Why is it that on a technical forum (and this seems to be a systemic issue across many forums) that a large number of people are hyper focused on bureaucratic regulations rather than the technical details?
It is excruciatingly painful to try to have an intellectual deep technical discussion without someone interjecting "you cant do that" or "its impossible". I mean are these forums filled with feds trying to gain control of the public to slowly pick away at the freedom we enjoy in the USA (enjoyed?) or is it just that people don't really know the technical side as much, but if its the later wouldn't people want to learn .... since we are on a photonics technical discussion board?
I mean when I was getting my pilots license the FAR's were something you had to force yourself to read because a bureaucrat was forcing you to know it for the exam not because it was fun to read or that I needed to know it to land and control the aircraft (thats all stick and rudder skills). Granted the FAA produces some super good quality material but some of it is just bureaucratic and costs pilots and owners BIG money to comply with which is legally / constitutionally suspect (such as forcing someone to do business with another private entity in order to use your own personal property). It would be like saying I can only hire federally designated contractors to wire up a new switch in my house ... oh and they cost 80-100 hr because we only designate a very tiny number of people and if you do it yourself we will kick in your door and beat the s**t out of you and throw you in jail. Just let that sink in. Yes I get it, major commercial operations with huge jets flying hundreds of people of the public is a different situation but the FAA applies the same rules to a small aircraft in sparsely populated areas.
As far as my OP for this thread, I think that I have more than enough to chew on with the text references from Steve, I got them all lined up in my cart and found them CHEAP. But I think this over arching issue of people being hyper focused on bureaucracy is a major issue and impediment to intellectual / technical discourse, it seems to permeate every on line forum I see, even ones I just lurk on, there is always multiple people that never fail to bring up some obscure buried regulation and its super irritating as they bring it up BEFORE the technical discussion.
I don't know maybe people living in so cal packed in like sardines have to worry about every time you sneeze breaking a regulation but where I am no one cares. I can see having a nice robust technical discussion and then at the very end in a foot note indicate that our overlords frown on free people doing free things, maybe one or two lines and done.