Re: The Clock

1

Via LGM, Richard Dawkins is an Ahmed truther.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 8:16 AM
horizontal rule
2

I suppose this is a redundant post. It just seemed so ridiculous.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 8:20 AM
horizontal rule
3

If there's one thing I've learned from Richard Dawkins, it's that things that seem like the outcome of a series of semi-random events must have an intelligent designer masterminding them.


Posted by: snarkout | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 8:20 AM
horizontal rule
4

Heh.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 8:29 AM
horizontal rule
5

What's confusing to me about this is that I thought I remembered "Clockmed"* explaining it as basically "it wasn't a complicated or interesting thing like the stuff I really like making I just put it together out of parts I already had the night before to show my teacher that I was doing that kind of stuff".


*No seriously. They're really doing that.


Posted by: MHPH | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 8:35 AM
horizontal rule
6

Are there pictures of the clock showing the display in place? Ten seconds on Google images didn't show any.

Also, I thought he just built a clock out of scavenged parts, not invented a new way of timekeeping.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 9:50 AM
horizontal rule
7

Huh. I figured he built the thing from a maker kit. If he's actually taking apart and re-assembling old clock radios, that show some legit initiative. I never got much past the "taking it apart" stage.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 9:59 AM
horizontal rule
8

If y'all can stand it, you should go read the comments on this story over at Rod Dreher's blog and Red State. Apparently this whole deal is a conspiracy dreamed up by Clockmed's father and Nobama to draw attention away from the GOP debates.

Also, to make good MURICANS less like to take TERRISM by MUSLIMS seriously in the future.

They are 110% serious with this theory, at least so far as I can tell.


Posted by: delagar | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 10:02 AM
horizontal rule
9

8 I understood what Rove (or whoever) was saying about the reality based community -- that they could change the facts faster than old style thinkers could analyze them, but this is the dark side of it. They're frantic to win a spin cycle, come what may when all the facts end up on the table. And the reality they want to change is how their tribe perceives this incident -- which, as has been proven time and time again, they can do. For a while, anyway.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 10:14 AM
horizontal rule
10

I never got much past the "taking it apart" stage.

For years I had a clock radio that I really liked and when the alarm broke so that it would only go off at "12:00" I started resetting it every night so that it would show "12:00" at whatever time I needed to wake up. It occurred to me to get a new one, which I eventually did, but not to take it apart and try to fix it.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 10:17 AM
horizontal rule
11

10 That sounds overly complicated and the kind of thing I'd be likely to mess up and miss my wake-up time


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 10:20 AM
horizontal rule
12

I used to use free soldering iron to pull apart old radios and such. Never built anything. Probably got some toxic fumes inhaled. I didn't break the tube when I disassembled a tv.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 10:29 AM
horizontal rule
13

9- What's this "for a while"? This will be yet another episode that is inscribed in the true conservative canon and coded language, and years from now when someone gets attention after being mistreated blog commenters will say he was just pulling a Clockmed and everyone will nod along in agreement.


Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 10:39 AM
horizontal rule
14

1: Dawkins and apparently Sarah Palin as well.

It's weird. It's like people saw that the school administrators made fools of themselves over this and were jealous.


Posted by: AcademicLurker | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 11:07 AM
horizontal rule
15

What is this "Clockmed"?


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 11:20 AM
horizontal rule
16

The evil devil* on my shoulder is secretly hoping for an Ahmed backlash/truther reveal just so that we can have a 2 day pause in the social media sanctimony. I was trying to think of a more perfectly designed touchstone for liberal SWPL outrage and it's pretty hard -- ignorant hysterical rubes in Texas suburb, check, oppressed wannabe youthful doer of "tech", check, tie in to Obama, check, tie in to ignorant schoolteachers, check. It's just tied up in a package with a bow on it. Maybe if Ahmed had also been a girl and told that it had to be a bomb because "girls can't code."

*yes obviously the angel on the other shoulder has the better argument, in reality the school acted ridiculously, Ahmed serms like a nice kid who deserved none of this BUT STILL.


Posted by: Roberto Tigre | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 11:22 AM
horizontal rule
17

15: A portmanteau.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 11:26 AM
horizontal rule
18

Clockmed originally built the clock to time Justine Sacco's flight. You have no idea how deep this goes.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 11:28 AM
horizontal rule
19

I was trying to think of a more perfectly designed touchstone for liberal SWPL outrage and it's pretty hard

It is one of the things I dislike about the socializing of media -- more and more of what I encounter starts to resemble impact litigation. But that's probably an improvement over the old-school approach of, "if it bleeds it leads."


