links for 2009-11-15

"The problem lies in the Flash ActionScript same-origin policy, which is designed to limit a Flash object's access to other content only from the domain it originated from, added Mike Bailey, a senior security researcher at Foreground. Unfortunately, said Bailey, if an attacker can deposit a malicious Flash object on a Web site — through its user-generated content capabilities, which typically allow people to upload files to the site or service — they can execute malicious scripts in the context of that domain."

"While about 40 per cent of hydrocarbons in today's dust come from water-dependent plants, this rose to 60 per cent, first between 120,000 and 110,000 ago and again from 50,000 to 45,000 years ago. So the region seemed to be in the grip of unusually wet spells at the time. That may have been enough to allow sub-Saharan Stone Age Homo sapiens to migrate north: the first fossils of modern humans outside Africa date from 93,000 year ago in Israel. And both genetic analysis and archaeology show that humans didn't spread extensively beyond Africa until 50,000 years ago, suggesting a second migration at the time of the second wet spell."

"There are many companies moving to fill the energy gap. Using federal loan guarantees and $4 billion in "smart grid" stimulus cash, they are working on utility-scale storage units that they hope will help balance intermittent renewable sources like wind and solar and let electric grid operators match power supplies with demand."

"Today we are glad to release Sigyn SM — a free high-quality Magento theme created by Silverthemes.com especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers. The theme has a unique grungy design that stands out and can serve as a good baseline for your Magento-powered online shops."

"No matter how many times you hear them, there are some statistics that just bowl you over. The one that always stuns me is this: Imagine if you took all the cars, trucks, planes, trains and ships in the world and added up their exhaust every year. The amount of carbon dioxide, or CO2, all those cars, trucks, planes, trains and ships collectively emit into the atmosphere is actually less than the carbon emissions every year that result from the chopping down and clearing of tropical forests in places like Brazil, Indonesia and the Congo. We are now losing a tropical forest the size of New York State every year, and the carbon that releases into the atmosphere now accounts for roughly 17 percent of all global emissions contributing to climate change."

"TableGear is a software package for working with data on the web. It is designed get your data into a web page, and let you work with it quickly and easily, the way you would in powerful desktop applications like Excel."

"The letter from the JCT includes a list of civil and criminal penalties. These aren’t penalties for not buying insurance, however. They’re penalties for refusing to pay the resulting tax."

"The rate of deforestation in the Amazon has dropped by 45% and is the lowest on record since monitoring began 21 years ago, Brazil's government says."

"It's amazing that after 20+ years of existence, the Guerrilla Girls' message is still as resonant and needed as ever. Art museums average 15% women in curated exhibits, women of color .003%, and 4% of museum acquisitions are of work by women artists. Ridiculous."

"Chris Walker, on Twitter, asked a question I get often: “Any advice on getting followers?” It’s the worst question in social media. Sorry Chris for picking on your question. It’s actually a question lots of people wonder, but it’s the kind of thing that no one really can answer." I agree totally.

"The problem is both a lack of correct planning and a lack of understanding of the root need for the redesign. Once we’ve identified these elements, we’re set for success. In this article, we’ll discuss how to plan and execute a redesign, and how to find the perfect timing for it."

"While thousands of at-risk Americans wait, some big Wall Street banks have already secured the hard-to-find H1N1 vaccine for their employees. Building on a story that BusinessWeek broke, NBC reports that employees at the New York Stock Exchange, bankers at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, and employees at the Federal Reserve have all received swine flu vaccine doses to administer to their employees. In particular, NBC reports that Goldman Sachs has received 200 doses of the vaccine — the same amount as Lenox Hill Hospital in New York. Wall Street banks, like many other companies, put in requests for the vaccine but seem to have had something of a leg up on securing doses."

"Google plans to put millions of the world's books online and create the world's largest virtual library by 2010. The company has already scanned 10 million out-of-print books as part of its Library Project. Google plans to charge people for access to its large online collection of books and to act as a selling agent of books through its Google Editions. Critics fear it is creating a monopoly over information, and are unhappy at the firm digitising titles against the wishes of many authors and publishers."

