That "clock" that Mohamed Ahmed made is a 1980's Digital Alarm Clock

[LAwLz]

I only saw three users express jealousy, and I'm pretty sure two of them were joking around...?

Not sure if you included me in those 3 being jealous. If you didn't then make that 4 people!

Who wouldn't be jealous of all the free stuff he is getting for what seems to be 15 seconds of "building" a clock?

 

 

I don't think being jealous necessarily undermines or invalidates your arguments for or against something though, as long as you stick to being objective.

[Albatross]

Not sure if you included me in those 3 being jealous. If you didn't then make that 4 people!

Who wouldn't be jealous of all the free stuff he is getting for what seems to be 15 seconds of "building" a clock?

 

 

I don't think being jealous necessarily undermines or invalidates your arguments for or against something though, as long as you stick to being objective.

 

Nope, I had not included you. lol

 

But is being jealous the only reason you object?

[Sauron]

If you haven't please watch this video, which reviews all the facts.  There are some opinions, but it's a great video nonetheless.  Also I don't think this kid should be getting thousands of dollars worth of free stuff, and scholarships, etc. etc. when there are actually some really talented kids out there that don't get any of that.

 

Yeah, that's pretty stupid, but apparently it sells papers and people like Zuckerberg want that juicy feelgood press. In the meanwhile that's moving attention away from the real issue, which is the blatant incompetence and mental deficiency of some american teachers and the abuse by the police - be it racial or simply panic-driven.

[LAwLz]

Nope, I had not included you. lol

 

But is being jealous the only reason you object?

Object to what?

 

To summarize what I think of this whole thing so far:

 

1) It seems like Ahmed did not build the clock. There is a clip of a guy doing the same thing in 15 seconds. I am surprised he even bought it to school to show off. It just seems dishonest. Like he want to appear more clever than he really is (which most 14 year olds try).

 

2) The police acted inappropriately. I thought it was stupid that they would try and charge him with making a hoax bomb and I still think it is stupid. Also, the handcuffs and not letting him contact his parents was just a terrible thing to do.

 

3) I don't think this has anything to do with racism, despite what his dad and other people are trying to say. Similar things has happened to white people (including Woz) and yet nobody ever brought up race in those cases. I think the real racists here are those who are behaving differently towards this case because it happened to involve a brown person. It's just something his dad tries to push since he is apparently an extremist, and people who try to be overly PC try to push to show how tolerant they are.

It's just a bunch of crap that takes focus away from the real issues.

 

4) All these companies who try to get cheap PR from this are pretty pathetic. Some of them like Raspberry Pi seems alright because they are actually fairly relevant (if he had actually built the clock himself) but companies like Facebook, Box, Google, Twitter, Foursquare etc... Come on.

Microsoft joined in on the cheap RP as well but at least they did like Raspberry Pi and gave him things related to building things, which was good of them.

 

5) We have not heard both sides of the story and are missing quite crucial parts. Just listening to one side and then jumping to conclusions is never a good thing. That's why I think it's a bit premature to say the teachers acted inappropriately. For a well know, he might have walked around with it, showing it off to everyone and not responded to questions the teachers asked. Apparently it started beeping which is why it caught the attention of teachers. In order for that to happen he would have needed to not only plugged it into a wall outlet but also set it to beep at a specific time. Maybe someone overheard it when he was showing it to his science teacher, or maybe he was going around showing it off. We don't know.

 

6) I don't think he ever intended for things to go this way. He just wanted to pretend to be smart in front of his teacher, some police treated him poorly and then the media jump on this and blew it way out of proportions. I think the best thing for Ahmed is for this whole thing to die out so he can go back to being a normal kid. I think this whole thing will either go to his head or wear him out a lot if it keeps going on for too long.

 

 

Edit:

After listening to Mark Cuban about his talk with Ahmed over the phone I really point number 5 is very important.

According to the sources Mark Cuban spoke to, Ahmed didn't just bring the clock to his science teacher and showed it in private. He took it out during class and showed it off. He didn't just do this once, he did it during 6 different classes throughout the day, even after one of the teachers telling him to put it away because it was making people nervous. He had it out for the entire lessons, and it was making noises and so on. If I was the teacher I would have told him to put it away or I would have thrown him out of class because that's incredibly disrespectful behavior.

Mark has contacts with people who has contact with the school, so his info is second hand mind you, but it seems to align with the rest of the stories very well.

