Unfortunately any website providing a forum such as this is able to facilitate both good and bad. Should the environment being reported on is actually toxic, then the website provides a forum for a whistleblower. But alternatively, should the complainant be someone looking at hurting the company - perhaps after being disciplined for a misdemeanour, or sacked for their own bad behaviour - then the website is supporting a falsehood. How is justice best served for all parties then? Sadly good justice can only be open justice. And making an accusation and running and hiding is no better than guerilla terrorism. If the company really was bad, then the complainant really needs to front up - with support of course, and that I support. But to be honest, it needs to be open.

Sadly calling those with an alternative view "conspiracy nuts" only reflects back on the name caller. Debate the facts, isn't that what science is about? With companies like Pfizer, fined eye watering amounts multiple times, for unethical marketing practices, one has to start from a point of extreme suspicion of their part in the whole affair, especially as they and their cohort have been a significant beneficiary - and as the lawyers say "qui bono?".

As an employer, may I suggest that an open dialogue is required. Maybe a pre-emptive offer to wind down your time over a 2-3 year period as part of a succession plan, and an offer to use that time to train the younger staff.

Until they can make them silent, flying cars will create incredible noise pollution. If you've ever heard the Martin Jetpack you will know just one of them is intensely irritating. I can see that GPS will allow automatic allocation of zones for ascending, descending, and travel in different directions (just like aviation) to minimise contentions, but technology is not foolproof, and we will see a lot more ugly accidents.

First off, I'd suggest there would be just as much security as at a current airport given the climate of terrorism today. Secondly there are possibilities of failure of the various systems as already well highlighted, but there are simple ways to minimise any issues, such as running a pig (in pipeline terms) ahead of any passenger unit, and dead man's handle philosophy on sensors - ie no positive confirmation of system health and you stop - something you cannot do in an aeroplane. In that regard many people die in air crashes due to subsequent effects of fire, something that would not likely happen in this case - you're not carrying tonnes of fuel in the unit. There has been talk of running them underground - safer in one sense, but how do you rescue people trapped in a stuck or damaged unit?

I agree with Skapare. Essentially the institution needs to ask itself, why does it need to provide email for students. Staff yes, but students no. That is an ISP function, and it is critical to "stick to the knitting". For the teacher student interaction they need, if they don't have already, a LMS such as Moodle (Open Source) or Blackboard ( Proprietary ) which will make use of, but not replace the email infra-structure. There can be course related calendaring and other such features provided within these products. For larger institutions scaling can be achieved easily in a "divide and conquer" policy. Instead of one large humongous system, break it up into smaller systems built around sub-domains for each school or college within the institution.