Chilly this morning--only 52F. The high is supposed to reach into the mid 70s. Long sleeves and jeans today I think.

Wired has a long but very interesting article on cyberattacks over the last three years on Ukrainian power systems. Other institutions like banks and government agencies were also hit but the focus is on the electric grid. A couple of years ago Ted Koppel published a book titled Lights Out which highlighted the vulnerability of the American power grid. The Wired article reaffirms Koppel's points and we should all be worried--very worried. And Wannacry is back--big time.

We talk about these stories often here. This morning we started listing all of the things that we would lose if something similar hit here. If just the internet went down all our banking and bill paying as well a good bit of our entertainment would be lost. That kind of a thought, and the fact that my books exceeded the storage capacity of my nook, led me to get an iPad so all of my books are on it not somewhere in the cloud where it might be marooned and inaccessible in such a case. If the electricity went out as well we would lose heating and cooling in the house, the ability to cook on the stove, all electric lights, and the fridge and freezer. We might also lose water and sewage unless the city has backup generators. We have workarounds for water, cooking and lights--for a while. Answering "nature's call"--I guess we would have to set up a bucket. A couple or so weeks ago Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism mentioned her internet went out repeatedly one afternoon and evening making her wonder if we weren't sliding to third world status faster than we realized--especially since the thunderstorms rolling through weren't that severe. Ours went out, briefly, about a week ago and we had no severe weather to blame it on.