Do you have a link to the study you quoted? I'd like to read it.
Tks

I am a high school maths/physics teacher at a state high school in Australia. The school has had a 'no phones' policy for the ten years I have taught there. Student phones are turned off (or at least on silent0 when on school property. If a teacher sees a student using a phone, it is confiscated under the school behaviour policy. The consequences increase for each phone confiscation. Ultimately. the parent has to come and collect the phone. Occasionally, a student refuses to hand over the phone and that is also dealt with under the behaviour policy.
We did consider the pouches a couple of years ago - but the staff voted against using them. The current system works well enough - we don't have a phone problem.

It's sad to see Xii decay the way it has. Back in 1998 when I joined Red Hat, I helped organise the porting of X11 to Linux. I hope Xlibre succeeds in bringing X11 up to date.

Indeed.
And the Germans then learned you could make high strength, light weight monocoque wooden constructions when these started dropping bombs on them - the DH98 Mosquito!

Interestingly, Kurt Tank, who designed the FW190, produced the TA-154 Moskito - a German version of the wooden Mosquito. The performance was not as good as expected and then the RAF bombed the glue factory ...

:-) Love it!

But fortunately, we are still alive and most of us have mobile and data connections. Optus is only the 2nd largest carrier in Oz - so the rest of us are OK.

Mind you, our Internet does suck - thanks to a past Liberal government completely stuffing up the proposed Fibre to the Premises roll out. They promised 'their' version would be better, cheaper and faster.

Of course, it is none of those things...

I have to disagree. The fact that Linux (and much other FOSS) exists is evidence to support my claim.

Back in the 1990s, there was no "market model" for FOSS. That came later than the products themselves.

It's not the cost of the propellant (or rather oxidiser) that matters - it's the MASS (and that of the associated tankage etc). Every kilogram of mass saved increases the payload - which in turn drops the $/kg launch cost.

There are actually FIVE countries that have successfully tested scramjets in flight - the list should include Australia. What is more, the Australian project (HySHot run from the University of Queensland) was the FIRST successful scramjet flight (in July 2002).

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyShot

Simple reason for not including that info - I wanted to hear opinions on all possibilities, not just limited to Android. Good functionality will trump one particular App. My friend doesn't have access to that App now so continuing not to have it is not the real issue - useable, portable email and web access is much more important.

Many thanks for all the feedback. I will talk to the Blind Association here in Australia and then take my friend to try out a few tablets. For software reasons, I am hoping that Android will do enough on a large tablet (there's an app that doesn't run on IOS that I know he would like to have access to), but we'll go and look at iPads as well!

If there are any more comments, please do post them - I'll check back several times over the next few days.

Again, my thanks!

Robert Hart

As a slightly different slant on this troll rousing topic, it is worth noting a few things.
1) Per capita, Australia is the worlds highest emitter of greenhouse gases as we use mostly coal to generate electricity. Furthermore, we are one of the worlds largest coal miners/exporters and so contribute significantly to global CO2 production elsewhere.
2) In September, Australia elected a new government that is predominantly in the hands of climate change deniers. The Prime Minister (Tony Abbott) is on the public record saying that climate change is "crap" (http://blogs.abc.net.au/victoria/2009/12/climate-change-is-crap-tony-abbot-said-to-the-pyrenees-advocate.html). Amongst the new government's first acts was to defund the Climate Commission (along with several other "green" initiatives of previous governments). They are also committed to repealing the existing Carbon Tax legislation, but cannot (yet) force this through the upper house (Senate) which they do not control.
3) In response to its defunding, the Climate Commission reformed itself as the Climate Council, raising around $1 million in under two weeks. Whilst not big bikkies in US terms, this is extremely significant in a small population country like Australia that demonstrates that many Australians feel very strongly about climate change - strongly enough to not only make a one off donation but to commit to regular, monthly donations to support the ongoing public information work of the Climate Council.

From their "about" page http://www.climatecouncil.org.au/about-us/
"The Climate Council is an independent non-profit organisation funded by donations by the public. Our mission is to provide authoritative, expert advice to the Australian public on climate change."

In 1959, John Wyndham (the Day of the Triffids, the Chrysalids etc) wrote a set of linked short stories about a family participating in the colonisation of space. In one of these, the USA, Russia and the UK have nuclear armed moon bases.

An interesting case of art imitating life - even if the the life was top secret at the time!