# RO: This is totally going to kill Bring Your Clock to School Day **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 16, 2015, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454 "2015-09-16T08:35:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 49
**Author:** ![canned\_mayhem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/53a042/32.png) [@canned\_mayhem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/canned_mayhem)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2015, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/961 "2015-09-27T23:01:09Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Do you have to practice to be this stupid? So you think that they would freely let him waltz in carrying a case full of wires and electronic doo dads and assume all is well? Ok… ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2015, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/962 "2015-09-27T23:15:28Z")
> [@canned\_mayhem](#): > > I’m sure Obama wouldn’t be caught within 100 yards of that contraption until it was finger fucked enough to make sure it wasn’t a bomb. But that’s stupid. Muslims would never use children or teens to deliver bombs to kill people. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2015, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/963 "2015-09-27T23:18:53Z")
> [@canned\_mayhem](#): > > So you think that they would freely let him waltz in carrying a case full of wires and electronic doo dads and assume all is well? Get him an exhibit at the next [White House Science Fair](https://www.whitehouse.gov/science-fair). ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2015, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/964 "2015-09-27T23:24:24Z")
[Lucky the kid and his Osama muslim father figure weren’t arrested:](http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/report/020812_az_marshmallow_canon/obama-gets-blast-from-az-students-marshmallow-gun/) :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > “The Secret Service is going to be mad at me about this,” said Obama, who asked reporters to step aside before helping pump up the cannon and then letting Joe fire his invention. ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2015, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/965 "2015-09-28T02:11:25Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Why is it inconceivable that both sides could be “bad”? I see no evidence at all that the kid did anything wrong. I see plenty of evidence that all the other people did the wrong thing. Maybe you believe that there was a clearly communicated policy that a homemade clock can not be brought to campus? Is that it? If so, do you think that such a policy would then instruct a teacher to tell the kid to just keep the device hidden in his backpack all day? I sincerely doubt it. I imagine such a policy, if it existed, would then have some options. Maybe something like this: 1. Do we think this device is dangerous? If yes, then evacuate the school and call 911. (Probably best if this happens sooner than 2 or 3 hours after the device is discovered.) If no, we have a few options. We could call the parent and have them come and get the device and take it home. Or we could lock it up in the office and make the kid pick it up at the end of the day. But we don’t question the kid without a parent and have him handcuffed and arrested. Especially when the reason they finally called the cops was because he refused to tell them it wasn’t a clock. Also, I’m baffled that you would think his desire to transfer from this school goes to prove that he did something wrong. Why on earth would he want to stay at a school where almost all of the authorities there jumped to the absolute worst conclusion about him. But maybe there is no policy. In which case, the kid should not have gotten into trouble at all. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2015, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/966 "2015-09-28T10:40:44Z")
> [@canned\_mayhem](#): > > So you think that they would freely let him waltz in carrying a case full of wires and electronic doo dads and assume all is well? > > Ok… I hope you have to practice being that stupid, because this is some serious stupidity. Nothing in any story suggests that the Secret Service would not examine any such device before the kid got near the president. So what? That does not mean that the idiots at the school and among the police could not tell it was not a bomb. They never called the bomb squad; they never evacuated the school; they let the kid stay in class for several periods before they bothered to call him down to the office to be grilled; at no time did the kid say it was anything other than a clock. So claims of “possible bomb” are utterly stupid and claims of “bomb hoax” are clearly lies. What the Secret Service would do on a separate occasion with a device that might or might not even be the same device is irrelevant to anything that has happened. Just stupid. