What Apple giveth, Apple taketh away and what Tom Merritt and Scott Johnson think of the Texas high schooler’s controversial clock and what it means for tech education.
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Show Notes
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Hi Tom and Crew,
I listen to the podcast (a day late) on my Zune player. And sorry Scott it is not the brown one.
One thing to note about Ahmed’s clock is the size. The photo is fairly close up, but if you notice the 9 volt connector or the finger in the photo it is clear that the clock is very small.
On your show you say a few things about Ahmed and his clock that are untrue. First Ahmed did not invent a clock. He bought a digital clock, took the plastic off and put it in a pencil case. If Lumia did that to an Apple phone, we would call it Intellectual property theft. Second it did look like a bomb. The first thing a military friend of mine said we he looked at a photo of the “invention” was, “That looks like an IED.” Third you keep saying something like, “Oh I’m not saying the teacher, principal, and all those cops are racist but his religion and skin color might have something to do with it.” I think you said that about 3-5 times. Enough times to let your listeners know that you think it was racism.
It is starting to look like this was a set up to get media attention. Ahmed admits that his “invention” looked suspicious. If his science teacher told him not to show it around why did he plug it up in English class so it would start making noises? When he was asked why he brought his “invention” to school why was he evasive? If the people running the school are racist why did he send his son there after Ahmed sister was sent home for allegations of a bomb threat. Why was Eyman, the sister, heard to coach Ahmed on what to say on a phone conversation with Marc Cuban the owner of the Dallas Mavericks?
You suggested he get to host a science fair since he got mistreated for taking the inside of a digital clock out and putting it in a pencil case. Seems Ahmed and his “invention” was the bell of the ball at the Google’s science fair. I was I had thought of taking a clock and putting it in a pencil box so more people paid attention to me instead of that “stupid” girl. I mean all she did is invent an easier way to detect Ebola! She didn’t even rip-off someone else’s invention to do it.
It seems to me that you owe all those people you tried hard not to call racist, while kinda calling them racist, an apology. It would be good of you to do it on your next podcast of DTNS.
Charles W. Caine
Tom, I thought you and your team did a good job of NOT just calling this racist and actually exploring the issue in depth. I see nothing that you need to apologize for. Certainly the times we live in play into why this story got so out of hand, but it would be irresponsible journalism to not at least consider that race/religion played a part in that, and I appreciated that you did actually dive into some of the tech of what the clock looked like compared to other homemade (or if you prefer this commenter’s point of view home-re-engineered) tech.