Ok, so you do at least know the machinery. My point was that it wasn't as simple as someone just loading a workflow onto a mill and pressing go. Workholding, zeroing, probing, tool offsets, and all the little setup stuff. Takes someone with experience to get going. Most times, the first time running, a program doesn't work, or at least doesn't work correctly. It is totally possible to setup a machine with a bar feeder and a robot to make finished parts all day long. Getting it to do it correctly and accurately is the trick.
Once the machine is set up yes, they can absolutely do that. That's how they're manufactured for the most part.
But the idea that any untrained, inexperienced person has the ability to physically setup, make jigs, indicate in said jigs, make a cad file, turn it into a cam program, load it into a machine, indicate in the stock, select the correct tooling and set it up, etc, etc, etc... It's a magnitude more difficult than 3d printing, and the machines that do that kind of fully automated work costs in the millions.
You absolutely need to know how to use any machine tool. You can't just download a file to a CNC mill and have it spit out a gun. I worked as a machinist when I was in college, it takes a lot of skill and talent to setup a CNC to make parts.
All these comments feel very nitpicky. Its a one of a kind, experimental motor. Built to test the properties of a new and a not well understood phenomenon. The fact that the motor moves at all is pretty amazing. We don't know what the technology could grow into in the future, we don't know what the applications could be. Simply because we don't actually know what all this sort of device is capable of with further study and refinement. The tungsten filament lightbuld generated far more heat than light for over a hundred years before we managed to come up with the led, which in its infancy also barely produced light.
Politically related I work with a 23 yo self proclaimed "christian nationalist, ultra capitalist" who believes every single rightwing conspiracy and and talking point. He also constantly complains about how he's not paid enough but also that the centi-millionaire inherited owner of the company works hard enough to earn all his money despite playing golf 4 day a week.
In terms of good old fashioned stupid, I once saw an operator disable the guardingnon a machine, proceed to lose a finger to said machine. Then after being given a second chance less than a week back on the job decided it was a good idea to disable the same guarding again. Luckily he got fired before he had a chance to lose any more digits.
As someone who works around a lot of white blue-collar workers, yes they really are the dumbest most pig headed idiots you will ever find. No amount of evidence, financial pain, or debate will change their stupid, shrivled, idiot minds.
Almost no one owns an m16. That would be a NFA (National Firearms Act) weapon that requires a special tax stamp for and would also have to be made before 1986. No new fully automatic firearms have been allowed to be made except for LEO/military purposes since 1986. All the of what you're calling an "m16" is an AR-15 (Armalite Rifle 15) or some variant. They're all semi-automatic.
The AR-15 is so popular because it is a very accurate, reliable rifle, and can be very affordable. It also helps that it's the civilian model of the m16 and m4 rifles the military has. I have one that I target shoot with and it's a very fun rifle to use. That's probably the biggest reason it's so popular.
I do agree that we need much stricter gun control in this country but it needs to be based around logic and fact. The "assault rifle bans" of the 90s were completely useless and didn't van anything meaningfully dangerous. They banned things like collapsable stocks, threaded muzzles and other silly things that don't effect the operation of the gun. Hell, California currently bans rifles with pistol grips, so when you buy an at there it just has a different grip. The function of the rifle is still the same. Personally I think we need stricter licensing on who can own a firearm. You should have to prove you are competent, capable, and safe in your use of firearms before you're allowed to own one. That includes VERY thorough background searches and atleast 20-30 hours of instruction. The old tired adage of "guns don't kill people, people kill people" does have some truth to it. But if less people had the guns to begin with, they'd have a lot harder time hurting people.
Good news, you're not fucked. Your car has been running on roughly 10-15% ethanol its entire life. If you havnt had problems yet, you likely won't. Unless they go full stupid and put an absurd amount in of ethanol in, then it won't effect most cars on the road today.
The main problem with ethanol in rubber fuel lines is that ethanol causes hardening and flaking of the rubber. Long before it ever gets bad enough to leak the little flakes of hardened rubber detatch from the inside of the line and travel down to fuel pumps, injectors, and carburators. Where they clog up all the small metered orifices that regulate the amount of fuel the engine is getting. This can lead to the car just not running or running poorly, to the internal components of the engine breaking or seizing, thus trashing the whole engine.
Ok, so you do at least know the machinery. My point was that it wasn't as simple as someone just loading a workflow onto a mill and pressing go. Workholding, zeroing, probing, tool offsets, and all the little setup stuff. Takes someone with experience to get going. Most times, the first time running, a program doesn't work, or at least doesn't work correctly. It is totally possible to setup a machine with a bar feeder and a robot to make finished parts all day long. Getting it to do it correctly and accurately is the trick.