Random 03 Feb 2007 01:47 pm
Throwies
MAKE Magazine published, almost a year ago, one article on how to make “throwies”, small devices consisting of a battery, a LED and a magnet and intended to be “released into the world” as a sort of “tech grafitti”.
I couldn’t help but think of them when I read about the recent “incidents” in Boston. I honestly can’t think of a better punch line to the whole “terrorism” paranoia that has affected US officials (and, to a not-much-smaller extent, Australian ones). In fact, I was listening to the Penn Jillette radio show on the subject and a listener actually called in to talk about these devices.
The best comment in the whole story was made by Penn Jillette, by the way, referring to this passage in the news report:
“The appearance of this device and its location are crucial,” [Assistant Attorney General John] Grossman said. “This device looks like a bomb.”
Some in the gallery snickered.
According to Jillette, the fact that some people snickered is a disgrace to the United States. What the report should have said was “everyone in the gallery laughed loudly; a few people wet their pants”. Come on! Does this look like a bomb? If you wanted to hide a bomb somewhere, would you cover it in bright LEDs? And if you were tasked with protecting a city, should you be proud of that fact that it took you three weeks to notice the “suspicious” devices?
As someone else said, it’s way too easy to be a terrorist nowadays; all you need to do is to put a blinking light somewhere.
