I guess I am used to the world of electronic music where even a top-of-the-line keyboard would probably only cost $2-3k tops and a fairly good one from a name like Yamaha or Roland could probably be picked up for around $1k or so.

How can a Marimba (which from a look at Google is similar to a Xylophone) cost so much money?

Don't know where you come from but in Australia (and presumably in the various European countries mentioned in the summary as well) there are free-to-air TV channels broadcasting in DVB-T standard that do not require any special cards.

I am surprised the Skype app on my Nokia N900 continues to work after all this time (and after the phone has long been discontinued by Nokia)

It should be attached to a network fire-walled off from the Internet and only accessible if you are on the local LAN.

True on the padding, just look at the kind of injuries various Rugby League players are suffering and the pressure to change the rules to prevent such collisions.

I will never understand that game, here in Australia sports players dont wear padding and helmets and dont need the coach (or electronic gizmos) to tell them how to play or where to move.

There has to be a middle ground between the super-heavy regulation the taxi industry gets in most cities and the zero regulation that entities like Uber and such are currently subject to.

Bring in regulations that require:
All drivers driving for these companies must pass a background/driving history check (to make sure you dont have criminals driving for these companies or people with too many bad marks against their driving records).
All cars being used must pass a comprehensive safety inspection and roadworthy check before they can be used and then undergo annual inspections after that (to make sure the cars being used are safe and you dont have drivers driving with bald tyres or other faulty kits).
Companies must provide insurance coverage (with the minimum amounts set down in the regulations) for drivers (insurance that is active at all times when the driver is "on the clock" regardless of whether they are taking a passenger, heading to their next pickup or waiting around for a job)

Don't limit the number of cars or drivers.
Don't limit which vehicle models can be used for
Don't try and regulate the prices ride sharing entities can charge or the places they can operate to (including airports). Oh and don't require them to pay more money than anyone else either (e.g. requiring them to pay higher tolls than normal drivers or special surcharges at airports or other locations)
Don't require drivers to have expensive equipment (e.g. government-approved meters) in their cars.
Don't require drivers to have special paint schemes or logos or markings on their cars.
Don't require drivers to have special licenses.

With the companies dropping drivers who get bad reviews and the requirements for background checks to weed out the genuinely bad apples before things start, the risk of bad drivers is low (a driver who was driving erratically or speeding or driving whilst drunk would be quickly identified and given bad reviews/pushed out of the system. Same with a driver who e.g. threatened a passenger or tried to rob them)

If a passenger causes trouble (or worse tries to rob a driver or steal their car or beat them up) the driver can give the passenger a negative review or for more serious cases, report the passenger to the cops (who can find out the passengers details since all passengers are tracked through the ride-share systems)

I did programming at school and I didn't find it boring in the least.

To be fair I was already super-interested in computers and programming by the time I started those classes and was easily writing programs above the level of the classwork even before I started. And the teachers knew what they were doing and how to teach things.

Heck, I still remember getting in trouble for trying to pirate VB4 off the machines in the computer labs or spending every lunch break in the labs using Netscape 3/4 to access the Internet over the schools ISDN line.

Or hosting my first website on the school servers (and getting to know the people in the school labs quite well). Or not knowing the ways of the world and putting my photograph (taken with an Apple QuickTake digital camera no less) on said website and seeing other students mess with that photograph in Photoshop.

Then again, this was a nice private school and these weren't government employees with some central bureaucracy telling them how things were going to be done, what they should teach and how they should teach it.

The Neo900 is even better than anything those guys may come up with.

Basically its the same case, screen, keyboard, slider and bits as a N900 but with a newer CPU, more RAM/Flash, a cellular modem that can do LTE and a more up-to-date software stack. Oh and its got a USB port that wont break off if you look at it funny :)

If consumers will always flock to the cheap stuff why then do the physical keyboards still appear on the lower-end devices. The same "its cheaper not to have one" rule should apply there too...

Doesn't have an "app store", runs an OS most people (even many geeks) have probably never heard of but its got one of the best physical keyboards ever put onto a phone.

I intend to keep using my N900 until it either breaks and cant be fixed or until I can somehow afford to upgrade it to a Neo900 :)

But what about if every politician you get to pick from is all spouting the same BS about why municipal broadband is bad?
Who do you vote for then?

I like it because I can get (and did get) free prescription sunglasses from my private health insurance (here in Australia I have one with cover for Optical). Laser surgery may be able to correct the vision but it doesn't do a thing about the high price of a pair of sunnies with sun protection as good as the sun protection in my nice pair of prescription sunnies :)

If you genuinely need to support Intercrap Exploder then your best option is Flash.