No kangaroos in Austria

I got my HTC Desire Z the day they were released in 2010 and it still works today. Admittedly I had to replace the screen myself twice because I broke it, but the phone still works as good as it did the day I bought it. I have a second fitting battery that I carry with me so if the battery runs out I just change it and have power for another 3 days.

The repairability of the phone is fantastic, far better than anything I have seen in my friends hands over the last few years. The only sad thing is I can't update the OS past Android 2.4 or Cyanogen 4.4.2, so apps has become the only "failing" of my Desire Z, which can't be attributed to the phone. My next phone will be a "Fairphone".

The act of "braking someone out", meaning pointlessly braking in front of someone, is in some European countries a traffic offence. If an accident occurrs because of that, the driver of that vehicle can be made partly or completely responsible for the accident.

What will the effect be on penguins that run into the brine from the desalination plant? I fear it would be deadly for the poor little critters. What's worse, making the people drink bottled water until it rains, or killing penguins?

I consider this to be medical practice, not the body. My girlfriend wanted to give birth at home here in Vienna to avoid all of the clinical procedures that are forced upon women in hospitals. We had to go to hospital because the baby was "too big". The hospital staff did nothing to assist a natural birth and gave us no information before just doing their clinical procedures. Through the withholding of information and passiveness and unwillingness to support a natural birth, the hospital succeeded in forcing a cesarian. As we later discovered from an experienced , a natural birth would most likely have been possible with some exercises during labour and crouching instead of lying. The medical profession makes itself more and more important by withholding information, taking the decision making power away from the patient and forcing a much more clinical event than a natural event.

Why build more nuclear plants? Just go off-grid and be self sufficient. Beats more nuclear any day!

Glad to have contributed my view to the current 487,011 :)

Of the $30,000, $5,000 is for automation and gadgets many people don't want.

Time should also be factored in. It takes me twice as long to get to work on public transport as it does with a car. My time costs $60 per hour. A one way trip to work more than compensates the $23.13 daily cost of a car.

It's the tip of the iceberg, the thin wedge that allows them to start down this customer hostile road. Soon that 5% will be 6, then 8, then 10, then 25, then ??? Verizon seems unable to fulfill their contractual requirements to customers, so they have sold something they don't have. I hope the throttled customers sue!

and as the Australian Government is little more than a puppet of corporate Australia, eliminating competition is easy.

As an Australian, I am delighted with the decision of the Government. The carbon taxes are nothing more than a means for beating the drum of how much the "environmentally friendly" country has reduced it's emissions through the moving of high emission productions to poorer countries with few or no environmental protection laws or enforcement then importing those products with transport emissions which don't count to the emission output of the rich country. How should that help the global environment? As for joe average installing alternative energy technologies in his house, the law dictates that every new house and every bought house must have a solar hot water system installed. The excessively cost of electricity in Australia is not justifiable, so joe average has no choice if he wants to keep his costs tolerable.

Changing to daylight saving is the worst type of jet lag for me, I suffer normally for two-three weeks of tiredness and sleep disturbances with this pointless change. I fly between Europe to Australia occasionally and have no problems at all, my body seems to "feel" the difference and adjust. Leave the clocks alone this Autumn.

When the jars are dumped, they become "ownerless". They could be carefully deposited at the landfill then claimed by a charity group and transported away without breaking a single jar.

[X] No - it'll do more harm than good Most schools I know of teach Visual Basic or C# because of contracts with Microsoft. Anyone who's first contact with programming is with these languages is, as a programmer, left fundamentally damaged for life.

Similar idea, get your number converted to a very expensive toll number and keep them on the phone for as long as possible. For as long as they don't work out what they are paying for, you make lots of money at their expense. Get yourself a secret mobile number that you give only to your friends.