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#102 Sep 23 2015 at 10:09 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
So apparently this kid wasn't smart enough to make a clock but was smart enough to predict everyone's reactions from the school to the police to Microsoft's and the White House's and get a bunch of free stuff, helpful should he ever decide to make a clock. Makes sense.


Hence the theory that his father encouraged him to do it. His father's political associations certainly provides motive to do this, and he is well versed in how to manipulate public opinion to support his groups ideological objectives. He's part of a group that actively works to raise awareness of anti-Islamic bias in the US (and which has been accused of leaping to such claims absent evidence in the past). What a strange coincidence that his son would go to school with a device that is not a bomb, but that does look enough like one that the school and police might just have to react to it in a way that he could then say was anti-Islamic bias. You know, because out of all the smart kids who tinker with electronic stuff for fun, I'm sure this sort of crazy misunderstanding must just happen all the time, right? Oh wait. Other kids who tinker with stuff at home, generally don't decide out of the blue to take them to school, otherwise we might just have heard about other similar events.

What an amazing coincidence that the one kid who decided to do this, just happened to take a clock apart and put it in a case in a manner that no one would think to do unless they were trying to make something that looked like a bomb, and just happened to be the one kid in America who thought it was a great idea to take this to school, and just happens to be the son of a man with a strong ideological agenda that benefits from having his son falsely accused of bringing something that looks like a bomb to school. I know lots of people who are into tech stuff. It's never occurred to any of them to do anything like this. Ever. Actual home electronics projects don't look anything like what he did. They involve either hand made components, or kits. They usually actually do something that they didn't do prior to starting the project (which is the point). His was just a clock when it started, and a clock when he was done.

All he did was basically an appearance mod. And one that just happened, just by coincidence, to make a standard alarm clock look far more like a bomb than it did when he started. C'mon Joph. You can't possibly fail to see the massively unlikely coincidence going on here.

I asked my friend who's a teacher/mentor for his High School robotics team what their policy is on kids either bringing electronic parts they built from home to school, or removing components from the lab and showing it around campus (in specific context with this issue). He paused and said "Well, we don't have one. No kid has ever done that. I suppose we should actually tell kids not to do that now, but we've never had to before". The point being that this isn't normal behavior, even for kids who play around with such things. I'm not sure (and he wasn't either) whether it's just that it never occurred to any of his kids (he's been doing this program for like 7 years now) to do that, or whether they just innately understood that wandering around campus with an undefined bundle of electronics might just look suspicious and get them in trouble, but the larger point is that this isn't something kids do.


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bundled his work in a way that triggered zero tolerance rules by the school/police

This wasn't the case. There isn't a zero tolerance policy at the school that required them to call the police and there's certainly no "zero tolerance" rule the police are bound by forcing them to arrest the kid. The only thing "zero tolerance" is good for here is trying to lift the blame off the teachers, principle and police who all acted extremely poorly.


The quote from the police stated that they weren't sure what to do because they knew it wasn't a bomb, but they couldn't be sure it wasn't designed to be a hoax-bomb. So yeah, they erred on the side of caution and proceeded as though it was a hoax bomb (which falls under the "must arrest and suspend" rules). I don't think that's acting "extremely poorly" at all. They also said that he acted in a "passive aggressive" manner (not much elaboration on that though). From the bits I've gathered, he basically refused to say anything about the clock except that it was a clock. From what I gather, it's almost like he was coached to be as uncooperative as possible. Again though, most of this is just speculation from bits and pieces of information. But I think the point is that leaping to the assumption that the police had no good reason to do what they did, and that he was just an innocent kid doing what normal kids might do, is not something we should do. We have to at least consider the possibility that this was set up deliberately to provoke the reaction that occurred.

The police were the ones questioning him. You and I were not there. They made the decision to detain him. Again, you and I were not there. They have said repeatedly that it was not because of his religion or his ethnicity. Again, you and I were not there. Forgive me for giving them at least a tiny bit of the benefit of the doubt that at that time, and in that place, and in that situation, what they did seemed to be the correct and prudent response. Because... wait for it... they were there. You and I were not.


