Fridaygram: online safety, asteroid close call, spectacular glacier

February 08, 2013


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By Scott Knaster, Google Developers Blog Editor

You’re reading a blog for developers, so chances are you’re probably pretty savvy about how things work online, and that includes safety and security. Of course, just because we know how to be secure doesn’t mean we always do what we should. And there are all our less-technical friends and family members who often turn to us for guidance. To help keep people secure online, we recently updated the site Good to Know: A guide to staying safe and secure online.


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This site contains lots of common sense and advanced tips, such as how to secure your passwords, ways you can prevent identity theft, and a guide to technical terminology. Although Good to Know is designed to be useful to people from all backgrounds, even us tech folks can find some handy information there.

Speaking of safety, it turns out we can all can relax about Asteroid 2012 DA 14. According to NASA, the 45-meter object will get close to Earth, but no closer than about 17,000 miles. The space agency also says the asteroid won’t be visible to the naked eye, and will be hard to track even with telescopes. But the important thing is that we won’t have another Tunguska event.

Although it looks like we’re going to avoid an asteroid impact, nature continues to demonstrate enormous power that is sometimes destructive and awesome. A camera crew recently filmed an immense glacier calving, an event that lasted more than an hour. You can watch it from the comfort of your asteroid-safe home.


Safety is important, whether you’re on the Internet or looking out for asteroids. While we spend most of the week here telling you about Google developer topics, Fridaygram is set aside for science, technology, and other fun & generally nerdy topics.