The unimportant news thread

[Ken B]

It's not a good idea to show your timepiece to a teacher.

Texas Student Is Under Police Investigation for Building a Clock

Two good takes
https://twitter.com/razibkhan/status/644193443229642752

http://popehat.com/2015/09/16/willful-paranoia-the-classic-excuse-for-willful-paranoia-istandwithahmed/

[Ken B]

Have we had a link on sexbots?

Perhaps you saw the wanker who wants to ban sex robots.

"Technology is not neutral," [said Kathleen Richardson, a senior research fellow in the ethics of robotics at De Montfort University in Leicester, England]. "It's informed by class, race and gender. Political power informs the development of technology. That's why we can do something about it. These robots will contribute to more sexual exploitation."

"Informed" is vague bafflegab.

Having sex alone exploits others? I wonder what her stand on masturbation is? "You'll go blind from exploitation!"
"You'll get exploitative hair on your palms!"

The best comment I saw was this: "The inevitable efforts to ban robot prostitution expose the pretense that laws against prostitution are for the protection of the prostitutes. It's good old-fashioned imposition of morality."

[ibanezmonster]

Have we had a link on sexbots?

Perhaps you saw the wanker who wants to ban sex robots."Informed" is vague bafflegab.

Let me guess, without searching. Feminist?... or evangelical Christian?

I've heard of some feminists that would even like to ban porn that doesn't involve real life (for example, hentai or CGI). To me, that's practically Westboro Baptist Church levels of absurdity. I could tolerate a ban on porn involving real people, but if the world devolved into banning all porn, I would just draw it myself... 

Regardless, the porn market is about to explode in the next few years because of VR, so I doubt these people will have much say when so many people will be making money off of it.

[Karl Henning]

Sending a message to Gov. Christie? . . .

NJ casino can fire waitresses over weight

[Ken B]

Not quite John-Paul II
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150918/cb-cuba-pope-dissidents-b480ea1fdb.html

The Pope has also complained about Obama's invitees:
"On the eve of Pope Francis's arrival in the U.S., the Vatican has taken offense at the Obama administration's decision to invite to the pope's welcome ceremony transgender activists, the first openly gay Episcopal bishop "

so it is fair to read this as a refusal to condone.

[The Six]

Police Officers Gone Wild! Vol. 449: We need 6 cops to take down one 16-year-old kid~!

https://www.facebook.com/edgar.avendano.209/videos/vb.100006035619147/407850329426151/?type=2&theater

[Ken B]

It's not a good idea to show your timepiece to a teacher.

Texas Student Is Under Police Investigation for Building a Clock

Holy shit. Really, holy shit. http://blogs.artvoice.com/techvoice/2015/09/17/reverse-engineering-ahmed-mohameds-clock-and-ourselves/

Have we been had?

[Karl Henning]

Holy shit. Really, holy shit. http://blogs.artvoice.com/techvoice/2015/09/17/reverse-engineering-ahmed-mohameds-clock-and-ourselves/

Have we been had?

That was really interesting. Back-of-the-envelope thoughts:

1. I really enjoyed the "engineering forensics."
2. The author sets great store on his sticking to the facts, and I feel reasonably certain he tries.
3. Note this paragraph:

So there you have it folks, Ahmed Mohamad did not invent, nor build a clock. He took apart an existing clock, and transplanted the guts into a pencil box, and claimed it was his own creation. It all seems really fishy to me.

4. Now, I might not have troubled to highlight the curtain line of that paragraph, save for a specific reason soon to follow.  But we all do understand that we have moved, subtly but no doubt deliberately, from Simple Engineering, to Author's Comment.  That in itself, would be fine and understandable, except the author goes on to reinforce his Impartial Judge act in the concluding paragraph of the blog:

As for me, I'm glad to apply the lessons I've learned as an electronics enthusiast to other aspects of life. There's no emotion in troubleshooting a circuit, electricity doesn't have morals. There's just physics, and logic, and methodology. I think we could all benefit from applying a little more of that sort of thinking to these situations.

