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by stormcrowsx 3927 days ago
The ignorant portion of our society thinks bombs have flashing lights and tick thanks to Hollywood. In reality anyone wanting to do harm is not going to make their bomb noticeable.

It reminds me of the Aqua Teen bomb scare back in 2007 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_bomb_scare
3 comments
surge 3927 days ago
There was also the MIT student with an LED shirt that walked into an airport wearing it.

http://boingboing.net/2007/09/21/mit-student-arrested.html http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/06/03/mit_stu...

I'm pretty sure the apology was for a more lenient sentence.

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ryanlol 3927 days ago
Even then, for an IED to actually be of any use it needs to have an explosive compound, likely in a container of some kind.

Anyone with half a brain would understand that you can't just magically make circuitry explode. That's a whole new level of ignorance, they teach this stuff in elementary school for gods sake.

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Someone1234 3927 days ago
> Anyone with half a brain

That's the problem right there. These people have let their common sense be overtaken by their sense of fear, they're so afraid they aren't thinking.

That's why going after a 9 year old or MIT student with a t-shirt[0] makes sense, because they literally aren't thinking straight because they're so convinced there is a threat around every corner (thanks mass media!).

[0] https://boingboing.net/2007/09/21/mit-student-arrested.html

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knowaveragejoe 3927 days ago
This isn't a "whole new level" of ignorance. If you think so, then you probably don't understand how stupid a significant portion of the population is. There are people out there who think that Google, Facebook, so on, are actually on their computer. It makes complete sense that some people think a bomb looks like some caricature envisioned for the audience's benefit in a movie or TV show. Many people's entire lives revolve around motion picture entertainment of some sort.
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userbinator 3927 days ago
Unfortunately, entertainment is making people think everything can explode:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MadeOfExplodium

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yellowapple 3927 days ago
> they teach this stuff in elementary school for gods sake.

Haha. No, they don't. Not anymore at least.

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pdkl95 3927 days ago
Of course, the best part about that Aqua Teen "bomb scare" was how the guys that were charged for putting up blinking LEDs (and their lawyer) handled the press: "That's not a hair question".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2fGzmphx4U#t=44

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