Heaven forbid we actually wait for the facts to come out before jumping on a bandwagon position, which will then make it harder for us to change later. I honestly think that most people's strong resistance to the idea that there might be more to this than just a gross police over reaction comes from the fact that they've already taken a strong emotional position on the issue. Which, of course, is precisely why these sorts of things are presented this way. Massive media outrage early on leads to people taking an emotional position, which makes it very very hard for them to accept a different narrative later. Even going so far as taking ridiculous steps to defend that initial assumption. Heck. Most people who started out with the "OMG! They profiled this poor innocent kid" position can't even acknowledge that what he did does, in fact, look quite a bit like a bomb. That's not something you arrive at rationally as a result of objective examination of the images, but because you're already emotionally invested in the outcome. If I'd shown you that picture two weeks ago, and asked what it looked like (in a purely objective context), you'd have said "bomb". Everyone would say "bomb". Well, there might be some rare electronics geek who'd say "it's a clock that's been taken apart and arranged in a case to look like a bomb". It's only because of the context that you'd argue (quite passionately) otherwise.

Edited, Sep 23rd 2015 9:18pm by gbaji
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#103 Sep 23 2015 at 10:29 PM Rating: Excellent
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No, it looks like an opened electronic device. It does not look like a bomb. Do you think every opened electronic looks like a bomb? Maybe you do think it looks like a bomb -- I could just be missing the "Irrational Luddite Fear of Circuit Boards" pillar of morality.

On the plus side, I think I've pinned down why you have so much trouble flipping out a CPU.
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#104 Sep 24 2015 at 5:46 AM Rating: Excellent
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Holy ****! It's ANOTHER bomb in a computer case! When will it END!?

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#105 Sep 24 2015 at 7:30 AM Rating: Excellent
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I love this theory people are trying to float now about the father and son. Someone said earlier "Well, if it doesn't work then no harm done" but no one addresses if it works too well. What if the police decided it was a hoax bomb? What if the kid is brought up on felony terrorism charges? They already have the "hoax bomb", all they have to do is push intent. This theory relies on the father essentially saying "Well, you might ruin your life with a felony terrorism conviction but if we get to make a school look silly, it's all worth it". The plan here was to embarrass the racist American school by trusting them to be racist enough to freak out over a clock but not so racist that they'd make a false statement to put the kid in Gitmo or something? But, hey, the father is Muslim and so they're strapping bombs and shit to their kids 24/7 to destroy America, right?

Also, this dynamic duo was brilliant enough to thread the needle in manipulating the perfect response but couldn't be bothered to buy a DIY electronics kit from Amazon? Drop the $30 on a Raspberry Pi? Look at this scary shit what with the extra wires and breadboard and stuff -- now that's a homemade bomb-clock! They came up with the defense "We'll say you wanted to do an electronics project!" but didn't actually... do a basic electronics project? That's the more likely scenario than a kid refurbishing/case modding a clock?

Well, I guess Gbaji never saw a kid play with a clock before and he thinks circuit boards are terrifying so....

Edited, Sep 24th 2015 8:43am by Jophiel
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#106 Sep 24 2015 at 7:36 AM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
From the bits that I've gathered [...] Heaven forbid we actually wait for the facts to come out before jumping on a bandwagon position,
Just not all the facts.
Jophiel wrote:
I love this theory people are trying to float now about the father and son.
My favorite part is still the whole "he was being mean to the cops that falsely arrested him by not admitting it was a scary Muslim terrorist bomb all along!"angle.

Edited, Sep 24th 2015 10:15am by lolgaxe
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#107 Sep 24 2015 at 10:07 AM Rating: Excellent
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"Let's wait for all the facts!" he said as he made sweeping generalizations based off a review of a book he read, before condemning Planned Parenthood based on edited videos and an ignorance of federal law...
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#108 Sep 24 2015 at 8:23 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
No, it looks like an opened electronic device. It does not look like a bomb. Do you think every opened electronic looks like a bomb? Maybe you do think it looks like a bomb -- I could just be missing the "Irrational Luddite Fear of Circuit Boards" pillar of morality.

On the plus side, I think I've pinned down why you have so much trouble flipping out a CPU.

Circuitry is hard, let's go shopping!
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#109 Sep 28 2015 at 9:10 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
No, it looks like an opened electronic device. It does not look like a bomb. Do you think every opened electronic looks like a bomb?


Sigh. No. I think that this one does. And so do most people who actually have an understanding of electronics. Such crazy conservatives as Bill Maher. Or heck, average college students. When you do a search on the issue, the overwhelming results are articles and blogs, and op eds talking about how fishy Amed's actions where, how not like a clock his clock looked (and how much more like a bomb). The few that do try to defend his actions (and that have comments sections) are full of comments basically bashing the heck out of them. I'm sure you can argue that these must all be crazy racist anti-Islamic conservatives or something, but then where are all the people arguing that it doesn't look anything like a bomb? Given that your argument more or less rests on what "most people" would think, this does seem to be relevant.