5. But, there's emotion in going from the investigative circuitry, to It all seems really fishy to me.  Was that where he was compelled to go by physics, and logic, and methodology?

Recall that the blog post begins thus:

I have something in common with Ahmed Mohamed: as a youngster, I was also an electronics enthusiast. At his age and even earlier, I frequently took apart electronic devices – anything from my own toys, to broken things around the house, and even that dirty garbage-picked black and white TV my parents dragged home that they knew I'd have a blast playing with (I did.) I'd try and troubleshoot, repair, or sometimes just disassemble things and salvage components for future projects. I'd try and imagine how all those bits and pieces, lengths of wires, mazes of conductive circuit board traces all came together to produce an image, or a sound, or some other useful function. I wanted to know how it all worked.

He's introducing himself, and putting himself in a favorable light as part of that long-standing Yankee tradition of mentally inquisitive tinkerers, and fine.

6. But he clearly puts the present youngster in a different category with the following, the only boldface lines in the blog post:

Ahmed Mohamed didn't invent his own alarm clock. He didn't even build a clock.

We've certainly moved from "I have something in common with Ahmed Mohamed" to a tone of accusation.

7. Yet, note this explanation/observation:

one glance at the printed circuit board in the photo, and I knew we were looking at mid-to-late 1970s vintage electronics. Surely you've seen a modern circuit board, with metallic traces leading all over to the various components like an electronic spider's web. You'll notice right away the highly accurate spacing, straightness of the lines, consistency of the patterns. That's because we design things on computers nowadays, and computers assist in routing these lines. Take a look at the board in Ahmed's clock. It almost looks hand-drawn, right? That's because it probably was. Computer aided design was in its infancy in the 70s. This is how simple, low cost items (like an alarm clock) were designed. Today, even a budding beginner is going to get some computer aided assistance – in fact they'll probably start there, learning by simulating designs before building them.

If we step back a little from the author's need to make the youngster a case of The Other, and to make his (highly interesting) engineering sleuthing the basis of a veiled accusation of Darker Things—is it possible that Ahmed is just doing what the author himself had done at his age:  learnt the science by taking old stuff apart;  that, although a budding beginner might typically begin with computer-aided assistance, here was an enterprising mind which wanted to work with his hands before going to The Superbrain Tool;  that the result may still count as a notable science project achievement;  that "invention" is perhaps a 14-year-old's (relatively innocent) hyperbole?

That maybe we needn't theorize a Conspiracy?

Not making any conclusions here;  simply fulfilling the role of the Loyal Opposition.


[Edits:  the odd spelling error, and italics run amok. Oh the shame . . . .]

[Ken B]

That was really interesting. Back-of-the-envelope thoughts:

1. I really enjoyed the "engineering forensics."
2. The author sets great store on his sticking to the facts, and I feel reasonably certain he tries.
3. Note this paragraph:

4. Now, I might not have troubled to highlight the curtain line of that paragraph, save for a specific reason soon to follow.  But we all do understand that we have moved, subtly but no doubt deliberately, from Simple Engineering, to Author's Comment.  That in itself, would be fine and understandable, except the author goes on to reinforce his Impartial Judge act in the concluding paragraph of the blog:

5. But, there's emotion in going from the investigative circuitry, to It all seems really fishy to me.  Was that where he was compelled to go by physics, and logic, and methodology?

Recall that the blog post begins thus:

He's introducing himself, and putting himself in a favorable light as part of that long-standing Yankee tradition of mentally inquisitive tinkerers, and fine.

6. But he clearly puts the present youngster in a different category with the following, the only boldface lines in the blog post:

We've certainly moved from "I have something in common with Ahmed Mohamed" to a tone of accusation.

