Recent content by GrayHare

If you want a contingency for the next market correction, this time to Roth convert en masse is after the correction, not before it, because the taxable amount will be lower after a correction. I did that during the 2009/10 downturn and haven't looked back, but my conversion amount was much less...

That's the way genetics are believed to operate, but if you have evidence that's wrong, it may be worth your while to publish a paper.

If there is genetic element, these tragic deaths are removing from the gene pool people with a tendency for addiction and risk taking. Continuation of that trend for a long time will result in a change in average human behavior.

I watched a bit of Ancient Aliens and saw too many leaps of illogic. For example, stone carvings were deemed to involve space aliens because they seemed to date from thousands of years ago. Maybe the carvings are that old, but obviously that doesn't mean they were made by non-humans. I've...

No one has mentioned panspermia yet, which could have seeded Earth with simple life forms. Even some animal life, for example tardigrades, can survive space travel. The evolutionary path from there to space-faring civ is a rocky path, pun intended since it was the asteroid that wiped out the...

Since we have only Earth as an example, it's difficult to make reasonable guesses on what forms alien life might take. Could some aliens live much longer than humans, thus making an interstellar trip of a single generation more feasible? Long individual life spans seem likely to reduce the pace...

The lack of verifiable evidence is where the idea of visiting space aliens breaks down for me. Maybe others can handle it, but if I gave credence to all the countless notions that lack evidence, my mind would quickly become too cluttered to think clearly. Microbial life is probably fairly...

Difficult to know which is the cause and which is the effect. Poor health causes many people to slow down, so some people that don't move as much were in worse health to begin with.

The IRS might not catch on immediately, but eventually I suspect they would say your proposed sequence was an intent to avoid paying tax on RMDs. This would be accompanied by a demand for payment of tax.

I don't see a benefit to believing in visits from space aliens. I'm unsure what someone intends to express by telling me that belief. The common element I've heard in such discussions is that humans are stupid. helpless creatures who would not have gotten this far unless some outside...

There's a range of people for whom "I saw it on the internet so it must be true" is a valid approach to life. One has seriously insisted to me that aliens from Venus are tampering with Presidential elections. How do they get through their day without being overcome by fear of being beamed off...

At a party I made the acquaintance of yet another person who professed outlandish ideas about space aliens. As with other such recent acquaintances, these people are empl*yed in science and engineering fields, so one would assume they have enough basic scientific knowledge to rule out...

I figure retirement is time to do whatever it is you like. Many don't even get that chance.

Observing World Naked Gardening Day, uh huh

I'd guess it's driven by margins being tighter due to inflation, and card companies passing along more costs of cash back. TANSTAAFL