 

I don't agree with the two people on the right (I think one of them is Bill Maher) but I agree with everything Mark Cuban (the one on the far left) says:

[Nowak]

Y'know, I suppose everyone has to start somewhere.

 

Using myself as an example, I claim that the first thing I built after graduating from Lego is a motorized replica V6 car engine. That was using a kit. Before then, I took things apart and attempted to reassemble them. Before I built a computer, I took old computers apart and attempted to reassemble them. Taking apart and rebuilding things is part of the learning process. Is it right for him to lie that he built the clock without needing to disassemble another clock first? No, but that's something kids tend to do, they tend to leave important details like that out. I mean, look at him, he's 14, he probably doesn't know how to or have any tools needed to create a PCB, so he did the next best thing (in his mind) and rebuilt an old clock. And the kid isn't even the problem, it's the police and their reaction. They could have used the same resources they used in this on an actual school bomb threat rather than this, and the fact that they refused him access to resources, namely his parents, is appalling. Whether or not he lied or this all was fabricated is a small part of the equation.

[NeatSquidYT]

WOW

 

then they did have a right to arrest him, but they shouldn't have jumped to conclusions so quickly. 

 

And Microsoft even gave him a Surface Pro 3. ( http://www.winbeta.org/news/ahmed-mohamed-gets-a-new-surface-pro-3-band-and-more-from-microsoft )

Lucky shit. I want a Surface Pro 3

[RagnarokDel]

Uuuuh he didn't build it from scratch or program anything? All he did was reassemble a fully functional clock... Any idiot can do that. Especially if google, facebook, and MIT etc want to invite him thats really embarassing. 

he's a 14 years old kid, I'm surprised he can tie his shoe laces.

[Phillyphries]

Edit:

After listening to Mark Cuban about his talk with Ahmed over the phone I really point number 5 is very important.

According to the sources Mark Cuban spoke to, Ahmed didn't just bring the clock to his science teacher and showed it in private. He took it out during class and showed it off. He didn't just do this once, he did it during 6 different classes throughout the day, even after one of the teachers telling him to put it away because it was making people nervous. He had it out for the entire lessons, and it was making noises and so on. If I was the teacher I would have told him to put it away or I would have thrown him out of class because that's incredibly disrespectful behavior.

Mark has contacts with people who has contact with the school, so his info is second hand mind you, but it seems to align with the rest of the stories very well.

 

I don't agree with the two people on the right (I think one of them is Bill Maher) but I agree with everything Mark Cuban (the one on the far left) says:

 

I actually do agree with what Bill Maher is saying on the topic, and Mark Cuban strikes an excellent point as well.

 

This has nothing to do with the teachers, they absolutely did their job. But Mark definitely notices something is up when he hears the kid's sister telling him what to say on the phone. On top of his family's background and careers, this story is HIGHLY suspicious.

 

Asking the law enforcement and teachers to let something like that slide after a recent terrorist attack in Texas... Social justice warriors fighting for Ahmed when he's CLEARLY doing fine and is alive and well... meanwhile somebody just like him is being crucified on the other side of the planet. It's disgusting.

[PlayStation 2]

lol this is fucking stupid

news in general is stupid

america is stupid

 

i can continue

[GoodBytes]

Lucky shit. I want a Surface Pro 3

Considering that he got Surface Pro 3 and Microsoft Band. And considering the price discount Microsoft is giving... I smell a Microsoft Band 2 and Pro 4 coming next month. I think Microsoft had no problem giving those away.

[Phillyphries]

Considering that he got Surface Pro 3 and Microsoft Band. And considering the price discount Microsoft is giving... I smell a Microsoft Band 2 and Pro 4 coming next month. I think Microsoft had no problem giving those away.

 

I think you actually know something

[WilliamDB]

I know that this comment is going to get lost and probably never read on page 42, but this kid obviously didn't create a bomb, even at a glance.

 

I understand there are people out there that don't understand the first thing about electronics, but this kid, whether he tried to or not, didn't create something that looks like a bomb.

 

To the uneducated, and the naive ... maybe I can understand it looks like a bomb to someone like that. As for anybody Not racist, and Not brainwashed by the media to fear that which you don't understand, it's nothing like a bomb.

 

Looking at what he put together, he has a display, some wires, a couple circuit boards. Where is the Bomb? Where is the wire plugged into something threatening? Where is the scary container you cant see inside wired to the circuit board? The short answer is, there was nothing threatening about this except for everyone's preconceived notions, and Racism.

