Not only that, but building a bomb isn't a completely simple affair. If you do it wrong one way, you blow yourself up. Do it wrong another way and your rampage will consist of tossing a bunch of duds. Do it wrong yet another way and the FBI catches wind of your plot and arrests you before you do anyone any harm. Compared to that, grabbing an assault weapon with a 100 round magazine and shooting folks up is easy and hard to detect before the shooting occurs.
It would be annoying if you just had to say "I don't have your phone" over and over, but I'm guessing that some people aren't going to his door in a calm and rational frame of mind. They're probably threatening him and yelling at him to give them their phones back. Even if none of them have gotten violent yet, he's got to live with the worry that, inevitably, one person will. If it was me, I'd be telling Sprint they'd better fix the problem or they'd hear from my lawyers.
For the person going to the house: You don't know if this "phone thief" (whether or not they actually have your phone) is an elderly lady who wouldn't hurt a fly, or an escaped felon who enjoys torturing people who show up at his door before killing them.
For the person at the house: You don't know if this "my phone was stolen" person is going to politely ask, believe you, and then leave or get belligerent and whip out a gun demanding to know where his *@%!# phone is.
Besides, are these people really expecting the "phone thief" to answer the door and say "Oh, yeah. I stole your phone. Here it is back again. Sorry about that."? Whether the person answering is a phone thief or not, he's going to deny it until the person leaves. It's not like the person at the door has the right to search the alleged phone thief's house looking for their phone.
School cafeteria french fries aren't sliced up potatoes that are oven roasted with seasoning to be fries. They're "potato derived extruded products" that are molded into french fry shapes and deep fried. They are then counted as one of the kids' vegetables. IIRC, there was also a bill in Congress to count pizza as a vegetable because the sauce is made from tomatoes. (Not sure if this passed or not.)
The real reason for all of this? The companies that supply food to the schools want to sell more frozen pizza and french fries. They're cheap to produce and profitable. So they lobby Congress to get them declared as vegetables so our kids can load up on their "veggies" with a healthy plate of pizza and fries. But try to serve vegetable stir fry and you'll be told there aren't enough veggies to count and you should add some fries to that plate.
I'm convinced that I could build a "Personal Instagram" via a normal WordPress installation. Take the picture with the phone, submit it to WP, and use Twitter Cards to have the image appear within any tweets. Commenting could be done by WordPress' own commenting system, perhaps with some "use your Twitter/Facebook ID" plugin" (such as Discus) and I believe there are Thumbs Up plugins as well. Additional benefit: Your photos would be hosted by you and controlled by you, not some other company.
To be fair, the only portion of that TOS quote that is objectionable is "sub-licensable." If you decide to post a photo via Instagram, they pretty much NEED you to grant them a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free license. Otherwise, you could post a photo and then sue them for distributing your copyrighted content. (You might fail, but enough lawsuits like this would be filed that would make a photo hosting service too risky to run.) The worldwide license is needed so that a user posting a photo in the USA can have his photo viewed by someone in Australia. The transferable could be problematic, but likely means that any third party service that uses Instagram's APIs can access your photos.
Again, sub-licensable is tricky. It could be similar to the "API access" of transferable or it could be a sneaky way of saying "we hereby transfer this license to Advertising Agency X who is using it in an ad campaign."
I still remember the show he ran here in America where he tried to reform a school system's cafeteria food. Things like eliminating chocolate and strawberry milk which were served because "kids won't drink milk if we don't dump a ton of sugar in it" and increasing the number of veggies in the meal (during which he was told that a serving of french fries counts as veggies). The most memorable experiment was when he got a group of kids to watch him prepare chicken nuggets as they are classically made. He ground up a chicken carcass (not the white meat.. the bones and such), added some fillers, and fried it. The kids were completely grossed out. When he asked who would eat it, though, they all raised their hands. When asked why, they said because they're hungry. So we're teaching our kids that, when you're hungry, just stuff whatever sugary and/or fried thing you can find into your mouths no matter how disgusting it is. No wonder we have an obesity problem in this country.