But hey. You continue to insist that what he did should not have been mistaken for a bomb. That's just laughable. Absent context, probably 99% of all people shown a picture of his "clock" would say that it looks like a bomb. I'm really scratching my head trying to figure out why you're arguing this. Is it so necessary for you to refuse to give even an inch of ground on any issue? He clearly made something that could easily be mistaken for a bomb. That really should not be in doubt. The questions should be more about his motivation for doing so, whether the school and police followed correct procedure, and yes, even if we think maybe that procedure is wrong. But we can't even have an intelligent conversation about this as long as people continue to insist that this doesn't look anything like a bomb and thus there was no reason for anything to have happened at all.

That's just insane. Argue about what the reaction should have been, but let's not argue that school officials should not react at all.

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Maybe you do think it looks like a bomb -- I could just be missing the "Irrational Luddite Fear of Circuit Boards" pillar of morality.


Yes, I do. And so do most people. You're in like the vast minority here Joph. Just insisting more and more loudly isn't going to make your claim correct. What he did was take a clock that looked nothing like a bomb, and rearrange its parts so that it looked a lot like a bomb. If we inspect it closely can we quickly determine that's it's not a bomb? Absolutely. But that's not the point. He wasn't arrested for bringing a bomb to school. He was arrested for bringing something which could easily have been mistaken for a bomb to school. And that is precisely what he did do.
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#110 Sep 28 2015 at 10:01 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
This theory relies on the father essentially saying "Well, you might ruin your life with a felony terrorism conviction but if we get to make a school look silly, it's all worth it". The plan here was to embarrass the racist American school by trusting them to be racist enough to freak out over a clock but not so racist that they'd make a false statement to put the kid in Gitmo or something? But, hey, the father is Muslim and so they're strapping bombs and shit to their kids 24/7 to destroy America, right?


No. This theory relies on the Father knowing how the school will likely react to the device, and, more importantly, how the useful idiots in the media will likely react. He knows exactly how gullible and easily manipulated people like you are and took advantage of it. It's utterly predictable.

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Also, this dynamic duo was brilliant enough to thread the needle in manipulating the perfect response but couldn't be bothered to buy a DIY electronics kit from Amazon? Drop the $30 on a Raspberry Pi? Look at this scary shit what with the extra wires and breadboard and stuff -- now that's a homemade bomb-clock!


It's funny to me that you consistently fail to see what distinguishes a real electronics project that someone into electronics would make, and what Ahmed did. It's your ignorance showing. Go look at all sorts of images of kit/homemade clocks. Here, I'll do the googling for you. See how different they are than Ahmed's clock? Every single home made clock is assembled in a functional manner. They tend to be put together in one or two parts, closely connected, and designed to look like a clock (absent housing typically). That's the point. Take some off the shelf components, configure them together and make a clock. People making these tend to go out of their way to attach all the parts together so it's one single unit (attaching to a backboard at a minimum, sometimes even 3d printing a housing, complete with fittings designed to hold all the pieces together). They are designed to actually look like a clock, because... wait for it... you're making something that you want people to look at and say "Hey. That's a cool clock!".

What makes Ahmed's clock look like a bomb isn't the circuit boards, or the led. It's the jumble of loose components, connected via lose wiring, scattered around the inside of a case that itself isn't very conducive to being useful as a clock holding device. Every single thing about Ahmed's "clock" screams "this is something other than a clock". He took something that was already a clock and made it look like something that was not.

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They came up with the defense "We'll say you wanted to do an electronics project!" but didn't actually... do a basic electronics project? That's the more likely scenario than a kid refurbishing/case modding a clock?


Um... Because that's not a basic engineering project. I mean, I suppose he took a clock apart, so that's "basic". But kids who are into electronics today are generally well past the "just take things apart and look at them" phase by the time they are in high school. Heck. Most are past that phase by middle school. And the whole putting it inside a case thing, makes absolutely zero sense at all. No one does that. Look at all those images. Do you see a single one where the clock is inside a closeable case? They all are either open designs, or have cases with the leds deliberately visable from the outside. Because... wait for it.. you're making a clock! Clocks have visible displays that show the time in some way. That's what makes them clocks. What he did was take the components of a clock and then scatted them around the inside of a case.

We can discuss the engineering skills involved (not much), but what he did certainly maximized the degree to which this device would likely be mistaken for a bomb (or some other dangerous device). As I said earlier, everything about it screams "something's different/wrong here". It's the kind of thing that appears designed to raise alarm.

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Well, I guess Gbaji never saw a kid play with a clock before and he thinks circuit boards are terrifying so....


