To be honest, the trajectory calculations aren't that difficult. It's fairly cut and dry math and there have been computer programs to calculate this stuff for decades. It's cool, don't get me wrong, and the margin for error is a lot smaller than trying to hit Jupiter, but it ain't exactly rocket science.

Wait...

It's not just nanny-state, it's corporate scheming to bring down the wages of software developers. The Masters of the Universe are upset that they have to pay programmers a middle class wage so the goal is to cram as many kids into programming classes as they can hoping to eventually flood the market. Yes, I understand that not everybody can code or think like a programmer, but there are an awful lot of people who could, but they choose to be a biologist instead. The point is to steer that kid and others like him into programming. There is not a shortage of programmers. There is a shortage of programmers who will work for $30k a year, and all these "learn to code!" bullshit programs disguised as "forward-thinking eduction...for the children" are designed to fix that.

And it's a multi-pronged attack. It's the same impetus for H1B visa program increases and the "no poaching" collusion between Jobs et al.

Who else was I supposed to vote for? The libertarian in my governor's race wanted our state to issue its own currency backed by gold. I'm no fan of the republican or democratic party, but the 3rd parties need to put up somebody who isn't loony for me to vote for.

The anonymous tip just needs to mention the suspects are black.

You're not wrong. But the vast majority of kids, treated or untreated, don't resort to violence. It's a very, very rare thing.

If you start psychologically evaluating every kid (and medicating them just in case to CYA) you can wind up creating more problems. Maybe a kid who was just having a hard time now is told he's mentally ill and you're pushing pills down his throat. Kids (hell, adults) spend a long time trying to figure out who they are and what kind of person they are. Maybe if everybody thinks I'm this terrible monster who needs to be kept under control, maybe they're right? If your parents and teachers are all concerned you're dangerous and are afraid of you, that's got to have an impact on a kid's development. Might make a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Or, great, you took a kid who would never have done anything wrong, but now he's medicated and a zombie. Psychopharmacological drugs are serious business. These drugs significantly alter brain chemistry, and in ways we don't understand in adults, much less children. Fun fact: the biological cause of most all mental illnesses, including depression and bipolar, are not known. The drugs used to treat them are generally "found" and not developed to correct a certain biological fault.

I would be very, very concerned about mandatory school and government mental health "care" for children.

Yeah, but things are very different today than when we were kids. When I was in high school in the early 90s, kids would pull a fire alarm and get a couple of days' suspension. Kids brought their paintball or pellet guns to school in the trunks of their cars. I carried a pocket knife at all times. Nobody cared. Today a kid makes a drawing of a gun and gets arrested. And there's cameras everywhere. The new school they built near my house has a high fence all the way around it with a gate that locks during school hours. The kids all have RFID passes to get into their classes. The place is like a prison. It's insane. And the parents love it! Just saying, you can't get away with crap anymore, and there's no such thing as "boys will be boys" and harmless pranks. It's zero tolerance and constant surveillance.

You are correct.

Every school shooting is a tragedy. It is a terrible, awful, awful thing. As a parent, I can't even imagine...don't want to. But it's really, really rare. Since 2000 there have been an average of 2 incidents per year of gunfire with injury at a K-12 school. Most of these only involve one victim, sometimes the shooter himself. There are 100,000 public schools in the US (and another 30,000 private schools). There's an average of 180 school days to a year. So at US public schools, 18,999,998 times per year a school bell rings in the morning, and in the afternoon, and in between not a shot is heard. And 2 awful, awful times, there is. But it's a 1 in 9 million chance of it happening on any given day. And even that tragedy injures or kills a very, very small fraction of the students.

There's just nothing you can do to prevent an event that rare that will not have unintended consequences, and those unintended consequences may be worse than what you were trying to prevent.

Ban all guns? First, good luck. There are something like 300 million guns in the US. Who's going to collect them all? And there's the unintended consequence, that the criminals who don't turn in their guns will now know their law-abiding victims are unarmed. More people are going to die because they can't defend themselves. And we already have background checks and laws against selling guns to criminals, the mentally ill and minors. The shooters get their guns from people who wouldn't be on a list denying them purchase anyway.

Arm teachers? First, teachers are not cops or soldiers. The Kindergarten teachers are not going to suddenly morph into SEAL Team 6 and take out the bad guy. More likely, a student will get his hands on a teacher's improperly secured gun, or the teacher him/herself might be the one to go nuts and start shooting. Now you've got a shooting where there never would have been one otherwise.

