#IStandWithAhmed (or Inventing While Muslim is a thing?)

[barbos]

So it looked like a fake bomb? And the boy never said it was a bomb. He maintained it was a clock. So it was never thought to be a bomb or a hoax bomb? So what are you defending?It looked like a TV Bomb? You really are not helping your case.

I don't see anything wrong with school banning items which may look like an actual weapon.

Is that all that happened here? the school simply banned items that look like weapons?

The only question in tis story is question of intent, and so far it seems intent was to impress his teacher with this stupid "clock in a case" thing. The keyword here is "stupid", because it was in fact stupid and when people do stupid things other people often get confused, and that's what happened here.

You are half right. this is a question of intent. And the intent seemed to be for adults to harass and bully a brown boy who doesn't pray in the right church.

We are running in circles, you are asking the same stupid questions which have been answered many times.
I suggest you reading the thread before commenting.

the questions are not stupid. Evidently they are quite hard as you seem unable to answer them.

I answered these stupid questions many times.

 

[thebeave]

Stefan Molyneaux has released a video about this incident that pretty much confirms my suspicions about the whole thing. As the saying goes, "There's something rotten in the state of Denmark Texas". Worth a watch:



Looks like Richard Dawkins is getting in on it too:

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/sep/20/richard-dawkins-questions-ahmed-mohamed-motive-backlash

In a tweet, the scientist linked to a YouTube video entitled Ahmed Mohammed [sic] Clock is a FRAUD, in which user Thomas Talbot alleges Mohamed’s clock “is in fact not an invention. The ‘clock’ is a commercial bedside alarm clock removed from its casing”.

In his tweet, Dawkins said: “If this is true, what was his motive? Whether or not he wanted the police to arrest him, they shouldn’t have done so.” His next tweet said of the video: “This man seems to know what he’s talking about.”

 

[Playball40]

Stefan Molyneaux has released a video about this incident that pretty much confirms my suspicions about the whole thing. As the saying goes, "There's something rotten in the state of Denmark Texas". Worth a watch:



Looks like Richard Dawkins is getting in on it too:

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/sep/20/richard-dawkins-questions-ahmed-mohamed-motive-backlash

In a tweet, the scientist linked to a YouTube video entitled Ahmed Mohammed [sic] Clock is a FRAUD, in which user Thomas Talbot alleges Mohamed’s clock “is in fact not an invention. The ‘clock’ is a commercial bedside alarm clock removed from its casing”.

In his tweet, Dawkins said: “If this is true, what was his motive? Whether or not he wanted the police to arrest him, they shouldn’t have done so.” His next tweet said of the video: “This man seems to know what he’s talking about.”

What does this have to do with anything??? He took a clock apart and put it back together. He was proud of himself - regardless of how simply the process was. I still don't get how this makes it any more likely he was making a 'bomb hoax'. Wouldn't a bomb have a counter? That would count down? This clock had the TIME. Wouldn't a bomb have a detonator (or a fake bomb have a fake detonator)? This clock had a freaking POWER CORD.

 

[James Brown]

Oy, my son took apart a digital clock when he was about Ahmad's age. He was worried about leaving it permanently broken--actually, he was worried that his parents would be upset if he permanently broke it--but I told him go ahead and tinker, let me know what you find out.

Well, he did indeed break it, but he put it back together again. He didn't take it to school to scare his teachers, however. But he did continue to tinker on the school's robotics team, and is now is studying engineering in college.

But <GASP> Maybe he was trying to figure out how to nuke the Earth!!!

 

[Playball40]

Oy, my son took apart a digital clock when he was about Ahmad's age. He was worried about leaving it permanently broken--actually, he was worried that his parents would be upset if he permanently broke it--but I told him go ahead and tinker, let me know what you find out.

Well, he did indeed break it, but he put it back together again. He didn't take it to school to scare his teachers, however. But he did continue to tinker on the school's robotics team, and is now is studying engineering in college.

But <GASP> Maybe he was trying to figure out how to nuke the Earth!!!

My son tried to add more RAM to my PC when he was in high school. Needless to say he is NOT a computer engineer today.