 

TL;DR

We need educated people to educate our children, not racist imbeciles.

[GoldSrc]

I know that this comment is going to get lost and probably never read on page 42, but this kid obviously didn't create a bomb, even at a glance.

 

I understand there are people out there that don't understand the first thing about electronics, but this kid, whether he tried to or not, didn't create something that looks like a bomb.

 

To the uneducated, and the naive ... maybe I can understand it looks like a bomb to someone like that. As for anybody Not racist, and Not brainwashed by the media to fear that which you don't understand, it's nothing like a bomb.

 

Looking at what he put together, he has a display, some wires, a couple circuit boards. Where is the Bomb? Where is the wire plugged into something threatening? Where is the scary container you cant see inside wired to the circuit board? The short answer is, there was nothing threatening about this except for everyone's preconceived notions, and Racism.

 

TL;DR

We need educated people to educate our children, not racist imbeciles.

 

Too bad 'Murica is filled with uneducated people, at least most of the people in power are uneducated, and it also seems that common sense is not that common.

If only nerds ruled the world, this world would be a better place for everyone.

[FuzzyYellow]

and this kid got praised by Mark Zuckerberg, and invited to Google's annual science fair for this.

[riawoias]

He should be punished for academic fraud (provided he actually claimed in class he made/invented it himself) not hoax bomb making the school is so dumb it doesn't have the staff to recognize what is obviously a commercial product in its entirety just without the plastic box that it normally comes in. The moment I saw that actual image not a more impressive, google image search time rushed lets stick any image of an actual DIY project place-holder image news intern picture, I knew it was just a commercial alarm clock without a case. (Compare his "clock" with any DIY digital clock image on google and you can clearly see the difference)

 

Actual teens who make real inventions and tinker with electronics will instantly realize what a fake that home made clock is as no normal teen has the resources build a mass produced electronic clock (with three totally custom PCBs, and cable harness) and then slap it into a crappy case because if they could make all those clearly custom parts, cabling, assemblies then they could go the whole mile and put it in its own custom injection plastic case and give one clock to every person in the school for free because they can.

 

It sends a screwed up message to actual teen inventors and electronics tinkers who actually make things and learn about them in the process. Denounce/apologize/shower gifts for the obvious racism but the clear academic fraud still has to be punished.

 

Also while he didn't create a bomb in any sense he doesn't have any regard for electrical safety and went ahead and spliced the AC high voltage line cord instead of splicing the low voltage DC cable (No below novice should play with AC voltages even to splice a cable). Probably because the product has a built in molded strain relief on its original ac cord which would be a dead give away for it being a commercial product or just used a power brick which would have made much more sense to reuse.

[Albatross]

Object to what?

 

To summarize what I think of this whole thing so far:

 

1) It seems like Ahmed did not build the clock. There is a clip of a guy doing the same thing in 15 seconds. I am surprised he even bought it to school to show off. It just seems dishonest. Like he want to appear more clever than he really is (which most 14 year olds try).

 

2) The police acted inappropriately. I thought it was stupid that they would try and charge him with making a hoax bomb and I still think it is stupid. Also, the handcuffs and not letting him contact his parents was just a terrible thing to do.

 

3) I don't think this has anything to do with racism, despite what his dad and other people are trying to say. Similar things has happened to white people (including Woz) and yet nobody ever brought up race in those cases. I think the real racists here are those who are behaving differently towards this case because it happened to involve a brown person. It's just something his dad tries to push since he is apparently an extremist, and people who try to be overly PC try to push to show how tolerant they are.

It's just a bunch of crap that takes focus away from the real issues.

 

4) All these companies who try to get cheap PR from this are pretty pathetic. Some of them like Raspberry Pi seems alright because they are actually fairly relevant (if he had actually built the clock himself) but companies like Facebook, Box, Google, Twitter, Foursquare etc... Come on.

Microsoft joined in on the cheap RP as well but at least they did like Raspberry Pi and gave him things related to building things, which was good of them.

 

5) We have not heard both sides of the story and are missing quite crucial parts. Just listening to one side and then jumping to conclusions is never a good thing. That's why I think it's a bit premature to say the teachers acted inappropriately. For a well know, he might have walked around with it, showing it off to everyone and not responded to questions the teachers asked. Apparently it started beeping which is why it caught the attention of teachers. In order for that to happen he would have needed to not only plugged it into a wall outlet but also set it to beep at a specific time. Maybe someone overheard it when he was showing it to his science teacher, or maybe he was going around showing it off. We don't know.

