I can't help but be reminded of when my niece (who was 3) used my grandfather's homemade wooden urn as a stool so she could reach the sink to wash her hands. At least my grandfather was being useful.

Their is nothing wrong with pursing the $€£, the problem is being short sighted about it. If a company is only concerned about this quarter or this year they will never invest in the future and eventually be over taken by those that do. Refurbishing factories to be more efficient is expensive in the short term but is usually a good idea in the long run. Investing in research is expensive in the short term but can lead to major profits in the future. You are right exponential growth is not sustainable but continuous growth can continue on for much longer if it is planed for.

Se I tol yo Civ wa dangerou

I've already lost to much of my life to the first 4 civs.

Get real! This is the government we are talking about. You get the fine in the mail and then have to fight it to prove that the pool is no longer there. There is no actual going to the houses anymore.

...of being able to download my OS from the internet for free! Not to mention knowing how to install a new hard drive.

Very true. It is good to see a company that plans for the long term and I applaud their R&D spending and holding onto something because it might be useful in the future. However I have to ask, if this process and glass is 60 years old shouldn't the patent have run out quite a while ago? Shouldn't we have been seeing this before now in uses that Corning couldn't think of?

I agree with your point but I don't see any way the government could do it. Their are so many loopholes, requirements, deductions, exceptions, and what not in the US tax system that no tax service will get it completely correct. It also changes so quickly (exceptions, tax cuts, tax increases, etc) that websites would a hard time keeping up especially at the speed of government. The only government website I use is for my student loans and it is poorly put together and hard to navigate in comparison to banking and credit cards. Personally, I'd trust a 3rd party service (like TurboTax) before I would government software because then I'd at least get some assurance that if there was a bug or miscalculation that had nothing to do with the numbers I put in it would be the problem of someone else instead of being litigated into nothingness by the IRS.

Well to answer your question it is because tables and graphs are scary to those who aren't trained in their use. Kind of like equations. This isn't just a problem with journalists and blogs. I've seen it in academic papers where the data could be easily expressed with a table or a graph or even an equation, instead they waste a lot of space spewing the numbers out. Yes this is in scientific journals with biologists being the worst in my experience.

Sounds like my phd program only without the chain to the desk and with more money.

DING! DING! DING! We have a winner folks!

If they screw over Darth Vader what do you think a bunch of musicians are going to do?

If they screw over Darth Vader what do you think a bunch of musicians are going to do?