 

[Artemus]

I feel compelled to ask the "It looks like a bomb" crowd, do you feel it that was appropriate for the "islamic-looking" student to be removed from the campus bus and questioned by police for carrying his assigned senior-year electrical engineering project on said bus as I described earlier in the thread?

 

[Jayjay]

Stefan Molyneaux has released a video about this incident that pretty much confirms my suspicions about the whole thing. As the saying goes, "There's something rotten in the state of Denmark Texas". Worth a watch:

He makes a good point in the beginning that the arrest probably could have been avoided if they had asked the engineering teacher. And that's it's a pretty lame clock, even if we assume that the police messed it up a bit. I'm not sure if we can infer that the backup battery wasn't included, after all, if Ahmed wanted to demonstrate it to his teachers and friends it would be more convenient to use that instead of the AC power. And actually, the AC adapter might be the reason why he needed to use a cord to close the box, maybe he couldn't close it properly*.

I still see no signs of ill will or deliberate deception on part of Ahmed. I think that a kid who's being brought to questioning by the cops might be a bit rattled by the situation and not think to mention the engineering teacher, and it does seem like he was genuinely proud of his clock.

* EDITED TO ADD: I checked Ahmed's interview video and he explicitly says that he didn't want to lock it, so I suppose he could have locked it and just used a wire so he could open it more easily to show it if anyone asked.

 

[Jayjay]

I feel compelled to ask the "It looks like a bomb" crowd, do you feel it that was appropriate for the "islamic-looking" student to be removed from the campus bus and questioned by police for carrying his assigned senior-year electrical engineering project on said bus as I described earlier in the thread?

Probably not, but it is not a trivial problem to solve. How is a cop who knows nothing about engineering supposed to know what an EE project looks like? And changing people's attitudes not to profile certain ethnic types isn't going to happen anytime soon either.

 

[Jayjay]

Here is what another known terrorist did in his youth:

The story about the kid arrested for making a clock takes me back to high school in 1967. I built an electronic metronome and placed it in a friend's locker, along with a tin-foil switch to speed up the ticking when the locker was opened. I couldn't hold my laughter when Principal Bryld told me how he extracted the 'bomb', ran out to the football field (from the C building), and dismantled it. I wound up spending a night in 'juvie'. I did teach other inmates there how they could remove the electric wires from an overhead fan and attach them to the metal bars no shock the guards.

If Ahmed had done that we wouldn't be talking about this because he'd be locked away in Guantanamo right now.

 

[Artemus]

Probably not, but it is not a trivial problem to solve. How is a cop who knows nothing about engineering supposed to know what an EE project looks like? And changing people's attitudes not to profile certain ethnic types isn't going to happen anytime soon either.

I don't expect the cop to know what the project does, but I don't expect the cop to assume it must be a triggering device or a hoax bomb because the owner might be muslim either. A rational standard of probable cause for detainment or arrest is not "it kinda sorta looks like a television prop I saw once." It was ludicrous then, it is ludicrous now.

 

[Arctish]

Probably not, but it is not a trivial problem to solve. How is a cop who knows nothing about engineering supposed to know what an EE project looks like? And changing people's attitudes not to profile certain ethnic types isn't going to happen anytime soon either.

I don't expect the cop to know what the project does, but I don't expect the cop to assume it must be a triggering device or a hoax bomb because the owner might be muslim either. A rational standard of probable cause for detainment or arrest is not "it kinda sorta looks like a television prop I saw once." It was ludicrous then, it is ludicrous now.

I expect a school Principal to know what electronic gizmos made by students in his school's robotics classes look like. My kid's class made things like that all the time, right there inside the school, and showed them off to other kids and favorite teachers.

That school's Principal is a twat.

 

[barbos]

Stefan Molyneaux has released a video about this incident that pretty much confirms my suspicions about the whole thing. As the saying goes, "There's something rotten in the state of Denmark Texas". Worth a watch:

I forgot about 9-11, that does look fishy.
The other new information is that there was no battery and he had that thing plugged during the class.
If it is true then I don't know, I am not so sure it was not a hoax of some kind. Setting up alarm in the class with it plugged would be hard and very deliberate.
Clocks usually can run for a few minutes without any external power including backup battery. So it was possible he for some reason took battery off and plugged it into AC, but that would make no sense.

