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The police detained him until they could investigate the device and question him about his intentions, then released him. Sounds like a rough afternoon, but hardly a ruined life. He's been released and he's exonerated.

Hopefully some will learn that reasonable and probable cause needs to have some basis in certain priori, and that opportunity cost and the boy who cries wolf are really and very harmful issue.

I put the security of a school full of other kids above the 'opportunity cost' of being questioned by police. I'm guessing many other people would as well - especially the parents of the other kids at the school.

understand that P(massacre | kids = 14 years old in the US) is some number that probably is smaller than IEEE floating point error, then everyone will be better off for that.

Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Just because it doesn't happen in the US often, doesn't mean it won't. 14 years old are involved in violence all over the world, especially in bombing incidents.

For the purpose of being fully informed, and because you won't see this photo shown much, here is the homemade clock that Ahmed brought to school. [1] http://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/AP_250782557...

Regardless of what someone looks like or what their name is, if you see them at a school with a device like this and it's beeping, I think it's reasonable to call the police. Allow them to come and have someone with expertise ensure that it isn't a bomb and determine the student's intention. Hopefully the police that arrive do their job well - with diligence, compassion, professionalism, and without animosity or bias.

Police were called, he was detained and questioned, and then released without charges [2]. It's a tragedy that we see bombings and shootings in schools - but we do see them, and far too often. These are the times we live in. So how should this have been handled?

Hopefully Ahmed doesn't lose any passion for science or electronics because of this afternoon, but I think if people handle the situation with rational thought rather than instigation, then he will have a much better chance at that.

1. http://www.wired.com/2015/09/heres-bomb-clock-got-ahmed-moha... 2. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/09/16...

Now you seem to be arguing about the integrity of the entire fields of psychology and sociology?

Yes, I am. Because opinions change, scientific or otherwise. Recently opinions changed from calling homosexual marriage an absurdity to a civil right. They also changed from saying that a parent should teach their child about what it means to be male or female into saying that a child can choose his own gender.

What "plenty more people" do you have in mind? ... tell me how those cases aren't covered by my discussion of consent and we might get somewhere.

Polygamy/Polyandry:

Three consenting adults all love each other and are currently being denied the right to be married. Why should they be deprived of this "basic civil right"?

And if a person loves 20 other people and wants to marry them, then why should they be deprived? Because you don't personally feel that way? Because it's too much paperwork?

Pedophillia:

We are now told that young children have enough understanding and mental faculty to decide that they should be assigned to a different gender and that they should have the ability to control their own sexuality by obtaining birth control with only their individual consent (not their parent's).

If we have come to say that a child can consent and be in control of their own sexuality, then how can we say who they are allowed to have sex with or marry? And by what standard?

If a child is convinced that they are in a mutually consensual, loving relationship with an adult, what right do we have to violate that child's consent?

Zoophillia:

PETA has already shamefully attempted to exploit the pain and persecution of Black Americans (just as the homosexual movement has done) in order to try and say that animal freedom and rights are equivalent to human rights.[1] If animals can feel and think and be happy and give signs of cooperation and acceptance, then who are we to deny their freedom? If an animal wants to marry a human, then how can we deny the two individuals this basic right? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PZBV8O5pfI

And feel free to add on any other combination that an individual decides is their civil right. Because as long as it doesn't harm anyone else, who are we to stand in the way of love? Right?

I am not deciding that a child can't consent, I am merely describing social issues that are studied by people who know more than I do.

So the people "who know more than you do" get to decide if a child can consent to have sex with an adult? And what if they change their mind, does that then make it acceptable and healthy?

My point is that when we say that there is no objective standard of right and wrong then we don't get to arbitrarily stop the sexual "civil rights" train after we get what we individually want or what we find acceptable.

There are plenty more people who have not yet been granted the freedom to express their desires by marrying the individual(s) they "love". And who are you to say that their desires aren't valid and healthy? And by what standard?

I've asked some "better" questions above. Feel free to answer them.

You're right, it's not a slippery slope. It's a gate we've opened and said that whatever your sexual compulsion is, no one else has a right to tell you that it's wrong. That is a very dangerous gate to open and you don't get to close it after gay "marriage" is approved - others will want the freedom as well.

It's not a red herring because you already have people on HN, and I'm sure many many other places, asking when polygamy will get to share in the same "civil rights".

And to play devil's advocate (and that language is intentional) who are you to say that a child or an animal can't consent to a sexual relationship or marriage with another child or an adult? How closed-minded of you.

We are already giving children under 18 the right to access birth control (without their parent's consent) and the freedom to decide that they are not the gender that they were "assigned" - so why can't they decide who to "love"? And who are you to say an animal doesn't have the same rights, feelings, and ability to give consent as a human? I think PETA and many others would actively disagree.

If you pay attention, I haven't mentioned religion. What I've mentioned is the reasoning and appeal you gave for allowing what is "natural". Who decides what is "natural" and acceptable for human beings? The animal kingdom? You personally? These are not troll questions, these are important questions and it matters gravely how we answer them.

