Omega13

UCLA group discovers humongous prime number

 Mathematicians at UCLA have discovered a 13 million-digit prime number, a long-sought milestone that makes them eligible for a $100,000 prize.

The group found the 46th known Mersenne prime last month on a network of 75 computers running Windows XP. The number was verified by a different computer system running a different algorithm. 

Late word this evening is that McCain and Obama both stormed out of the White House with no deal to the financial crisis in site.  Some rumors are out that McCain is going to back the alternative House GOP bailout.  The alternative plan call for more private sector involvement in the bailout, including buyouts of the mortgage-back securities, and federal insurance on the mortgages.

This plan strikes me as infinitely better.  Insurance on the mortgages for the companies buying them up will cost pennies on the dollar compared to a $700 billion bailout.  The main downside is that there’s no return on the insurance. 

The main advantage to the Paulson Plan is that we put up a loan, and since the mortgages should eventually go back up, we wouldn’t be out that much money - and could make a profit.  Still there is no guarantee of that since home prices are still falling.  That’s the one part of Paulson’s plan that makes it too risky - no one knows where the bottom is.  Remember, Paulson’s plan is designed not to save the mortgages, but to save the securities behind them.  Even once that’s done, the mortgages themselves could still go down.

Insurance will probably cost us $35 billion instead.  We’ll be out the money, but with no deeper loss.  The private sector will buy the bad paper, and the US will insure them against the inevitable foreclosures. 

Either way, the banks in trouble get to sell their assets and get back to a more stable state.  But the alternative plan costs $116 per person in the US, not $2333.  It looks like my own congressman is (for now) backing the alternative plan as well.  Go, Sam, go!

This should also be a wakeup call to our own government.  You can’t hold off paying your loans back forever.

I think this quiz is a bit Austin-centric. Given that I’ve been to Austin maybe twice in my life (and got out as fast as I could), it made those questions a bit more challenging….

You are 65% REAL Texan!!

 You’re mostly texan. You know your Mexican food, state heritage and are probably slightly politically aware. You can probably pronounce Kukendall, Manchaca and Boerne correctly. Go you.

How Texan Are You?

Take More Quizzes

It’s 4 am.  You hear noises from your daughter’s room.  You find a naked boy standing on her bed.  What do you do?  Well, if you are in Florida and beat him with a pipe to chase him away, you get arrested for assault.

Link 

  A Deltona father ended up in jail today after beating his daughter’s teenage boyfriend who he caught naked in the girl’s bedroom, sheriff’s officials said.

Raul Colon, 45, didn’t even know his daughter had a boyfriend — or that the youngster had been sneaking into the home for more than a year. So when he heard noises coming from his daughter’s room this morning and saw a stranger naked, standing on the girl’s bed, he swung a metal pipe he had taken from the garage, hitting the 15-year-old, a sheriff’s report said. 

Now, I find it regrettable that  he didn’t know about his daughter’s boyfriend. That would have at least saved the boy from a beating, but the kid is lucky the dad didn’t have something more substantial for home defense.  His brains could just as easily been scattered all over the wall.

 I find the last statement regarding the boy’s father enlightening, though.  It doesn’t sound like he thinks it was totally undeserved:

 Although Contreres’ father said he wasn’t sure if he wanted to press charges, deputies took Colon to jail anyway.

This happens all too often: 

Customer Service