Make:

• How-to Tuesday: USB7 build
• SV Chronometer – a GPS based, interactive master clock
• Record your heatbeat for the neighborhood to see
• Desulfator kit
• Using a DC motor as a servo with PID control
• How to: Fix a classic American AM tabletop tube radio

Land of the free??? Home of the brave????

how about...

Land of the pathetic, home of the weak....

bread board on shirt not exactly aesthetically pleasing.

Posted by: JacqueChadall on September 21, 2008 at 12:15 PM

There's more to the story than that interview shows. Saying she was mistaken for a suicide bomber is a bit extreme. She was assessed as posing a security threat. People who don't understand electronics wouldn't understand what was on the breadboard and that it was no threat. Also at the time she was detained she was holding play-doh in her hand. She was also belligerent and uncooperative with authorities. It was like she was doing her best to be perceived as a threat so she could get all high-and-mighty when it actually happened. I don't agree at all with most of the extreme security situations and the over reactions happening, but come-on, have some common sense. Might as well walk up to the president, point at him and yell "BANG", it's going to get a negative reaction and you shouldn't be surprised when it happens.

--JacqueChadall

Actually, not even "the authorities" claimed that she was belligerent and uncooperative. Just the opposite: the state police claimed it was only because she behaved cooperatively that she didn't end up "in the morgue".

@comment #2: she's an engineer by training, not an artist. what do you expect? us engineers find the most awkward things attractive ;D

@comment #4: where's the transcript? i'd like to see some account of the happenings other than her own.

to me, the whole thing just seems weird. but at the end of the day, nobody blew up, nobody got shot, and all we get to do is marvel at another precious MIT student that will no doubt go on to stupendous things in life. kudos to star for not adding this to her resume though.

@comment #5: If you Google ["Star Simpson" morgue] you'll find the quote in many sources, with other claims made by the police at the time. One example: http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/09/21/bomb.hoax/

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