What bugs me is that they seem to be trying to imply causation. If the depression rates are as high as they say they are (8%, as of a 2004 study), they can find a correlation between depression and virtually any activity involving enough people. Which makes any study that fails to prove causation pretty pointless, I suspect. Except maybe cheer-leading.

Just cause I was unclear, they said in the article "But it is not clear whether the internet causes depression or whether depressed people are drawn to it". In other words they learned nothing from the study, except that depressed people do stuff, including surf the internet.

Or depressed people spend more time on the internet. I hate it when they show an effect that could very well be the cause instead. Damn poor study, if you ask me.

By that logic, isn't he more dangerous, and therefore should get a longer sentence? (Until a gene therapy solution comes out, anyway).

Flight or fight mechanism comes to mind. It's not just about increasing blood flow in an emergency situation, but also about dumping massive amounts of adrenaline to other parts of the body. I would assume that there would be some dilation of the arteries to allow for the greater throughput. But maybe the adrenaline does that. What the hell do I know.

"Twenty years ago.... they had to break into your house. Now they can just break into your ISP". They make it sound like that's easier, as though they're getting into your shed. I had someone break into my house last year, and trust me, these Mensa candidates wouldn't have 'just broken into my ISP' instead. They could barely put together a sentence. If you've got an organization powerful enough after you that they can break into your ISP (which is for 99% of us a major corporation with serious security) the locks on your house weren't exactly a challenge anyway. I'm surprised Schneier is comparing two such flagrantly uncomparable things.

Except that inasmuch that it used to help sell Windows, which I doubt has little value any more as a marketing tool as pretty much every consumer knows every machine can get on the net, what's the value in MS dumping lots of cash into a browser war when they have to give the browser away for free? The only advantage I can think of is the value of the default home page for advertising dollars, which has never been their primary market anyway.

Up here in northern Canada the roads can get mighty icy. Your car can brake for you all it wants, but that won't change the laws of physics as you're sliding on a sheet of ice towards a thousand pound moose.

That really does take the cake for a poorly written title. Seriously - how long does it take to write a dozen thoughtful words, then check it??

You are all missing the obvious reason for the shutdown. Microsoft has finally fixed all the bugs! Celebrate!