Is that a telescope or are you a terrorist?

Science
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http://www.grandforksherald.com/news/crime-and-courts/3825602-fargo-police-apologetic-after-mistaking-students-telescope-gun

This story made me realize just how uncommon amatuer sciences have become.

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It’s more a story of how over reactive and out of control the police are

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I am just happy to see you


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Yes, it is sad. To bad “The Amateur Scientist” isn’t required reading in primary school. Making your own linear accelerator or doing genetic experiments with (as I recall) fruit flies? Yup, got that!

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I’m inclined to agree. "Police say the two were never in any danger and that it was a situation of “better safe than sorry.”’

Never in any danger with someone pointing a gun at you, right up until the officer pulls the trigger just to be “safe rather than sorry”. Sounds like these yahoos need to lose badges.

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A few years ago, I went to a wooded lot in Allen to shoot some photos, but I accidentally dropped my house keys in a snow bank. I couldn’t find them, so I went home, got my metal detector, and returned. As I sat in my car getting my stuff together, a police patrol car came over to me. I hopped out and asked how he was doing. The officer said he was fine, but he wondered why I had a rifle. Someone had seen me walking across the field, probably with my camera tripod, and reported that I had a rifle. I looked the officer in the eye and very seriously stated, “I do not have a gun.” The officer and I realized what had happened and he left without incident. I’ve often thought that I was glad the officer wasn’t startled when I hopped out of my car.

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Did you read the same article as the rest of us, or do you have better information/facts not apparent in the one posted at top of thread?

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Folks, I posted this because of the concern that an educated adult couldn’t recognize a telescope.

We all have opinions, and some of us very strong ones, about the police. Lets not let this thread try to hash those out. It really isn’t appropriate to the forum.

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I too miss the Amateur Scientist column. I think it was a wonderful symptom of the value that our society once held what has become call STEM. In my opinion, the excessive concern over safety is what has led to the lack of familiarity with the basic physical aspects of science and technology. Chemistry sets that contain materials you can practically eat. Schools without actual laboratory work with actual (as opposed to simulated) experiments.

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A lot of forces are at work to bring the results you see. One of the most significant is that the US in general is losing its craftsmen. I saw this lamented decades ago, when an article noted that the recent Statue of Liberty restoration had looked for US companies to do the work, but there aren’t any. They had to call a foreign company to do the restoration, because the US simply doesn’t have enough skilled craftsmen.

The lack of craftsmen is one reason that Dallas Makerspace is such a curiosity. What we represent here is a dying way of life, possibly being re-born for the 21st Century.

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Here here! (I think that’s how you say it) As @Opcode points out, “doers” are a dying breed. We need to reverse this trend!

I say we need more “Competent People”, as defined here:

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Pedantic Man to the rescue!
It’s actually short for “hear him, hear him”, so it’s “hear, hear”.

oh, and I agree we need more competent people.
Hear, hear!

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Specialization is for insects.

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http://images.sodahead.com/polls/004177965/2015998805_5348584478_Grammar_Police_by_Rysis_xlarge_xlarge.jpeg

On this internet thing we create our own grammar rules. LOL ROTFL ,


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Hey, I was just helping Zach have no future need for the parenthetical doubt clause.

If he’d left that out, I’d have let it go.
:smiley:

On another note, this thing confuses me about when it puts the person’s avatar up in the right corner of my post as a “reply to” indicator
 I thought if I clicked “reply” at the bottom of the post by, say, wandrson, it would put his up there, but this one, for example, did not do that

:confused:

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It does seem random.

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I think in that case the software may not have because you included a quote from another’s post. Of course, you may not be ‘special’ enough for the software to do that for you, ie, its a bug

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Thank you, kind sir. :slight_smile:

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I feel that if police were issued binoculars as standard equipment, it would go a long way to fix problems like this.