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Mercury Retrograde Starts Now

Jan 22 2015

It will last from January 21 to February 11 2015

What is Mercury Retrograde:

The planet Mercury, which usually circles our Earth, appears to be moving backwards for the next 3 weeks.

Had it explained to me like this once, found it helpful: think of Mercury like a ship travelling a course for 5 months, so to keep it moving it will sometimes need to restock and refuel, and that’s what the 3-week-long retrograde is: a gas stop.

How you’ll be affected:

Things feel awry and your brain feels fried. Electronics get messed up, backup your data! Communication breaks down and becomes messy, arguments happen easily. Don’t sign any documents or make big deals, and leave extra time for travel.

Re-examine aspects of your life, because helpful new perspectives can pop up. Listen to your gut because intuition is high, and coincidences can be massive.

If you think this planet stuff doesn’t affect you, nope.

Blog tag = The Planets

Why Canada Doesn’t always Get the Car

Jan 22 2015

Maybe you’ve fallen for a car only to discover the automaker doesn’t sell them in Canada. Why?

Bringing 1 car to 1 country can involve
modifying 1,500+ parts

Read it online at Autonet.

Favourite line:

Consumers would see only a few major changes Nissan made to the car, but behind the scenes over 1,500 parts had to be modified to accommodate our Canadian needs.

Back to ‘Keri on Driving’ – Index

Defeat New Car Tech by Using a Wire & Wedge

Jan 21 2015

I was locked out of my car at the airport a few weeks ago, and had to call for help.

A gentleman showed up with these primitive tools, and as I watched I realized how ironic that all the electronic this and automatic that can be defeated using a wire and rubber wedge.

How it works:

1 – jam the wedge between the door’s window jam and frame, creating a gap
2 – slide the wire through the gap
3 – use the J-hook on the end of the wire to unlock the door

Sorry for the grainy photos, it was like:

Guy – woah wait, are you filming this?
Me – no no, they’re just photos, it’s okay.

2015 Range Rover Sport Supercharged V8

Jan 19 2015

I drove into the new year in a 2015 Range Rover Sport Supercharged V8 Autobiography Dynamic Edition PHFT.

It was more of an aggressive assault than drive, because look at the specs on this thing:

V8 Supercharged 5.0 L
510 hp and 461 lb-ft.
0 – 100 km/h in 5.3 seconds
Starting at $104,990

Now this is the proper way to kick off a new year.

Every feature you could want and then some – heated windshield; a massive moonroof; automatic high beams; the hazard button initiates on its own under extreme braking; all seats are heated and cooled; all riding on 21″ wheels.

There’s even… a cooler in the centre console. Really.

The power-to-weight ratio of this thing is ridiculous, that a machine this heavy could move this quickly and nimbly.

So all week long this was me – grrrrrRRRRR stomp brakes.

The interior materials and finishings inside are as good as it gets.

Like, look how the screen is seated into the leather dash.

My favourite feature though, was the impression this vehicle makes. More here.

So. Into. It.

Don’t Customize your Car’s Home Screen

Jan 19 2015

For the past couple months, I’ve been trying to upload images into the infotainment home screen of whatever car I have each week.

I’ve now tried 5 different manufactures, formatting the USB 3 different ways, using jpegs/bmps, and each time I keep failing.

I can’t get them to talk, none of the five. Strangest thing. So my reasoning is – if that doesn’t work, there’s a problem, so don’t.

Because here is the possible attack:

The Attack

Download image from the internet to USB > there’s flaws in the code that reads jpegs/bmps that could be used to execute arbitrary code on the device > leading to you running bad stuff (malware, virus, etc.)

The Defence

Just don’t. Everything doesn’t need to be customized.

To be clear: I highly doubt this niche attack will happen to you, and if it does, it’s probably because you’re a target and likely have bigger things to worry about.

But it’s not always going to be this way. In the near future, we’ll be adding apps to our cars the same way we now do to our phones. Good habits start now.