Well the Observable Universe is centered around us and IIRC there's a theory that holds angular momentum for the Universe, the Observable Universe, at any and all points must not simply be conserved but net zero, were that true one could argue the Universe did revolve around us. I think too much emphasis is placed on the whole center aspect, or lack there of, in most peoples thinking anyway. It locks people into mis-thinking the mediocrity principle is a scientific fact as opposed to a necessary assumption, akin to 'I think therefore I am', not intended as a proven fact but the assumption you have to work off of if you don't just want to spin your wheels in the mental mud.

Also I've always felt Data's character was poorly done. Though through no fault of Brent Spiner, good actor, that man.



I suspect we're mostly saying the same thing here, at least if the context is that while individual models may be harder or easier - some very easy and some bordering on the impossible from a practical standpoint - fundamentally its very hard to prevent something that's conceptually straightforward from a mechanical perspective from being duplicated or altered, especially when extremely high quality standards aren't needed.



Pretty much, except that for many the specific changeover isn't moving an afterburner to a frame not designed for supersonic forces but more akin to modifying an existing stapler to use a different staple. Depending on the specific stapler and the desired staple type, this could either be dumb-easy or sufficiently difficult that it is far easier to build one from scratch or acquire one from alternative sources, or a toaster that does wider slices. No truly elaborate conceptual changes are necessary nor prohibitively expensive or specialized equipment.



Filing the sides back near the selector switch to make room for an auto sear is pretty routine. Not seeing the pin shortening but maybe they are planning a whole bolt modification, and my brain is running on fumes right now. Big thing here is that you always want to grain of salt people discussing M16/M4/AR15 conversions. It's not just that there's a lot of BS out there but that for its type and era it has absurdly well machined guts and just about everything that makes it good as a gun comes form that. So not only are they touchy compared to an AK but a lot of people would react as though you desecrated the thing if it wasn't a very smooth, professional job, like a if someone used a cheap brown polymer tarp to repair the roof on a classic convertible. Even if functionality mostly remains they'd nitpick it to death, partial for good reasons and partially just field-specific snobbery. The classic quality conversion you drill out a space for the auto sear and replace the trigger assembly.



Well he could be 17, guns and gun culture have phallic appeal for a lot of people and teenage boys tend to need that and go that route. Also there's a god awful lot of 'experts' out there who have never even held a M16 or AR 15 and even most who have assume expertise even though they've no idea of the mechanics.

Anyway its not that I'm not a big fan of screening, training, and certification it's just that 'who does the screening?' aspect of things, training and certification are actually things I believe could be tackled sanely and reasonably. Even ignoring the government as enemy aspect, I don't think we could give a screening panel the tools to reliably do the job without really pushing the wall on important civil liberties that I do view in a very Patrick Henry way. I also don't really trust the psych field much either, their accuracy and effectiveness is a joke compared to hard sciences and it doesn't matter that its not really their fault, it is what it is. Even if we allowed them mandatory interviews on every citizen with police state levels of intel I doubt they'd achieve a level of accuracy good enough to drop the incidents by an order of magnitude. The screening being the most important aspect of removing the lunatics, psychos, and genuine murderous but sane bastards, and in my opinion being effectively impossible, I prefer to look at solutions for countering them and that to me comes into a more heavily armed and trained society encouraged through reasonable incentive and educaiton.