Boy O Boy Are Americans Dumb!

[Rave]

That said, this guy wasn't completely normal. And if someone was going to blow up the school, it would either have been him or me. Anyway, he passed his GCSEs, and went on to do A-levels. Having received a 2 E offer from Oxford, he then went out of his way to achieve 2 E grades at A-level (which he did).

LOL, that must have taken a rare level of nerve, what did he do? Pass the coursework and then skip all the exams?

I think the 2 E offer was a thing of the past when I was doing my A-Levels, not that my teachers saw fit to put me up for Oxford anyway (rightly so in hindsight).

[alex228]

Maybe he shouted "Allahu Akbar!" when he showed the clock to the teacher

[Big Orange]

Edit, and to most wastern Europeans and east Asians, Brits look pretty stupid.

I think that's mainly down to their more common ability to speak two or more languages, amplified by the more educated mainland Europeans and East Asians being shaped by English dominating international business and media. But you can speak six languages and speak crap in every one, so don't take their smugness to heart and most reasonably bright US citizens born in the past two decades seem more world aware than they seemed to be in the 1990s and before.

[Steppenpig]

OK, ready to embarrass myself. That looks reasonably like a bomb to me. I don't really know what a bomb looks like, but I must have seen police images of them in the past, on tv or in newspapers, and of course 'movie bombs'.

It's got a timer, it beeps, it's in a briefcase. It's a bomb. What is weird, is everyone saying, that is so not a bomb, dude.

He is 14 years old. Do you think he really thought his friends and teachers would be impressed he's built a clock? A bomb, yes. That's the sort of thing teenagers think is cool. Either that, or he's retarded.

So, I think the probability is, the kid did deliberately create a hoax bomb.

A normal 14 year old would be sufficiently aware of what the reaction would be. So either he is not aware and is not very bright, or is autistic, or he is aware and is a major prankster, or is politically motivated.

I guess the odd thing is, the English teacher didn't ask someone from the science department to look at it, rather than calling the police. But maybe (now I really am just speculating) they did just call the police to show him the seriousness and stupidity of his actions.

Over to you.

[The Masked Tulip]

I have a close female friend from the USA.

She 'loves whales and dolphins' so presumably would have sufficient interest in them to know a few basic facts. Nonetheless, I managed to persuade her there is a species of mountain whale that lives in the pools left by glaciers.

Oh, and she has a PhD in Education and is a professor in a Louisiana University. Seriously.

Perhaps she was trusting you as your friend? People tend to believe the people that they trust.

[The Masked Tulip]

Why would you want to make a clock these days - are clocks even on the radar of kids who now have clocks on their smartphones? How many kids have a need for a watch or a clock when they are so used to smartphones?

Either it was a very stupid thing to do - i.e. he just is a kid who did not think things through - or he is a prankster doing a stupid prank that just got out of control.

Perhaps it is a good thing as the reaction will now scare him enough to stop him doing silly things like this and instead he will go out and start a multi-billion dollar social networking company.

[Battenberg]

Perhaps she was trusting you as your friend? People tend to believe the people that they trust.

I think it's funny TMT but then I have that warped sense of humour.

I tell my children that the word gullible isn't in the English dictionary.

[Riedquat]

Edit, and to most wastern Europeans and east Asians, Brits look pretty stupid.

Yes, most of them are a complete and utter waste of oxygen.

[dgul]

Looks like a bomb, a bomb from CSI.

Yup, I'm sure that is what a bomb looks like for the general population these days. Minus the block of white plasticine of course (or is that the white stuff in the mesh bag?). In my day a bomb looked like a analogue travel clock strapped to some red tubes, but time moves on.

Anyway, not that impressive for 14 - It doesn't look like he's created a clock, simply dismantled a bedside clock and stuck it in a small case. At 14 you should be able to build a clock on veroboard and discrete logic (or I guess program an arduino these days).

The final point is that whatever his motives he's getting closer to Darwin award than anything else - he shouldn't really be presenting mains powered stuff in that way. I'd suggest he limits his experiments to battery driven stuff until he learns how it actually works.

