Author: DOuG pRATt

This One Simple Trick Isn’t Genius, But it Works

My home network has been on Verizon Fios for nineteen years. As was pointed out not too long ago, the speed was originally 15 Mbps, coming over a D-Link Ethernet-only router. Screaming fast for the time, but not even qualifying as broadband anymore.* Besides my office, I wired a couple bedrooms with Ethernet.

Later, when Verizon added Fios TV, an Actiontec router showed up with MoCA networking and Wi-Fi. With that upgrade, 20 Mbps was in the house for a long time.

Later, Verizon replaced the 1st generation Optical Network Terminal in the garage. It came with the big breakthrough router, a Verizon Quantum Gateway. I ran 100 Mbps for ages, and finally kicked up to Gigabit Internet some months ago. Do I need that much speed? Nah, but I had to make Verizon justify a price increase.

I repurposed the Actiontec router as a Wi-Fi hotspot in the guest room by assigning it, and its DHCP range, a different IP subnet. The 192.168.2.0 network uplinked to the Gateway’s 192.168.1.0 network and out to the Internet from there.

Now that I have latest Verizon router, I’ve replaced the ancient Actiontec with the still-excellent Quantum Gateway, using the same subnet trick. Wi-fi performance is vastly better than it was with the Actiontec.

It would be nice if the Gateway could act as an extender on the same subnet, but it doesn’t do that. As far as I know, anyway. The only potential limitation is with products that need to discover each other with broadcasts on the same subnet. I’m looking at you, Google Chromecast.


Does this mean I’m an advanced technical user? 😉

* My first broadband connection, in 1998, was over Roadrunner at T-I speed — 1.5 Mbps. So of course running ten times faster was considered blazing fast.

The Mystery of the Orange Line

I noticed an orange line going all the way across the end of my driveway. What is it? I called the DPW and was told it wasn’t something the they did. Orange? They suggested it could be from Verizon or Comcast.

I went back outside to examine the line again. Ah. I know. Too thin for spray paint, and it isn’t chalk. So it must be rust from the snowplow blade.

Update: Further investigation revealed the culprit was none other than my own snow blower.

The Mighty Marvel Comics Universe Marches On!

The latest Fantastic Four reboot movie is coming, and this weekend the Falcon takes over for Captain America.

Is Cap’s shield made from indestructible Adamantium or energy-absorbing Vibranium? Both?

This is my idea of Cap.

Tales of Suspense #59 splash page

Joe Sinnott shall always be #1, but that was one incredible, masterful inking job done by Chic Stone.

A Fiscalculation

There’s no need to be as pessimistic as C3PO. What do these five partisan political hacks know, anyway?

Five Former Treasury Secretaries: Our Democracy Is Under Siege

They lack training and experience to handle private, personal data — like Social Security numbers and bank account information. Their power subjects America’s payments system and the highly sensitive data within it to the risk of exposure, potentially to our adversaries. And our critical infrastructure is at risk of failure if the code that underwrites it is not handled with due care.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/10/opinion/treasure-secretaries-doge-musk.html

The fact is, I have a problem with Rubin, Summers, and Geithner. In 1999, with Ayn Rand disciple Alan Greenspan taking the lead, they got Bill Clinton to go along with the disastrous idea that the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 was no longer needed. Nine years later, America’s barely regulated financial markets would have self-destructed Capitalism if not for a government-sponsored dose of Keynesian Economics. It was Geithner who lobbied Obama to not punish the Wall Street bankers who created the mortgage-backed securities mess. Anger over Wall Street’s excesses is where I saw overlap between the liberal Occupy Wall Street crowd and the conservative Tea Party that morphed into the MAGA movement after Trump took advantage of the Tea Party’s refusal to accept a Black president. So now, with Trump’s approval and encouragement, the world’s richest man is calling the shots.

Bill Clinton left office with a budget surplus greater than $200 billion. That could have been the seed money to start a sovereign wealth fund like the one Trump is suggesting. Instead, George W. Bush blew it on a windfall refund to taxpayers. The way things are, with the Treasury spending far more money than it takes in, the only way to start a sovereign wealth fund would be to use some of the country’s assets as loan collateral. That money would be outside of the national debt, so if the government were to default on a loan, the lender would take, let’s say, the Grand Canyon in payment.