Even M.I.T. has morons!
 

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_r...irport_wi.html

MIT student arrested at Logan airport with fake bomb

DAILY NEWS STAFF

Friday, September 21st 2007, 10:57 AM

A sophomore at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was surrounded by troopers carrying submachine guns and arrested after showing up at Boston's Logan Airport wearing a phony bomb, made partly from Play-Doh, strapped to her chest.

"She's extremely lucky she followed the instructions or deadly force would have been used," State Police Maj. Scott Pare told a reporter. "And she's lucky to be in a cell as opposed to the morgue."

Star Simpson, a nineteen-year-old from Hawaii, cobbled together a computer circuit board, wires, and the Play-Doh into a contraption that she wore in plain view over a black hooded sweatshirt, Pare said.

"In this day and age, the threat continues to be there," he said. "She certainly jeopardized her own safety by bringing this to the airport, as well as the safety of everybody around her."

Simpson was allegedly at the airport to pick someone up. No motive for the fake bomb has been determined.

Simpson was arrested around 8 a.m. at Logan International Airport's Terminal C, home to United Airlines and JetBlue, and was charged with disturbing the peace and possessing a hoax device. She was scheduled to be arraigned later today.

What the FUCK??
Dumbest shit I've heard today.

It seems that the name Simpson is synonymous with stupid.

Why are you guys being so harsh?

It's not like it was a real bomb. If you can't wear a harmless pretend bomb vest to the airport to pick up a friend, then the terrorists have won.

I'm thinking she might be mentally ill.

Here's her photo and a photo of the device...

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/cit...p1=MEWell_Pos3


http://www.boston.com/news/globe/cit...for_andrew.jpg

Why was she in the terminal if she was just picking up? At Philly you're not even allowed to stop the car at this point...

she looks like 9th Engineer's sister

Yep, she is an idiot.

My post above was sarcastic, and I thought she was stupid or mentally ill too.

But seeing the picture, it looks like an LED throwie. :ShakesHead: She's probably a science nerd who was wearing her latest contraption.

I can see how the cops thought it was suspicious, but upon closer examination, that doesn't look like a bomb to me. They realize now it's not a bomb either.

Still, after the whole LED throwie incident in Boston, you would think that she would show better judgment. The cops did their jobs, but I hope the DA handles this one better than the last one.

Yeah. Desn't look like a bomb at all.

And this part:
wasn't even true. The Play-Doh was not part of it.

I don't think the cops did anything wrong- she should have snswered immediately when a cop asked her what it was- but charging her with a "hoax device" is just as silly as when they did it to the Mooninite guys.

How can something that doesn't actually look like a bomb, and was never described by the "hoaxer" as a bomb, be a bomb hoax?

what is an LED throwie? asked the non-technically astute cellarite

It's a homemade "Lite Brite" ...This one was of a star. Her name is Star.

Well, it's a homemade glowing LED thing that has batteries and magnets and you can toss it up against signs, bridges, etc and it will have pretty blinky lights for a few weeks. Kind of like a graffiti guy with a can of spray paint, but without the permanent damage. Since they are homemade, they come in all shapes and sizes.

Those guys in Boston last time had a more advanced one to promote that TV show. And there are some people out there who are experimenting with putting LEDs in their clothes as a design. There's a whole culture of people who make homemade LED devices that blink and look cool and do stuff. She's probably like that, but showed poor judgment wearing one into a high security area.

Technically, a "throwie" is an LED taped to a watch battery and a rare-earth magnet and thrown up to some high metal surface. Make a bunch of them and you can put a nifty little starfield.

These things that freak out Boston cops are more lite-brites than throwies.

[edit] third...

True.

Since when does MIT admit kids named Star?

She's a minority female, they'll take all they can get. [/tasteless]

Who cares what her name is? MIT accepts kids who strap protoboards to their chests as a fashion statement!

I always find it rather sad when I hear of young people making stupid mistakes which will impact them the rest of their lives.

(Without the permanent damage except for, that is, the environmental impact of the litter of a dead battery and rare-earth magnet.)

What a MAROON!!!

What's with the "Burning Man" backdrop?

Her sweater.

Ohhhhhh

Yep, an ignoranamous!

According to this, all the electronics were on the inside of the shirt, not the outside. So all that was visible was the lit-up star showing through the fabric. That makes much more sense, and is similar to those goofy lit-up sweaters that people wear on Christmas.

Just looking at the pic, that looks like the outside. Some people just like to wear odd things. 'Ol Star there does not look to be on the conforming side of life.

I had a very artsy friend in high school who would hot glue all kinds of things to pins and wear them. One day she wore the TV remote control as a pin. Her brother skipped school since he was "sick." He was not happy that he didn't have the remote to channel surf on his day off.

someday soon, everyone will have to go thru the airport naked

I can't believe they are charging her with the hoax bomb charge.