Your metabolism can change and it can affect how your body consumes energy. If you eat slightly less calories than your body needs to function *AND* you exercise, you can successfully offset the metabolism change and lose weight. If you stay couch-potato-esque and just skip lunch and dinner every day, though, your body will go into "famine mode" and cut back on calorie burning as much as it can. You'll lose some weight (mostly water weight) but will pack it back on and more once you start eating again. That's why starvation diets don't work and are a bad idea.
Exactly. This is why starvation diets don't work. You'll lose some weight (mostly water weight), but then when you eat again your metabolism has slowed down and your body will store the "extra" until the "famine" ends.
Someone I know wrote a blog post detailing what she has to go through having had weight loss surgery. It is *NOT* fun and definitely *NOT* the easy path. Her stomach pouch is now too small to accept enough protein so she needs to drink these nasty protein shakes every day. If she eats (or drinks) too much or the wrong kind of food (a category which can change on her stomach's whim), she'll wind up in the bathroom puking up her food. In short, she's got to be extremely careful about what she puts in her mouth and when.
Now, she happens to have lost a ton of weight (gone from around 300 to 160 if memory serves) and she does recommend it to some people depending on their condition, but too many people think "Oh, I'll just get my stomach stapled and then lose the weight easily" when this is anything but easy. (Personally, I'm sticking with diet modifications and exercise.)
But thank goodness we were able to go back in time and prevent the creation of the superhero named Grandfather Paradox. He was awful. Superman is a nice trade-off.
I agree. Every issue he defeated the bad guy the same way. Grandfather Paradox would strap a bomb to the villain and send him back in time so that, when the bomb exploded, it killed the villain's grandfather thus erasing the villain from history. His sidekick, Tachyon Lad, was annoying too.
Actually, the original copyright law was 14 years with a one-time 14 year extension. Had that stayed, we would be getting non-renewed works from 1999 and renewed works from 1985. Yes, Back to the Future would be entering Public Domain this year with the sequels following in 2017 and 2018. (It's a pretty safe assumption that they would have been renewed.) The complete, original Star Wars trilogy would have entered Public Domain a couple of years ago. (George could still release Original Trilogy Version 10: This Time Jar-Jar Shoots First, but Star Wars fans could have the originals in the Public Domain to play with.)
Exactly. Every business is going to have at least one person upset with them. It's a fact of life. Right now, if that person wants to block everyone from entering a physical store, he needs to recruit a lot more people. If DDOS is legal and he wants to block their online presence, he can just acquire a botnet, click a few buttons, and run a DDOS attack.
Not to mention, if a DDOS becomes "legal protesting", how long until a rival business finds one person with a gripe against their competitor and helps them set up a DDOS against the competitor? The person with the gripe is the one who launches the DDOS so it's a legal protest, right? The rival business just lent some "technical support" (most likely in a non-public manner).
Making DDOS a legal form of protest would be an idiotic move.
The Boston Tea Party - They wore disguises but were still physically present there. Had the police (or the colonial equivalent) arrived, they would have been arrested and their masks would have quickly been removed.
The Underground Railroad - They didn't have an interest in being arrested, but they still risked it each and every day. Especially the Underground Railroad participants who lived in southern states where slavery was legal. What would have happened if they were found out? Certainly not a small fine and set free. They'd have been imprisoned or worse.
They didn't walk up to the police and say "Hey, arrest me", but they did risk imprisonment by being physically present.
Exactly. It is like saying the RIAA represents the artists. The RIAA represents the labels, not the artists. Are their times when the labels' goals and the artists' goals coincide? Sure. But in the end the RIAA is looking out for the labels, not the artists.
Similarly, the NRA is looking out for the gun manufacturers. What do the gun manufacturers want? More sales! So they'll be opposed to banning any kind of weapon or bullet no matter how ridiculous it would be for a civilian to own one. They'd also be against any delay (background checks and the like) in purchasing a gun so as to make sales quicker and easier, but the political climate prevents them from coming out against all background checks. (The NRA head was on a show a few weeks ago and was asked about expanding background checks to all sales, he kept dodging by basically insisting that since background checks already happen on most sales that's good enough.)
