[ale] OT: What the hell is XSS in Comcast land?

[Scott Castaline]

I don't remember what our PG&E bills back then were, but our PacTel
bills were cheap $ 5.00/month w/2 phones whereas our SouthernBell bills
had been about $35.00/month w/ 1 phone. Yep the good ole days where you
had to lease the phone from Ma Bell.


On 08/12/2013 10:24 PM, Alex Carver wrote:
> Yeah, I remember hearing them called Flicker and Flash even if it never
> happened at my house. :)  I think it depended on their substations and
> how often Asphlund came through to trim trees.  Spending 18 years there
> (76-94 next to you in Hollywood) I don't recall any power outages except
> in the most severe of storms (like close to tropical storm strength).
> Nearly every one was infrastructure damage (blown up transformers,
> broken wires) but almost never a short duration blackout.
> 
> Compared to California, FPL is dirt cheap even back then. :)
> 
> On 8/12/2013 19:17, Scott Castaline wrote:
>> I lived in S. Fla for about 28 yrs (actually 25 as in the late 70's I
>> live in CA for about 3) from 70 to 98. We used to call FPL Florida Flash
>> & Flicker. When I was working for Harris Computer Systems Division in
>> Ft. Lauderdale (aka Ft. Liquordale), power outages were very common at
>> least anywhere between 1 -3/week. My department wasn't hooked up to the
>> generators, so when hit our tech stations were dead. FPL also was
>> commonly called Florida Plunder & Loot. In the late 80's I do have to
>> admit that they were finally improving. Power fails were down to 1/month
>> when I moved up here in 98.
>>
>>
>> On 08/12/2013 04:36 PM, Alex Carver wrote:
>>> On 8/12/2013 13:23, Ron Frazier (ALE) wrote:
>>>
>>>> I see what you're saying.  I don't know why, but commercial consumer
>>>> routers just seem to get dodgy periodically.  They all had their
>>>> firmware updated when I bought them, and then again if I know there's
>>>> a reason to.  Otherwise, there they sits.  I have it on my list to
>>>> tinker with alternate firmware, but for now have neither the time nor
>>>> available compatible devices to mess with it.  I hesitate to add yet
>>>> more devices that I have to learn to configure and patch.  Dealing
>>>> with the periodic changes to several pc's and several vm's keeps me
>>>> quite busy.  I do appreciate the suggestions though, and find it
>>>> interesting that the alternate firmwares are that much more stable.
>>>> The comcast box doesn't seem to be quite as flaky as the routers, but
>>>> it too seems to like a reboot on occasion.
>>>
>>> Consumer firmware is exactly why I replaced the firmware in the router
>>> the moment I bought it.  It's especially important considering I use
>>> features that Linksys' own firmware does not support (changing port
>>> number when mapping, supporting multiple IPs on WAN, etc.)  Installing
>>> is fairly trivial now, plenty of tools for multiple operating systems
>>> and OpenWRT now has Lua scripts to give you a web configuration system
>>> so you technically don't have to fiddle with terminal access.  It took
>>> me almost as much time to set up the wiring for the firmware as it did
>>> to install the firmware itself.  Customizing took a little time but for
>>> most applications it's not bad.
>>>
>>>> By the way, my whole HOUSE cycles it power 1 - 3 times / month due to
>>>> electrical storms, at least in the summer.
>>>
>>> That's called a very bad provider.  When I lived in south Florida (which
>>> is Florida Power and Light across most of the state), power outages in
>>> the summer were rare.  Maybe one per summer but more likely one every
>>> other year.  Brownouts were a bit more common and I get them where I am
>>> now, too.  But full outages 1-3 times per month is beyond reasonable.
>>> Then again, it's Southern Company/GA Powerless so you get the shaft.
>>>
>>>
>>>> Not directly related to what you said, but I find it helpful to cycle
>>>> power to UPS's about once a month to let them do their self test (if
>>>> so equipped) on the batteries.  You don't want the SLA batteries to
>>>> get stale and die prematurely.  They need some discharging and
>>>> recharging on occasion.  The self test may drain 5% from the battery.
>>>> I think it's a good idea to periodically drain them substantially as
>>>> well.  From what I've read, a used lead acid battery, but not abused,
>>>> is a happy lead acid battery.
>>>
>>> Decent UPSes self test automatically without user intervention.  All
>>> three of mine self-test weekly (I hear the click when it switches to
>>> battery) and I don't need to pull the plug on them to do it.
>>>
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>>
>>
> 
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