You can spend millions turning every school into a fortress, but it's still not going to stop a determined attacker. It's the defender's dilemma. Plus the opportunity cost...you could have actually spent that money on teachers and books instead.

There is this fetish for control in America, where people seem to think you can make it so nothing bad will ever happen. But you can't. The world is messy. There's nothing you can do to stop events that rare. Mourn the dead, hug your kids, watch out for troubled youngsters who need help, and move on.

At the same time, he's not wrong.

Should victims of domestic abuse now have yet another reason to be scared of calling the police because their traumatic event will be broadcast on the web?

Should loved ones of the mentally ill who become a danger to themselves and need to be brought to the mental hospital now be worried about calling the cops because their loved one on his worst day is now going to have his trauma posted online for people to gawk at and employers to find?

If you're arrested for a crime you didn't commit and are later acquitted of, should your arrest be posted to the internet?

Not every interaction between police and citizens is a horrible violation of the rights of the innocent, nor is it a terrible criminal brought to justice. Sometimes, (frequently), it's police discreetly helping people on their worst days. The disclosure of all police interactions with the public is not in the public interest.

The problem is releasing all footage can also be harmful to innocent citizens. Maybe you got arrested for something you didn't do and are later acquitted. But now there's video of you being confronted, ordered to lie face down on the ground, handcuffed, put in a squad car, etc, and that footage is now on the web without context.

The officer in the summary also had a good point about the mentally ill. Maybe you're bipolar and are normally well-medicated and completely fine, but something happens and you wind up in a delusional manic episode. The cops come and take you to the mental hospital. Now, those police records are covered by HIPAA, and mental health stuff is protected with the utmost care (I do database programming for a major hospital. HIPAA is taken very seriously, and you can't access any psych data without passwords and any attempt to do so immediately sends a notice to the privacy office). But if just anybody can get that camera footage and post it to the net, searchable, say goodbye to your career.

Not everything cops do is some terrible infringement on the rights of citizens, and not every citizen they encounter is a lawbreaker who should be publicly shamed. Sometimes it's somebody they should be discretely helping. Knowing that the cops are going to record everything and it'll be posted to the net will make people scared to call them when they need help. Sometimes battered women don't call the cops because they're worried about making a scene, or getting their husband in trouble. Now add to the reasons not to call for help that their dirty laundry is going to be posted to the internet.

The public availability of all police action is not in the public interest.

I learned the material. Very well. But I also made sure I got a 100% on the test just like everybody else.

I try to live by that creed myself, but in some things it simply isn't practical.

When I was in college one of the courses I took was Communications (electrical engineering communications, not like mass com or something. Cell phone systems and wifi and that kind of thing). The 70-odd year old professor was well known to use the same exam semester after semester after semester. Maybe he might change a number, but the problem was exactly the same. He also allowed crib sheets. So, everybody got a copy of the previous exam from a friend and put it on their crib sheet. I didn't find that ethical, and would have much rather just had a fair test. But what do you do, when the rest of the class is guaranteed a 100? Be the one chump who takes their chances?

Non-loony 3rd party candidates are needed then. There was a libertarian on my state's ballot for governor, and I considered voting for him. Then I read his website and saw that he thinks our state should issue its own currency backed by gold. Nope.

It's better than that. The victim then lashes out against people who had nothing to do with the "threat." It's pretty simple:

1) Threaten SJW
2) SJW rails against neckbeards.
3) Neckbeards respond to the SJW
4) Sit back and watch SJWs and Neckbeards work themselves into a tizzy.
5) Enjoy lulz.
6) Go to step 1

How is this entire situation not troll heaven?

And you're right, the only way for it to stop would be for Wu and pals to stop responding and stop taking it "seriously," but that won't happen because they enjoy the attention. That's what being an online SJW is all about it. It's not about actually furthering the cause of social justice, it's about being seen to further the cause of social justice, despite the terrible, terrible strawman forces arrayed against them. Basically, it will never end.

I blame the victim for feeding the trolls. At this point, the perpetrator of these threats is just doing it for the lulz. No one is actually going to kill her. But if you're a troll, this entire gamergate situation is a bounteous feast. All you have to do is write a nasty tweet and Wu goes off railing against misogynist gamers. Gamers chaff and argue back at her. The troll could have nothing to do with the "gamer community." Just write one nasty tweet and watch the neckbeards and SJWs scream at each other. Much lulz.

Are there any statistics on how many people have been murdered after receiving an online death threat?

I would venture to say there aren't because it's probably never happened. Given the vast, vast number of death threats made and the vanishingly small (if any) murders carried out, I don't see any evidence to suggest that online death threats are not meaningless.