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 11:29 AM
horizontal rule
20

16: Are you insane? Ahmed gave us a brief respite from hearing about Kim Davis. My Facebook is already back to "... did his job" jokes.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 11:35 AM
horizontal rule
21

I think a large proportion of the people I follow on twitter who tweeted about clockgate* aren't actually white.

Honestly, I don't understand why Obama felt the need to comment on it. Not everything needs to get dragged through national-level politics.

*Has the gate suffix finally died? Please?


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 11:36 AM
horizontal rule
22

Everyone would be happier with a more carefully curated social media experience. Every now and then I read what random people are saying about the hashtag of the moment, and even the people on my side sound like morons. The top tier of Twitter is like a great group blog, and the rest of it is like every other comment section.

Comment sections, by the way, are going away at a lot of publications, and I notice that the iOS ad-block plugin Peace (since pulled by its maker) has the option to keep you from seeing comments.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 11:41 AM
horizontal rule
23

21.1 Would you prefer "clockghazi"?


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 11:41 AM
horizontal rule
24

23 s/b 23.last


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 11:45 AM
horizontal rule
25

9: Yeah, it looks like Rove (or whoever) was right about their ability to change the facts, but only for a select group of people, and they can only "change the facts" for those people because those people don't have to interact with the facts in any way.

Rover (or whoever) created a fact: saddam hussein had weapons of mass destruction. This fact endures to this day, but only among people who don't have to deal with the middle east.


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 11:45 AM
horizontal rule
26

24 s/b (23 s/b 21.last)


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 11:53 AM
horizontal rule
27

D'oh


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 11:57 AM
horizontal rule
28

Why the hell were they Mohammeds living in Irvine, TX in the first place? They need to move up here where there's a decent-sized Somali community with some social clout.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 12:09 PM
horizontal rule
29

They're not Somalian.


Posted by: snarkout | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 12:13 PM
horizontal rule
30

And it's not Irvine, TX.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 12:19 PM
horizontal rule
31

And they are zombies.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 12:21 PM
horizontal rule
32

16,19: I'm inclined to put this in a slightly different category than "social media hissy fit of the week", because school administrators being authoritarian in mind bendingly stupid ways and then getting mocked nationally for it is a venerable tradition.

In the pre-web days stories similar to this one would occasionally show up on the nightly news, back when anyone watched the nightly news. So while this was spread via social media, I don't think of it as a social media phenomenon in the same way that, say, the Justine Sacco thing was.

Speaking of which, 18 made me laugh.


Posted by: AcademicLurker | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 12:42 PM
horizontal rule
33

Well if he baited these gross racists into showing themselves to be gross racists, then they can't really be gross racists after all. Three cheers for America!

I'd actually kind of like to think that that's what he did; if that's the case, he's got scary social engineering skills for a 14-year old.


Posted by: Trivers | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 2:10 PM
horizontal rule
34

You know how it is with the most clever science projects. Dad did all the work.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 2:18 PM
horizontal rule
35

Comment sections, by the way, are going away at a lot of publications

I'm okay with this. They are mostly a repository of the most filthiest hatred.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 2:24 PM
horizontal rule
36

I mean, not mostly, but that's what ends up being the salient part of them.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 2:24 PM
horizontal rule
37

Other than the racism, the thing that surprised me most about local media comment sections was the hatred of people who ride bikes.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 2:28 PM
horizontal rule
38

I guess I wasn't surprised at racism as much as at the willingness to express it in public while using a Facebook id.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 2:30 PM
horizontal rule
39

For newspapers and other publications that refuse to moderate comments for legal/cost reasons, I agree with 35. There's no value to those comment sections and hasn't been for a long time, except as destinations for the dregs of humanity to congregate.


Posted by: AcademicLurker | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 2:38 PM
horizontal rule
40

38 - I actually changed my Facebook name away from my real one (I have a pretty uncommon name) after feeling more tempted than usual to call someone a "fucking racist" in a comment thread where conservatives were suddenly all worried about mental health care in this country now that they're afraid they're going to lose their guns. I didn't, but I realized that I could at least make it hard to track down my employer and let him know about all of my opinions.


Posted by: Trivers | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 2:43 PM
horizontal rule
41

I could probably make the much more successful guy who shares my name and city worry about that sort of thing.


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 2:52 PM
horizontal rule
42

I smell an opportunity for extortion!