Circuit boards? No. Jumbles of electronic components scattered around the inside of a case for no apparent reason? Yeah. A bit so. All you're doing is proving how little you understand about what electronic projects actually look like. I'll say it again: They don't look like this. Why put the led on the inside? Why put it "inside" anything at all? And of all the things to put it inside, you pick a metallic case (pretty much the Hollywood stereotype case for putting a bomb inside). It just doesn't add up. It looks exactly like something you'd make if you wanted someone to think it was a bomb. I'll say again that the police stated that one of the deciding factors for arrest was the question of whether the device would likely be mistaken for a bomb if it was found unattended. It wasn't about whether they thought it actually was a functional bomb (because that's not really about what it looks like), but whether it could be easily mistaken for one. That by itself is a violation.

I do so love how you keep trying to turn this into *me* being somehow afraid of electronics and circuity though. Stay classy Joph!
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#111 Sep 28 2015 at 10:03 PM Rating: Excellent
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you put it on the inside because you want to carry it around. and yes, jumbles of electronic components is exactly what anyone's early projects look like.
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#112 Sep 28 2015 at 10:26 PM Rating: Decent
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Sir Xsarus wrote:
you put it on the inside because you want to carry it around. and yes, jumbles of electronic components is exactly what anyone's early projects look like.


For carrying? Maybe. But he attached the components to the inside of the case. Also, you don't take the early parts of a project, when it's just a jumble of wires and whatnot, to school/wherever to show to people. You bring something that is finished, or at least close to finished. When it's in the "jumble of parts" phase, it's on your workbench. Why would you take that to show someone? If it's still in progress, the last thing you do is pick up the pieces and carry it around with you. And you certainly don't attach them to the inside of the carrying case. If for some strange reason you did want to transport it, you'd put it inside with appropriate protective padding and whatnot inside.

Or did you mean "early projects" meaning "early in your electronics career"? Um... Ok (although again, this is very simplistic for a 9th grader to think is something to be particularly proud of). But you also don't tend to put them inside a case like that. I guess maybe I have a better eye for this, because I've seen lots of electronics projects and know what they actually look like. Wires can be "jumbled", but they are no longer than they need to be. You tend to focus on making whatever you've built as compact as possible, for easy transport. Wires are cut to size, and attached to the components themselves. You usually glue/bolt/whatever the components to some kind of backing board (again, to hold everything together in one piece). Also, there's a difference between "visible wires" and "wires that are needlessly strung around between components that are needlessly attached in odd locations inside a needlessly large case". As I said earlier, this wasn't a functional mod, but an appearance mod. And one has to seriously question what he was trying to change the appearance of that clock to look like.

It's pretty apparent that what he went to school with was the finished version of whatever he was doing. Remember, he wasn't building a clock. He took one apart and scattered the bits around the inside of a case. It was designed to look like a bunch of electronic components, with an led, and wires connecting them, all attached to the inside of a case. He took something that looked like a clock and changed it to make it look not much at all like a clock. That seems to have been the objective. So, I'll ask you: What would be the point of doing that?

It's the case and how he arranged the components inside that case that makes it suspicious. I just can't get past that and buy that this was just an innocent electronics project. It just seems way too perfectly designed to make it look like a bomb. Even if one wasn't thinking "someone might mistake this for a bomb", it's a really really odd way to assemble the parts. There's no functional reason to do what he did. It's 100% appearance. And at the risk of repeating myself, it's kinda hard not to see that he made it appear to look a lot like a bomb. What do you think he made it look like?

Edited, Sep 28th 2015 10:35pm by gbaji
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#113 Sep 28 2015 at 10:38 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Such crazy conservatives as Bill Maher.
You do realize that Maher saying the uproar was justified was purely because they assumed a Moslem kid was a threat due solely to his religion?


Stay classy, gbaji.
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#114 Sep 28 2015 at 11:32 PM Rating: Decent
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Friar Bijou wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Such crazy conservatives as Bill Maher.
You do realize that Maher saying the uproar was justified was purely because they assumed a Moslem kid was a threat due solely to his religion?


Wow. Sarcasm really doesn't fly here. I long ago gave up trying to figure out the drug addled thought process that is Maher's brain. It was a joke. geez! I can't slip one bit of humor in, just to break things up a bit?
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#115 Sep 28 2015 at 11:49 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Jophiel wrote:
This theory relies on the father essentially saying "Well, you might ruin your life with a felony terrorism conviction but if we get to make a school look silly, it's all worth it". The plan here was to embarrass the racist American school by trusting them to be racist enough to freak out over a clock but not so racist that they'd make a false statement to put the kid in Gitmo or something? But, hey, the father is Muslim and so they're strapping bombs and shit to their kids 24/7 to destroy America, right?
No. This theory relies on the Father knowing how the school will likely react to the device

You're saying the same exact thing that I am, really. Asserting that the father knew just the exact sweet spot would be hit here. Difference is that I understand the unlikeliness of it whereas you seem to think that he's some sociological genius.