Is all this good for gun owners? Some might be, but some is just the gun manufacturers trying to get you to buy their new models and more/deadlier ammo whether you really need it or not.
I'm for gun rights but it's pointless to cite these stories because you're 22 TIMES more likely to use a gun against someone you know. Throwing more guns into the mix will definitely stop crimes, but you're going to create FAR more inicidents than you stop.
[BEGIN NRA LOGIC] Well, the solution for this is even more guns! Every person should have at least three guns on them at all times. Every child over three should have a handgun also. Babies can use our new "shotgun pacifier." What? Now there's even more gun violence? Ok, let's try ten guns per adult, seven guns per child, and turning every baby stroller into an armored tank. That should keep us safe. [END NRA LOGIC]
My idea would be to revert copyright back to the original 14 years. If the copyright holder wanted to, they could renew for an additional 14 years. Maybe you could allow a second 14 year extension, but that would be it. Total copyright time: 42 years. (Cue "Answer To Life, The Universe, and Everything" joke.) Plenty of time to draw a profit off of your works.
The advantage to this would be that it would naturally move abandoned works or works that are no longer bringing in a profit into the public domain. Star Wars? Profitable and would be renewed. (Until 2019 when it would be forced into Public Domain.) Death Bed: The Bed That Eats? (Yes, that was a movie released in 1977.) Probably not renewed and in the public domain.
Of course, corporations would complain about existing works being forced into the public domain immediately so we could provide a "transition extension plan" for any works already released. Every two years a decade's worth of material (starting from the 1930's) enters the public domain. So the 1930's would enter in 2015, the 1940's in 2017, the 1950's in 2019, etc. By 2033, we would be all caught up.
My personal favorite is Instant Runoff. You select your first choice, second choice, and so on. All the first choices are tallied. If nobody gets above 50%, then the bottom candidate is eliminated and all of his votes revert to the next choice on their list. Repeat until a candidate gets over 50% and wins.
Using this system, you could vote for a Third Party Candidate (e.g. Green Party) as your first choice, a Major Party Candidate (e.g. Democrat) as your second choice, and even put in a few more Third Party Candidates (e.g. Libertarian) as your third, fourth, etc choices. Voting third party wouldn't be "throwing your vote away" because you'd be ranking the candidates in the order that you prefer them.
"And with -50,000 votes, Candidate WillTaxYouMore has beaten his opponent Candidate DrownsKittensAndBabies."
Of course, this then leads to an interesting quandary.
"Candidate WillTaxYouMore has -50,000 votes and Candidate DrownsKittensAndBabies has -75,000. So the winner, who didn't run any campaign at all, is Candidate Whatever. Nobody voted for or against him so he wins with zero votes."
No problem. Technically speaking, I'm not diagnosed, but my son is and I exhibit all the signs he does and he's been properly diagnosed. In my case, I've learned to live with it (never knowing it was Asperger's). A diagnosis for me wouldn't help me or my son (and cost a lot of money) so I'm not getting one. Instead, I'm focusing on figuring out how to best help him survive in a world that views him as "weird" and "odd" and doesn't get why he does the things he does. (Including certain school officials who seems to think "drag feet on any plan until next year" is a viable strategy to help him succeed in school.)
Ok, I'm a gun control advocate. Not in the "all guns should be banned" sense, but in the "some guns should be banned, large magazines should be banned outside of firing ranges, and background checks should be required for all sales" sense. Even I think this is a bad idea. Introducing technology like this into a gun is just asking for it to go wrong. Of course, it will pretty much HAVE to default to disable the gun (since doing otherwise will make it worse than useless). After a few firings (say at a gun range to get used to the gun), will the computer components hold up? Or will they be damaged and fail thus "breaking" the gun? If they do "break" the gun then people are either going to a) buy a new gun (only one who benefits here are gun manufacturers) or b) find a way to hack the gun to work again. The Internet ensures that instructions to do the latter WILL get out thus making the computerized protections useless in the very cases where they were supposed to prevent damage.
There is no one easy answer to stop mass killings and, yes, gun laws will have their place in the overall plan, but this idea just won't work at all.