Also I assumed he said he was trying to impress his engineering teacher, not english one.
Anyway, I agree with that dude, it all looks fishy, they kid who was called a bomb-maker in school, brings a fake-bomb looking device right after 9-11.

Looks like Richard Dawkins is getting in on it too:

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/sep/20/richard-dawkins-questions-ahmed-mohamed-motive-backlash

In a tweet, the scientist linked to a YouTube video entitled Ahmed Mohammed [sic] Clock is a FRAUD, in which user Thomas Talbot alleges Mohamed’s clock “is in fact not an invention. The ‘clock’ is a commercial bedside alarm clock removed from its casing”.

In his tweet, Dawkins said: “If this is true, what was his motive? Whether or not he wanted the police to arrest him, they shouldn’t have done so.” His next tweet said of the video: “This man seems to know what he’s talking about.”

Hey, Dawkins agreed with me

 

[barbos]

I expect a school Principal to know what electronic gizmos made by students in his school's robotics classes look like. My kid's class made things like that all the time, right there inside the school, and showed them off to other kids and favorite teachers.

That school's Principal is a twat.

How do you expect Principal to know if Akhmed did not tell anybody, not even his engineering teacher?

 

[barbos]

What does this have to do with anything??? He took a clock apart and put it back together. He was proud of himself - regardless of how simply the process was.

He did not put it pack together, he merely transplanted guts from one case to another.

I still don't get how this makes it any more likely he was making a 'bomb hoax'. Wouldn't a bomb have a counter? That would count down? This clock had the TIME. Wouldn't a bomb have a detonator (or a fake bomb have a fake detonator)? This clock had a freaking POWER CORD.

Clock bombs don't have count downs. they are ordinary clocks with alarm buzzer replaced with bomb trigger, You set up alarm at time you want it to blow and leave it.

 

[thebeave]

He did not put it pack together, he merely transplanted guts from one case to another.

I still don't get how this makes it any more likely he was making a 'bomb hoax'. Wouldn't a bomb have a counter? That would count down? This clock had the TIME. Wouldn't a bomb have a detonator (or a fake bomb have a fake detonator)? This clock had a freaking POWER CORD.

Clock bombs don't have count downs. they are ordinary clocks with alarm buzzer replaced with bomb trigger, You set up alarm at time you want it to blow and leave it.

I think she's thinking of the bombs like in the cartoons where the hero rushes in and cuts the blue wire at the one or two second mark and saves the town.

 

[bilby]

He did not put it pack together, he merely transplanted guts from one case to another.

I still don't get how this makes it any more likely he was making a 'bomb hoax'. Wouldn't a bomb have a counter? That would count down? This clock had the TIME. Wouldn't a bomb have a detonator (or a fake bomb have a fake detonator)? This clock had a freaking POWER CORD.

Clock bombs don't have count downs. they are ordinary clocks with alarm buzzer replaced with bomb trigger, You set up alarm at time you want it to blow and leave it.

That's ridiculous. How are the audience going to feel any sense of tension without a countdown?

Real bombs have a countdown; the red wire is the one to cut to defuse them, but you have to consider cutting the other wires first - even going so far as to place the jaw of the wire cutter over them - and you must wait until less than five seconds remains on the countdown before cutting the wire, at which point the countdown will stop, but will continue to display the time left, in case some of the audience were distracted by their popcorn at the critical moment.

Ideally, once the bomb is defused, the kidnap victim has been released, the crowd has dispersed, and/or the bomb moved a safe distance from the intended target, it should explode spectacularly anyway. After all, audiences love explosions.

EVERYONE knows these things.

 

[Axulus]

I forgot about 9-11, that does look fishy.
The other new information is that there was no battery and he had that thing plugged during the class.
If it is true then I don't know, I am not so sure it was not a hoax of some kind. Setting up alarm in the class with it plugged would be hard and very deliberate.
Clocks usually can run for a few minutes without any external power including backup battery. So it was possible he for some reason took battery off and plugged it into AC, but that would make no sense.

