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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...

Leave it to Congress to wait until the last moment (April 1) for an important tax election. If you have not yet filed your 2023 tax return, you can use the recently updated Form 1040 that adds a Future Opt Out Lump Sum checkbox. With this election, you can opt out of future income taxes on all...

"Is Microsoft a Value Trap?" That was a popular discussion after the stock had treaded water after the dot com crash. The article from 2012 linked below decides it's probably not and forsees annual growth of 3% to 8%. Instead, since then MSFT's growth rate as averaged more like 23% annually...

A common saying is, "Half of life is just showing up." Perhaps the 21st century version is, "Half of life is just communicating." This year I've witnssed a significant deterioration in communication with friends, family, and others. I don't know what it is. Covid fallout? For example, there...

We're enough in the boonies to have frequent outages of one to six hours duration while the power company fixes a line downed by a falling tree or similar. Do there exist portable/draggable battery backup units that recharge via solar panel and output 110v? It would be handy to have something...

It seems the favored ink color of print on sets of TV Show DVDs is gray. I doubt I could read that gray-on-silver text in TV room light even with youthful eyes. I was going to use a black marker to add a readable season and disc number to each, until a friend said that would ruin the discs. He...

I'm helping someone with a recent Firefox version for Windows. Years ago it used to be that installed Firefox extensions appeared as icons in the toolbar or upper right, and clicking an icon let you operate that extension. Now, no icons appear. We can enable or disable an installed extension...

if there is some spot an LED bulb won't do, you have only a few more days to buy an incandescent bulb...

My landline phone service dates to long ago, and lots of people know that number. I'd like to keep the number, cancel outgoing service, but forward all incoming calls to another number. The landline provider wants a high a fee to do that, so I'm looking for other options. Online searching turns...

When I pick up an rx at the pharmacy, if the price is over $50 or so, the clerk generally points to it and whispers, "Oh! Is the price OK on this one?" Since this has now happened a few times, I'm thinking they are hinting something, like maybe I'm supposed to flinch at the price and they'll...

Anyone who hopes to bequeath significant assets might do well to watch the 2021 Netflix documentary about Bob Ross, known for the Joy of Painting TV series. Even if this documentary is flawed, viewers can learn from Bob's mistakes (not happy ones, this time) about what not to do, as well as how...

Does there exist a straightforward way to email or put online a photo, but keep its content private except to the intended recipient(s)? I found a number of pics of friends from long ago, ones I suspect these friends have forgotten about and might enjoy recalling. Though the content of these...

While testing a repair to a radio, for a couple hours I left it turned to a local FM station. I've not listened to broadcast radio for many years. What I noticed was not so much that they were playing Christmas music already, but that the same renditions of the same songs would be repeated...

The "bank error in your favor" thread reminded me of something completely different. At minicorp we started without a dress code, but that eventually changed after many incidents. This was the pre-casual era when in-the-office meant a "tie" level of dressing, clients meant suit, which kept...

This weekend much of the US transitions from Daylight Saving Time to, what else, Daylight Spending Time. On early Sunday morning set your wallets back 1 hour. This is a non-taxable exchange. It gives you one extra tax-free hour that day to convert your dryer sheets to Roth.

One way to blow that dough would be to hire a personal assistant. Anyone done that? I'm not thinking live-in butler or even a full-time assistant, but someone part time to run errands, perform small chores, do paperwork, etc. It's the closest one can come to converting money into time. Are...

Even if my feet are not on FIRE, I hope the following is a practical topic. As you age, how do you trim the nails on your own toes? I've found such trimming slowly becoming more difficult, if I hope to accomplish it in a pain-free manner, that is. Less vision and less flexibility are the...

We've seen others, maybe even ourselves at one time, who not only didn't follow a FIRE lifestyle, but also did the opposite. What are some phrases associated with FIRE opposites? paycheck to paycheck lottery casino buy now, pay later no Plan B no Plan A

For those that get DVDs via mail from Netflix, what is your experience with titles that are on your "not yet available" list? I've had dozens of titles on that list for years, and none have ever moved off it and into my DVD queue, that is until recently when I let my queue go empty. Then like...

Been enjoying Project Farm. This guy tests various auto and other products for manufacturer claims, durability, value. For example he tries various oil additives to see which works best, which batteries are really the longest lasting, etc. He claims his efforts are all self or youtube funded...

This year I've noticed from brokerages a bunch of fussy communications about Unrelated Business Taxable Income generated in a IRA. For many years inside an IRA I've held an investment that generates UBTI, usually a negative amount, but some years a few dollars. AFAIK tax law says such UBTI can...

Negative yielding bonds, such as the German 10 year Bund, have been around this decade. My understanding is there are buyers at negative yields because various agreements, such as those of pension funds, require the purchaser keep a certain % invested in bonds. Is that the only reason...

Even for this buy-and-holder, when traditional retirement account values are down is when I like to convert a portion to Roth. Stocks had a downdraft in May, and the Monday premarkets are down, so the upcoming week might be another down one. IMO we're approaching a good time to convert to...

With interest in vinyl records up, this seems like a good time to sell those I bought decades ago in the pre-digital era. Most I've managed to keep in near mint condition, and there are a few MFSL issues. For the best price I am tempted to sell them indivdually (ebay or similar) but the...

Can't find any on Amazon. Are they no longer made? You know, turn the wheel to change the brightness of a light, press the wheel to flip the light on/off. I don't need LED compatibility. Amazon has dozens of dimmers that are flat plates or sliders, none of which will are suitable for my...