Actually, the hard part is getting the first million. Then it feeds itself. Especially since the second million, etc. aren't being held back for basic living expenses.

The real reason why manufacturing is cheaper in China is labor costs, though. Which is why stuff that's heavily automated is often done in the US, despite the more stringent environmental restrictions.

Then again, my position on toxins is that everything that a factory emits that isn't a profitable product means someone hasn't been thinking efficiently. Coal tar, SO2, heavy metals, ash - if they're reclaimed and put to gainful employment you get a cleaner environment and more profit.

"Let a thousand butterflies drop dead".

Mao. Or maybe not.

Why not? We developed the products and now they make them. Why can't they employ the pollution-control technology we developed?

Actually, I think my microwave oven cost me closer to $1000. But that's because I bought it long before cheap crap from China. Unlike the cheap crap, it still works fine. Amortized over the years, it's been cheaper than the Wal-Mart junk.

21st Century Business Logic:

1. Multi-task. Never devote your entire attention to one task when you could be juggling 7.

2. Run Lean. Why hire a dedicated expert developer, a dedicated sysadmin, a dedicated DBA and a dedicated network engineer? Make one person do all those things (see #1, above).

3. Run 100% and demand 110. Who needs expansion room for when things inevitably go pear-shaped? Which Murphy guarantees even when you don't tempt him with #1 and #2.

4. Run cheap. Demand maximum expertise from the lowest bidder. There's always someone in a third-world country who'd be GLAD to do items #1, #2 and #3 for pennies a day!

5. Use easily measured things to determine employee effectiveness. Lines of Code, Time on Phone, stuff that's easily objectively measured, unlike less tangible things like customer satisfaction (what, you think we bother to ANSWER those silly surveys?), externals (like poisoning 6 downwind countries) or time to do the job right the first time. Use these as weapons to demand more of #1, #2, #3 and #4.

6. Subscribe to overpriced buzzword-laden management fads to assist in accomplishing all of the above.

Actually, my first disassembly efforts were directed against the IBM System/370 FORTRAN runtime libraries. When I later took integral calculus I instantly recognized the algorithms as well as the tricks used to fold values over to make them converge more rapidly.

Just because SSL is encryption doesn't mean that the algorithms should be more cryptic. We're still talking polynomial math here to do the heavy lifting. In fact, "clever" code will generally make the encryption less secure, since the more complicated you make things, the more places they can fail.

All source is open if it's worth it to someone.

That's what disassemblers are for.

I reverse-engineered the old Microsoft assembler for CP/M to give it an advanced feature it lacked and did it strictly on my own time and for my own private benefit (pre-DMCA).

You can be certain that open or closed, SOMEONE whose business is penetrating security has people dedicated to ensuring that there's source code to pore over for exploits.

You're either in the 1% with bad tax advisors or need to look at how you're calculating things.

I haven't paid 35% since people had lifetime employment and could travel without stripping naked.

You want everything AND a pony. Most of us can get enough blood pressure off the reported Federal rate alone, which is all the 1040 is intended for anyway. If that's not enough, next time you buy gas, read the numbers printed on the fuel pump. The lowest one is the actual gas price, the next highest one is the gas tax and the shockingly big one is the sum of them, which is what you pay at the register.

My property tax I know because the annual statement I get gives me a number that can be used as a deduction off Federal tax. State taxes you do another form for unless you're one of the lucky states, sales tax is what makes everything not cost what the sign in the window says it does.

Merchants are at liberty to find whatever tax solutions they can, but don't expect them to itemize out what they spent or saved on your sales receipt.

How do I pay my taxes?

Grudgingly, of course!

It's been double-sensationalized. The headline would lead one to believe that the IRS could steal your refund to pay for what your brother-in-law owes.

Within certain limits.

There was a time when I ran Xen because a paravirtual VM ran MUCH faster than an VMWARE guest OS. Not so true these days and on modern hardware, but back then, the difference was immense.

Xen has always been reliable for me. The main problem was what it did to networking. And it added injury to insult by zapping the MAC addresses on my NICs on a routine basis.

Supposedly Xen4 fixes that. They make YOU do all the network setup. Which ordinarily I'd resent, but at least when magic elves aren't meddling around in the configuration, I have a much easier time of it.

And that goes for NetworkManager, too!

Not just hiring and firing, but anywhere where you wish to be accepted seriously based on how you write.

The problem is non-standard writing is that every deviation is "speed bump" to comprehension. Sure, my relatives in Kentucky may own "worshing machines", but it's one thing to hear them say it and another to see it in print. Bad enough dealing with tyres on the quay through the month of February on Wednesdays, but at least we are used to seeing this kind of slop and don't have to stop and double-check while speed-reading.

Silly rules are silly, but no rules are confusion.