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Also, this dynamic duo was brilliant enough to thread the needle in manipulating the perfect response but couldn't be bothered to buy a DIY electronics kit from Amazon? Drop the $30 on a Raspberry Pi? Look at this scary shit what with the extra wires and breadboard and stuff -- now that's a homemade bomb-clock!
It's funny to me that you consistently fail to see what distinguishes a real electronics project that someone into electronics would make, and what Ahmed did. It's your ignorance showing. Go look at all sorts of images of kit/homemade clocks.

You see those blue words up top? I know electronics scare you so you might not know this but you can "click" your "mouse" on them and a picture will appear. It's going to be a picture of a homemade clock. Don't worry -- it won't explode. Probably.

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Well, I guess Gbaji never saw a kid play with a clock before and he thinks circuit boards are terrifying so....
Circuit boards? No. Jumbles of electronic components scattered around the inside of a case for no apparent reason?

Three pieces make a "jumble"? I guess if six couples make a "flock", sure. "No apparent reason"? I suppose if you don't know or understand what a "clock" is, sure.

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I do so love how you keep trying to turn this into *me* being somehow afraid of electronics and circuity though. Stay classy Joph!

You do seem to typify the mindset in question here, yes. You are, in fact, going to lengths and using lots and lots of words to try and justify how scary this "jumble" was, correct?
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#116 Sep 29 2015 at 12:08 AM Rating: Decent
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I guess I just find the entire subject amusing. People are oohing and aaahing about Ahmed taking apart a freaking clock. My nephew built a robot that solves the rubiks cube for his science project last year (he's in middle school). I read about another kid building a similar robot who was 9 years old at the time. Kids are putting together engineering projects today that are pretty astounding. A good part of that is a lot more support for these interests. There are a ton of kits, pre-programed (or easily programed) logic components, off the shelf armatures, brackets, frames, boards, and a ton of other things that allow you to cobble stuff together (and that put my old erector set and 201 in 1 electronics set when I was a kid to total shame). There are tons of avenues for kids with interests in such things out there. But that's actually why I'm a bit baffled at this whole thing. Of all the resources out there to use, just waiting for interested kids to come and use them, he decides to take apart a cheap electronic alarm clock? I mean, I get the taking it apart bit actually. I took stuff apart when I was, well, not his age, but in like grade school (back when that calculator was actually quite pricey to take apart, sorry about that parental units). I just totally don't get the "putting it in a case the way he did" bit.

It's the case, and the layout of stuff he put in the case, that bothers me about this. Even not knowing anything about him or his family (or the political issues going on in his town), my immediate reaction when seeing it was "that looks really odd, and I can't think of any reason to arrange those parts in that case like that except to make it look like a bomb". But hey. Kids do silly things sometimes, and you never know. But from the beginning I could totally understand the school and police reaction. Sucks, but that's zero tolerance for ya. Nothing to do with profiling. Anyone doing what he did would have gotten the same response. So the whole profiling uproar just bothers me as a bit of political correctness. Ok. Also annoying, but it happens. More often than it should, but it happens. But the more I read about this, the more bits and pieces just look more and more like this was some kind of deliberate set up. Again, I keep coming back to the case and how the parts were arranged inside it. It's just too perfectly designed to look just enough like a bomb to raise suspicion, while still something that if you didn't leave it unattended and just said "it's a clock" over and over, you'd look like an innocent victim of overzealous school officials and police.

I suppose he might have randomly decided to arrange the pieces that way, but I'm just having a hard time seeing it. I've seen hundreds of home made electronic projects, and I've never once seen one that looked like that. I've seen lots of Hollywood bombs in metal cases though, and they pretty much all look like that. So forgive me if my assumption is that if the only thing you do is take a clock apart and arrange it in a case like that, your intent with your project is to make a clock look like a bomb. And when there's such a readily available explanation for why he might have done just that? Hmmm...

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#117 Sep 29 2015 at 12:15 AM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
So forgive me if my assumption is that if the only thing you do is take a clock apart and arrange it in a case like that, your intent with your project is to make a clock look like a bomb. And when there's such a readily available explanation assumption for why he might have done just that? Hmmm...
One would hope that you know what they say about assumptions.........
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#118 Sep 29 2015 at 12:23 AM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
I guess I just find the entire subject amusing. People are oohing and aaahing about Ahmed taking apart a freaking clock.