[i know that we all played with mains in the olden days, but mains electricity is more dangerous these days - don't believe me? Then why does it require Part-P training to rewire your house these days, whereas in the past anyone could do it? Or why are plugs pre-wired, whereas in the past you had to wire it up yourself? All because they've changed the electrons. Or something. Frankly the only reason he is still alive is because they use 110v in the US]

[MrPin]

How could it be a bomb, with nothing explosive in it, er maybe an exploding IPhone?

[Rare Bear]

Ha, I know a few people who did that. All very educational. Lucky I don't have an Arabic name. You could buy all sorts of dangerous stuff, at Boots.

Same as that. In fact I still have a scar from a burn from my first batch of gunpowder,made when I was about 9. Every boy should have Encyclopedia Brittanica,

[XswampyX]

Mesh bag? Looks like a PLO headscarf!

[Steppenpig]

How could it be a bomb, with nothing explosive in it?

That round shiny thing is a thermonuclear thingy.

[dgul]

How could it be a bomb, with nothing explosive in it, er maybe an exploding IPhone?

An expert like you might be able to see details like where the explosive is, but how can you expect the general public to have this detail information?

I think the government should release a pamphlet and deliver to every household in the country about different types of bomb, what they look like, their main components, and how you might identify weak points in the design like lack of actual explosive.

[MrPin]

An expert like you might be able to see details like where the explosive is, but how can you expect the general public to have this detail information?

I think the government should release a pamphlet and deliver to every household in the country about different types of bomb, what they look like, their main components, and how you might identify weak points in the design like lack of actual explosive.

NO! We would all be making them. I'm not actually an explosive expert from the SAS, like so many other people on the internet. I was just looking for something that might explode in the picture.

[sleepwello'nights]

Gosh, we have more dangerous electricity these days!

Thank God the Health and Safety brigade are here to safeguard us with the part P regulations

Do you think its a similar problem that ladders are more dangerous now. After all window cleaners aren't allowed to use them.

When you start to think about it gas must be far more dangerous as well, hence the Gas Safety restrictions.

[happy_renting]

I need a Tizer to steady my nerves.

[Big Orange]

I do not think Americans are generally dumber than British and Europeans, even if they have their biases and blind spots, but online the worst Americans are brash and ignorant while the worst Europeans are snide and arrogant (with the most unpleasant online Brits being a mixture of the two).

[happy_renting]

I took a taxi in Dublin once. The taxi driver told me that he had had an American passenger, and persuaded the gullible American that there really were leprechauns.

To be fair, there is no doubt an American somewhere who tells the story of the gullible Dublin taxi driver he met who actually believed in leprechauns.

[MrPin]

I do not think Americans are generally dumber than British and Europeans, even if they have their biases and blind spots, but online the worst Americans are brash and ignorant while the worst Europeans are snide and arrogant (with the most unpleasant online Brits being a mixture of the two).

Aye, well said. I visit a couple of forums, based in the USA, mainly due to my other interests. They wouldn't take our British cheeky cheesy sense of humour too well, which we have in abundance here, on this forum.

[richc]

So maybe Americans aren't that dumb after all.

Now that he's hanging out with indicted war criminals and his family have cashed in on all the notoriety (is the Qatari government going to provide the family with their own personal slave labourers as part of his "scholarship" or do they have to pay for that themselves?), I'd say it's pretty obvious that this was a politically-motivated set up from the get go.

[The Masked Tulip]

I was warned by US colleagues in an IT company in San Jose that I would be fired for drinking beer at lunch - I had to point out that root beer was indeed non-alcoholic.

[MrPin]

I was warned by US colleagues in an IT company in San Jose that I would be fired for drinking beer at lunch - I had to point out that root beer was indeed non-alcoholic.

Crikey, the Germans do it upside down. If you can't finish your lunch beer!

[long time lurking]

I don't think a 2.1 is a very big tiger. India has bigger ones.

[long time lurking]

Crikey, the Germans do it upside down. If you can't finish your lunch beer!

I found that astonishing when working there in late 90s