Hail, Hail

Last Friday evening we got nailed by a sudden hail storm. I had just finished saying, "I think I'm going to till the garden before it gets too late", when the skies darkened and 1"-2" hail started coming down in a deluge.

It was so violent, we decided we had better close the drapes in case the windows broke. We looked out onto the lawn and the hail was getting such a good bounce it appeared that hail was jumping upward from the grass by six inches.

Somebody (not me) got some video of the storm.

When it was all over, it looked like someone had opened dozens of bags of party ice all over. The hail melted fairly quickly after all was said and done which created a fog over the streets.



Wild stuff.

Hang On To Your Hat

It was one of those days. I went on a little roller coaster ride.

I'm working a project with a limited budget and limited time frame. I added up all the materials, hardware, and software that I would need to pull it off and discovered that I would be 213% over budget.

After begging, pleading special circumstances, and wrangling with vendors, I got the whole shebang down to 40% of my allotted budget. I thought: I'm going to be a hero; they're going to name a park after me.

When I pitched my plan to the big boss, he shot me down in under 30 seconds, saying we couldn't spend that much money on an overhead project. I went from flying high to down in flames in nothing flat. Wha?... I thought I had a budget here ...

So I did what anyone would do. I laughed.

That's business sometimes: it's got some hard edges and sudden drops. I'm not worried; it'll all work out, but it looks like there is going to be some wild ride before we're done.

Hacking Toyota

I've been in the computer security field for a long time. Paranoia about your hardware and software is institutional. I remember when they first came out with the Toyota Prius with Bluetooth and other wireless technologies.

All the geeks said, "Oh, yeah." All the security geeks said, "Heck no!".

One guy went to great lengths to order his Prius without any of that stuff. The sales guy shook his head in disbelief and said, "Why wouldn't you want all this great computer technology in your car? You should know better, you're a computer guy."

The answer was, "Right: I'm in computer security and I don't want it. What does that tell you?"

These days the car and its engine controls are more computer than mechanics. It's really hard to just pop the hood and fix something on the side of the road without specialized equipment. What's that little computer doing anyway?

When you hack into a computer operating system you get a root command prompt.


What do you get when you hack into a Toyota? Well, that probably would never happen ... the current out of control acceleration is all mechanical, not electronic -- see why.

[Popular Mechanics] But the possibility that a vehicle could go from idling at a traffic light to terrific, uncalled-for and uncontrollable acceleration because the guy next to you at a traffic light answered his cellphone? Or some ghost in the machine or a hacker caused a software glitch that made your car run away and the brakes suddenly simultaneously fail? Not in the least bit likely.

So while it's fun to dream about a super-hack on the car, the current life-threatening problems that Toyota (and others) are having is not funny at all. The only thing getting hacked is Toyota's reputation.