I agree with everything you said, but feel the need to clarify the Asperger's point.
People with Asperger's aren't violent. Especially not in the manner evidenced by the Sandy Hook shooter. What happened was the guy's brother made one stupid quote (something along the lines of "I think he had Asperger's or something") and the media started to run with the whole "OMG! Asperger's = Mass Shooter" angle. Thankfully, a lot of Asperger's advocates (including myself) got very vocal and they were forced to back off. Sadly, some people still walked away thinking Asperger's = Likely To Go On A Rampage At Any Moment.
Here's what Asperger's really is: It's a developmental disorder that leads to the people having an inability to read social cues. (There's more, but this is a good enough summary for the moment.) The inability to read social cues means people with Asperger's tend to be isolated. Not that they don't WANT to socialize, but they don't know HOW to. They realize they don't know how to and will fret about making social mistakes. It's easier and less stressful to avoid the social situations than try to deal with them.
I often explain it this way: Nonverbal communication tends to be around 80% of communication. People with Asperger's miss much of this. So imagine reading this and seeing only 20% of the letters. C____ ___ u__e_____d __a_ ___ __y___ __ _o__d __u ___d _t ____ t_ ____ m_ __s_? (Could you understand what I'm saying or would you find it hard to read my post?)
Asperger's definitely was NOT to blame for the Sandy Hook shooting. If anything, people with Asperger's are more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators. (And if too many people think Asperger's = Sandy Hook then the risk of violence increases.)
How would you define the limits of "mental illness"? Schizophrenia? Bi-polar disease? Depression? Any one of these can lead to violence (either against self or others) and yet plenty of people manage these conditions with medication and lead normal lives.
Would you expand the limits of mental illness to include developmental disorders such as Asperger's and Autism? Should anyone diagnosed with Autism be killed just in case they one day wind up killing someone?
Come to think of it, your proposal sounds a little off-kilter. I think you need to report to your local Mental Illness Euthanasia Center. It's for the good of the rest of us Sane (Until Accused Otherwise) Folks!
Slashdot Mirror
Not only that, but building a bomb isn't a completely simple affair. If you do it wrong one way, you blow yourself up. Do it wrong another way and your rampage will consist of tossing a bunch of duds. Do it wrong yet another way and the FBI catches wind of your plot and arrests you before you do anyone any harm. Compared to that, grabbing an assault weapon with a 100 round magazine and shooting folks up is easy and hard to detect before the shooting occurs.
It would be annoying if you just had to say "I don't have your phone" over and over, but I'm guessing that some people aren't going to his door in a calm and rational frame of mind. They're probably threatening him and yelling at him to give them their phones back. Even if none of them have gotten violent yet, he's got to live with the worry that, inevitably, one person will. If it was me, I'd be telling Sprint they'd better fix the problem or they'd hear from my lawyers.
And it works both ways, too.
For the person going to the house: You don't know if this "phone thief" (whether or not they actually have your phone) is an elderly lady who wouldn't hurt a fly, or an escaped felon who enjoys torturing people who show up at his door before killing them.
For the person at the house: You don't know if this "my phone was stolen" person is going to politely ask, believe you, and then leave or get belligerent and whip out a gun demanding to know where his *@%!# phone is.
Besides, are these people really expecting the "phone thief" to answer the door and say "Oh, yeah. I stole your phone. Here it is back again. Sorry about that."? Whether the person answering is a phone thief or not, he's going to deny it until the person leaves. It's not like the person at the door has the right to search the alleged phone thief's house looking for their phone.
School cafeteria french fries aren't sliced up potatoes that are oven roasted with seasoning to be fries. They're "potato derived extruded products" that are molded into french fry shapes and deep fried. They are then counted as one of the kids' vegetables. IIRC, there was also a bill in Congress to count pizza as a vegetable because the sauce is made from tomatoes. (Not sure if this passed or not.)
