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Sept 7 , 2010. WASHINGTON, D.C.–The United States has a responsibility to take a leadership role in securing the Internet against both internal and external attackers, a duty that the federal government takes very seriously, the country’s top military cybersecurity official said Tuesday. However, Gen. Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency and commander of the U.S. Cyber Command, provided virtually nothing in the way of details of how the government intends to accomplish this rather daunting task.

In a speech at the Gov 2.0 Summit here, Alexander said that it is incumbent upon the U.S. government to play a major role in making both the public Internet and private, classified networks more secure and resilient to attack. He expressed confidence that the country’s information security apparatus was up to the task, but acknowledged the difficulty of securing the Internet, a network that many security experts see as hopelessly broken and flawed by design.

“We made the Internet and it seems to me that we ought to be the first folks to get out there and protect it,” Alexander said. “The challenge before us is large and daunting. But we have an obligation to meet it head-on.”

[Quote]:

Video Created by Scott Manley, this is a view of the solar system showing the locations of all the asteroids starting in 1980, as asteroids are discovered they are added to the map and highlighted white so you can pick out the new ones.

The final colour of an asteroids indicates how closely it comes to the inner solar system.

Earth Crossers are Red

Earth Approachers (Perihelion less than 1.3AU) are Yellow

All Others are Green

Notice now the pattern of discovery follows the Earth around its orbit, most discoveries are made in the region directly opposite the Sun. You’ll also notice some clusters of discoveries on the line between Earth and Jupiter, these are the result of surveys looking for Jovian moons. Similar clusters of discoveries can be tied to the other outer planets, but those are not visible in this video.

As the video moves into the mid 1990′s we see much higher discovery rates as automated sky scanning systems come online. Most of the surveys are imaging the sky directly opposite the sun and you’ll see a region of high discovery rates aligned in this manner.

At the beginning of 2010 a new discovery pattern becomes evident, with discovery zones in a line perpendicular to the Sun-Earth vector. These new observations are the result of the WISE (Widefield Infrared Survey Explorer) which is a space mission that’s tasked with imaging the entire sky in infrared wavelengths.

The scale of the video at 1080P resolution is roughly 1million kilometers per pixel, and each second of video corresponds to 60 days.

Currently we have observed over half a million minor planets, and the discovery rates show no sign that we’re running out of undiscovered objects, scientific estimates suggest that there are about a billion asteroids larger than 100metres (about the size of a football field) .

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Footage has emerged of passengers being thrown around when their cruise ship lurched wildly in 25ft swells and 50-knot winds.

At least 42 people were hurt as the P&O ship, Pacific Sun, ran into an intense storm with waves as high as seven meters almost 400 miles north of New Zealand in July 2008.

The ship, with 1,732 passengers and 671 crew, was returning to Auckland from the islands of Vanuatu at the end of an eight-night cruise. The incident occurred just after dark, as many of the passengers were sitting down to dinner when huge waves caught the ship side-on as it manoeuvred, causing it to pitch violently.

Injuries included broken ribs and limbs, a fractured pelvis, a broken collar bone, and cuts and gashes.

The rapture is today.

Anybody notice anything?

update: postponed

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Mayor Richard Daley says he will not run for re-election in 2011, saying it’s "time for me, it’s time for Chicago to move on."

Maybe now they can try democracy. I know it’s a long shot, but I’m told by Voice of America that it’s an effective form of government.