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

How the fuck are the accoutants supposed to connect "big increases in electricity use" with "unauthorised installation of software on 5,000 school computers"?

http://www.pbs.org/parents/education/homeschooling/unschooli...

"Unschooling is a branch of homeschooling that promotes nonstructured, child-led learning. There’s no set curriculum or schedule."

Tragedy of the Commons and all that. Maybe it's best for society if we don't give up on the public school system, but for my kid, today, given the options I have, is sending them there the best option? Rarely is the answer yes.

    "Yup. That’s who I thought it was."

Conveniently, you ignored the facts and in doing so implicitly mischaractered me as equally lacking in factual basis for my "narrative", which, of course, is absurdly wrong, since my first word, "Exactly" presupposes the parents' citations.

People don't freak out over paying taxes for education. Even if they don't have kids in the system.

They freak out over throwing money at a broken system and the solution isn't to throw more money at it.

Attach a specific dollar amount to a student. Allow that student to go to whichever school they want. End of story.

Stop forcing children to go to broken schools.

Education is so incredibly important, and honestly the education system here in the United States is abhorrent. Not due to the teachers mind you, but due to the requirements that are being made by legislators.

Testing requirements don't allow for a wide variety of curriculum anymore, students are all taught at the same baseline (lowest common denominator because otherwise it's discrimination) and students are no longer allowed to excel for fear of making their peers uncomfortable.

As a country the United States is not teaching students to think for themselves and challenge viewpoints, instead they are becoming complacent followers. Which is perfect if you want people that can easily be controlled.

Recently (well, a few years ago), there was a controversy in my home state about the removal of funding for bus transport to and from magnet schools. I went to one of those magnet schools - as did my two older siblings.

I brought it up talking to my dad (who still lives there), and he said, "well, I don't have a horse in that race anymore."

Meanwhile, those schools' academic ratings are plummeting...

Or maybe I hate paying school taxes because the schools promote sports as far more important than academics. End of last year I went to the awards ceremony for top performing students in academics and sports... the difference in treatment left me feeling ill in my gut.

Exercise serves a purpose. I've even remember seeing evidence exercise helps improve learning. And in no way am I against a group of kids playing ball together. But I do not like funding an educational institute which does more to foster sports are being more important than the very stated purpose.

Think about some other good goal. Say feeding starving people. Now imagine if you were forced to pay some charity that was grossly incompetent in how it actually worked. Yes, people got fed, but often after they were negatively impacted in other ways. And that is money that could'be been going to better charities, but you aren't allowed to make such a choice.

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp

Do you think more money is the answer or should we spend smarter?

She makes $35k / year.

If she wasn't lucky enough to have an engineer paycheck behind her life, she simply wouldn't be able to do the job.

It's likely that funding gets allocated in stupid ways, but the whole process is inherently expensive. Managing thousands of employees, dozens of buildings, updating equipment, training, etc, etc. It's a hard problem, and we've basically just decided that only "dedicated" workers should do it, which is code for "willing to be underpaid compared to qualifications".

It isn't a funding problem. It's a problem with how we spend that money.

The person in question - coach Bob Hurley, in a decaying New Jersey town - is a retired parole officer, and he's there to keep kids out of prison. So this is is his white whale.

I don't think you can buy that, but you might be able to buy furniture - support systems, assistance, the like - to keep it from being killed off. Instead, we get six-sigma metrification which may well make it worse. At least it Heisenbugs the curriculum and distracts from actual teaching.

Something must be done, this is something, this must be done...

Then again, the canonical teacher is Socrates, and he was forced to drink hemlock...

I think people get embarrassed by being discarded by the sorting-machine and resent the system, even when it's their kids in it. We don't really value education for its own sake - it must be shown to be in service of other societal goals - mainly economic goals. That can get out of control quickly.

Overhear both the Head and It guy responsible would have been fired and be on the "not allowed to work with kids and vulnerable people" list for the rest of their lives. They would have been lucky not to get prosecuted for child porn as well

5,000 machines churning SETI for nine years? I'd be interested in estimates of cost.

Running a processor at an extra (grossly exaggerating here) few watts + an extra 5-10 watts for fans, LEDs, etc don't amount to much. Especially when you consider that all electricity is paid for by the Thousand-Watts/Hour.

Sure, he didn't make profit from the seti@home instances, but he did it without approval, did ultimately cost the district money, and likely caused other issues along the way (like additional wear-n-tear on the machines)

It's not that they're afraid of things they don't understand. It's that there is a certain type of person they generally don't like. In this case it might have been a man that had some sort of intellectual curiosity, maybe a bit eccentric. And they will use their ignorance as a weapon against those people.

