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Space

Lowell Observatory Pushes To Name an Asteroid "Trayvon" 588

Posted by samzenpus from the victim-belt dept.
Flash Modin writes "The observatory where Pluto was discovered is pushing to name an asteroid after a black teenager killed in a controversial confrontation in Florida last year. William Lowell Putnam III says his family has identified with the cause of African American rights, and thus an asteroid named after Trayvon Martin is perfectly appropriate. Putnam is the sole trustee of the observatory, which was founded by Percival Lowell during his search for canals on Mars. Astronomers at the observatory discovered the asteroid in 2000, but it has not been formally named. Putnam has already asked the Minor Planet Center once to designate the asteroid 'Trayvon,' but they told him the designation was 'premature.' Now that there's been a verdict, the observatory is reapplying in hopes the naming body will see things different."

Comment Re:Useless academic is useless. (Score 1) 462

by CptNerd (#44705509) Attached to: Scottish Academic: Mining the Moon For Helium 3 Is Evil
Actually no, it was the "Tycho Magnetic Anomaly 1", which was underneath the crater called Tycho, which is the brightest crater on this side of the Moon. It has very large "rays" of lighter ejecta all around it, which makes it perfect for drawing attention to something inside the crater. Once the curious ape descendants decide to poke around the big shiny, they're bound to discover that the magnetic field there is screwing up their toys. But Tycho is definitely a near-side area.
United States

US Gov't To Issue Secure Online IDs 205

Posted by Soulskill from the you-can-trust-us dept.
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Tom Groenfeldt reports in Forbes that the U.S. Postal Service has awarded a contract to SecureKey to implement the Federal Cloud Credential Exchange (FCXX) designed to enable individuals to securely access online services at multiple federal agencies — such as health benefits, student loan information, and retirement benefit information — without the need to use a different password or other digital identification for each service. SecureKey already operates a trusted identity service in Canada using identification keys provided by one of five participating Canadian banks. It allows Canadians to connect with 120 government programs online with no additional user names or passwords for everything from benefits queries to fishing licenses. The SecureKey program is designed to connect identity providers — such as banks, governments, healthcare organizations, and others — with consumers' favorite online services though a cloud-based broker service. The platform allows identity providers and online services to integrate once, reducing the integration and business complexity otherwise incurred in establishing many-to-many relationships."
Programming

Ask Slashdot: Is Development Leadership Overvalued? 252

Posted by Soulskill from the or-is-followership-undervalued dept.
gspec writes "I am an engineer with about 14 years experience in the industry. Lately I have been interviewing with a few companies hoping to land a better position. In almost all those interviews, I was asked these types of question: 'Have you been a leader in a project?' or 'Why after these many years, you are not in a management? Do you lack leadership skills?' Sometimes these questions discourage me and make me feel like an underachiever. I found an article in which the author talked about exactly this, and I agree with him. I think in this modern society, especially in the U.S., we overvalue the leaders and undervalue the followers to the point that we forget that leaders cannot do any good if they do not have good followers."

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