Ummm, if you bothered more than a cursory glance at my thing you'd notice I AM advocating open solutions. Monowall is FreeBSD, with some mods and a nice WebUI stuck on it for configuration. EdgeOS, that runs on the ERL, is a fork of Vayetta, which is a fork/mod of Debian.

Both are open solutions but both are under active development and support by a team. Hence I'm a pretty big fan. Monowall was last updated in January, and they still support their legacy version for old hardware like WRAP systems, and their new version for more powerful systems. EdgeOS was updated in March, and they have an alpha for the next version going you can opt in to.

On the other hand the OSS firmwares are half-abandoned it seems. When I Google for Tomato I get a page that talks about it as a WRT54G firmware and looks like it hasn't seen updates in 5-8 years. Further down there's a "Tomato USB" mod on it that was updated in 2010 and still runs on 2.6.

This sort of thing does not engender trust in long term viability or freedom from bugs/exploits.

Also there's the issue that some of us have high speed needs. My Internet connection is 150/20mbps. So I need something that can support that. Triple stream N is pretty much the minimum (dual stream N maybe can in ideal cases) and AC is a better choice. Also the "router" part of the router needs to be able to keep up with that kind of speed, even when I've set up my firewall rules and such.

Finally you seem to confuse reliability with swappability. Sure, you can have a whole host of cheapass old routers and if one dies, put in a new one. However it is hard to do when you need more powerful, and thus expensive, hardware but also that isn't reliable, that is just having extras. I'd rather just have something that has less issues, that works for years on end with no problems, and not have to mess with it. That's what you get with something like a monowall box.

Also like I said, one component may need replacing before others. My Edgerouter Lite will last me a long time, unless it breaks, since it can handle around gigabit speeds with the setup I have (I've tested it). However if I get much faster Internet, I'll need a new cable modem, since mine is only 8x4 stream, and to go much above where I'm at you usually want 16 streams down. Likewise if my WAP is likely to get replaced sooner than the ERL, but probably not as soon as the cable modem.

I can have latest tech where I want it, older tech where I don't and it is all good. Also in my experience setups like that are extremely reliable.

What worries me about her is that she was in charge of Clinton's single-payer plan, and screwed it up royally. So far I don't like any of the candidates from either major party.

Either way I'll probably vote either Libertarian or Green. I cannot support a candidate who wants me in prison. The only way she'll get my vote is if the Republicans screw up in their Presidential nominations like they did with Illinois' Governor's race. They had one excellent candidate, two acceptable and a tea party billionaire who hates unions and middle class people. They chose the only candidate who could get me to vote for Quinn.

Morons. They'll probably nominate another tea party stinker who only cares about the 1%. If they do I'll have to vote for Clinton.

Why do so many right wing radicals (and supporting the 2nd amendment is in no way radical) insist on using, as they would put it, grocers apostrophe's? (Yes that was deliberate). There seems to be a correlation between far left and far right radicals and a lack of education.

It's a pretty new product, which is why you haven't heard of it. It isn't the greatest thing EVAR, as its web UI could use some work, and some of the features it has can hit the limited CPU pretty hard (VLANs and encryption notably) but it is pretty damn good.

It is what lives at the edge of my home network, and I'm real happy with it.

They also make larger models, should you have the need.

The problem is all those consumer wifi+router deals tend to have kinda crap firmware. While there are, in theory, OSS alternatives they seem to be less than speedy with the updates and support for new hardware.

So I'd look elsewhere. The two things I'd put at the top of your list:

Monowall, on an APU.1C. It is like $150 for the unit, and then $20-30 for an enclosure and CF card. Monowall should support everything you need, it is really feature rich, is pretty easy to use, and the APU.1C is fast enough it shouldn't have issues even with fairly fast internet.

A Ubiquiti Edgerouter Lite. This is a funny looking and named lil' router with quite a bit of performance under the hood, thanks to the hardware routing logic its chip has. $100 and it can push gigabit speeds for basic routing setups. It is also extremely configurable, since it runs a Vayetta fork, which is a Linux OS customized for routing. However to configure the kind of things you want, you might have to hop in to the CLI, I don't know that the GUI has what you need. It supports that though, and you can even hop out of the specialized routing CLI and get a regular Linux prompt where you can install packages and such.

If you want a more supported solution, you could look at a Cisco RV320. Costs like $200 and is a fast lil' wired router (uses the same basic chip as the Edgerouter, just slower). I haven't used one but I'm given to understand you can make them do a lot. Sounds like they firmware may be a little flakey though.

You then just set your consumer WAP+router in to "access point" mode and have it just do the wireless functions.

This is all more expensive and complex than just running on a consumer WAP+router, but more likely to be able to do what you require. It also means you can change out components without as much trouble. Like say your WAP gets flakey, and you want a new one with the latest technology. No problem, just buy it. You don't have to worry if it supports the routing features you need because it doesn't do that for you.

