why there is so much video, documentation, and attention on this event.
There's a bunch of anti-Muslim sentiment around. Standing up to that doesn't make someone a radical hardline Islamist.
This is a kid that enters robot competitions. https://twitter.com/sudanibae/status/643999495131262976/phot...
What else should he have done? Just given up and not tried to make something cool?
1) He took a clock to school
2) He got arrested
3) He got suspended
That alone should be sufficient to cause anger. US isn't a crime free zone. Why aren't police spending time dealing with real actual crime?
Both of those were reported by the school itself. And the tweet came from a reporter at the CNN.
I'll grant that CNN isn't the best, and has had issues, but for the purposes of this convo, I don't know how that is relevant (it's not like anything you or I say is going to matter to anyone anyway).
In short, yes, it perhaps wasn't the greatest idea for Ahmed to be walking around in school with something that could be perceived as a bomb, but you'd think the police/school administration would have figured out he meant no harm after he told them several times that it was simply a clock. The outrage here is over the extreme reaction, not over the wisdom of his actions.
This part of the issue has been less focused on than the racist angle, but the fact that kids are scared to tinker because of the zero-tolerance hyper-sensitivity of schools is in my mind the more interesting part of the story.
You're probably not wrong, but it's hugely sad to me that you consider it a bad idea to bring in a personal project, with permission, advance notification, and repeated clarifications of what it actually is, simply because it "could be perceived as a bomb" (which means it has wires?). I can't think of a better way to discourage kids from tinkering around with electronics.
While I suspect that a lot of this is due to a generational divide between administrators and students, the message this sends is that students should not be interested in science and engineering because those topics sort of abstractly distant and scary. Students should be ENCOURAGED, not punished for being creative and inventive, even if it means they're being a little bit subversive or have viewpoints that run counter to those in people of positions of authority.
I'm sure this is part of it, but the theory[1] that schools in general are built around churning out uncreative, docile workers for the industrial economy has been around for a long, long time. Hell, "Another Brick in the Wall" was, what, 1978?
[1] Note that I'm specifying that this is a theory since I've never done enough research on both sides to feel certain that this is a particularly well-founded belief. What little I've heard is fairly plausible.
And women should dress modestly because you know... there are bad people out there who might perceive a short skirt as an invitation, amirite?
From what I've seen, this looks like it was engineered for sensationalized media consumption. The photos, press conference, celebrity/politican PR releases etc. indicate to me that someone wanted this to blow up to make a point -- it didn't really happen organically in the way that the press is making you believe. If you are actually interested in how these stories end up making headlines, I would recommend reading "Trust Me, I'm Lying." It completely changed my perspective on our media and why it emphasizes the things that it does.
You don't think a 14-year-old or their parents would know better than to talk to the police without a lawyer, especially after what's happened so far? Or that they haven't been contacted by dozens of lawyers wanting to represent them?
This is just an off the shelf alarm clock disassembled and crammed into a box from Target. I see an AC cord going to a bridge rectifier, a transformer, 9v battery holder, a display driver board and a long thin PCB for buttons. Here is a similar clock with a 2.5" tall display: http://i.imgur.com/1FceYfG.jpg
http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/16/9338747/mark-zuckerberg-fa...
Does having something happen to you instantly qualify you to receive insightful recommendation letters from strangers though?
The Internet has developed an overly powerful hero amplification beam it shines down when things happen to someone, but does it necessarily reflect the person themselves? Sudden unrelenting Internet-powred fame (either as the receiver or the giver of fame) can drive some people a bit mad after the fact too.
I like Obama 'n all, but in today's world of technology(this is about a student building a clock, unprompted)... I believe the opinion of Facebook's CEO tech-geek outweights Obama's.
Now Zuck and even the President invite him to visit for the same reasons (because he is a muslim who created a clock and brought it to school) and everyone is excited about this.
In my opinion both acts are seemingly being done for the wrong reasons. It's sad really, because now the boy will never know if he is being invited out because he created a cool clock, or because helping minorities is good PR. It's also disappointing because of all the other kids out there who are working hard on making things that will never get attention because they are not being discriminated against.
Zuckerberg, Obama, Clinton, Dash, and others are overcorrecting for this in order to ensure that the kid doesn't get dejected and discouraged from being a maker.
There's already far too much ostracizing of nerds and geeks in school to add powerful adult actors like school principals and police into the mix. I don't see any room for 'mixed feelings' here.
We just have to hope that the kid comes out of this as happy or happier and as or more successful than he'd otherwise have been.
Wait....what? You think they're inviting him to visit because he's a Muslim student who made a clock? Do you really think he's the only Muslim student who's made a clock? I'm pretty sure it's because he was a student whose school reacted to his inventiveness by having him arrested (and of course because Obama/Zuckerberg heard about it). Even aside from the racism side of things, it's a fairly explicit symbol of the endemic squashing of children's creativity that makes the American school system such a (relative) disaster.
While you, I, or anyone else might debate the novelty or inventiveness of what the kid made, I'm sure he genuinely thought it was cool, and was excited about it.
