Marie SkÅodowska-Curie was Polish. Her friends and family called her Panni as opposed to Madame.

I cannot remember when I had my last tetanus shot, and my doctor's records don't show it. I, for one, would welcome a national registry that could keep better records than me and my doctor.

I like old Avalon Hill strategy battle type games. We paid $60 each for them - and I'd buy modern computerized versions of them at the same price. Each player could use their mobile/tablet as his or her interface. Common elements (i.e. public information) could be displayed on a large TV or computer screen. Why aren't these games (re)made?

A large refund is a sign of poor tax planning. You are getting your own money back without interest. In light of this story, you may not even get your own money back if the feds take it.

Arrange your source deductions and installment payments so that you don't get a refund.

It would be better to owe $2K each year than to expect refunds.

Nothing new here. I learned from watching Millennium that people of the future must chain smoke in order to stay healthy.

I remember a puzzle in OMNI some decades ago, where an alien had to transport the knowledge of the Encyclopedia Britannica in its space ship away from Earth without carrying any additional weight.

The solution was to transform all the data into a single rational number between 0 and 1 and to etch a scratch on the surface of the Alien's space ship, where the size of the scratch would correspond with the single rational number (say in inches or some comparable measuring units). It was apparently possible for aliens to etch and subsequently measure distances at the subatomic scale.

However you sort, make sure you staple them to keep your receipts in order.
This is particularly important if you subsequently enter them into an accounting program or even a spreadsheet.

Masks are magically thought to prevent everything.
A friend of mine caught a cab in Shanghai during one of its more scary bird flu outbreaks.
The cab driver wore a mask with a hole cut out of it for his cigarette.

Previous poster had the following signature:
MR ASICs. MR not. SAR CDEDBD transistors? YLB. MR ASICs

YLB??
This should be replaced with Li'l B.

Mr Ducks; Mr Knott; Czar; C. M. Wings; Li'l B.; Mr Ducks

After spending all their money on cell phones, kids cannot afford to buy products advertised to them on Facebook.

The fact that Facebook's customer base is morphng into older folks only helps its business model of selling ads.

In a similar vein, I knew a prof who researched "Methods of getting out of having to do research" (I used quotes but this is really a paraphrase.)

I don't find anything wrong with such researchers. They are playing a game and earning a living.

My question is: How does such seemingly-ridiculous research get approved for funding? Can we not spend that money on greater good?

Wine may be perfectly crumulent, but I don't want it running on my network.
I'll wait until Netflix supports HTML 5, which should be fairly soon!

I would sooner buy a $35 Chromecast than install Windows emulation software (whether or not Wine is an emulator).

Electrons are point particles - modelled as zero-volume and massless. They might have no physical form. I am not surprised that our measures of them indicate perfect symmetry.

Stephen Wise was interviewed on a Canadian radio program this morning:
http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2013/12/12/granting-rights-and-personhood-to-animals/

He wants this case to go up the legal court ladders. This would get him more press coverage and more profits from sales of his book. The cost to society of his failed attempt would be judges' wasted time. The cost to society of a ruling somehow favouring Wise would be less effective drug testing, for the chimps he is trying to "free" are used in medical research. Either way, it is lose-lose for human society.