They're not aiming to be there because they're already there. And it tends to be a lucrative market to be in, because those models attract people who will pay a lot for options.

Which Audi is it? I guess it's a pretty well solved problem (if spendy) to put a six speed into the A8

Guess what? It's not just Mercedes. I don't know where Mercedes gets their transmissions, but the automatics (tiptronic or not - actually, in some cars, it's a software and shifter issue only) that VAG gets from ZF seem to be quite crap. The A8Q I'm working on right now is on its second transmission, and the first one was replaced in about year two. As leaky as this car is, I wouldn't likely have bought it if it had been on the original slush box.

Germany was the watchword for quality up until the late eighties. But German cars are now, I am quite sorry to say, shit. My father once explained to me (repeating something a wise man must have said to him) that the Germans believed in using the best parts and the Japanese believed in doing the best design such that you could get away with the cheap parts. My experience is that these are in fact the design strategies employed by these nations. The problem with the German strategy today is that the companies making their parts are now making shit. Bosch is now turning out at least as many total turds as roses, for example, if not far more, and all of these German cars have Bosch ignition and traction control (etc.) systems — all the VAGs, all the Mercedes, and all the BMWs, as far as I can tell. These are both exquisitely expensive and poorly designed, vulnerable to water intrusion and for some reason these days typically mounted in the engine compartment. Except my LHD D2 A8, which puts the ABS control module in a really annoying place up under the dash instead of upside down in the E-box right under the PCM where they put it on the RHD vehicles, even more annoying.

Meanwhile, there are very few things that were annoying back in the W123, W126 Mercedes days in the 1980s. Turbo oil return on the diesel was crap. The engine mounts are a bit overcontrived to the point that you can't really torque all the bolts without a special tool, or taking off a bunch of stuff.

It's the economy, brother.

The last Mercedes built like that was the W126. I have a 1982 W126 300SD, with the OM617.951A... and with the 951B turbo from an '85. You wind up replacing suspension stuff about as much as any other car, but the control arms are actually quite inexpensive. I'm about to do them as soon as I get a spring compressor.

Saab never even came close to the cachet of Mercedes.

Mercedes is much more worried about Audi than they ever will be about Tesla. And not about EVs, either.

Mercedes is utterly capable of producing a complete EV. What they're trying to do is figure out how to sell it to the people who buy Mercedes.

Are we talking about the same Fukushima where one core is still missing and radioactive seawater is believed to be flowing out of the site on an ongoing basis?

If you're in the USA, that won't void the warranty so long as you use a compatible replacement SSD. For example, check to see what SSDs they actually offer in that model of laptop; you could definitely use any of those. But really, anything compliant (crucial? intel?) will not void your warranty.

Unless, of course, you have to break a warranty sticker to replace the HDD. But I haven't actually ever had that problem with a laptop...

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.

People do not like change. News at eleven.

1. The mentally ill.

3. Homeless people who lived too close to the edge and became unemployed

How can you be ok with the first group to exist as homeless? It is as if you are saying "You are not able tro be a productive part of any company, so fuck you."
The other is also a group that should not be homeless. They are willing to get help and solve their issues. The same applies as above.

I live in Belgium and when I see somebody who is begging (not even sure if he is homeless) I know it is because of his or her own choice. And this includes addicts. If you WANT to quit, you wil get help.

If you are begging, to me it means there is some reason that you are not getting enough support (not even thinking about scammers). I am not giving you money, because you don't agree with the rules.

If people who work need extra help (Wallmart) how bad can it be for the rest?

I am sitting in a $890 chair right now. any good company will do it. I'm thinking you haven't priced real office furniture as the standard desk I am at is $2300 and it's a no frills Steelcase.

Clogging the passing lane is rude. Flashing your lights makes much more sense than indicating a turn you can't make. If I saw someone indicating a turn they couldn't make behind someone driving too slow I'd assume I was looking at a couple of assholes, not one good driver stuck behind one asshole, because assholes leave their signal on all the time.

I really have little idea how this idea is seen around the world, however. I know that flash to pass is acceptable in the UK and Canada, and it's the standard in most US states including California, where there are the most people, the most vehicles, and the most vehicle miles traveled.

I don't know how his systems work but my PC works like this. I have a big disk with Linux and virtual machines. I have a SSD and a 2.5 HDD of the same capacity for Windows, and I periodically back up the SSD to the HDD. The backup is bootable and if the SSD fails I just get the HDD. All the data gets backed up to a disk on a pogoplug running Debian which is supposed to be on a separate UPS but isn't right now, at least it's not in the same machine. I don't store any big data on the Windows side, so that's only 160GB. The nearby disk is 3TB. I only get 10-18 MB/sec peak to/from that, depending on the client, which is a little poky for USB3 and GigE but within the acceptable range for most purposes. I had another disk hooked up directly to my PC which I mirrored to that network volume, but it died.