King Prawn - I hear you.  The government civilians I support are looking at a one-day-a-week furlough for the remainder of the year, for an effective 20 percent pay cut.

As for us contractors?  We don't know yet.  Whatever comes, it'll be on top of the 17 percent cut I took a couple of years ago in the company switch when the contract was recompeted.

#6 - No problem, Rawls:

http://elisabethsheff.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/dragoncon-science-track-2012-cumulative-findings-poly-families2.pptx

Summary:  A larger group of parents raising a child does no harm, and often brings significant benefits in terms of resources (both time and money).

My pessimism may be unfounded, but I hope this isn’t like my experience with my CPAP. The machine keeps a year worth of data on my sleep quality, but that is explicitly not for the patient; only doctors can (legitimately) buy the tools to read the memory. Device makers are entirely capable of building units that communicate only with the doctor, excluding the patient from the loop and leaving us no better informed than before. Diabetic testing is completely different in terms of patient participation and learning, but that seems to be very much the exception.