Decius wrote:

She's extremely lucky she followed the instructions or deadly force would have been used," Pare told The Associated Press. "And she's lucky to be in a cell as opposed to the morgue."

The quote above is a Massachusetts State Police Officer publicly threatening to murder an MIT student who accidentally showed up at the airport wearing an electronic art project. She has, yet again, been charged with carrying out a hoax. Remember kids, anytime a Massachusetts police officer is confused, its your fault for confusing them, and not theirs for being fucking stupid and paranoid, and you are likely to go to prison or worse if it happens.

[ Yeah, this is a massive over-reaction and the quote above is extremely disturbing evidence of the mindset of law enforcement personnel (not to mention a lot of citizens).

The proper reaction might have been to approach her and inquire about the electronics. The fact that it has blinking lights on the exterior seems like a good indicator that it's *not* a bomb. In fact, airport security just provided a valuable lesson for anyone who might actually try to do such a thing... send someone in with a "fake bomb" as a smoke screen. Der-doink, Boston.

She probably should have known better than to go to an airport like that. I'm really not overly concerned about the chilling effect on Makers and hackers in this case. Again, the reaction was disproportionate, but even in a relatively sane society, you ought to expect an impromptu interview with a cop if you go to an airport with hastily constructed electronics on your shirt.

The genuinely sad truth is that if they'd shot her, a large proportion of the country would think it was the right reaction, and an even larger proportion would briefly reflect that it's a sad and wrong thing, and then promptly forget about it.

Side note, not relevant to the above, as an "art project", I think the hoodie sucks, but maybe it's just not my style, like Dali or 99% of comic strips.

k wrote:
Even in a relatively sane society, you ought to expect an impromptu interview with a cop if you go to an airport with hastily constructed electronics on your shirt.

Right, the problem was not that they responded. They SHOULD have responded. The problem was that they assumed it was a bomb and were about to mow her down in street, and when they found out that it wasn't a bomb and there was no problem they nailed her to the wall with the most serious criminal charge they could come up with for causing them the trouble. Similar to the Boston incident, the fact that you have to investigate things out of an abundance of caution implies that you're going to investigate a bunch of innocent stuff. Whats important is what occurs after you figure out that there is no problem. If you continue to make a big deal out of it and threaten to ruin lives over it you can become a greater risk than the terrorists you're fighting.

The genuinely sad truth is that if they'd shot her, a large proportion of the country would think it was the right reaction.

Fascists are always crawling out of the woodwork to defend this sort of thing.

Side note, not relevant to the above, as an "art project", I think the hoodie sucks, but maybe it's just not my style, like Dali or 99% of comic strips.

Kind of a lame circuit, just some lights, but you spend a lot of time in labs with stuff like that when you take those classes...

Decius wrote:

k wrote:
Side note, not relevant to the above, as an "art project", I think the hoodie sucks, but maybe it's just not my style, like Dali or 99% of comic strips.

I am curious to hear what the story is when more details are released. Its a breadboard with some LEDs and a battery. If you're an MIT student with a major in electronics you'd think you could hook up some leds and a battery. Does it DO something?

I'd like to think there's components i'm not seeing that make the lights blink in a pattern so that the star looks like it's rotating or something, at the very least. I've spent at least dozens of hours with breadboards and boxes of basic components, maybe more. I'd have made the thing look clean at least, but this is why i say that maybe the ghetto-fab style was a purposeful part of the aesthetic, and I just don't agree with it. I mean, it looks to me like the wires are held down with masking tape... like, really?

k wrote:

Decius wrote:

She's extremely lucky she followed the instructions or deadly force would have been used," Pare told The Associated Press. "And she's lucky to be in a cell as opposed to the morgue."

The quote above is a Massachusetts State Police Officer publicly threatening to murder an MIT student who accidentally showed up at the airport wearing an electronic art project. She has, yet again, been charged with carrying out a hoax. Remember kids, anytime a Massachusetts police officer is confused, its your fault for confusing them, and not theirs for being fucking stupid and paranoid, and you are likely to go to prison or worse if it happens.

[ Yeah, this is a massive over-reaction and the quote above is extremely disturbing evidence of the mindset of law enforcement personnel (not to mention a lot of citizens).

The proper reaction might have been to approach her and inquire about the electronics. The fact that it has blinking lights on the exterior seems like a good indicator that it's *not* a bomb. In fact, airport security just provided a valuable lesson for anyone who might actually try to do such a thing... send someone in with a "fake bomb" as a smoke screen. Der-doink, Boston.