The real reason for all of this? The companies that supply food to the schools want to sell more frozen pizza and french fries. They're cheap to produce and profitable. So they lobby Congress to get them declared as vegetables so our kids can load up on their "veggies" with a healthy plate of pizza and fries. But try to serve vegetable stir fry and you'll be told there aren't enough veggies to count and you should add some fries to that plate.
I'm convinced that I could build a "Personal Instagram" via a normal WordPress installation. Take the picture with the phone, submit it to WP, and use Twitter Cards to have the image appear within any tweets. Commenting could be done by WordPress' own commenting system, perhaps with some "use your Twitter/Facebook ID" plugin" (such as Discus) and I believe there are Thumbs Up plugins as well. Additional benefit: Your photos would be hosted by you and controlled by you, not some other company.
To be fair, the only portion of that TOS quote that is objectionable is "sub-licensable." If you decide to post a photo via Instagram, they pretty much NEED you to grant them a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free license. Otherwise, you could post a photo and then sue them for distributing your copyrighted content. (You might fail, but enough lawsuits like this would be filed that would make a photo hosting service too risky to run.) The worldwide license is needed so that a user posting a photo in the USA can have his photo viewed by someone in Australia. The transferable could be problematic, but likely means that any third party service that uses Instagram's APIs can access your photos.
Again, sub-licensable is tricky. It could be similar to the "API access" of transferable or it could be a sneaky way of saying "we hereby transfer this license to Advertising Agency X who is using it in an ad campaign."
I still remember the show he ran here in America where he tried to reform a school system's cafeteria food. Things like eliminating chocolate and strawberry milk which were served because "kids won't drink milk if we don't dump a ton of sugar in it" and increasing the number of veggies in the meal (during which he was told that a serving of french fries counts as veggies). The most memorable experiment was when he got a group of kids to watch him prepare chicken nuggets as they are classically made. He ground up a chicken carcass (not the white meat.. the bones and such), added some fillers, and fried it. The kids were completely grossed out. When he asked who would eat it, though, they all raised their hands. When asked why, they said because they're hungry. So we're teaching our kids that, when you're hungry, just stuff whatever sugary and/or fried thing you can find into your mouths no matter how disgusting it is. No wonder we have an obesity problem in this country.
Your metabolism can change and it can affect how your body consumes energy. If you eat slightly less calories than your body needs to function *AND* you exercise, you can successfully offset the metabolism change and lose weight. If you stay couch-potato-esque and just skip lunch and dinner every day, though, your body will go into "famine mode" and cut back on calorie burning as much as it can. You'll lose some weight (mostly water weight) but will pack it back on and more once you start eating again. That's why starvation diets don't work and are a bad idea.
Exactly. This is why starvation diets don't work. You'll lose some weight (mostly water weight), but then when you eat again your metabolism has slowed down and your body will store the "extra" until the "famine" ends.
Someone I know wrote a blog post detailing what she has to go through having had weight loss surgery. It is *NOT* fun and definitely *NOT* the easy path. Her stomach pouch is now too small to accept enough protein so she needs to drink these nasty protein shakes every day. If she eats (or drinks) too much or the wrong kind of food (a category which can change on her stomach's whim), she'll wind up in the bathroom puking up her food. In short, she's got to be extremely careful about what she puts in her mouth and when.
Now, she happens to have lost a ton of weight (gone from around 300 to 160 if memory serves) and she does recommend it to some people depending on their condition, but too many people think "Oh, I'll just get my stomach stapled and then lose the weight easily" when this is anything but easy. (Personally, I'm sticking with diet modifications and exercise.)
Tomorrow's headline: Lex Luthor to purchase Warner Brothers for Undisclosed Sum.
I agree. Every issue he defeated the bad guy the same way. Grandfather Paradox would strap a bomb to the villain and send him back in time so that, when the bomb exploded, it killed the villain's grandfather thus erasing the villain from history. His sidekick, Tachyon Lad, was annoying too.
Actually, the original copyright law was 14 years with a one-time 14 year extension. Had that stayed, we would be getting non-renewed works from 1999 and renewed works from 1985. Yes, Back to the Future would be entering Public Domain this year with the sequels following in 2017 and 2018. (It's a pretty safe assumption that they would have been renewed.) The complete, original Star Wars trilogy would have entered Public Domain a couple of years ago. (George could still release Original Trilogy Version 10: This Time Jar-Jar Shoots First, but Star Wars fans could have the originals in the Public Domain to play with.)
