About 8 years ago someone had installed a password logger on Sourceforge's ssh server. It stole my password when I ssh'd back to my work computer. About a month or so later the hacker released all the stolen accounts and passwords on a hacker site. That day four different people tried to log into my computer. I say tried because two failed, but two succeeded. The second guy in noticed the first guy already there, so he killed his rival's session and quickly changed my password, which is why the last two couldn't log in. More evidence that there's no honor among thieves. The guy next tried to run a few root exploits, but they failed - I kept my Linux box up to date. Eventually he quit. He left behind no damage other than a few exploit files and a changed password.

My first inkling that something was wrong was when my user login password didn't work. I figured it was a corrupted file, so I just worked around it, logged in as root and gave myself a new password.

About 15 minutes later I read that day's Slashdot, and I read about the Sourceforge hack, and put two and two together. So I went back through my system logs and the ipaudit logs that I had. Then I had a good laugh over the story they told.

I'm sorry. Was that parody? My sarcasm meter doesn't work well in the heat.

A good platform for scientific scripting is Python with PyCUDA. PyCUDA makes it easy to program the NVidia CUDA chips, which can speed up many computations significantly.

Here's something that just came from Alan Grayson. It seems relevent.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) says that our Government has handed out $16 trillion to the banks.

Let me repeat that, in case you didn’t hear me the first time. The GAO says that our Government HAS HANDED OUT $16 TRILLION TO THE BANKS.

That little gem appears on Page 131 of GAO Report No. GAO-11-696. A report issued two months ago. A report that somehow seems to have eluded the attention of virtually every network, every major newspaper, and every news show.

How much is $16 trillion? That is an amount equal to more than $50,000 for every man, woman and child in America. That’s more than every penny that every American earns in a year. That’s an amount equal to almost a third of our national net worth -- the value of every home, car, personal belonging, business, bank account, stock, bond, piece of land, book, tree, chandelier, and everything else anyone owns in America. That’s an amount greater than our entire national debt, accumulated over the course of two centuries.

A $16 trillion stack of dollar bills would reach all the way to the Moon. And back. Twice.

That’s enough to pay for Saturday mail delivery. For the next 5,000 years.

All of that money went from you and me to the banks. And we got nothing. Not even a toaster.

I have been patiently waiting to see whether this disclosure would provoke some kind of reaction. Answer: nope. Everyone seems much more interested in discussing whether or not they like the cut of Perry’s jib.

Whatever a jib may be.

In the next few weeks, I’m going to be writing more about this. But right now, I wanted to keep this really simple. Just give folks something to talk about when they’re standing next to the coffee maker.

The Government gave $16 trillion to the banks. And nobody else is talking about it.

Think about it. Think about what that means.

This bears some resemblance to another competition, the 2011 Solar Decathalon, that just finished its week on the National Mall in Washington DC.

Each team designed and built a 900+ square foot energy efficient home over the past two years, and then shipped them to DC to display them for the week.

It was sponsored by the Department of Energy. Nineteen universities participated; 15 from the US and 4 from other countries; Canada, Belgium, New Zealand (the third place winner) and China.

You can see more about it here, http://www.solardecathlon.gov./

I used to name our general purpose Linux servers after flowers and trees:

aster bluet crocus daisy eidelweiss flax gladiola holly iris juniper k? lily marigold nasturtium oak poppy quince rose sunflower tulip umbel violet wisteria x? y? z?

On the other hand, if people live longer, they produce more and pay more taxes.

I think the correct premise is "how can we tax people to make the country better". Theoretically, if done right (whatever that may be), a better country means that we all have more, not less, and our tax dollars will be a good investment.

If we weigh the cost, in lives and dollars, of our "War on Terror", against the benefit of preventing one 9/11 a year, how would that expenditure compare with what we spend to prevent death and property damage from things like highway accidents, hurricanes, cancer, pollution, earth threatening asteroids, etc. Is it just me, or on that basis does it seem the "War on Terror" consumes way too much resources.

I'd love to see numbers on this if anyone knows of any.

I have owned a couple of Boglights for a few years now and they've been solidly reliable. They can last up to 6 hours on a days charge, they work as both a flashlight and an area light, they give 6 levels of light, and are designed for developing countries. However, they cost twice as much, $30 a light. This page has a lot of technical information about them, http://www.bogolight.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=BOGO-BUYONESN2&Show=TechSpecs

Great question!

I waiting on the official word from Fox News as to where the blame lies - will it be over-regulating liberals or porn-surfing liberals?

Yet, there this is interpreted that clergy may not talk about a political candidate from the puplit.

Not exactly. Clergy can talk politics all they want and no one will stop them - but they'll lose their tax exempt status.