RattFink is right. It's not that complicated to find a service that automates all of this. Just like companies outsource their payroll, they can outsource sales tax.

At its ideal best, the US is a society of ideas, and those ideas are expressed in laws. Previously, societies were based on ethnicity, race, religion or military prowess. In a society of ideas, disputes should not be decided by guns, or by priests. Who else, then? If we got rid of the lawyers we would need to replace them with something quite similar.

Compare to other geek favorites Stephen R Donaldson, Robert Jordan and George R. R. Martin. Unlike them, Stephenson finished an entire story in a single book. How terse of him! I have read everything Stephenson has published, and Anathem is my favorite (loved the Cycle and Snow Crash, not too fond of Cryptonomicon).

Many of the broods don't overlap geographically. There are small broods that emerge a little ahead or behind the main emergence, but I think the article is referring to geographically distinct broods which emerge at different times.

Here in Kansas the last big emergence was in 1998. We won't see another emergence until 2015. We may get a small number of 17 year cicada (genus Magicicada), but most of what we'll see is normal, boring, dog day cicadas (genus Tibicen).

The same is true of New Jersey. There seem to be four broods of 17 year Magicicada which occur in NJ. There are also Tibicen which emerge annually.