Also I assumed he said he was trying to impress his engineering teacher, not english one.
Anyway, I agree with that dude, it all looks fishy, they kid who was called a bomb-maker in school, brings a fake-bomb looking device right after 9-11.

Looks like Richard Dawkins is getting in on it too:

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/sep/20/richard-dawkins-questions-ahmed-mohamed-motive-backlash

In a tweet, the scientist linked to a YouTube video entitled Ahmed Mohammed [sic] Clock is a FRAUD, in which user Thomas Talbot alleges Mohamed’s clock “is in fact not an invention. The ‘clock’ is a commercial bedside alarm clock removed from its casing”.

In his tweet, Dawkins said: “If this is true, what was his motive? Whether or not he wanted the police to arrest him, they shouldn’t have done so.” His next tweet said of the video: “This man seems to know what he’s talking about.”

Hey, Dawkins agreed with me

The alarm going off during class does add an interesting aspect to this that I hadn't considered.

As you mention, there is no backup battery attached, this means he plugged it in somewhere in the classroom and set the alarm to go off during the middle of class (old alarm clocks like this one with no battery attached have no preset alarms, all data is erased).

What was his intent with that stunt?

 

[bilby]

I forgot about 9-11, that does look fishy.
The other new information is that there was no battery and he had that thing plugged during the class.
If it is true then I don't know, I am not so sure it was not a hoax of some kind. Setting up alarm in the class with it plugged would be hard and very deliberate.
Clocks usually can run for a few minutes without any external power including backup battery. So it was possible he for some reason took battery off and plugged it into AC, but that would make no sense.

Also I assumed he said he was trying to impress his engineering teacher, not english one.
Anyway, I agree with that dude, it all looks fishy, they kid who was called a bomb-maker in school, brings a fake-bomb looking device right after 9-11.

Looks like Richard Dawkins is getting in on it too:

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/sep/20/richard-dawkins-questions-ahmed-mohamed-motive-backlash

In a tweet, the scientist linked to a YouTube video entitled Ahmed Mohammed [sic] Clock is a FRAUD, in which user Thomas Talbot alleges Mohamed’s clock “is in fact not an invention. The ‘clock’ is a commercial bedside alarm clock removed from its casing”.

In his tweet, Dawkins said: “If this is true, what was his motive? Whether or not he wanted the police to arrest him, they shouldn’t have done so.” His next tweet said of the video: “This man seems to know what he’s talking about.”

Hey, Dawkins agreed with me

The alarm going off during class does add an interesting aspect to this that I hadn't considered.

As you mention, there is no backup battery attached, this means he plugged it in somewhere in the classroom and set the alarm to go off during the middle of class (old alarm clocks like this one with no battery attached have no preset alarms, all data is erased).

What was his intent with that stunt?

Probably to disrupt the class, and amuse his classmates by annoying the teacher.

If that warrants arrest, then I should have spent a sizeable fraction of my school days in jail.

 

[Axulus]

I forgot about 9-11, that does look fishy.
The other new information is that there was no battery and he had that thing plugged during the class.
If it is true then I don't know, I am not so sure it was not a hoax of some kind. Setting up alarm in the class with it plugged would be hard and very deliberate.
Clocks usually can run for a few minutes without any external power including backup battery. So it was possible he for some reason took battery off and plugged it into AC, but that would make no sense.

Also I assumed he said he was trying to impress his engineering teacher, not english one.
Anyway, I agree with that dude, it all looks fishy, they kid who was called a bomb-maker in school, brings a fake-bomb looking device right after 9-11.

Looks like Richard Dawkins is getting in on it too:

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/sep/20/richard-dawkins-questions-ahmed-mohamed-motive-backlash

In a tweet, the scientist linked to a YouTube video entitled Ahmed Mohammed [sic] Clock is a FRAUD, in which user Thomas Talbot alleges Mohamed’s clock “is in fact not an invention. The ‘clock’ is a commercial bedside alarm clock removed from its casing”.