They're not, really. They're mainly scratching their heads and wondering about the insane overreaction from the school and police over a clock. The fact that you don't think it's good enough of a project is entirely irrelevant.

Again, Facebook or Microsoft or the White House didn't extend offerings because they're in desperate need of digital clock makers. The actual skill of the project isn't really important. They extended their invitations because the kid was arrested, printed and had mug shots taken while being detained and coerced to give a false confession because of a clock. the "skill" of the project is just some thing apologists for the school/police glommed on to to tear the kid down and try to make the overreaction seem okay. It's not.
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Sucks, but that's zero tolerance for ya

There was no "zero tolerance" that required this. Not really from the school and especially not from the police (who, surprisingly, don't follow school board zero tolerance policies as the standard for law enforcement). That, again, it something apologists have glommed on to in order to wash away any ridiculously poor decision making and overreaction. "It wasn't the school and police... it was those pesky PTA moms!"
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So forgive me if my assumption is that if the only thing you do is take a clock apart and arrange it in a case like that, your intent with your project is to make a clock look like a bomb.

Trust me when I say with all sincerity that no one here would expect anything better from you.
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#119 Sep 29 2015 at 12:41 AM Rating: Excellent
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Amusingly, even if this kid did set this up to expose the racism in the school/police, he's a thousand times braver than the hidden camera monkeys Gbaji idolizes Smiley: laugh
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#120 Sep 29 2015 at 12:49 AM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
You're saying the same exact thing that I am, really. Asserting that the father knew just the exact sweet spot would be hit here. Difference is that I understand the unlikeliness of it whereas you seem to think that he's some sociological genius.


You're honestly claiming it takes any sort of genius to realize that a picture of a 14 year old Muslim boy in handcuffs on social media, accompanied with stories of how he was profiled because the school thought his home made clock was a bomb would generate a massive outcry about anti-Islam bias? Really? Um... That doesn't take any genius at all. It's a guaranteed outcome. You do realize that the entire initial "facts" about this came from social media, released by his own family and friends, right? Before a single bit of investigation occurred, the public was presented an emotionally charged assumed rationale for what happened.

What sweet spot do you think he needed to hit? Is there any chance that this would not have resulted in the outraged we witnessed? Have you not been paying attention to all of the "outrage before the facts are out" events in the last year? Ferguson ring a bell? It's easy as heck to create this kind of reaction. Just make up a story, push it out to enough social media to create an uproar as quickly as possible, and count on the fact that once an uproar is created, those who are emotionally invested in the story will fight tooth and nail against any facts or objective interpretation later (just as you are doing here). There was profiling going on here, just not the kind you think.

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You see those blue words up top? I know electronics scare you so you might not know this but you can "click" your "mouse" on them and a picture will appear. It's going to be a picture of a homemade clock. Don't worry -- it won't explode. Probably.


Um... And I'll repeat that the picture in your link (as well as the pictures I linked) has some very significant differences in design and look compared to what Ahmed did. I've already written why those differences are significant. You apparently are now more interested in pretending that I don't know how to click on a hyperlink than bothering to address what I wrote in response. It's just astounding that you'd point at that picture of an actual homemade kit clock and think that it's similar to what Ahmed made. To those who actually understand hobby electronics, they are not remotely similar. And if he'd brought the one in the link to school, he would not have been arrested.

I'll give you a hint: It's the case and the arrangement of the components inside the case. It's not about "scary wires", or "scary circuit boards". Those aren't scary. It's when you arrange them inside a metal case in precisely the manner he did that they become something most people will be alarmed by.

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Circuit boards? No. Jumbles of electronic components scattered around the inside of a case for no apparent reason?

Three pieces make a "jumble"? I guess if six couples make a "flock", sure. "No apparent reason"? I suppose if you don't know or understand what a "clock" is, sure.


Sigh. The arrangement of the components is a "jumble". As in "an untidy collection or pile of things". The number doesn't matter (although there are 5 distinct components, not counting the ribbon cable, the various strings of wires connecting the components, and the power cord itself). For "no apparent reason" is that nothing he did with his arrangement made the clock more functional (arguably less functional). There was no reason to spread the pieces around inside a metal case. Again, and maybe this is the part that's just not sinking in, I know lots of people who tinker with electronic stuff. I did myself when I was a kid (well, to the degree I could), but I've never known anyone to do something that looked like that. There's just a look to home made electronics and tinkered up stuff, and that's not it.


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You are, in fact, going to lengths and using lots and lots of words to try and justify how scary this "jumble" was, correct?