 

6) I don't think he ever intended for things to go this way. He just wanted to pretend to be smart in front of his teacher, some police treated him poorly and then the media jump on this and blew it way out of proportions. I think the best thing for Ahmed is for this whole thing to die out so he can go back to being a normal kid. I think this whole thing will either go to his head or wear him out a lot if it keeps going on for too long.

 

 

Edit:

After listening to Mark Cuban about his talk with Ahmed over the phone I really point number 5 is very important.

According to the sources Mark Cuban spoke to, Ahmed didn't just bring the clock to his science teacher and showed it in private. He took it out during class and showed it off. He didn't just do this once, he did it during 6 different classes throughout the day, even after one of the teachers telling him to put it away because it was making people nervous. He had it out for the entire lessons, and it was making noises and so on. If I was the teacher I would have told him to put it away or I would have thrown him out of class because that's incredibly disrespectful behavior.

Mark has contacts with people who has contact with the school, so his info is second hand mind you, but it seems to align with the rest of the stories very well.

 

I don't agree with the two people on the right (I think one of them is Bill Maher) but I agree with everything Mark Cuban (the one on the far left) says:

 

Well, I wasn't expecting a reply like this! Thanks for taking the time to answer so thoroughly.

 

And sorry, I meant "is your jealousy the only reason you object to him receiving all these things?" (as insinuated by some members here) but disregard that, since your post offered that answer.

[Old_Guy]

If you want the truth. Todays main stream media will not tell the whole story. They only see the race card and nothing else. I put Linus in this catagory as well for bringing this topic up on the WAN show, now its back firing on him.

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

He should be punished for academic fraud (provided he actually claimed in class he made/invented it himself) not hoax bomb making the school is so dumb it doesn't have the staff to recognize what is obviously a commercial product in its entirety just without the plastic box that it normally comes in. The moment I saw that actual image not a more impressive, google image search time rushed lets stick any image of an actual DIY project place-holder image news intern picture, I knew it was just a commercial alarm clock without a case. (Compare his "clock" with any DIY digital clock image on google and you can clearly see the difference)

 

Actual teens who make real inventions and tinker with electronics will instantly realize what a fake that home made clock is as no normal teen has the resources build a mass produced electronic clock (with three totally custom PCBs, and cable harness) and then slap it into a crappy case because if they could make all those clearly custom parts, cabling, assemblies then they could go the whole mile and put it in its own custom injection plastic case and give one clock to every person in the school for free because they can.

 

It sends a screwed up message to actual teen inventors and electronics tinkers who actually make things and learn about them in the process. Denounce/apologize/shower gifts for the obvious racism but the clear academic fraud still has to be punished.

 

Also while he didn't create a bomb in any sense he doesn't have any regard for electrical safety and went ahead and spliced the AC high voltage line cord instead of splicing the low voltage DC cable (No below novice should play with AC voltages even to splice a cable). Probably because the product has a built in molded strain relief on its original ac cord which would be a dead give away for it being a commercial product or just used a power brick which would have made much more sense to reuse.

 

What academic fraud? Oh get real... 

[JohnV]

The FACT that he had to plug in the alarm clock for it to work pretty much tells that he intended it for it to go off. His engineering teacher already told him to keep it on the down low as it looked suspicious but what does he do? He plugs the alarm clock during class and it goes off and pulls the race card when he gets into trouble for something he was already warned about. 

 

It's sad to find out that a multitude of users here were apparently brainwashed by the media into defending this kid. Just goes to show how gullible people can be.

[LAwLz]

What academic fraud? Oh get real...

Yeah he is only 14 so that doesn't really apply here. If he was in college and did the same thing I would expect him to be expelled though. It's pretty obvious that he was trying to take credit for something he did not make himself. Colleges usually have zero tolerance for that kind of behavior.

But he is still in middle school or whatever. Almost everyone at that age does that.

[beingGamer]

The thing I am hating is the boy is trying to take too much limelight out of this thing

[DeScruff]

To me this proves even more that the teachers and police were idiots.
Its not like he made something like this:

(This is a 100% functional hand soldiered 1980s computer called the "ZX spectrum" made by Ben Heck)
Where its obviously home made and nobody other then the creator knows what it does.
Its more like if I brought in a graphics card, with the regular fans being replaced with Ziptied on Noctuas.

