Actually, just to be pedantic (and who doesn't love it when people are pedantic), the FedGov gives you 1% of your salary in the Thrift Savings Plan automatically, matches the first 3% 1 to 1, and the next two percent .5 to 1. So when you hit five percent contributions, you are getting five percent, but because we're…

If you are too afraid of that happening, invest in government securities. Guarenteed, but low, return. Of course, you may not get what you want when inflation and cost of living outstrips your return, but hey, it'll make you feel better.

IT'S SO FLUFFY I COULD DIE!

Anyone with good soldering and arduino skills want to figure out how to make one of these and post it on instructables?

Awesome, the Avengers poster has the Hulk in the tush-foward pose so common for women in comic books!

I figure that if I can't un-see it, none of you should be able to, either.

Are you kidding? I saw a French Kiss Jar-Jar Binks lollypop in a store (Jar-Jar's tongue was the lolly that you pushed out and licked), and these things weren't approved?

covalent, I'm sure, not "covenant"

But he's conflating the idea of an interacting system and a bound one. Of course, everything in the universe interacts through photons and phonons, but Pauli doesn't prohibit all the atoms in interacting systems from being in the same quantum state. In fact, that's one of the reasons the popular press always seems to…

Not that I'm particularly qualified to correct Brian Cox, but that isn't the version of the Pauli Exclusion Principle that I was taught in school. That says that no two particles in an atom can occupy the same quantum state, but doesn't say anything about prohibiting all particles across the universe from doing so. …

I have to say that Turtledove overuses #9 pretty significantly. In his current series of trilogies following the South winning the Civil War, where he lost me was that it seemed like he just replayed history in exactly the same way, but with a divided North America, so he could have the European land wars occur in…

"faint" of heart

Does anyone know of a device like this, but that also functions as a bluetooth wristband to alert me when my phone rings or a text comes in? It doesn't look like (from an admittedly cursory look at their website) this does much more than act as an alarm. Will an UP function as an alarm and a ringer? Any…

Anyone who has ever had a child knows the truth that sleep deprivation truly is torture. I wouldn't change a moment as a parent, but I really wish I had more clear memories of the first couple of months. There's just a track worn into the carpet from me walking laps for a few hours a night, a few times a night,…

60 Megablinks per second? I can blink faster than that!

Actually, because of the way the initial inflation worked, space did expand faster than light early on (don't worry about the relativity aspects, because space isn't a thing, it can do this. No, I don't understand the math). But even though the Big Bang was 14.1 billion years ago, the diameter of the universe is…

"What can I do to keep myself from dying a slow death at a conference table?"

Unfortunately, not all government locations are created equal. I work at a remote Air Force base, doing a job that could easily allow telework, but our management basically pencilwhipped/circumvented the telework requirements by making us aware that it wasn't available (the memo we got only said they had to make us…

Given the current status of NASA, do I need to bring my own vehicle to get to work on the ISS?

How do I cut down the saltiness when preparing stir-fry dishes? I made a very simple one last night (chicken, baby corn, water chestnuts, broccoli, with ginger-soy sauce), and it just ends up tasting saltier than I like. I know that soy is salty, but also somehow baby corn seems it to me too (or maybe it just…