You're the one who keeps using the word "scary", injecting emotion into the issue. My argument is that what he did was made a clock look like a bomb. Period. It was therefore quite reasonable for police to assume that his intent was to make a clock look like a bomb. Why is that so hard to imagine? The school district (state regulations I believe) actually has written policies for "hoax bombs", so it's not like this is some unheard of thing and no one ever considered that a student might come to school with something mocked up to look like a bomb, but that is actually completely harmless. So yeah. Whether it's actually a bomb or not, or whether we're scared of it or not, isn't the issue. The issue is: Did he take something to school which a reasonable person might think is a bomb? And the answer, quite clearly, is "yes".

I love how you keep going with personal attacks instead of actually addressing the real issue. It does not look like an electronics project Joph. Not unless the goal of the project was "take apart a clock and make it look like a bomb". I just find it hilarious that you're so utterly unwilling to just acknowledge this one point. I'm perfectly fine discussing whether the policies involved are too reactive, or should be changed, or whatever. But you can't get past stubbornly insisting that this was a perfectly normal electronics build. It wasn't. I'm not sure if you're just not knowledgeable enough about electronics to see it, or if you do, but are so invested in your position that you refuse to change it. Whatever. You can pretend it looks totally normal if you want. The overwhelming majority of people, who all see this as something deliberately made to look like a bomb, will just have to deal with you being wrong on this.
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#121 Sep 29 2015 at 1:06 AM Rating: Excellent
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The only "real issue" is the massive overreaction of school and police that arrested a kid for a clock. One that they knew was a clock and no one at all thought it was a bomb even if it was a "jumble".

Talk about the skill of the clock or what you did when you were a wee tyke is just a distraction and attempt to justify the overreaction and is getting the response it deserves.
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Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#122 Sep 29 2015 at 1:07 AM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
Amusingly, even if this kid did set this up to expose the racism in the school/police, he's a thousand times braver than the hidden camera monkeys Gbaji idolizes Smiley: laugh


Stop injecting your own assumption of emotion driven motivations on to me. I don't "idolize" anyone. I look at things that happen. I assess them. I make decisions. If I put weight on some hidden video, it's because what's on it is something that should have weight put on it. Period. If I don't put weight in the claim of anti-Islamic bias in this case, it's because I don't see anti-Islamic bias in this case.

And for the record, I'm unclear how the degree of bravery has anything to do with whether one is right or not. Suicide bombers are quite brave too. Oh wait! You might interpret that as me profiling Ahmed with a cleverly placed associative example. OK then; People who play in traffic are brave. Better? Doesn't make what they're doing right, nor does it mean we should praise them for it.

You do have an odd method of picking positions. Actually, it's not how you pick them, but how you defend them. You quite obviously pick them based on a reflective politically aligned set of indoctrinated reactions to pre-configured stimulus events. Yes, obvious. But instead of saying "I believe Ahmed just made a clock because I've been trained to support the perceived minority victim ahead of all others, and Obama said it was just a cool clock, and I don't want to appear to disagree with Obama on such an important social issue", you say "I believe it's just a clock because you conservatives are stupid knee jerk bigots who hate and fear anyone who is different <bzzzt>". You're not even looking at the clock. The clock doesn't matter. Supporting the narrative of your side is all that seems to matter to you here.

I'll also point out, for those who want their minds blown, that this is precisely why Obama (and some other liberal leader types) immediately jumped in to support Ahmed. They know that the more highly placed liberals publicly support something, the harder it is for any other liberal to disagree. They've put their reputation on the line saying "cool clock!". If you challenge that, you challenge them. It's also why Obama said that the Harvard police "acted stupidly", despite being completely wrong on the facts. It's why he said that if he had a son, he'd look like Trevon Martin. These are not mistakes. They are done deliberately to force conflict. He knows that liberals will side with him, and also knows that conservatives will side with the truth. If he waits for the truth to come out, there's no conflict. If he jumps out with an assumed truth first, sometimes he'll be right, and he'll look like a wizard or something. But if he's wrong, he knows that conservatives will point out that he's wrong, and that will bring the wagons a circling. Liberals will be forced to admit that their leader was wrong, or forced to continue to protect a false truth for the sake of protecting the image of their leadership, party, political ideology, etc. And liberals, being far more group minded than conservatives, will make the latter choice somewhere close to 100% of the time.