Should we legalize and support through marriage all naturally occurring sexual desires and acts?

I think that questions almost answers itself, but you never know after a ruling like this.

Civil disobedience: the refusal to comply with certain laws or to pay taxes and fines, as a peaceful form of political protest.

Not sure if I'm misreading your step 2 description for the first strategy, but one of the great things about using this type of mouseover region is that each polygon is already tied to a single point - so there's no need to do any query for contained points on mouseover. The lookup time for contained points is constant.

This does look like where they are generating the mouseover/highlight regions for the multi-line graphs. And the highlight regions for the scatterplot are being done here https://github.com/mozilla/metrics-graphics/blob/master/js/m...

For both they are using D3's built-in voronoi function which will generate the appropriate interaction regions when given a list of points. These polygonal regions surround the given points and fill the graph, acting as large unmissable mouseover targets instead of the tiny points. It's really useful. https://github.com/mbostock/d3/wiki/Voronoi-Geom

More on voronoi tessalation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voronoi_diagram

I can see how 'meant to work' would sound strange, especially since we normally talk about sex as something that should be based solely on our individual physical urges - whatever they may be.

I would say that marriage and sex get their value and purpose from God. That he created man and woman to come together in marriage and have sex. That he made sex pleasurable, and good, and that one of the benefits of sex is often that children are produced.

I think we must either get our understanding of sex and marriage from a source outside ourselves (the transcendent God) or we just make things up to suit our individual drives - and the second option opens us up as individuals, and as a society, to a lot of harm.

I understand this is not a popular viewpoint, especially on HN, but I think it's valuable to offer some pushback in a civil way every now and then.

Yeah, I would argue that yielding to the impulse to 'procreate constantly' outside of marriage would be equally as harmful as following any other sexual desires (homosexuality, polygamy, pedophilia, etc) that doesn't line up with how sex and marriage are meant to work - that is one man marrying one woman and them having sex.

Once we get to the point of calling basic human anatomy 'baseless', we've definitely gone off the deep end as a society. This is not about infertility due to medical conditions or age and it's not about tradition - it's about the fact that a man and a woman having sex is the way that human beings are produced. Everything else is an attempt to ignore reality to suit our our personal desires.

Comparing the horrendous and brutal treatment of African Americans during slavery and the civil rights struggle to someone peaceably disagreeing with a person's lifestyle or voting for a proposition is nowhere close to a fitting comparison and is downright disrespectful of the suffering of black people.

It is plastered everywhere as a superficial emotional argument but it is logically baseless and, worse, it is hijacking the compassion people rightfully have for the suffering of black people in order to push a particular agenda. It's shameful.

Of course, I expect to be downvoted because I know that in our current society all opinions and preferences should be held in the highest regard, except those you disagree with and especially those that appeal to an objective morality.

I think we've probably reached the limit of productive conversation on the topic. You seem intent on clinging to a contradiction that doesn't exist in the text. But it was good to discuss it.

Yeah, the GCHQ thing is jacked up but not surprising. The connectedness and anonymity of the digital world and its increasing integration into our lives makes for some pretty scary scenarios.

You're correct, the law has not passed away. The requirements of it have been fully met (fulfilled) by Christ. By submitting our lives to Christ, his perfect fulfillment of God's law is credited to us, thereby freeing us from the penalty of the law.

This is obviously off topic from the original post, but hopefully it's a valuable conversation. It's actually a really important point that is reiterated throughout the New Testament explicitly and foreshadowed throughout the entire Old Testament.

This is a short helpful explanation http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/how-christ-fulfilled-and...

I also 'omitted' the rest of the bible. I quoted the whole verse of Matthew 5:17. I don't see any issue with Matthew 5:18 in regards to my statement.

To be more accurate, Jesus' ministry and teaching was a fulfillment of the law (the previous commandments) and the Old Testament, not a replacement. The law is still a valuable resource for Christians in understanding the character and holiness of God, among other things.

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." Jesus speaking in Matthew 5:17

Jesus affirmed the law and called people further into true righteousness, which can never come from following rules, but requires a transformation of the heart that only God can accomplish. That is what He is talking about in the sermon on the mount (Matthew 5).

As a software engineer, when I see an algorithm that transforms and processes data using instructions and symbols, I reasonably assume that someone created that algorithm.

When I'm told the algorithm is really just a random collection of instructions, assembled through an unguided process, that just happens to be work...that strains belief. But even accepting that, I'm still left with instructions, language, symbols, and interpretation. And these can only be produced by intelligence.

Something as simple as the characters we use to write code means nothing unless meaning is ascribed to them, and meaning can't arise from a strictly meaningless process (evolution, chemical interactions, etc). I think the simpler, and truer explanation for why these systems appear engineered, is because they are.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/04/secret-f...

IE developer toolbar really helps with JavaScript and CSS debugging. It believe it is built into IE 8. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=...