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

Alex Carver agcarver+ale at acarver.net
Mon Aug 12 22:24:40 EDT 2013


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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