In his tweet, Dawkins said: “If this is true, what was his motive? Whether or not he wanted the police to arrest him, they shouldn’t have done so.” His next tweet said of the video: “This man seems to know what he’s talking about.”

Hey, Dawkins agreed with me

The alarm going off during class does add an interesting aspect to this that I hadn't considered.

As you mention, there is no backup battery attached, this means he plugged it in somewhere in the classroom and set the alarm to go off during the middle of class (old alarm clocks like this one with no battery attached have no preset alarms, all data is erased).

What was his intent with that stunt?

Probably to disrupt the class, and amuse his classmates by annoying the teacher.

If that warrants arrest, then I should have spent a sizeable fraction of my school days in jail.

But he seems to know ahead of time that some people might see the device as suspicious. His engineering teacher told him not to show it to anyone else. He also has said that he wrapped the power cord around it "won't look that much suspicious".

“I closed it with a cable, so… because, I didn’t want to lock it to make it seem like a threat so I just used simple cable…. so it won’t look that much suspicious”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mW4w0Y1OXE

He admits he knew some might find it suspicious or see it as a threat, yet he brings it to school and pulls off the alarm clock stunt in the middle of class anyway.

No, he still shouldn't have been arrested, but the school's actions are starting to look a bit more reasonable.

 

[bilby]

I forgot about 9-11, that does look fishy.
The other new information is that there was no battery and he had that thing plugged during the class.
If it is true then I don't know, I am not so sure it was not a hoax of some kind. Setting up alarm in the class with it plugged would be hard and very deliberate.
Clocks usually can run for a few minutes without any external power including backup battery. So it was possible he for some reason took battery off and plugged it into AC, but that would make no sense.

Also I assumed he said he was trying to impress his engineering teacher, not english one.
Anyway, I agree with that dude, it all looks fishy, they kid who was called a bomb-maker in school, brings a fake-bomb looking device right after 9-11.

Looks like Richard Dawkins is getting in on it too:

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/sep/20/richard-dawkins-questions-ahmed-mohamed-motive-backlash

In a tweet, the scientist linked to a YouTube video entitled Ahmed Mohammed [sic] Clock is a FRAUD, in which user Thomas Talbot alleges Mohamed’s clock “is in fact not an invention. The ‘clock’ is a commercial bedside alarm clock removed from its casing”.

In his tweet, Dawkins said: “If this is true, what was his motive? Whether or not he wanted the police to arrest him, they shouldn’t have done so.” His next tweet said of the video: “This man seems to know what he’s talking about.”

Hey, Dawkins agreed with me

The alarm going off during class does add an interesting aspect to this that I hadn't considered.

As you mention, there is no backup battery attached, this means he plugged it in somewhere in the classroom and set the alarm to go off during the middle of class (old alarm clocks like this one with no battery attached have no preset alarms, all data is erased).

What was his intent with that stunt?

Probably to disrupt the class, and amuse his classmates by annoying the teacher.

If that warrants arrest, then I should have spent a sizeable fraction of my school days in jail.

But he seems to know ahead of time that some people find the device suspicious. His engineering teacher told him not to show it to anyone else. He also has said that he wrapped the power cord around it would "less suspicious".

“I closed it with a cable, so… because, I didn’t want to lock it to make it seem like a threat so I just used simple cable…. so it won’t look that much suspicious”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mW4w0Y1OXE

He admits he knew some might find it suspicious, yet he does the alarm clock prank anyway.

No, he still shouldn't have been arrested, but the school's actions are starting to look a little bit more reasonable.

No.

No they are not.

They were unreasonable from the start; they don't get more reasonable because the Twitterati have been able to come up with a bunch of spurious nonsense.

As I said, if that warrants arrest, then I should have spent a sizeable fraction of my school days in jail. I didn't, because my school took reasonable actions - they confiscated toys and the materials used for pranks, they gave out detentions and made us write lines, and they told our parents we were being disruptive, and let them discipline us for it. What they did not do is call the police, and have us arrested and marched out of school in handcuffs. Because that would have been completely unreasonable.