Like I said. Utterly predictable. You really don't see this pattern?
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#123 Sep 29 2015 at 1:10 AM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
Jophiel wrote:
Amusingly, even if this kid did set this up to expose the racism in the school/police, he's a thousand times braver than the hidden camera monkeys Gbaji idolizes Smiley: laugh


Stop injecting your own assumption of emotion driven motivations on to me. I don't "idolize" anyone. I look at things that happen. I assess them. I make decisions. If I put weight on some hidden video, it's because what's on it is something that should have weight put on it. Period. If I don't put weight in the claim of anti-Islamic bias in this case, it's because I don't see anti-Islamic bias in this case.
Yes; they are called "blinders".
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#124 Sep 29 2015 at 1:14 AM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Have you not been paying attention to all of the "outrage before the facts are out" events in the last year? Ferguson ring a bell? It's easy as heck to create this kind of reaction. Just make up a story, push it out to enough social media to create an uproar as quickly as possible, and count on the fact that once an uproar is created, those who are emotionally invested in the story will fight tooth and nail against any facts or objective interpretation later (just as you are doing here).

Sometimes they try and defund Planned Parenthood Smiley: laugh
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Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#125 Sep 29 2015 at 1:15 AM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
And for the record, I'm unclear how the degree of bravery has anything to do with whether one is right or not. Suicide bombers are quite brave too. Oh wait! You might interpret that as me profiling Ahmed with a cleverly placed associative example.

Lampshading your racism doesn't make you any less racist.
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Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#126 Sep 29 2015 at 1:45 AM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
The only "real issue" is the massive overreaction of school and police that arrested a kid for a clock. One that they knew was a clock and no one at all thought it was a bomb even if it was a "jumble".


And you're still leaving out the key phrase "looked like". It's funny. I'm not sure if you're aware of this and deliberately changing the language, or are just doing it automatically. But I've repeatedly pointed out that it wasn't about whether they thought it was a bomb but that they thought it "looked like" a bomb. You keep replacing that with "was". Stop doing that.

His engineering teacher told him not to show it to anyone at school. Presumably because, while he knew it wasn't a bomb, he also knew it "looked like" a bomb. His English teacher took him to the office, not because she thought what he had "was" a bomb (or she would have initiated a bomb threat procedure), but because she thought it "looked like" a bomb. The administrators also didn't call the police because they thought his devices "was" a bomb, but because it "looked like" a bomb. The police didn't arrest him because they thought it "was" a bomb but because... Do I have to repeat this again?

It looked like a bomb. It was a device that, if found unattended, someone would reasonably mistake for a bomb. That is what he was arrested for. You can complain about the policies and laws involving schools and hoax bombs if you want, but that's what he was arrested for. It wasn't because the teachers, or the administrators, or the police were just stupid and couldn't tell that this wasn't a bomb. It was because they were aware that this same device, in a very slightly different context, could very easily (almost certainly in fact) be mistaken for a bomb. That was why he was arrested.


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Talk about the skill of the clock or what you did when you were a wee tyke is just a distraction and attempt to justify the overreaction and is getting the response it deserves.


As opposed to the far more massive overreaction based on the assumption he was profiled for being a super smart Muslim kid who made something amazing, and yadda yadda yadda? You get that the whole "he just made a clock and look how stupid they were for thinking it was a bomb" has been a huge part of the narrative here, right? I mean, you've been using it constantly yourself. In fact, you did it right up above with the whole "was a bomb" versus "looked like a bomb". You're the one who started linking to pictures of kit clocks to try to prove how normal his was (and by extension how unreasonable the cops were), and now that that's backfired, you're trying to backpedal on it? Obama's whole "cool clock" thing was part of that as well. The narrative of bias rests on this appearing to be a normal engineering project that a kid his age would engage in, and not some unusual thing that would and should arouse suspicion.

I'm not talking about his skill in general. Again, you're making it about the person and not the action. I'm saying that the "clock" he made did not require much skill to make. So one would wonder why a freshman in high school, allegedly skilled in electronics, would bother to do it in the first place, and more importantly, think it was so cool that he should take it to school to show it to people. That's also a key point when determining the intent. Did he actually think this was some amazing accomplishment that he should rush to school to show off? That seems doubtful. Which leads one to wonder why he brought it. And then you realize how much it looks like something that could be easily mistaken for a bomb, and other questions should reasonably creep in.

That's why the skill level of the mod matters. It's something that should be way beneath him. Which is why some have speculated that his father put him up to it. He's a kid known for tinkering with stuff, so why not put something together that looks like a bomb and send him to school with it? Tell him that if anyone asks, it's a clock he made. I don't know. But that's the point. I don't know. And neither do you. The difference is that I'm not discounting the possibility, while you seem adamant that it's just not possible that anything untoward could have been happening.
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