> Changes to R&D amortization were a rude surprise to them, as they'd never had to amortize software development before, and didn't think of the work they do as R&D.

Precisely. They didn’t think of their work as R&D because it was not R&D. Frankly, they should have seen this coming.

> These are small businesses we're talking about. Almost all of them make under $10M in annual revenue, and the vast majority are under $2M in revenue.

What about the millions of other small businesses that don’t get special tax treatment? Restaurants, bars, plumbing companies, landscaping companies, accounting firms, etc.? Software engineers are not scientists. At the end of the day, a company is supposed to be able to stand on its own two feet, not rely on government handouts. Allowing otherwise unprofitable businesses to stay in business disincentivizes innovation and efficiency, which harms productivity growth and makes us all poorer in the long run.

Did Star Trek actually originate the warp drive idea? I always assumed some scientist somewhere originated it first, then the ST writers picked up on it and used it in their world-building. But kind of mind-blowing if it was the ST writers who originally conceived it.

> By expending a vast amount of energy, the idea was that space could be severely curved, and in some sense, compressed. As the space ship moved through the compressed space, it would take this long-sought-after short-cut, enabling very rapid travel over great distances, without causing the outside Universe to age rapidly relative to the crew.

There are conflicting conceptions of warp drive accelerating time outside the warp bubble (or decelerating it inside the bubble). Star Trek’s warp drives obviously don’t accelerate external time (or slow internal time). But in Cixin Lui’s Three Body Series, curvature propulsion (aka warp drive) does slow internal warp bubble time. Which is correct?

This is incredible and feels like the most sci-fi sentence I've read in a long time.

It's unbelievable to think that this works, not just in a lab, but in commercial systems that will produce hundreds of chip wafers an hour (>100 anyway, they didn't clarify further).

I had never thought about it until now, but from a UX perspective would a copier be better if you could scan face-up instead of face-down? Regardless, I can imagine the disappointment of not being able to scan a butt.