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 2:54 PM
horizontal rule
43

Stupid generic tablet. 41 was me.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 2:56 PM
horizontal rule
44

According to Wikipedia, extortion is a crime.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 2:59 PM
horizontal rule
45

Someone I know on FB spent one day making an ass of himself freaking out about Ahmed's clock AND THE POLICE HAVE TO TAKE ALL THREATS SERIOUSLY and then the next day deleted all his comments and changed his name on FB to be unsearchable. I'm thinking drinking problem?


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 4:07 PM
horizontal rule
46

29, 30: Really? I can't be bothered to remember the name of every shitheel Southron exurb. I could have sworn I read one report that identified them as Somalis. But after the first day, I haven't really been following the story too closely, so perhaps that was inaccurate reportage that got fixed later or something.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 4:20 PM
horizontal rule
47

Sudan? Somalia? Who can say?!


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 4:30 PM
horizontal rule
48

Ah, I see they are actually Sudanese. Perhaps there was some confusion given the proximity of the countries (after all -- it's Africa, right?) or something like that.

Comments sections on Black Lives Matter protests are also great for exposing racists.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 4:31 PM
horizontal rule
49

45.last: I was thinking Arby's, but why not?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 5:29 PM
horizontal rule
50

45. Wow. Shame, or just didn't want horrible arguments following him?


Posted by: md 20/400 | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 6:19 PM
horizontal rule
51

You;d be surprised it's all different countries over there.


Posted by: Ronald Reagan | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 6:37 PM
horizontal rule
52

34

I've been that student and I've seen those students and I can say it's usually true. High school students are just not really capable of designing rigorous original research projects. Fuck, most adult college graduates are incapable of it. Not to say that those kids don't contribute meaningfully to the projects (as I'd like to believe is true of me and others). So every time my Facebook feed has one of those "16-year-old invents new whatever", I have to quash the urge to say, "yes, of course you did"

But the truth is that doing anything vaguely original (like Ahmed did) is worth noting and encouraging, even if it's not going to fucking cure cancer. Science, despite our mythmaking, is mostly incremental.


Posted by: F | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 7:59 PM
horizontal rule
53

I did cure cancer, but nobody believed me. Then I lost my notes.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-20-15 8:17 PM
horizontal rule
54

Other than the racism, the thing that surprised me most about local media comment sections was the hatred of people who ride bikes.

The racism surprised you? You can't read the comments in the fucking Guardian for the racism! It's just a fact of life as far as I can see.

I'm not surprised about the anti-cyclist thing. Many drivers do seriously hate cyclists. As a pedestrian I too have no great love for them, because a similar proportion of cyclists behave towards me as drivers to them. If there were any more vulnerable way of getting around the streets than walking, I'm convinced that pedestrians would seek out a way of making life hell for people who chose it.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 09-21-15 2:16 AM
horizontal rule
55

The anti-Ahmed response makes me want to jab my eyes out. Some part of my brain recognizes it's pure tribalism completely disconnected from any facts, but another part of my brain can't get over how stupid it is. My kids take random shit to show the teacher all the time.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 09-21-15 3:18 AM
horizontal rule
56

If there were any more vulnerable way of getting around the streets than walking

Walking as a 2 year old. You'd be surprised how often people nearly go 'full Mr Hyde' right over him. Phone-staring, mostly, and hence oblivious to anything in their way that isn't directly in their eye line. I'm occasionally inclined to let people bump off me, which works when you are 16 stone, but that doesn't work when you are 3ft tall.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 09-21-15 3:25 AM
horizontal rule
57

Ttam, your yrarbil is in today's Register Geek's Guide to Britain.


Posted by: Alex | Link to this comment | 09-21-15 3:44 AM
horizontal rule
58

re: 57

Cool. It's a decent long article.

I was on the committee for the IT fit-out of that particular building (the Wsteon, not the BSF). Article quotes my boss,* too.

* actual practical boss, officially I report to someone higher up for entirely daft reasons of internal politics.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 09-21-15 4:04 AM
horizontal rule
59

And with that, back to your previously scheduled pigs!


Posted by: Alex | Link to this comment | 09-21-15 4:26 AM
horizontal rule
60

38: I read this as "id" as opposed to ego. the pure, facebook id.
also, 51: sterling use of the semi-colon there, really quite masterful.


Posted by: alameida | Link to this comment | 09-21-15 8:23 AM
horizontal rule
61

Consensus round the grownup end of the office is the the bae of pigs story is not actually true. But down where the teenagers play this is the glorious day when the Mail is not a fount of iniquitous lies which only a moron would believe and no one we know would ever even read OMG how could you I can't even !!???!!!!

but a fearless speaker of truth to power.