If you are stuck on doing an all in one, then you could look at a Netgear Nighthawk R7000 or the new Linksys WRT1900AC. The Netgear does have bandwidth management and QoS in its native firmware (I haven't played with the features, but I can confirm they are there as I own one) and there is a "myopenrouter" site that has OSS firmware for it (ddwrt mod I think). The Linksys router supposedly is going to have OpenWRT support soon as Linksys worked directly with the OpenWRT team for it.

Not necessarily. From the article:

A spinning HDD might require more power than an idle SSD but it is not necessarily true that a HDD requires more power all the time. Also if you look at wattage per GB, HDDs are more efficient as you need more SSDs right now to match the same capacity as a HDD. For consumers, it's a small difference but enterprises requiring lots of drives look at efficiency more closely.

However, if there is anything in which I have confidence, it is this administration's commitment to slow, methodical, blame-laden screwings of the lower- and middle-class.

In what way has the lower and middle class been screwed by the present administration? I'll agree that the previous administration was great for the rich and crappy for everyone else, but I posit it's slowly improving.

The lower and middle classes have been getting royally screwed for at least half my life, and I retired earlier this year. The screwings started with Reagan's Capital Gains cuts, which caused an orgy of hostile corporate takeovers leading to layoffs and lowered hours. I was hurt badly when my employer staved off an attempted corporate pirate raid.

No, that suppository arrives with the Clinton Administration. I reckon she's wreckin'.

I certainly hope so, it would be nice for the US to raise to the level of the rest of the industrialized world from our historically barbaric health care "system". American health care is far from #1 in any measure except cost; ours is the most expensive. It's neither logical nor rational.

As to Clinton, if she's elected and half as good as her husband the country will be in fine shape. It would be incredibly hard for her to be anywhere as bad as George Junior, the worst President in my lifetime (AFAIC we've really only had two good Presidents in my lifetime, Eisenhower and Clinton, and as I was very young I could be wrong about Eisenhower but love that interstate highway system, as well as his cautions about a military industrial complex).

I'm more worried about Illinois. Dillard was Chief of Staff under Thompson and Edgar, and Illinois did pretty good until Ryan got in, and it deteriorated worse under Blago. It hasn't gotten much better under Quinn, but unfortunately Dillard lost the primary and the stupid Republicans nominated the only one of the four candidates that would get me to vote for Quinn.

Liars always lie. I think people mistrust statistics because they don't understand statistics, or worse, understand a little, just enough to be dangerous.

I worked with data and statisticians my whole career. I'm not a statistician, but learned a lot about the discipline from working with them. One of my co-workers had written a textbook on the subject that was used in colleges. Very interesting discipline.

For one, Slashdot has a bunch of anti-social jerks that like to post, who have an inability to empathize with anyone else. So no surprise they think something like that is a good idea, because they they aren't very reasonable people.

However others have pointed out, accurately I think, that something like this can well be a cause for it. The thing is that if you push someone in to a corner and give them what seems to be no way out, no way to fight back, they may go nuts. Happens with other animals, not just humans. So if you have a kid that is continually picked on, who tries to stand up for themselves, but is then picked on even worse, this time by law enforcement, well then they may well take drastic measures because they feel like there's no option, no hope.

I think there is some real merit to this. Not merit as in saying it is good that kids do it, but that it is correct that actions like this can lead to kids doing it. If they feel they have nothing to lose and nowhere to turn, then a completely crazy overreaction may be the only option they feel they have.

I mean here you have a case of a kid who did everything right, and got increasingly screwed: He never fought back or defended himself, which schools do not allow (you can argue if they should, but they don't, it is against the rules). He got no help or support from the school, I mean it was allowed to happen IN CLASS in front of a teacher. He told his parents, they were skeptical, he produced evidence. He was then threatened by the police, ordered to delete it (illegally), drug to court, etc, etc. So what has he got now? He's been effectively told the bullies are allowed to do as they wish and if you attempt to stop them the police and courts will punish you.

So what's he to do? You can see how a drastic, illogical, action might be what he thinks is his only option. Remember that he doesn't have the perspective of age, he can't look on high school and say "Ya that's a real short time in your life and it gets WAY better once you are out and an adult." To him, this is his whole world. And for that matter, the adult world has stepped in and told him he;s wrong to try and make things better for himself.

As such you can see why people are saying it can lead to something like a school shooting. It is something that administrators need to consider: Dealing with bullying isn't something to do just because it is the right thing (which would be a good enough reason) but it is a safety issue as well.

One of the problems with advanced weapons systems is they require a bunch of effort and facilities to produce, maintain, and use. So while they are fearsome, they are vulnerable to a large force that takes over their support structures.

For example while the US's combat planes are the most amazing the world has ever known, they only work when they have secure airfields to operate from. If those get taken over, they are in a world of shit. Which is why they have security but that security is men with guns. The planes can't defend their own airfields, for many reasons.

If you want to see it on a small scale, well ask yourself why the US has been unable to secure Afghanistan or Iraq. They had considerably more forces than your silly "1 aircraft carrier" scenario, it was hardly the whole population fighting, yet after years and years, they have been unable to secure the countries.

Lots of people with small arms are a force all of their own.