Exactly. Every business is going to have at least one person upset with them. It's a fact of life. Right now, if that person wants to block everyone from entering a physical store, he needs to recruit a lot more people. If DDOS is legal and he wants to block their online presence, he can just acquire a botnet, click a few buttons, and run a DDOS attack.
Not to mention, if a DDOS becomes "legal protesting", how long until a rival business finds one person with a gripe against their competitor and helps them set up a DDOS against the competitor? The person with the gripe is the one who launches the DDOS so it's a legal protest, right? The rival business just lent some "technical support" (most likely in a non-public manner).
Making DDOS a legal form of protest would be an idiotic move.
The Boston Tea Party - They wore disguises but were still physically present there. Had the police (or the colonial equivalent) arrived, they would have been arrested and their masks would have quickly been removed.
The Underground Railroad - They didn't have an interest in being arrested, but they still risked it each and every day. Especially the Underground Railroad participants who lived in southern states where slavery was legal. What would have happened if they were found out? Certainly not a small fine and set free. They'd have been imprisoned or worse.
They didn't walk up to the police and say "Hey, arrest me", but they did risk imprisonment by being physically present.
Exactly. It is like saying the RIAA represents the artists. The RIAA represents the labels, not the artists. Are their times when the labels' goals and the artists' goals coincide? Sure. But in the end the RIAA is looking out for the labels, not the artists.
Similarly, the NRA is looking out for the gun manufacturers. What do the gun manufacturers want? More sales! So they'll be opposed to banning any kind of weapon or bullet no matter how ridiculous it would be for a civilian to own one. They'd also be against any delay (background checks and the like) in purchasing a gun so as to make sales quicker and easier, but the political climate prevents them from coming out against all background checks. (The NRA head was on a show a few weeks ago and was asked about expanding background checks to all sales, he kept dodging by basically insisting that since background checks already happen on most sales that's good enough.)
Is all this good for gun owners? Some might be, but some is just the gun manufacturers trying to get you to buy their new models and more/deadlier ammo whether you really need it or not.
[BEGIN NRA LOGIC] Well, the solution for this is even more guns! Every person should have at least three guns on them at all times. Every child over three should have a handgun also. Babies can use our new "shotgun pacifier." What? Now there's even more gun violence? Ok, let's try ten guns per adult, seven guns per child, and turning every baby stroller into an armored tank. That should keep us safe. [END NRA LOGIC]
My idea would be to revert copyright back to the original 14 years. If the copyright holder wanted to, they could renew for an additional 14 years. Maybe you could allow a second 14 year extension, but that would be it. Total copyright time: 42 years. (Cue "Answer To Life, The Universe, and Everything" joke.) Plenty of time to draw a profit off of your works.
The advantage to this would be that it would naturally move abandoned works or works that are no longer bringing in a profit into the public domain. Star Wars? Profitable and would be renewed. (Until 2019 when it would be forced into Public Domain.) Death Bed: The Bed That Eats? (Yes, that was a movie released in 1977.) Probably not renewed and in the public domain.
Of course, corporations would complain about existing works being forced into the public domain immediately so we could provide a "transition extension plan" for any works already released. Every two years a decade's worth of material (starting from the 1930's) enters the public domain. So the 1930's would enter in 2015, the 1940's in 2017, the 1950's in 2019, etc. By 2033, we would be all caught up.
My personal favorite is Instant Runoff. You select your first choice, second choice, and so on. All the first choices are tallied. If nobody gets above 50%, then the bottom candidate is eliminated and all of his votes revert to the next choice on their list. Repeat until a candidate gets over 50% and wins.
Using this system, you could vote for a Third Party Candidate (e.g. Green Party) as your first choice, a Major Party Candidate (e.g. Democrat) as your second choice, and even put in a few more Third Party Candidates (e.g. Libertarian) as your third, fourth, etc choices. Voting third party wouldn't be "throwing your vote away" because you'd be ranking the candidates in the order that you prefer them.