The police department knows full well they can determine whether this was a bomb or not. It's within their ability to interview every person he interacted with to find if he claimed it was a bomb at any point. Instead of doing that they will use their lack of knowledge to allow falsehoods to move the investigation.

It was within the ability of the staff to determine the monetary cost of this man's actions. In the very least they could compare the electricity bill during a month he was running SETI versus the next month when he was not. They could calculate the power consumption of the machines.

It's not that they are afraid of knowing. But that knowing or admitting the truthfulness of the facts makes them less powerful as people.

I did this when I worked as a network administrator for a new school campus. It was folding@home vs. SETI but same concept. Once the administration realized all the computers were running folding@home they compared the bills after turning it off and it was tens of thousands of dollars difference (granted this was 2001 and full-size desktops).

Now, one could say they overreacted, sure, in my case I just got reprimanded and told to uninstall it off all the computers. But firing for costing the district significant amounts of money isn't some testament to the ignorance of the South, unlike the "bomb" clock.

My wife was on the advisory committee for a local middle school that's struggling. One winner is that they bought SmartBoards for a bunch of classrooms but didn't get stands for them, so they just mothballed them for a year until they could buy stands with the next year's budget.

Most people, be they in the deep south or the northeast have no fucking clue what SETI is and may even have very specific metaphysical opinions on how we should deal with the possibility of alien life that doing this violates. Most people don't care enough about paper to do more than write it off as a normal expense.

I personally think that alien life is everywhere and I can't wait until we discover more evidence of it. But I think SETI is a huge waste of resources that could be spent better elsewhere. Even though I'm pro science, discovery, and utilizing wasted cpu cycles, I still think searching for life this way is a huge waste of time and resources and I'd be pissed if some teacher decided he was going to use the resources I take a part in paying for to do this.

The benefits of this are external while the cost is internal. If you're going to use resources, at least use them to benefits the kids who are in your budge.

I wouldnt call someone externalizing costs for whatever noble endeavor responsible or forward thinking.

http://www.mersenne.org/download/

[0] http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2010/04/27/amd-phenom-...

Some yes, but there's a lot of difference between a machine idling at 0% CPU and one fully loaded with SETI or Folding and running 100% all the time.

Would be even more worse now with deep sleep states and GPGPU, but even back then the difference between an idle and a fully loaded machine was absolutely significant.

http://www.businessinsider.com/researcher-bitcoin-supercompu...

I mean, I can't imagine what kind of monster automatically jumps to bomb when a kid makes a clock. Is that how we want to live, constantly being suspicious of everyone different?

Not necessarily, because the more people you alienate, the more enemies you create, and the more genuine threats you will face.

No but embarrassment may explain quite a lot of it.

Calling it a hoax bomb is ass covering by shifting the blame to the person who happens to be the only adult in that bumfuck town's government.

As a parent, can I see the list of "items... that are prohibited"? I'd be pretty shocked if "clock" is actually on there.

The boy's father is from Sudan and is well known for being outspoken against anti-Islamic policies. To an unworldly south/midwesterner that spells "potential terrorist". It's not too much of a stretch to see that diagnosis extended to the son.

Remember the Aqua Teen Hunger Force "bomb" scare in Boston? The city rigorously pursued legal action to spare their police department the embarrassment of having wasted millions of dollars carefully dismantling DIY Lite-Brites.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - 1973, Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws

They need to show intent. They cannot just show that others were in fear.

So it seems like they don't have a legitimate case, although "the ride" is often used to get guilty pleas out of otherwise innocent people (i.e. they would lock the kid up pending trial, delay trial, the parents may not be able to afford lawyer fees, so he might plead down to a lesser charge to get out even if the original charge is complete nonsense).

That is pretty standard fare for the US legal system these days. 95% plea rates, 7 minutes of public defender time on average per client, and so on and so forth.

I checked twice before crossing the road and a nearby cop car spun around and stopped me saying I had done a double-take when I saw them and they needed to search me.

Turns out the client I was off to see was a porn magazine and I have a bunch of their product in my bag. The nice police officer didn't even blink when she saw that. Perhaps everyone i the City is carrying around lots of porn with them in the middle of the day?

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_steel_(London)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2015/03/06/6-year-old-finge...

Of course they have. However, the authorities everywhere don't consistently flip their wigs—certainly not as badly as this—every time a student does something like bringing in this project. So the fact that they wigged out badly in this particular case probably—not certainly, but really pretty likely—does have some relation to the fact that the student just happened to be Ahmed Mohamed.