Then, after asking if he could bring it in and show it off, he was wronged.
I want to believe they're inviting him because they don't want to stifle his spirit, and that not only is it good PR, it's also a message to kids who are interested in technology that they should absolutely pursue it, and to not get discouraged.
I believe this child, who was a complete stranger to me before any nationally publicized incident, would make a fantastic candidate to your programs at (school).
I have no knowledge of their abilities other than that he has an obvious interest in electronics, and that my PR group said that this would be a fantastic opportunity to remind the public at large just who I am, and the power I can exert.
Please accept this child; also I would request that you would be reminded of this recommendation should any world-changing positive developments come of it, and my part in those events.
If this child should be a dud, please dispose of this letter and any public recollection of it.
-Signed (all the people who wish to piggyback onto this terrible situation for the sake of publicity)"
Maybe some big powerful person should be talking to the people that caused this situation, rather than promising the world to the victim? Misunderstandings like this are going to keep happening until way after the worlds' elite run out of personal stock for their recommendation letters.
I mean it is good he is learning how things work inside but I don't think he actually made anything and actually was fooling around with an openly exposed 110VAC transformer. He definitely needs some guidance and help with this stuff before he hurts himself or burns the house down.
This is like that woman at MIT who had a circuit board clipped onto her clothes and went to pick someone up at the airport and almost got murdered by security.
I did this a lot as a kid -- removed broken stuff, poked around to fix it, glued it into a different box. It's one of the reasons I went into electrical engineering.
It's a shame we have nothing like that today, electronics are just "magic" to people now that is made elsewhere.
When you're young is a great time to get shocked by 170v. Better than the rectified 340v from the caps in a power supply.
That said, I certainly fooled around with live power when I was his age. The house didn't burn down because we had a competent electrician install circuit breakers when we built it.
Either way, he is 14. Like the saying goes, 'everything is a remix'.
> I don't think he actually made anything
That's pointless judgement for something that a 14 year old himself claims in this video as 'really easy... something small': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mW4w0Y1OXE
At 14, all that matters is you are willing to learn, persevere, and have the courage to create something. (Actually, that's all that matters at any age of one's life.)
In the face of opposition, never change course! It's the ultimate downfall of bureaucracy, humans will burn down the world before admitting their mistakes.
Source: 17-year old who faced similar media attention, it did inflate my ego a bit despite attempts to remain humble.
On the one hand, no one should have to go through what he did. On the other hand, the fourteen-year-old version of me would've happily put himself in handcuffs for a chance at getting out of my cow-town high school.
Its not a simple positive or negative -- it depends on what people do because of it, only some of which is now known.
The far more important subtext (and the reason that most of these stories take off) is that they are often indicative of larger phenomena. Most kids facing racism or having their creativity stifled by their schools _don't_ have their stories blow up and so their stories are nothing but "net negative".
That's a stupid policy too, but a different kind of stupid.
Zero percent tolerance, one hundred percent stupidity.
They however will just say they were following the rules. The rules put student safety high on the list, and events like Columbine and others only make the risk/fear higher.
Schools are limited in what they can do to/for problem students. What that means in practice is that to limit the threat from a problem student they suppress the privledges of all students. This avoids the stigma of "singling out" someone for special rules.
In a more functional system the rules would allow for things like electronics projects and pocket knives and what not, and when a student did some damage that student would be pulled from the school and moved elsewhere. Unfortunately that puts students with an unstable home life more at risk of being expelled than students with a stable home life, and if, through suspension, you end up segregating the school along student problem lines, it often correlates with other student traits which you can specifically not discriminate against. You can take on the burden of defending a bunch of lawsuits from suspended students, or you can just strip all the students of the opportunities.
And this leads to zero tolerance policies for non-obvious reasons.
What we haven't internalized as a society yet is that this is much more damaging to the societies eventual stability than the whole segregating thing would be. We have yet to learn how to run a system where people can readily move back and forth from the 'offender' side of the street to the 'cooperates' side of the street. Thus a trip to the offender's side leaves a stain that gets harder and harder to erase, regardless of maturity, later. It can be really hard to listen to people who have been imprisoned for life because of a mistake they made in their teens, which now prevents them from ever reaching their potential.
I'm tempted to believe that people are just dumber than they were when I was a kid, but the truth is that this sort of thing is a freak accident. A hundred kids bring something like this into school and it's virtually guaranteed that one will eventually hit school administrators that are low on the bell curve.
Also, I'm seeing a lot of "Texas" in comments to this story. It's really unfair. I'm here in the DC metro surrounded by highly educated latte liberals, and they're some of the most paranoid parents in the country. Don't think for a second this wouldn't happen in, e.g., Silver Spring (where those parents got CPS called on them for letting their kids walk home from school).
It is not about race or skin color. The kid was arrested because he's a Muslims and Muslim terrorists are wreaking havoc around the world and he was profiled and treated unjustly because of this, don't you agree?
https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&date...