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stainless_steel_rat/32/5727_2.png) [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stainless_Steel_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2015, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/967 "2015-09-28T11:57:56Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > I hope you have to practice being that stupid, because this is some serious stupidity. > > Nothing in any story suggests that the Secret Service would not examine any such device before the kid got near the president. So what? That does not mean that the idiots at the school and among the police could not tell it was not a bomb. They never called the bomb squad; they never evacuated the school; they let the kid stay in class for several periods before they bothered to call him down to the office to be grilled; at no time did the kid say it was anything other than a clock. > > So claims of “possible bomb” are utterly stupid > and claims of “bomb hoax” are clearly lies. > > What the Secret Service would do on a separate occasion with a device that might or might not even be the same device is irrelevant to anything that has happened. > > Just stupid. tom, I gave Slacker (and cannedmayhem, who is well past his sell date) a chance to employ Ockham’s razor some time ago in this thread…so far, they seem more interested in using it to cut off their own heads… Once again, to get the result they want, the father and kid would have to cook up a complex plan that depended on several people _they had no control over_ doing _exactly what they wanted them to do._ Or conversly, a kid does a kid-like tinkering, shows off, and various adults jump to what seems to them at the time reasonable conclusions that snowball into the current controversy. Note, I do not dismiss the first option as impossible; but it needs more than inference and sly hints before I would prefer it to the simpler explanation. And so far all we have for it is hearsay and innuendo. Ain’t enough by a long shot. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2015, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/968 "2015-09-28T12:40:53Z")
> [@The\_Stainless\_Steel\_Rat](#): > > Once again, to get the result they want, the father and kid would have to cook up a complex plan that depended on several people _they had no control over_ doing _exactly what they wanted them to do._ Or conversly, a kid does a kid-like tinkering, shows off, and various adults jump to what seems to them at the time reasonable conclusions that snowball into the current controversy. I don’t know what’s going through **Slacker** ’s head, but I don’t think you need a “complex plan” from the father and kid to think something’s hinky about this. On the one hand, you could have a kid who wanted to bring in a box of boards and wires to school to see if he could get a reaction out of his teachers while still being able to maintain an innocent puppy dog face. Why? For attention, from his father and sister, who he’d seen face bigotry in their own lives. That’s it. No conspiracy, the father needn’t be in on it, all he’d have to do is supply some entirely predictable and appropriate outrage in the event that something happened. On the other hand, you need a seemingly intelligent 14-year-old to be completely naive about the perception of a box filled with boards and wires, to be dumb enough about electronics to think that plugging this contraption in during class was a good idea, and so completely delusional about his own abilities that he’d think that showing this thing off to his teachers would get him any sort of earned praise. So many people in this thread have said that the second scenario is a foregone conclusion because there’s no evidence to support the first scenario (which I’ll grant) and, to paraphrase, teenagers do dumb shit all the time. But it’s precisely _because_ of Occam’s razor that I think the first scenario has some plausibility – it’s built on the same logic of “teenagers do dumb things [for attention]”, but requires Ahmed to have been less dumb, and to have made fewer dumb decisions. Slacker gives the first scenario, or whatever variation he believes, a 55% chance of being correct. I certainly wouldn’t go that far, even at the height of my skepticism. And now, after hearing a few of Ahmed’s latest interviews, I only give it maybe a 5% chance. I’m not taking it off the table, but he really does come off like a mediocre student who’s completely delusional about his own abilities. Of course, this entire discussion about the merits and motive of the actual clock are dwarfed by the absolutely moronic and completely inexcusable decision to arrest him by grown adults, which nobody is in disagreement about. But I don’t think that means we need to shut down any discussion about other aspects of the situation. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2015, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/969 "2015-09-28T13:35:11Z")
Nice post. I will trust your judgment of these interviews (I have seen none myself) and knock my odds down to 20%. ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2015, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/970 "2015-09-28T13:42:39Z")