(OTOH there pretty certainly is a selection bias in the fact that this particular case is getting so much publicity. It's the social-media catnip of the perceived (and again, let's be serious here, probably partly real) discrimination that has pushed this one up the charts while others go mostly unremarked.)

So, in the craigslist example, many American people are afraid because there is overwhelming evidence that craigslist robberies A) really do happen with some significant frequency and B) meeting at a public place is a simple, low-effort way of mitigating that risk. I can understand people living in lower crime areas not worrying about craigslist robberies (though I would take the precautions anywhere because it is so simple).

However, in general, I would agree with you that Americans eat up FUD. You can see it in our DHS/TSA, the Patriot Act, collective disinterest in the Snowden leaks, and general anti-Muslim sentiments.

[0]: http://wlfi.com/2015/08/18/man-robbed-at-gunpoint-while-meet...

[1]: http://wlfi.com/2015/08/18/lafayette-adds-monitored-exchange...

https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/644193755814342656

The downside, of course, is creating the perception that Ahmed is being used as a figurehead, and making him, as somebody else said, a "political football". At 14 I doubt he wants all of that. But his story is part of a larger story, and I think we should all acknowledge that and help make that point to the rest of the world who don't realize it.

Edit:

Also, FWIW, at SplatSpace we spend a lot of our energy on exactly that - encouraging young people. We do a lot of outreach with local public schools and the various local library systems. We have done a lot of things like offering Scratch programming workshops, and electronics demos using 'squishy circuits' and taking 3D printers to "math and science night" at local schools, etc. So yeah, I totally agree with the sentiment that we (in the broadest possible sense) should do all we can to encourage and support young hackers/makers.

No kidding. Many people in the Middle East are completely "white", by every definition.

In fact, it's amusing that the word "Caucasian" has been corrupted into a euphemism for "white", given where the word comes from....[0]. (Most people who are Caucasian aren't even white!)

While we're on the topic, the most pale and fair-skinned people I've met in my life were not European; they were Indian (Kashmiri). People have this notion of what regions stereotypically map to which skin tones, and this doesn't actually reflect reality at all.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasus_Mountains

In this test, the subject to be tested is socializing with his or her normal social circle. During this activity, a potential romantic interest interrupts, and proposes that they go out on a date with the subject, immediately.

Responses are classified as follows. A: the subject leaves the gathering for the date. B: the subject declines the date. C: the subject counter-offers that the romantic interest join the existing social gathering in lieu of a date.

I propose that a true nerd's nerd would never choose response A. Geek Night is sacrosanct. And if you bring a date, they had better bring their own deck/controller/dice/pawn.

I think Jobs would have failed that test. It's not just about hanging out with nerds, but actually preferring their company to non-nerds. How many of the people in that photo did Jobs stay in contact with after he became Mr. Big? How many did he materially share his success with?

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.

Then it should go, "Oh it's a clock." "Is that true, engineering teacher?" "Yes." "OK cool."

Ok, I can't help but be reminded of my recent comments about English classes in high school.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10205670

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10204756

You shouldn't be caught sitting in your comfy chair eating popcorn though...

Instead, label them BOX 1, BOX 2 and BOX 4 and put "geo-location circuity" (it doesn't have to work, just make it look like it could) in it and place those at various points in the school, preferably with visible wires.

Then you can claim that you were trying to build your own local mini-gps to monitor your movements throughout the day.

Same popcorn value, less time in prison.

That's the problem right there. These people have let their common sense be overtaken by their sense of fear, they're so afraid they aren't thinking.

That's why going after a 9 year old or MIT student with a t-shirt[0] makes sense, because they literally aren't thinking straight because they're so convinced there is a threat around every corner (thanks mass media!).

[0] https://boingboing.net/2007/09/21/mit-student-arrested.html

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MadeOfExplodium

Haha. No, they don't. Not anymore at least.

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.

Again, I don't agree with the liquid ban, but it's a problem with the goal, not a problem with the methods. There's no real evidence that liquid explosives pose a threat that needs to be countered. However, if you take as a given that you're tasked with stopping them, the system as it's set up is a decent way to go about it.

Even a three year old can easily understand the significance of signing something. Especially if you, as an adult, place importance on the ritual.

Asking toddlers to promise things, to explicitly agree to future events, is a big part of preventing tantrums. Three year olds are very capable negotiators.

I don't think anyone is arguing that the child in question is 4.

Many toddlers younger than three could grasp the idea of signing something as a promise to do that thing in the future. A three or four year old could easily understand it.

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.

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."

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.

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.