Posted by: OPINIONATED CP SCOTT | Link to this comment | 09-21-15 8:49 AM
horizontal rule
62

I thought it was in the Express?


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 09-21-15 8:51 AM
horizontal rule
63

Can I just say that I love that it's being called "The Bae of Pigs"?

I can totally believe that a bunch of completely wasted pointlessly wealthy British aristocrat college-republican types would do something like this, especially if it was part of some general hazing of new or potential members to their break-shit-and-sneer-at-plebs club. They probably did a lot worse, as well, but probably the sorts of things that would thrill the inner authoritarians of their political base and/or would seem totally normal (if pathetic) bad behavior.


Posted by: MHPH | Link to this comment | 09-21-15 8:53 AM
horizontal rule
64

I hope the denial is something along the lines of: "I was misheard. I said 'porcelain glass'."


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 09-21-15 8:57 AM
horizontal rule
65

I had to look up how "bae" could make sense in this context. I'd never heard it used that way before.


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 09-21-15 9:03 AM
horizontal rule
66

Stupid computer.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-21-15 9:04 AM
horizontal rule
67

No: it was the Mail.
We can all totally believe the story. That's why it's genius. But as opposed to the photographs of George Osborne as a young man the supposed photographs of Cameron have never been seen. The other members of the society deny he was ever a member or even that it had initiation rites -- and this is something very easily checked. The drug allegations almost certainly stand up, but "undergraduate smoked reefer" is hardly a story. The source is an anonymous MP (Boris?) and anyone who has hung out with MPs knows that they tell the most monstrous lies about each other. They will even repeat them as often as three times, with embellishments each time, which is what the Ashcroft book claims gives verisimilitude to the story.

I talked to an extremely left-wing Oxford friend about this, who said she also doubted it, although it was immensely damaging. Then she added "The only time I ever fucked a pig was when I gave a blow job to a police constable to stop him arresting me when I was 17." But she was a boy at the time.


Posted by: Nworb Werdna | Link to this comment | 09-21-15 9:06 AM
horizontal rule
68

Oh I see people so it's perfectly normal to fuck dead vegetables but an animal corpse gets involved and its a scandal.


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 09-21-15 9:22 AM
horizontal rule
69

The traditional formulation was, I think, "He could only be brought down by being caught in bed with a dead child or a live animal." So he survives this one.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 09-21-15 9:25 AM
horizontal rule
70

In America, we say "a live boy or a dead girl." We're delicate.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-21-15 9:31 AM
horizontal rule
71

"Dead girl/live boy" or you're making a joke, or I'm describing a bad first date.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 09-21-15 9:33 AM
horizontal rule
72

The canonical formulation is "make him deny being a pig fucker."


Posted by: Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 09-21-15 9:59 AM
horizontal rule
73

The love that dare not speak it's name.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-21-15 10:02 AM
horizontal rule
74

67: That's great -- so someone really is pulling the Lyndon Johnson stunt, with perfect literalism. Awesome.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-21-15 10:05 AM
horizontal rule
75

73: Speaking of which...

http://www.salon.com/2015/09/21/im_a_pedophile_but_not_a_monster/

Those individuals who have the courage to come forward and lay claim to this affliction with the understanding that they only want to use their pedo powers for good should be commended, not hated and feared.

Worst. Superpower. EVER.


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 09-21-15 10:07 AM
horizontal rule
76

I don't know. The "form a bucket of water" guy had a really shitty power.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-21-15 10:08 AM
horizontal rule
77

I think we can all agree that this confession settles the matter entirely.


Posted by: MHPH | Link to this comment | 09-21-15 10:14 AM
horizontal rule
78

You know what's a great movie? Christian Marclay's The Clock.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 09-21-15 10:40 AM
horizontal rule
79

78: He didn't invent it, he just assembled it.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 09-21-15 10:57 AM
horizontal rule
80

It just finally occurred to me that rw folks are taking the opportunity to say you didn't build that


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 09-21-15 11:07 AM
horizontal rule
81

70: that always makes me so sad, simultaneously saying that homosexuality is as bad as murder and that killing a girl is no more important than touching a boy. I much prefer 69.

Gemmunz.


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 09-21-15 2:08 PM
horizontal rule
82

Well, yes. It wasn't meant as aspirational.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 09-21-15 2:11 PM
horizontal rule
83

Apparently this is not just a Texas thing.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 09-22-15 10:52 AM
horizontal rule