"And with -50,000 votes, Candidate WillTaxYouMore has beaten his opponent Candidate DrownsKittensAndBabies."
Of course, this then leads to an interesting quandary.
"Candidate WillTaxYouMore has -50,000 votes and Candidate DrownsKittensAndBabies has -75,000. So the winner, who didn't run any campaign at all, is Candidate Whatever. Nobody voted for or against him so he wins with zero votes."
No problem. Technically speaking, I'm not diagnosed, but my son is and I exhibit all the signs he does and he's been properly diagnosed. In my case, I've learned to live with it (never knowing it was Asperger's). A diagnosis for me wouldn't help me or my son (and cost a lot of money) so I'm not getting one. Instead, I'm focusing on figuring out how to best help him survive in a world that views him as "weird" and "odd" and doesn't get why he does the things he does. (Including certain school officials who seems to think "drag feet on any plan until next year" is a viable strategy to help him succeed in school.)
Ok, I'm a gun control advocate. Not in the "all guns should be banned" sense, but in the "some guns should be banned, large magazines should be banned outside of firing ranges, and background checks should be required for all sales" sense. Even I think this is a bad idea. Introducing technology like this into a gun is just asking for it to go wrong. Of course, it will pretty much HAVE to default to disable the gun (since doing otherwise will make it worse than useless). After a few firings (say at a gun range to get used to the gun), will the computer components hold up? Or will they be damaged and fail thus "breaking" the gun? If they do "break" the gun then people are either going to a) buy a new gun (only one who benefits here are gun manufacturers) or b) find a way to hack the gun to work again. The Internet ensures that instructions to do the latter WILL get out thus making the computerized protections useless in the very cases where they were supposed to prevent damage.
There is no one easy answer to stop mass killings and, yes, gun laws will have their place in the overall plan, but this idea just won't work at all.
I agree with everything you said, but feel the need to clarify the Asperger's point.
People with Asperger's aren't violent. Especially not in the manner evidenced by the Sandy Hook shooter. What happened was the guy's brother made one stupid quote (something along the lines of "I think he had Asperger's or something") and the media started to run with the whole "OMG! Asperger's = Mass Shooter" angle. Thankfully, a lot of Asperger's advocates (including myself) got very vocal and they were forced to back off. Sadly, some people still walked away thinking Asperger's = Likely To Go On A Rampage At Any Moment.
Here's what Asperger's really is: It's a developmental disorder that leads to the people having an inability to read social cues. (There's more, but this is a good enough summary for the moment.) The inability to read social cues means people with Asperger's tend to be isolated. Not that they don't WANT to socialize, but they don't know HOW to. They realize they don't know how to and will fret about making social mistakes. It's easier and less stressful to avoid the social situations than try to deal with them.
I often explain it this way: Nonverbal communication tends to be around 80% of communication. People with Asperger's miss much of this. So imagine reading this and seeing only 20% of the letters. C____ ___ u__e_____d __a_ ___ __y___ __ _o__d __u ___d _t ____ t_ ____ m_ __s_? (Could you understand what I'm saying or would you find it hard to read my post?)
Asperger's definitely was NOT to blame for the Sandy Hook shooting. If anything, people with Asperger's are more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators. (And if too many people think Asperger's = Sandy Hook then the risk of violence increases.)
*pulls trigger*
*nothing happens"
"HAL, unlock the gun's safety!"
"I'm sorry, Dave. I can't allow you to do that."
Seriously?
How would you define the limits of "mental illness"? Schizophrenia? Bi-polar disease? Depression? Any one of these can lead to violence (either against self or others) and yet plenty of people manage these conditions with medication and lead normal lives.
Would you expand the limits of mental illness to include developmental disorders such as Asperger's and Autism? Should anyone diagnosed with Autism be killed just in case they one day wind up killing someone?
Come to think of it, your proposal sounds a little off-kilter. I think you need to report to your local Mental Illness Euthanasia Center. It's for the good of the rest of us Sane (Until Accused Otherwise) Folks!