She probably should have known better than to go to an airport like that. I'm really not overly concerned about the chilling effect on Makers and hackers in this case. Again, the reaction was disproportionate, but even in a relatively sane society, you ought to expect an impromptu interview with a cop if you go to an airport with hastily constructed electronics on your shirt.

The genuinely sad truth is that if they'd shot her, a large proportion of the country would think it was the right reaction, and an even larger proportion would briefly reflect that it's a sad and wrong thing, and then promptly forget about it.

Side note, not relevant to the above, as an "art project", I think the hoodie sucks, but maybe it's just not my style, like Dali or 99% of comic strips.

Actually... that looks like a bomb to me. Like a suicide bomber. I tend to side with the cops here, which is strange and doesn't happen often.

She's stupid. She's lucky she didn't get shot in the face.

Actually... that looks like a bomb to me. Like a suicide bomber. I tend to side with the cops here, which is strange and doesn't happen often.

She's stupid. She's lucky she didn't get shot in the face.

When exactly were you struck retarded? There was a time when I could have told you the freaking part numbers for those components. They are so common and so simple it's ludicrous to decide it's a freaking bomb. Do your floor lamps terrify you in a similar way, because they're a hell of a lot bigger so the explosion could probably level nine city blocks. What do you make of a coleman lantern? Tactical suicide bomb?

It's a battery and some fucking LEDs, people.

Move out of the holes in the ground you're living in, or at least pull the dirt in on top of you so we don't have to do it.

Dagmar wrote:

Actually... that looks like a bomb to me. Like a suicide bomber. I tend to side with the cops here, which is strange and doesn't happen often.

She's stupid. She's lucky she didn't get shot in the face.

When exactly were you struck retarded?

hahaha

The problem with this is that we are tolerating a response that could be provided by chimpanzees, instead of requiring a smidgen of intelligence to be exercised by personnel. It's basically amounting to "ook! new thing scare me! ook ook! person with new thing bad! ME SMASH FIRST!".

This will eventually result in a society only capable of reacting to things on the level of chimpanzees.

Decius wrote:

She's extremely lucky she followed the instructions or deadly force would have been used," Pare told The Associated Press. "And she's lucky to be in a cell as opposed to the morgue."

The quote above is a Massachusetts State Police Officer publicly threatening to murder an MIT student who accidentally showed up at the airport wearing an electronic art project. She has, yet again, been charged with carrying out a hoax. Remember kids, anytime a Massachusetts police officer is confused, its your fault for confusing them, and not theirs for being fucking stupid and paranoid, and you are likely to go to prison or worse if it happens.

Why does Boston hate LEDs?

I can't wait until the next season of Boston Legal ... being all leftist and ACLU loving, I am sure they will go ape shit over incidents like this. New season starts in 4 days on the 25th, it will probably take 2 to 4 weeks before this topic filters through the writers and lawyers and gets filmed and edited (assuming they haven't written a pseudo mooninite incident of their own to portray on the tv show).

Decius wrote:

She's extremely lucky she followed the instructions or deadly force would have been used," Pare told The Associated Press. "And she's lucky to be in a cell as opposed to the morgue."

The quote above is a Massachusetts State Police Officer publicly threatening to murder an MIT student who accidentally showed up at the airport wearing an electronic art project. She has, yet again, been charged with carrying out a hoax. Remember kids, anytime a Massachusetts police officer is confused, its your fault for confusing them, and not theirs for being fucking stupid and paranoid, and you are likely to go to prison or worse if it happens.

That looks like a hoax to me. In any event, artists are supposed to have good taste. That is not good taste, it isn't even provocative, so maybe it can't possibly be art.

skullaria wrote:
That looks like a hoax to me. In any event, artists are supposed to have good taste. That is not good taste, it isn't even provocative, so maybe it can't possibly be art.

People in EE classes use those boards their labs. She is wearing her major on her chest.

Decius wrote:

skullaria wrote:
That looks like a hoax to me. In any event, artists are supposed to have good taste. That is not good taste, it isn't even provocative, so maybe it can't possibly be art.

People in EE classes use those boards their labs. She is wearing her major on her chest.

The very first EE class Nashville Tech gives requires you buy one of the things. ...and they're entirely too expensive to blow up.