"Floom is a MooTools slideshow plugin that can present images & their captions beautifully."

"But a closer look at a federal draft environmental impact statement released last week reveals that even with extensive mitigation, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System project would destroy rare plants and permanently alter prized views from the nearby Mojave National Preserve. It would also annually consume an estimated 32 million gallons of groundwater in a region where water is scarce. Such findings concern environmentalists who are almost certain to challenge the project. They also add to mounting criticism that the Obama administration is rushing to permit utility-scale renewable energy projects without considering the projects' effects on pristine public lands and the rare plants and animals that inhabit them."

"Twitter’s official spokesman Mark Logan recorded a video of himself responding to common user complaints about the popular service. In it, the man bluntly tells users that the company doesn’t really care whether you leave or not."

"This template is a simple one page “Under Construction” template that allows you to keep your users informed,while you work at your website.The template has a jQuery slider containing 3 slides:one with your social pages,like Twitter or Facebook,one with a subscribe-by-mail form and another one with an area for writing what you do.I thing it`s very useful.Now you have to convince yourself of its functionality." Very nice.

"Notimoo is a Mootools plugin for displaying Growl style notifications to your web visitors."

"Mexican authorities have dismissed almost a quarter of all traffic police in the city of Monterrey for failing corruption and competence tests. It is the latest move by the Mexican government to clean up its police forces, many of which are suspected of having links to organised crime. At the end of last month all 1,142 traffic police in Monterrey were pulled off duty to undergo extensive tests."

"James Bamford comes to much the same conclusion in his book, The Shadow Factory: The NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America: there was no legal wall that prevented intelligence and law enforcement from sharing the information necessary to prevent 9/11; it was inter-agency rivalries and turf battles."

"The chairman of General Motors, Edward E. Whitacre Jr., said Tuesday that the automaker would be able to repay all of its government loans and would begin doing so soon."

How true.

"Mr. Khan, 60, is trying to solve two of the biggest problems in India: battered roads and overflowing landfills. His solution: streets made with recycled plastic. Mr. Khan’s company, K.K. Plastic Waste Management, which he founded with his brother, Rasool Khan, has built more than 1,200 kilometers, or 745 miles, of roads using 3,500 tons of plastic waste, primarily in Bangalore, India’s technology and outsourcing hub. Mixing plastic with asphalt, Mr. Khan forms a compound called polymerized bitumen. When used in roads, it withstands monsoons and everyday wear and tear better than traditional pavement."

"Nasa's experiment last month to find water on the Moon was a major success, agency scientists have announced."

"A Microsoft executive was quoted in an interview as saying "what we've tried to do with Windows 7…is create a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics". The comments, by partner group manager Simon Aldous, appeared in UK computing trade magazine PCR. Microsoft countered that Mr Aldous was not involved with the development of Windows 7." I see a lawsuit.

"We're at a critical juncture in the evolution of software. The web is still here and it is still strong. Anyone can still put any information or applications on a web server without asking for permission, and anyone in the world can still access it just by typing a URL. I don't think I appreciated how important that is until recently. Nobody designs new systems like that anymore, or at least few of them succeed. What an incredible stroke of luck the web was, and what a shame it would be to let that freedom slip away." A thinly veiled attack on Apple's App Store.

"Here’s some things that startups that aren’t run well do"

"The document, issued in draft form in June, calls for work to identify sources of nanomaterials, which can measure as little as perhaps one-10,000th the width of a human hair. Research will also center on how they move in the environment, the problems they might cause for people, animals and plants, and how these problems could be avoided or mitigated."

"A controversial novel challenged by the parent of a Roanoke County high school student will not be banned, but school officials have chosen to restrict access to it. Three copies of "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky, a coming-of-age novel written from the perspective of a teenager and containing sexually explicit scenes, will be returned to the shelves of the libraries at William Byrd and Hidden Valley high schools."