Discussion for article #240950
a) One more foot soldier in the war against police brutality…b) “backwards Nae Nae?” lmfao!
If the school and police really thought it was a bomb, why didn’t they evacuate the school and bring in the bomb squad?
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They thought it was a fake bomb, in other words intended to look like a bomb for some reason. There are people, not just wingers, making a legitimate point that taking apart an alarm clock and putting it in a different case is not a very sophisticated science project.
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Okay, I kind of like the kid, but isn’t anyone else tiring of hearing about him?
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Exactly, I’ve seen teenage kids that have done amazing things in the field of science. And I am not saying he has not, but this clock was definitely not one of them if that’s the case. He took the housing off an existing clock, stuck it in a little case, made the numbers shine through, and tied a cable around it. He even said he did it in 10-20 minutes.
What he essentially did was make a new housing for a clock. Wait, he did not even do that. The housing was existing too. A mini-case…with a cable tied around it, so you could not even stand it up on edge or the case would fall over. How is that innovative? A clock that can’t even stand up?
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That’s one cool, well-adjusted kid. Kudos to his terrori… I mean, terrific parents 
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I don’t think anyone is arguing that he’s being innovative. The point is he did something that many of his classmates weren’t even thinking about. And no, the kid’s not automatically an MIT engineer. But he’s a good model of the kind of American we need more of-- intellectual curiosity.
Also worth mentioning that we only saw the clock. We haven’t seen any of the other things he’s made.
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Yes, and that’s a good thing. The engineering teacher taken aback, and told him not to show anyone. Ahmed himself said he needed to tie a cable around it so it would not look suspicious. So maybe he should be asked why he thought it looked suspicious without the cable, and why the cable made it “not suspicious”? I think that’s a legit question to ask.
I don’t really care whether the clock was complicated or not, or whether he just changed out the housing, or what. I care that a 14 year old was arrested for non-criminal activity. I care that zero adults in the situation are admitting wrong. I care that the person with the greatest integrity in the whole damn situation is a 14-year-old son of immigrants. So as far as I’m concerned, this story can keep going, because I would much rather have someone with Ahmed’s attitudes than someone with the Irving mayor’s attitudes in charge of making America great.
And while I’m on the subject, I thought Larry Wilmore was the wrong person to take on Colbert’s seat, because he wasn’t Colbert. I am so glad to have been wrong about everything-- the Nightly Show really does provide a critical perspective in the media conversation.
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I don’t buy that the engineering teacher was taken aback. That’s not how it’s been described. The engineering teacher wasn’t concerned enough with perceptions to have Ahmed leave the clock in the engineering classroom for the day–teachers hold onto students’ possessions for the day with some regularity, even before 9/11.
The “cable” comment is also not meaningful. He put a clock into a case. The case, when opened, looks as suspicious as the inner workings of my smartphone. The cable holds the case closed, which makes it look like a clock instead of the inside of a clock.
If the school had done half the safety procedures that were followed when someone called in a bomb threat at my high school back in the 90s, I’d maybe buy the concern. But he never said it was a bomb, he was 100% forthcoming with what it was, and nobody was concerned enough about it to evacuate the school, call in the bomb squad, call in a K-9 unit, nothing. Everyone’s actions that day demonstrate that they knew from the very beginning that it was not a danger and not being presented as a danger. They just wanted to pick on this kid. And shocker that the district and the city have previously been in the news for their anti-Muslim stances.
this is the kind of kid we NEED in this country instead of those who sit on their asses at church…lol
About time we credit some young people doing much more amazing stuff than just put an alarm clock in another case. Try RaspberryPi.org for a blog that often features kids who actually made something work, and that is far from the only place to read such stories. If we reward young inventors, we are encouraging tomorrow’s real job creators, not just the ones who collect rent and private taxes on everybody and call themselves “job creators”.
Ahmed has said from the start that the clock in a pencil box was hardly the most challenging of his creations. It still shows the ability to trace out the power circuit and solder on a battery clip, a primitive hack but something that needs more than every-day knowledge.