Prosecutor Wayne Margolis should lose his job over this. It doesn't look like a bomb, she never said it was a bomb. There is no hoax. He has no case. He's abusing his authority.

She apparently has won school prizes for chemistry and leadership and has received a Congressional citation for her work in robotics.

She's a real threat.:rolleyes:

I predict the charges will be fully dropped after the press cycle moves on to something else.

I agree, and don't know where my link got its information, but I just thought it would make more sense. It's possible that they put the protoboard on the outside for the press photos, so it looked scarier. But I don't know whether that's what happened.

[edit]
I found a photo that is clearer, and it doesn't look as if the board was on the inside afer all. The attachments at the corners don't look tampered with to me.

That is ridiculous, it looks nothing like it could be a bomb.
Perhaps another possessed, ebil, light-brite... gotta' watch out for those and spend as much on them as possible, true.

Good grief. Now creativity and having fun are a threat to national security.

Where's the fucking Play Doh?

Don't wear your Gumby pin on your next flight, you'll get arrested!

She had the Play Doh in her hand, it wasn't attached to the blinky at all.

At what point do people both here and in Boston gain common sense. If it has flashing lights, then it is not a bomb. Obviously. Only Hollywood bombs have flashing lights or a timer display.

What will you do when organic shirts arrive in airports with LEDs glowing inside the threads? Give your friend a sweatshirt. Then use the remote control to write "Kick Me" on his back. Will you freak out and scream "bomb" when that prank is executed? Yes, such fabrics have already been demonstrated even in the IEEE Spectrum. Clearly we have published bomb making skills since all bombs have flashing lights.

Next time you see a flashing light bulb, yell “bomb”. Next time you see a car with emergency flashers on, then yell “bomb”. That is what they did in Boston. Next time a the street light starts flashing, yell “bomb”.

So what store will flashing bomb sweatshirts be sold in? Will ‘The Gap’ be renamed ‘The Blast Shop’? If it has flashing lights, then it must be a bomb? More likely scenarios. If it is an American Tourister, then it must be a nuclear weapon. Or he must be hiding a toothpaste tube bomb in his Afro? Point an automatic weapon at him! Can you believe how wacky our extremists have us seeing enemies everywhere?

It was flashing lights. Therefore it is the least likely item, anywhere in town, to be a bomb. A more likely bomb would be the airport bar cash register. Why? It looks too normal. A bartender looks too normal. That's what a dangerous bomb and terrorist look like. Get a grip people. The only moron saw flashing lights and then just knew it must be a bomb.

Oh no! That parked car has a blue flashing light on its dashboard! It must be a bomb!

What does a homemade bomb look like?

It was suspicious looking, and the police should have checked it out.

But, it was not a bomb. Less than one minute of looking at it clearly show that it's not a bomb. She never said it was a bomb. The prosecutor is a dufus.

Does anyone know why she wore this in the first place and how much national media attention did this receive?

It was the perfect psychology experiment. Demonstrated is how people fear the unusual rather than what a real bomb looks like - an American Tourister suitcase.

BTW, I have numerous of those white plastic breadboards. One of my first circuits for an EE class were constructed on that same breadboard well over 40 years ago. Nothing that strange about it other than the girl was wearing old technology - long predates the IBM PC.

In college, psychology students had to perform unusual public acts write a paper on public responses. One guy went shopping downtown dressed as a girl - very unacceptable back then. Don't remember what his grade was. Back then, cops did not carry automatic weapons and be told to fear everyone.

I don't know about national media, but supposedly this was a jacket that she had made a long time ago and wore frequently. The story is that she simply grabbed it on her way out the door like every day, and it never occurred to her that a blinking circuitboard might not be as funny off campus.

Her only crime was being such a geek.

In an airport, that's enough.
I know of a former Harley Davidson Dealer who lost his franchise for joking about a bomb, with some of his fellow dealers, in an airport. This was before 9-11.
They have had no sense of humor for quite some time.

A friend of mine got machine guns pulled on him at the airport for having a sheetrock knife, and he was a contrator with a badge.

I believe it... NO sense of humor.

I know, but they still keep on joining Young Republicans anyway.

That was me. I was elected Treasurer.

Hm. First I've heard of tw doing something decent, instead of the contrary.

Where's the office I go to to register surprise?

Why do you think Nixon outraged him so... betrayal is the worst.

Can't say as I saw in Watergate, even as a mid-teen, anything other than the implication that that kind of "intelligence gathering" went on routinely behind the scenes. Perhaps not all the time, but somehow the entire thing seemed done out of habit, by many if not all parties. Yes, there is evidence in G. Gordon Liddy's book to suggest it was something unusual, so there's room to argue differently -- as there so often is in politics, the softest of soft sciences.

Anti-Republican rhetoric, btw, is just so much nullity. Hardly worth the 'trons. Richard Nixon's sins (exaggerated for being a Republican President, by Democratic pressmen) were no call for a man to turn Communist.