Saturday, June 7, 2008

Tornado aftermath

A quick update/status from the tornado that passed near our home last week, and some advice for everyone to prevent a nasty aftershock in any emergency that involves the power grid.

Our home was undamaged. It missed us by about 2 miles. My car not-so-much, as I was driving out of the actual path of the storm and got whacked by hail the size of baseballs. Nothing that can't be repaired easily. I can tell you that the sound your car makes when being bombarded by hail of that magnitude is amazing.

The aftermath? If the power goes out for an entire city, go, immediately, unplug everything you value. Your computer, the stereo, TV, the fridge, freezer, clock radios, get it all off the grid. The local power company was in a hurry to get everything running after 48 hours of darkness. When they flipped the big master switch, the resulting city-wide surge zapped thousands of appliances and electronics into oblivion. The wise among us did not suffer any damage from the power up. The unwise lost not only electronics, in some cases the surge was powerful enough to burn out house wiring.

Just saying . . .

Impossible!

The only way to discover
the limits of the possible
is to go beyond them
into the impossible.

- Arthur C. Clarke


Tuesday, June 3, 2008

More on the Apple Safari vulnerability

Shocking quote from the person that found "part" of the vulnerability:

From http://aviv.raffon.net/2008/05/31/SafariPwnsInternetExplorer.aspx

"I can only say that Microsoft's suggestion for a workaround is not enough. This combined Safari/IE vulnerability might still be successfully exploited, even if the user will change Safari's download location. Also, the Safari "Carpet Bomb" vulnerability can be used in combination with vulnerabilities in other products, so even if MS fixes their vulnerability, Safari users will still be vulnerable.

The current best solution is to stop using Safari until Apple fixes their vulnerability.
"

(Bold typeface in quote added by me . . .)

Also, if you want to know what the first part of the vulnerability in Safari could potentially do to your desktop -- see this site (pics and tech info):

http://www.oreillynet.com/onlamp/blog/2008/05/safari_carpet_bomb.html