I had the same thought, but I noticed Jesticulator joined almost three weeks ago, on the 3rd. I simply can’t bring myself to accuse VCO3 with such a degree of foresight.
So a commercial flight is a good opportunity to educate people on basic electronics, if only they weren’t such idiots? Heck, next time I go up, I’ll bring a projector and laser pointer and give a detailed lecture on chemical weapons, because there’s an awful lot of ignorance out there and I feel its my duty to educate it away.
You and VC03 can’t have it both ways. Either working on a breadboard is a harmless little hobby that presents a fun way to pass a few boring hours on a plane and would be fine if nobody paid any attention, or it’s an opportunity to stage an impromptu information session (which requires the attention of at least one spectator, be it fellow passenger, flight crew or airport security agent) on non-bomb recognition.
Of course, I don’t actually believe for a second that VC03 was seriously considering either approach, but it was fun to kick him and the idea around for a while.
A more benign interpretation would be that I don’t fully understand what “trolling” means.
**VCO3 ** asked:
The response was: “You know damn well it would be asking for trouble, technically legal or not.”
Doesn’t the repsonse mean, in effect: The only reason that you’re asking is to deliberately stir up trouble in this thread?
Isn’t that trolling?
The next statement was technically a question: “Don’t you need to solder those things anyway?”
But, to me, it doesn’t come across as a request for information. It’s more like: Obviously, you’re not going to be soldering on the plane, so that’s one more reason why *your * question is a crock of bull.
But, breadboards don’t require solder. That’s the “mistatement of fact”.
I’m puzzled at this statement - it seems almost as if you’re going out of your way to misunderstand the reasons why people advised against tinkering with electronic projects on a plane - there are plenty of things that pose a greater threat to airline security than a breadboard - for example, a concealed explosive device - that’s far more dangerous. But the actual risk to security isn’t the reason we were advising against the breadboard - the reason was the potential for causing disruptive misunderstanding and panic.
And, of course, our posting styles are practically identical, right? :dubious:
I guess you guys need your entertainment.
Anyway (here’s another FWIW), I’ve been surprised with many of the responses on this board, especially with those of some of the moderators.
I realize that you have your own sub-culture, and I’m sure that many of you are quite happy with you.
I’ve just dropped by to take a look.
Okay, Jes, you’ve successfully deconstructed the first reply to VCO’s original thread. Kudos. Now take a crack at the similarly-themed ~50 others.
Uh, no. The response is clearly referring to the trouble he’s going to encounter on board the plane.
It wasn’t a statement, it was a question. And, in point of fact, breadboards often do require solder; the type linked in the OP (and by me, here) is specifically called “solderless” to differentiate it from the the solder type.
I understand that. Makes perfect sense to me.
But, is that what *you * said in the thread? No. You seconded Q.E.D.'s suggestion to use a laptop computer.
If you thought that VC03’s questions were legitimate, then the suggestion is dismissive and borderline insulting. Where’s the legitimate explanation?
It’s in there, you just have to look past the well-deserved layers of scorn.
It had already been given, ad nauseum. Providing an alternate suggestion isn’t dismissive, it’s an attempt to be helpful. But, you knew this; you’re just being deliberately disingenuous at this point.
The response is clearly indicating that **VC03 ** knows about that trouble and yet, is still choosing to start a thread about it. Why would a poster do that? :dubious:
I already addressed that.
So, the type linked in the OP was solderless. But, it wasn’t wrong to say that it required soldering?? Okay.
Ad nauseum? Your post was #14 in the thread. Four of the other posts up that point were VC03’s. Four other posts addressed the response from airport security. Not one post was as straightforward as Mangetout’s explanation in this thread.
And I see that you have the ability to read minds. 
Serioiusly, I don’t have anything invested in this. Just offering a different viewpoint. That’s allowed here, isn’t it? 
No, you’re just the latest victim of our savage hive-mind.
As far as I was concerned, the legitimate explanation was a)bleeding obvious and b)being more than adequately covered by other posters.
Fair enough.
If we take VC03’s at face value, he was genuinely looking for ways to overcome the obstacles. Was he being disingenuous? Perhaps. But, he was doing a pretty good job of countering some of the weaker arguments that some posters presented. Was he doing this just to yank some chains?
In any case, the decision to lock the thread seems to have been based partly on VC03’s posting history. I’m not sure, though, that the way he was treated in both threads will have a rehabilitative effect. But, then, perhaps that’s not the intended result.
In the words of Ron White: “You can’t fix stupid.” 
VC03 has already been suspended for… well, I’m not even sure what to call it, outrageous stupidity or trolling? There is quite a history – actually, if you scan back through this thread, you can find links to several of them.
You might quibble at the Mod’s choice of terms when closing the breadboard thread, but it was certainly clear by the time it happened that the question had been answered, unanimously. It was a bad idea. And when someone asks a questions about doing something that seems blindingly obrvious to everyone to be a bad idea, and persists in defending the idea in the face of universal advice to the contrary, and has a history of other similar threads — why, the idea of trolling just comes natural.
I sincerely doubt that.
No. VCO3 posts in an over-the-top, excited, “Why are you picking on me?”, style that seems at best whiney. Yours is calm, collected, and commands a level of respect. Don’t get me wrong, I dig VCO3. I just don’t understand why you feel the need to pop in and defend him. It was very clear that, regardless of the basis of the reactions, that they would not be favorable. Do you not understand that, either?
With all of the uncertainty in the world these days, I am grateful to VC03 for providing that reassuring consistency: I have come to rely on the steadfast persistence of the knowledge that (despite the unpredictability of virtually every facet of human existence,) VC03 is still a douchebag.
It is my rock.