Those items aren't usually deducted from the federal taxes. They're usually deducted from the amount of income upon which the federal tax is then based. There's a big difference! So typically, yes, you really do pay both of those items AND the federal income tax.

Yes. The key isn't that you have to scan everything you've got, but rather you just need to stop producing more paper, where possible. Eventually, you'll have less and less, and you'll be able to toss out stuff as it becomes pointless to keep. So sign up for paperless billing, avoid printing things when you can just send yourself an email to your phone, or jotting things down on paper when you can type into your phone, etc.

I wonder what kind of MEMS sensors for accelerometers & gyros it uses that aren't destroyed by the initial acceleration when fired?

Although most people probably won't bother reading the actual article, the real gist isn't illustrated well by the anecdote.

There are multiple points brought out in the article. Foreign businesses:
- Are much more willing to bend over backwards to meet demands.
- Can scale manufacturing up or down much more rapidly.
- Can much more quickly find large numbers of workers with the necessary skills.
- Are located next to other large scale businesses in the supply chain.
- Tend to easily get government financing to scale their operations.

There were additional points, but these ones stuck out for me. The main point wasn't that the US couldn't *do* any of the needed work, but that in the US it would happen much much more slowly and less conveniently.

The Chinese government stated that it has labor laws that technically make the anecdote illegal. But I suppose there may be some distance between having the laws and enforcing them.

Just because it's improbable, doesn't mean it's impossible...

You're early. International Talk Like a Pirate Day is on Wednesday, September 19, 2012.

When I say "node", I mean the phone, not the cell tower. Who says the phone can only talk to the cell tower?

Or just a lack of innovation shortage?

With an appropriate network topology, adding more and more nodes to a network increases your overall bandwidth, not decreases it.

Of course, with enough innovation like this, who needs a centralized carrier model anyway?

It will be interesting to see which major carriers adapt to a decentralized model, and which ones die fighting it.

This is a sign that you are getting old. Time to buy a nose-hair trimmer.

1 cu m = (1 m)^3 = (0.7 m x 0.7 m x 2 m)
5 cu m = (1.7 m)^3 = (1.58 m x 1.58 m x 2 m)
50 cu m = (3.68 m)^3 = (5 m x 5 m x 2 m)
500 cu m = (7.94 m)^3 = (15.8 m x 15.8 m x 2 m)
5000 cu m = (17.10 m)^3 = (50 m x 50 m x 2 m)