> [@xenophon41](#): > > He’s 14. I hate to break this to anyone who doesn’t know, but 14 year old boys \*sometimes don’t follow \*simple instructions. By the time the nerve impulses get from the inner ear to the conscious part of his brain, they’ve been filtered through the 14 year old id and corrected into something more satisfying. “Keep it in your backpack” probably sounded like “all the other kids and teachers would love to see this thing!” It’s why he should’ve gotten school discipline. Doesn’t explain why he was interrogated and perp-walked out of the school into juvenile detention. > > Also, he’s not really that lucky as far as the electrocution goes. The device is _not_ safe -it’s a legitimate shock hazard (and a hazard to the circuit it’s plugged into because it’s likely to short to ground if the transformer leads contact the case), but let’s not overstate the risk. > > Also too: “Nobel-prize winning project” and “child genius” are strange descriptions that no one else in this thread or social media seems to be using. Are you sure you’re thinking of the right device and kid? Are you confused? Hahahaha. Are you the word-police? Have you been authorized to decide which words/descriptions are acceptable? You’re a hoot. This poorly made timing device is definitely a fire hazard. The exposed wires, connections, and the copper strips on the circuit boards, could result in a short circuit or burn someone stupid enough to actually handle this device. Not having the components securely mounted increases the chance of a short or failed component. Not having the timing device mounted inside a proper, and safe, enclosure increases the chance of injury. You may not be up on the latest information concerning electrical safety but contact with 110vac can stop your heart. Oops. This was not a class project. The kid says he wanted to show it to his teacher. The first teacher told him to keep the device in his backpack. Is that school policy? With zero-tolerance being pretty much SOP in schools, I assume the first teacher should have confiscated the timing device when he saw it. The second teacher did confiscate the timing device when “kid stupid” plugged it in during English class. Was that the wrong thing to do? Was the teacher following proper school protocol? The 2nd teacher contacted the Principle. Was that the wrong thing to do? Was the teacher following proper school protocol? The Principle contacted the police. Did the Principle follow school district protocol? I doubt that the Principle had a choice. If you see something, say something. Why did the police interrogate “kid stupid” for as long as they did? I have no idea. Maybe the answers “kid stupid” gave didn’t convince the police that the kid was telling the whole truth? ---
**Author:** ![doorhinge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a5b964/32.png) [@doorhinge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doorhinge)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2015, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/971 "2015-09-28T13:46:52Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > That is an astoundingly ignorant and bigoted assertion made by an astoundingly ignorant and bigoted person. Have radical, fanatical Muslims stopped making IEDs? Have radical, fanatical Muslims stopped calling on their followers to make, and deploy, bombs? I wasn’t aware of that. Thanks for calming everyone’s fears. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2015, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/972 "2015-09-28T13:48:05Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Nice post. I will trust your judgment of these interviews (I have seen none myself) and knock my odds down to 20%. [On Larry Willmore](http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/news/ahmed-mohamed-explains-really-simple-clock-on-nightly-show-20150924): > [@](#): > > “How long did it take you to build that bomb?” Wilmore cracked. > > “Um, 10 or 20 minutes,” Mohamed replied. > > Wilmore then asked why he wanted to build a clock: “It was something really simple to me.” Did he have to look up instructions? “No, the only thing I had to look up was the receipt for the box.” Mohamed added later: “ **It’s really simple to me, because I’ve built more stuff that’s very complicated, like CPUs and soldering them. But the clock was simple, and some of the parts were scrapped off, so that’s how it got easier.** ” I know he’s only recently learned English, but that sort of gibberish about having built “very complicated” stuff like “CPUs and soldering them” is pretty telling. Either’s he’s doing a world class job of keeping up this “I wanted to show off my awesome clock” act or he’s just completely clueless. eta: There’s also this [fantastic picture](https://recodetech.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/ahmed-mohamed-clock-kid.jpg?quality=80&strip=info&w=640) that really needs no explanation. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2015, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/973 "2015-09-28T14:03:23Z")
All of this escalation is because he has brown skin, is a Muslim, and has a Middle Eastern name. The administrators looked at the clock through their personal prejudices and came to the conclusion that it was a bomb, he was trying to make a bomb, or that he was making a hoax bomb. To them, there was no other possibility because that’s all that Middle Eastern Muslims do with electronics that look like that. If he said it was a clock, he was clearly lying because he’s a bomb-making Muslim like they all are. To try and justify any of the administration’s actions based on potential issues with a disassembled clock is missing the point. There’s no way the police get called and the student arrested just for a minor potential fire hazard. If the student was white and non-Muslim none of this would happen. The outpouring of support for Ahmed isn’t because he’s a great inventor. It’s because people are ashamed of the racism he’s being subjected to and they want to let him know that not everyone thinks that. They want to let him know that some people think it’s impressive and that they see him in a positive light. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2015, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/974 "2015-09-28T14:21:58Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > On the one hand, you could have a kid who wanted to bring in a box of boards and wires to school to see if he could get a reaction out of his teachers while still being able to maintain an innocent puppy dog face. Why? For attention, from his father and sister, who he’d seen face bigotry in their own lives. That’s it. No conspiracy, the father needn’t be in on it, all he’d have to do is supply some entirely predictable and appropriate outrage in the event that something happened. > […] > But it’s precisely _because_ of Occam’s razor that I think the first scenario has some plausibility – it’s built on the same logic of “teenagers do dumb things [for attention]”, but requires Ahmed to have been less dumb, and to have made fewer dumb decisions. The first scenario requires Ahmed to decide to bring something he thinks will be perceived as a bomb, understands that he may get a racist reaction to bringing it in (since that’s his motive) but trusts that “Brown Muslim kid bringing a fake bomb to school to get a reaction from racists” will all be okay if he just calls it a clock after getting the reaction. I wouldn’t call that “less dumb”. > [@steronz](#): > > eta: There’s also this [fantastic picture](https://recodetech.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/ahmed-mohamed-clock-kid.jpg?quality=80&strip=info&w=640) that really needs no explanation. Well, some explanation would be nice since I don’t know what your point of linking to it is. But looking at the Re/Code site it was taken from, it’s an NBC News photo so I’d assume the photographer said “Quick, do something science-y” before snapping a photo. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2015, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/975 "2015-09-28T14:23:48Z")
> [@filmore](#): > > To try and justify any of the administration’s actions based on potential issues with a disassembled clock is missing the point Natch… > [@steronz](#): > > Of course, this entire discussion about the merits and motive of the actual clock are dwarfed by the absolutely moronic and completely inexcusable decision to arrest him by grown adults, which nobody is in disagreement about. But I don’t think that means we need to shut down any discussion about other aspects of the situation. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2015, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/976 "2015-09-28T14:26:16Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > There’s also this [fantastic picture](https://recodetech.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/ahmed-mohamed-clock-kid.jpg?quality=80&strip=info&w=640) that really needs no explanation. That’s fake, right? Please tell me that is shooped ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2015, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/977 "2015-09-28T14:31:34Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > The first scenario requires Ahmed to decide to bring something he thinks will be perceived as a bomb, understands that he may get a racist reaction to bringing it in (since that’s his motive) but trusts that “Brown Muslim kid bringing a fake bomb to school to get a reaction from racists” will all be okay if he just calls it a clock after getting the reaction. > > I wouldn’t call that “less dumb”. Agree to disagree. It’s dumb in that there’s potentially catastrophic repercussions if everything goes _really_ south, but that’s less “dumb” than it is “characteristically short-sighted for a 14-year-old.” > [@Jophiel](#): > > Well, some explanation would be nice since I don’t know what your point of linking to it is. But looking at the Re/Code site it was taken from, it’s an NBC News photo so I’d assume the photographer said “Quick, do something science-y” before snapping a photo. I’d assume the same. And yet, that’s what he chose to do. \ ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2015, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/978 "2015-09-28T14:44:50Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > And yet, that’s what he chose to do. \ Sure, it’s an “active” thing as opposed to staring at a CPU. I suppose it’s possible that the kid had a soldering iron handy but no idea how to use it or what it’s used for. This would be the same kid with the foresight to purchase a soldering iron in case he needs one for a photograph in his house but couldn’t noodle out to buy a DIY clock kit for his clock-bomb-clock to cover his story. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2015, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/979 "2015-09-28T14:46:46Z")
> **[Ahmed Mohamed Talks 'Really Simple' Clock on 'Nightly Show'](https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/ahmed-mohamed-explains-really-simple-clock-on-nightly-show-53605/)** > > Larry Wilmore gifts Texas whiz kid two watches: An Apple watch and mess of wires OMG, he actually is some sort of an idiot. Does he not know how he is coming across? ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2015, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454/980 "2015-09-28T14:53:59Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > Does he not know how he is coming across? Well, he’s an early teen shoved into the spotlight so… probably not. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454.md?page=48) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ro-this-is-totally-going-to-kill-bring-your-clock-to-school-day/731454.md?page=50)