"We already have proximity keys on automobiles. How often do they let people down? How often are people locked out of their car because the key doesn't work?"

Quite often until I cut the wires going to the power door locks. Note to self, never buy a car with power locks again.

Actually the problem is slightly different than you describe, the truck arbitrarily locked its doors at random times while parked. That still deons't improve my confidence in the locking control system. And that is relevant to the discussion at hand.

And in the other factors list, lets not forget the '286 apparently slogging away uploading the data at the other end.

The last mile is no longer my bottleneck, but getting the data on the fiber in the evening seems to be a challenge for someone upstream.

I use the freefile ones, after running the numbers on the paper forms. This let's me double check everything.

Then file electronically. I agree though, filling out the electronic W-2 copy is a pain in the butt. Come on IRS, you already have it! Or will have very soon after my return gets there. Why do I have to re-enter the data you already have?

"Vertical windows are poorly oriented for capturing power."

In the winter a south-facing vertical window does pretty well with the winter sun being rather low in the sky if you are 40 degrees or more of latitude.

"They really didn't fear INS at all. However, each said they very carefully paid their taxes to the IRS each year, often omitting some questionable deductions to which they might be entitled."

So they also fear the Inquisition err IRS?

Inquisition Retraining Service? Now you have me thinking. That would explain a lot.

It's always a good year when you can use the short form.

"There was one dubious study that claimed that $75k maxed out 'happiness'."

Not maxed out, but I think that is about right for the inflection point on the diminishing returns curve.

$50k to $75k was a noticeable bump up in happiness. $75k to $100k was a lesser bump. If I could drop 20% of my salary for 20% less hours I would do it. A massive raise to $200k would have only a minor effect on my happiness, and that would be limited to the extent that it might let me retire sooner.

Note that I live in an area with reasonable housing prices and in a state with no income taxes. The inflection point is not a constant for all circumstances.

Interesting site;

but the best signal is -71 db.

The digital signals don't reach this far (the analog used to), and no cable company serves the area. The only choice is satellite, and both of them are steadily raising prices.

Internet I have. Obviously. Over fiber-optic cable from the local Public Utility District.

As in the kind that are about 5 ft in diameter and bouncing across the road at about 30 mph.

I do hope they have that case in the computer. I'd hate to get a panic-stop reaction or go into the ditch as the computer franticly tries to avoid the "obstruction."

"We already know that using ethanol is a big resource wasing flop, where do you think the ethanol comes from? Yeast and sugar. Going one step up isn't going to help,"

The energy cost of distillation would be avoided with a corn syrup fuel cell. That's worth quite a bit economically.

Figure out how much energy your car uses, then the area of solar panels needed to provide that energy. Then add on the need to use the car during the short cold days of winter.

And you can't use the solar panels to charge the car at night, unless you have another set of batteries to store the energy made by the panels during the day while the car is not there.

You will still be using grid power. Or some liquid or gaseous fuel. With luck you will use less of it than now.

The utility will probably just charge you a fixed connection fee to be on the grid so they get maintenance money regardless of how much power you use. My electric bill is already set up that way. I pay 41 cents a day for that connection fee, and the actual kw-h charge is above that.

"Relativity was posited as a theory over a century ago. How many people truly get it today, in 2014."

As a fraction of the population, I suspect it's about the same as it was then. It's just too counter-intuitive to us slow pokes at less than 1% of c, and the math needed to get past that is beyond most people. I've had math up through diffy-Q, and I can barely manage it. I can get the right answers to textbook questions, but as to really understanding at a deep level what is going on, no.

"I heard the shale oil thing is huge."

Not as big as the promotors would have you believe, but it is certainly significant, and will be for a decade yet. The wells have a high depletion rate, and when they are gone, then ????

The US is only importing 40% of it's oil now, partly due to shale oil, and partly due to lower demand caused by the high prices that make shale oil profitable. That said, when the shale oil promoters show up, keep your hands and your wallet in your pocket.

"Aluminum is a perfectly sound material as long as it's used correctly."

Exactly, so the question is which aluminum alloy are they using. Wikipedia's list is a good place to start on your choices.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_alloy

My electric bill has two lines, the connection fee ( a straight 41 cents per day) and the actual electrical usage fee.

Clearly the utilities can do it this way, but not all of them do.