It used to be a six character password would take days to crack and the help of powerful expensive computers. Not any more. Amazon's cloud computing, useful for rapidly scalable graphics and database projects, can also be used by hackers to create a cheap super computer password hacker system that can crack a password in less than an hour for a cost of $2.10. So make your passwords longer and more complex (upper case and lower case letters, numbers, and special symbols such as !@#$%^&*()_+)

This entry was posted on December 1, 2010 at 4:27 PM and has received 1641 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

NY Times article on a energy bubbles discovery in our galaxy that are nearly as big as the galaxy itself. Wow this is a major shift in what we know about where we live! Maybe relates to 2012 stuff too as we align with the galactic core.
Michael

From http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/science/space/10galaxy.html?_r=1&scp=5&sq=galaxy&st=cse

A group of scientists working with data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope said Tuesday that they had discovered two bubbles of energy erupting from the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The bubbles, they said at a news conference and in a paper to be published Wednesday in The Astrophysical Journal, extend 25,000 light years up and down from each side of the galaxy and contain the energy equivalent to 100,000 supernova explosions.

“They’re big,” said Doug Finkbeiner of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, leader of the team that discovered them.

 

The source of the bubbles is a mystery. One possibility is that they are fueled by a wave of star births and deaths at the center of the galaxy. Another option is a gigantic belch from the black hole known to reside, like Jabba the Hutt, at the center of the Milky Way. What it is apparently not is dark matter, the mysterious something that astronomers say makes up a quarter of the universe and holds galaxies together.

 

“Wow,” said David Spergel, an astrophysicist at Princeton who was not involved in the work.

 

¶ “And we think we know a lot about our own galaxy,” Dr. Spergel added, noting that the bubbles were almost as big as the galaxy and yet unsuspected until now.

 

¶ Jon Morse, head of astrophysics at NASA headquarters, said, “This shows again that the universe is full of surprises.”

¶

One of the most surprised was Dr. Finkbeiner. A year ago he was part of a group led by Gregory Dobler of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara, Calif., that said it had discerned the existence of a mysterious fog of high-energy particles buzzing around the center of the Milky Way. The particles manifested themselves as a haze of extra energy after all the known sources of gamma rays — the most energetic form of electromagnetic radiation — had been subtracted from Fermi data that had recently been made public.

¶

At the time, Dr. Finkbeiner and his colleagues speculated that the haze was produced by dark matter. The center of the galaxy is home to all manner of wild and woolly high-energy phenomena, including a gigantic black hole and violently spinning pulsars, but cosmological theories also suggest that dark matter would be concentrated there. Collisions of dark matter particles, the theory goes, could produce showers of gamma rays.

¶

But in the follow-up analysis, the haze — besides being bigger than Dr. Finkbeiner and his colleagues had thought — turned out to have sharp boundaries, like, well, a bubble. Dark matter, according to the prevailing theory, should be more diffuse.

 

“Dark matter has been there billions of years,” Dr. Finkbeiner explained. “If something has been going on for billions of years, you wouldn’t expect a sharp edge.” He and the other scientists said this did not mean that dark matter was not there clogging the center of the galaxy, but that it would be harder to see.

This entry was posted on December 1, 2010 at 3:13 PM and has received 1554 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

This Wednesday Sandbox gathering we learn about Ayurveda, which is a 5,000-year-old system of natural healing that has its origins in the Vedic culture of India. Would you like to be healthier and have more energy for life? What if simple food changes could make you healthier? Would you like to feel more balance with nature, body, mind and spirit?

More than a mere system of treating illness, Ayurveda is a science of life (Ayur = life, Veda = science or knowledge). It offers a body of wisdom designed to help people stay vital while realizing their full human potential. Ayurveda reminds us that health is the balanced and dynamic integration between our environment, body, mind, and spirit.
 

Recognizing that human beings are part of nature, Ayurveda describes three fundamental energies that govern our inner and outer environments: movement, transformation, and structure. Known in Sanskrit as Vata (Wind), Pitta (Fire), and Kapha (Earth), these primary forces are responsible for the characteristics of our mind and body. Each of us has a unique proportion of these three forces that shapes our nature. If Vata is dominant in our system, we tend to be thin, light, enthusiastic, energetic, and changeable. If Pitta predominates in our nature, we tend to be intense, intelligent, and goal-oriented and we have a strong appetite for life. When Kapha prevails, we tend to be easy-going, methodical, and nurturing. Although each of us has all three forces, most people have one or two elements that predominate.

 

The goal of Ayurveda is to identify a person’s ideal state of balance, determine where they are out of balance, and offer interventions using diet, herbs, yogic lifestyle, etc. We will look at the Brahma Chakra (Wheel of Life) that is the philosophical system that became the basis of the Ayurvedic medical cosmology.

 
Randy Goldberg studied Ayurveda for two years in Calcutta, India. Randy is a former Yoga monk, a Craniosacral therapist, a world famous astrologer interviewed by the Washington Post and by CNN. He facilitates Family Constellation therapy for individuals and groups.

randy (at) randygoldberg (dot) org or 202-518-0442 www.randygoldberg.org

The workshop begins after dinner at 8pm.  I invite you to join us, though as always what ever choice you make you will be honored in.

This entry was posted on December 1, 2010 at 12:53 PM and has received 1514 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.