They already build their products to last at least 2 years, otherwise they wouldn't have been offering extended warranties that cover out to 2 years.

This has nothing to do with warranties.

This is about requiring manufacturers to take responsibility for selling faulty products.

If someone sells me thousands of dollars worth of electronics and it fails after 12 months (or even a few years) of normal use, they've sold me a faulty product and should either repair or replace it. Even you free market extremists should be able to get your heads around that.

I've pulled the "Consumer Protection Laws" card a couple of times already in the last few years, each time to have home appliances either repaired or replaced after they failed outside the warranty period. Two years and four years, respectively, are not acceptable lifetimes for a microwave and a washing machine.

"Better" may not have been the right word. More convenient ? More expedient ? More choice ?

Private health covers gets you into elective procedures quicker, gets you niceties like private rooms, and the like.

I don't think the care in the private system is any better, though.

Australians; we buy insurance to cover the free healthcare.
Actually, we buy insurance to buy better healthcare than the free stuff.

But why would you have to pay taxes over something someone else has already taxed you on?
Because you're benefiting from the services taxes provide in wherever-it-is you're living.

I have seen cases where tax rates go over 100%.
For example...

Ah, you must be one of those people who thinks there shouldn't be any laws against fraud, since all parties had to agree to the transaction for it to progress.

Like Italy?
No, like Switzerland.

How fast do you nuts drive? 70 mph (112 kph) is plenty fast enough. The speed limits should be set to what the majority of drivers on the road feel safe driving at. If 90% of the drivers think that 70 is plenty (and they drive at or under that regardless of the speed limit) -- then that should be the limit.
It's actually the 85th percentile that has been found as the safest speed limit to set.
For a multi-lane, divided, limited-access freeway, the 85th percentile tends to be around 130-140km/h. This is, not coincidentally, the speed you'll find most vehicles travelling on the unrestricted portions of the German Autobahns.

Man riding bike doens't burn more then he eats, doesn't lose weight. News at 11.
I'm responding to people insisting all you need to do is add a little exercise. I added a fair bit of exercise (the cycling wasn't the only thing) and went basically nowhere.

I should probably add that my weight had been stable for quite some time (years) beforehand. Ie: I wasn't gaining any weight.

Don't eat process sugar, don't eat more the 25g of fat per day. Write down everything you eat.
You will loose weight.
Possibly, but at a significant cost to lifestyle and personal comfort.

I've tried carefully controlling food intake at every point before. Firstly, it's a massive pain in the arse. Secondly, it left me feeling very hungry almost all the time, which was quite uncomfortable.

feat/famine isn't good for you,. t also doesn't work long term.
We'll see. The evidence seems to suggest it will, plus it seems to carry other health benefits as well.

I'm confident my "normal" exercise and eating regime will allow me to sustain any somewhat healthy weight I reach. That has certainly been my experience over the last five-odd years. It's the losing it to get to that point that's been the problem.

Exactly. I went from nearly no exercise to cycling 25km (~16 miles) 6 days a week.
The effect on my weight over a few months was negligible (the effect on my fitness, however, was significant - eg: resting HR from mid 80s to high 50s).

Then I somewhat limited my caloric intake (mainly by cutting back on beer and cheese) and dropped 15kg (30lb) in six months.

I got stuck at105kg (230lb) for about 2 years, despite upping my cycling to ~35km 6 days/week. I struggled to limit my caloric intake further because I ended up feeling ravenously hungry all the time.

So now I'm trying a "feast/famine" system where I can eat "normally" 5 days a week, and eat very little (500 kcal or less) two days a week. Over the last six weeks that's shaved off another couple of kg, plus I only have to feel hungry all day twice a week - it's much more manageable because I can align those "hungry" days with the days I end up stuck in back to back meetings (and thus have limited access to snacking opportunities).

Windows Server is notoriously poor at recognizing the existence of the non-Windows devices that make up 80% of endpoint sales these days.
What ?
Most non-Windows end devices are things like tablets and phones, that either a) interact over HTTP (server OS irrelevant) or b) interact with custom server applications (server OS irrelevant).

Depends on the brand really. Both performance and quality vary widely. For some use cases, the performance of an SSD might not even beat a cheap spinny disk.
I imagine you need a fairly strange corner case where a "cheap spinny disk" is faster than a typical SSD.

In the grandest /. tradition, I have of course not properly RTFA.

However, if the author thinks the most interesting "innovation" in Vista was "frosted glass", then he has no credibility on the topic whatsoever. Vista was a massive overhaul of Windows, with most of the effort (and changes) spent under the hood.

The irony here is that the author seems to be both criticising eye-candy UI effects, while simultaneously peddling the notion that the "innovation" that matters happens in the UI, rather than in the guts of the OS.

That the vote would tend to reward mediocrity should be beyond questioning.
It's easily questioned. Further, the claim was not that mediocrity would be rewarded, but that "the valuable employees would be under-rewarded".
Putting the union in charge of the business is the fastest way to lose any competitive edge - to stop responding to the needs of the customer and focus 100% on your own employees.
This is what's called a false dichotomy.
You might believe the most talented employees would not leave (or become lazy) and take part in the egalitarian utopia "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need".
This is what's called a straw man.
I believe a bunch of people working together with a common interest will be prepared to reasonably reward those who have contributed more. Seems to work OK in Germany, after all.