Stuff to Blog About and More: In the News, September 28, 2008

Hurricane Kyle

Hurricane Kyle is heading toward Nova Scotia and the Gulf of Maine. This marks Maine's first hurricane watch in 17 years. Kyle has passed over the Atlantic off New Jersey on a northward trek that threatened to bring flooding and damaging winds inland.

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Tina Fey Does Sarah Again

Tina Fey reprised her role as Sarah Palin on "Saturday Night Live."

Last night's show brought back the season premiere duoof Fey and Amy Poehler, who opened the season with a memorable sketch featuring Fey as Palin and Poehler as Hillary Clinton.

This time around, Poehler played CBS's Katie Couric, parodying the interview with Palin.

When Poehler's Couric pushed Fey's Palin to specifically discuss how she would help facilitate democracy abroad, Fey gave in: "Katie, I'd like to use one of my lifelines. ... I want to phone a friend."

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A 13 million-digit prime number

This may be over all of our heads but, let's go for it. Mathematicians at UCLA have discovered a 13 million-digit prime number. This discovery 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.

As learned in the 4th grade, primes are numbers like three, seven and 11 that are divisible by only two whole positive numbers: themselves and one. Mersenne primes -- named for their discoverer, 17th-century French mathematician Marin Mersenne -- are expressed as 2P-1, or two to the power of "P" minus one. P is itself a prime number. For the new prime, P is 43,112,609.

The $100,000 prize is being offered by the Electronic Frontier Foundation for finding the first Mersenne prime with more than 10 million digits. The foundation supports individual rights on the Internet and set up the prime number prize to promote cooperative computing using the Web.

FTC: Your Rights: Credit Reporting

The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requires each of the nationwide consumer reporting companies — Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion — to provide you with a free copy of your credit report, at your request, once every 12 months. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the nation's consumer protection agency, has prepared a brochure, Your Access to Free Credit Reports, explaining your rights under the FCRA and how to order a free annual credit report.

A credit report includes information on where you live, how you pay your bills, and whether you've been sued, arrested, or filed for bankruptcy. Nationwide consumer reporting companies sell the information in your report to creditors, insurers, employers, and other businesses that use it to evaluate your applications for credit, insurance, employment, or renting a home.

How do I order my free report?

You can order your free annual credit report online at annualcreditreport.com, by calling 1-877-322-8228, or by completing the Annual Credit Report Request Form and mailing it to: Annual Credit Report Request Service, P.O. Box 105281, Atlanta, GA 30348-5281.

When you order, you need to provide your name, address, Social Security number, and date of birth. To verify your identity, you may need to provide some information that only you would know, like the amount of your monthly mortgage payment.

A Warning About "Imposter" Sites

The FTC advises consumers who order their free annual credit reports online to be sure to correctly spell annualcreditreport.com, or link to it from the FTC's website to avoid being misdirected to other websites that offer supposedly free reports,but only with the purchase of other products. While consumers may be offered additional products or services while on the authorized website, they are not required to make a purchase to receive their free annual credit reports.

For more information on free annual credit reports, read Your Access to Free Credit Reports.