This sounds fairly useful!

IDA Toolbag

These are very cool!

Smithsonian Magazine Retina | Stunning Star Trail Photographs from International...

Still, modern space-based views like this one show the event against an evocative backdrop of the turbulent solar surface with prominences lofted above the Sun's edge by twisting magnetic fields. Remarkably, the thin ring of light seen surrounding the planet's dark silhouette is sunlight refracted by Venus' thick atmosphere.

APOD: 2012 June 9 - Venus at the Edge

For Bernanke another round of QE is inevitable. As "Operation Twist" ends the economy, employment and the markets have begun to show cracks as they have each time stimulative efforts by the Federal Reserve have come to an end. The problem for Bernanke is that despite calls for assistance in policy efforts to promote economic growth from the current Administration - Congress and Senante have remained deadlocked in dispute blocking any potential actions. This has left Bernanke standing alone, facing the dragon, knowing that these programs have little long term effect. Each previous attempt to slay the beast has had a diminishing rate of return and a negative impact on the consumer. Lower rates have failed to spur demand for borrowing, expansion or increased employment.

St. Bernanke's Fight Against the Deflation Dragon

A developer without context who is pissed off politically will rely on the only context they know – as an ordinary citizen. In a tech-infused fit of rage, they’ll write one of two iPhone apps: the “who was my representative again?” app, or the “where do I go to vote again?” app. They’ve been written dozens of times, and I’m sorry to say, the true problem here is distribution, not tech. And they’re not the biggest civic opportunities either.

We need to organize the civic hackers, sure. But we also need to organize the domain experts who can shed light on how the world really works.

[BackChannel] Three Problems With Civic Hackathons | TechPresident

The FBI has opened an investigation into who disclosed information about a classified U.S. cyberattack program aimed at Iran's nuclear facilities, according to two people familiar with the probe.

FBI Probes Leaks About Cyberattacks by U.S. - WSJ.com

In 1761 and 1769, hundreds of astronomers from more than a dozen nations stationed at more than 130 locations around the world turned their telescopes simultaneously to the sky to observe the transit of Venus. They did so — at great peril and against heavy odds in many cases — because they believed that the transit held the key to one of the most pressing quests of the age: the distance between Earth and the sun and, by extension, the size of the solar system.

Transit of Venus: A heavenly event of a lifetime - Los Angeles Times

As Y Combinator founder Paul Graham said in an open letter to YC companies last night, investors are already convinced that Facebook’s IPO “will hurt the market for earlier stage startups.”

In short, it means valuations are coming back down to earth. Early-stage investors can no longer be sure that the public markets will provide an easy, gullible cash-out for the companies they invest in, no matter how ridiculously inflated their valuations are.

The Facebook IPO has damaged the whole tech sector

As William Harkness (1837-1903), then director of the U.S. Naval Observatory, said on the eve of the 1882 transit: "There will be no other transits of Venus 'til the 21st century of our era has dawned upon the Earth. When the last transit occurred the intellectual world was awakening from the slumber of ages, and that wondrous scientific activity, which has led to our present advanced knowledge, was just beginning. What will be the state of science when the next transit season arrives God only knows. Not even our children's children will live to take part in the astronomy of that day."

Transit of Venus highlights age of wondrous scientific activity - CNN.com

Four other countries can launch sophisticated and damaging cyber attacks -- including China and Russia -- and plan to use them in warfare.

Just four?

Benefits Are Great, and the Risks Exist Anyway - Room for Debate - NYTimes.com