7. Yet, note this explanation/observation:

If we step back a little from the author's need to make the youngster a case of The Other, and to make his (highly interesting) engineering sleuthing the basis of a veiled accusation of Darker Things—is it possible that Ahmed is just doing what the author himself had done at his age:  learnt the science by taking old stuff apart;  that, although a budding beginner might typically begin with computer-aided assistance, here was an enterprising mind which wanted to work with his hands before going to The Superbrain Tool;  that the result may still count as a notable science project achievement;  that "invention" is perhaps a 14-year-old's (relatively innocent) hyperbole?

That maybe we needn't theorize a Conspiracy?

Not making any conclusions here;  simply fulfilling the role of the Loyal Opposition.


[Edits:  the odd spelling error, and italics run amok. Oh the shame . . . .]

On the other hand, consider this. He said his real concern is how people leap to conclusions, en masse. I know I did in this case. To make that point it is pertinent to argue that maybe we were misled and got things very badly wrong. Leaping to a 99.99% correct conclusion isn't such an awful thing. Leaping to one that gets things backwards is. By noting something is fishy he is noting that things might be very different than they seem, and there are things we need to know more about before we can tell.

[Karl Henning]

On the other hand, consider this. He said his real concern is how people leap to conclusions, en masse. I know I did in this case. To make that point it is pertinent to argue that maybe we were misled and got things very badly wrong. Leaping to a 99.99% correct conclusion isn't such an awful thing. Leaping to one that gets things backwards is. By noting something is fishy he is noting that things might be very different than they seem, and there are things we need to know more about before we can tell.

Point taken.

He would want us to be skeptical of his motivations, I think.  The media plays us like a fiddle, and we don't even notice we've all been had.  At times in his blog post, I've wondered if his complaint was, that his was not the hand holding the bow 

[Ken B]

Point taken.

He would want us to be skeptical of his motivations, I think.  The media plays us like a fiddle, and we don't even notice we've all been had.  At times in his blog post, I've wondered if his complaint was, that his was not the hand holding the bow 

I'm sure we'll hear more. It occurs that we have not heard from the teacher directly. Fishy that 😉

[Karl Henning]

I'm sure we'll hear more. It occurs that we have not heard from the teacher directly. Fishy that 😉

Impossible for us to say just how that breaks, though   0:)

[The Six]

If you have kids, make sure they don't take nude pictures of themselves - it apparently makes them sex offenders..of themselves.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/20/teen-prosecuted-naked-images-himself-phone-selfies

[Ken B]

If you have kids, make sure they don't take nude pictures of themselves - it apparently makes them sex offenders..of themselves.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/20/teen-prosecuted-naked-images-himself-phone-selfies

Yes. There have been a lot of cases. I've seen teens charged as adults for nude child pictures of themselves on several occasions.
"We had to destroy the village in order to save it" applied to teenagers.

[Todd]

Whew, that's a relief.

[Brian]

Whew, that's a relief.

Thought that would be your Walker-is-gone headline.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Sharks vs. Selfies

[Daverz]

Holy shit. Really, holy shit. http://blogs.artvoice.com/techvoice/2015/09/17/reverse-engineering-ahmed-mohameds-clock-and-ourselves/

Have we been had?

Hah, dumb kid didn't invent the clock!  I bet he didn't even make any of the integrated circuits himself.

Reminds me of the time my brother experimented with powering my toy robot from a wall socket.  I can still smell the burning plastic.  Kids love to take things apart.  Sometimes they try to put them back together again.  And sometimes the results even do something useful, like tell time.

[Todd]

I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.

[Ken B]

Hah, dumb kid didn't invent the clock!  I bet he didn't even make any of the integrated circuits himself.

Reminds me of the time my brother experimented with powering my toy robot from a wall socket.  I can still smell the burning plastic.  Kids love to take things apart.  Sometimes they try to put them back together again.  And sometimes the results even do something useful, like tell time.

No, that misses the point entirely. We were told he invented the clock, and that he told the teachers he made and invented the clock. That implies at least assmbling the logic circuits. So that's BS. That means. at the very least, that many of the reactions, and accolades, are BS. It also suggests the kid might have lied to his teachers. It's fair for people to wonder why. I'd say we don't have enough information to know one way or the other.