Also I don't exactly like how so many people are jumping to demonize this kid, calling this all a "FRAUD".
The kid did nothing wrong he "Built" a clock, exactly like how we "Build" our PCs - Though he did make a custom case, which is a step beyond what most of us system builders do.
The media didn't properly understand the story - Which we have NEVER seen before right??? :rolleyes: - and assumed that he hand soldiered and designed a clock. <- Which some people assumed I did when I said I built a computer, in Highschool.

So the Media made this out to be more of an electronic wiz then this kid actually is, and he got a bunch of free stuff because of that.
I still don't see how that is the kid's fault vs the Media's, and I still don't see how that makes the story of "Kid brings circuit board in school, gets arrested because 'it could be a bomb!'" less meaningful as the kid was still wrongfully arrested.

[LAwLz]

Also I don't exactly like how so many people are jumping to demonize this kid, calling this all a "FRAUD".

The kid did nothing wrong he "Built" a clock, exactly like how we "Build" our PCs - Though he did make a custom case, which is a step beyond what most of us system builders do.

Like I said before, there is a huge difference between what he did and for example building a computer.

The case wasn't a "custom case" either. It was a pencil case.

 

I don't really think it matters if he "built it" or not but since that's what people are arguing about now I'll throw in my 2 cents.

 

I think the big difference between the clock and putting a computer together is that with the computer parts, you start off with a non-functioning pile of parts and you end up with something that works. In the case of the clock he started out with (what I presume was) a working clock and the end result was a working clock.

If you want an analogy then I guess you could say it was like putting a Raspberry Pi into a case. Nobody I know who has done that claims that they invited/built the Raspberry Pi.

 

I found a video of someone doing what appears to be exactly the same thing Ahmed did. It took 15 seconds for him to "build" the same clock.

[JohnV]

-snip-

 

He literally ripped out the entire contents of a clock and shoved it inside a small briefcase so no, he did not build it like how you would build a pc.

 

Building a pc would require you to "assemble" it with the parts that you have. He did not "assemble" anything, assembling a clock would require him to use some kind of protoboard but what his clock was is a commercially manufactured product that was already built together.

 

But here's the question, why did it even go off in the first place? It has an ac cable, so for it to do anything, he had to plug it in on his class despite the warning from his engineering teacher that it looks suspicious.

[d3sl91]

Honestly, I feel like I just got trolled. I feel like America just got trolled by a family that wanted publicity. Disclaimer: This IS all speculation and my thoughts. There are facts, do what you want with them, I'm just passing them along:

 

 

 

 

Did everyone over-react? Yes. However, we see that he purely put a dismantled clock into a briefcase.... who does that? We also learn from sources, that his family and friends are politically involved in other countries, and have done some activist-type things in the past. 

 

For example, father has run for president of Sudan, twice: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/father-muslim-kid-arrested-clock-standout-citizen-article-1.2363466

 

They are going around saying Ahmed was "tortured", so, they are blowing up what actually happened http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/16/homemade-clock-ahmed-mohamed-texas-officials-we-were-right Was it bad? yes. But not torture. 

 

Honestly, many people can see this was just a clock in a briefcase. BUT STILL. Irving has a past of islamic-related violence. Is it so bad that police want to protect a school full of children from any potential threat? We have teenage Americans joining ISIS, in fact, a plot to kill the pope was ended with the arrest of a 14 year old. ISIS has declared against the pope for "bearing false witness" against Islam. 

 

It is very easy for us Americans to react to anything like this. With ISIS, 9/11 and other Terrorist attacks, all coming from the middle east, with ties to the islamic faith. Is reacting to anyone with that skin color wrong? Yes. I have some friends who are middle eastern, i respect him and his family GREATLY. More than alot of american families I know, they are not all bad. Not all muslims are bad. But you need to remember where most of our threats are coming from. It's not Canadians! 

 

And then you have items like this that blew up on social media....why? There are bomb threats every day. Arrests every day? I think the race card was pulled. Except....not by the officers or the school, but instead we have media and others forcing "you were arrested cause you are a Brown Muslim!!!". But then again, I think that may have been the plan all along, and now racism against muslims and middle easterners is worse because of it.