My iPhone 7 matches my three-year-old laptop's Geekbench score. I fully expect another 2-3 years from my laptop -- most of my friends and relatives seem to be keeping theirs for 5-7 years. So, it hardly seems unreasonable to expect a top-end phone to last 4-5 years.

I'm not going to register to read the full report. But, based on the article, it seems likely they're using two sources of data: 1) a survey (which probably has an item asking about password re-use), and data from the corporate version of the app that shows, in aggregate, how many passwords a person has stored.

Cool. But, any assurance that these phones will get frequent security updates? Budget-constrained consumers also deserve security.

Fair enough -- I was going from my faulty memory. I probably would have purchased a Pixel had one actually been available. To Apple's credit, they have been good about providing updates well beyond two years, and after dropping $750 on a phone, I definitely plan to use it for more than two years.

I recently sucked up my pride and bought my first iPhone. Why? Motorola stopped updating my Moto G after less than two years. I considered buying their new model, but they seem reluctant to commit to even quarterly updates, and I doubt they will update for more than two years. I considered a Google Pixel, but they were sold out, and it's unclear how long Google will commit to maintaining a monthly patch schedule for any given model of phone. I also purchased my first Apple laptop a few years back, mostly to run products from DEVONtechnologies (which are Mac-only). I've been happy with it, but can't say it's turned me into a loyalist. Am I comfortable with all aspects of Apple's computing philosophy? Definitely not. But, they make good quality, reliable products and take security and privacy very seriously. Given the competition, they've earned my money.

There's a tool here to check whether a particular user has had his/her e-mail and password dumped. Most of them haven't been posted yet but supposedly this site will be updated if more are leaked. http://davidba.in/DropBoxCheck...

An article in the Atlantic earlier this year discussed a technology apparently widely employed by hospitals to monitor whether patients are experiencing "interoperative awareness" during surgery: a Bispectral Index (BIS) monitor, which performs a electroencephalogram continuously during surgery and checks it against patterns thought to indicate conscious awareness. In early testing, it looked like it could detect most cases of interoperative awareness and was quickly adopted in hospitals from around 2004, but its reliability is now in question and the device, though still widely used, is controversial.

From TFA, it seems this system is aimed at understanding brain damage and not at preventing interoperative awareness. Unfortunately the article doesn't give enough detail to know if the new tool is also based on EEG (I can't access the original study through the paywall). But, if it is, and if it gives a better sense of what patients are aware of, maybe it will have some use in the operating room as well.

In Afghanistan, part of the point seems to be to encourage some rough adeherence to local norms to reduce resentment of the US presence among locals. Hence, the ban on alcohol for US military in Afghanistan and, from TFA, in Afghanistan "commanders have forbidden any sexual encounters between unwed people." Questionable whether this is effective, but it originated as part of a bigger package of trying to discourage US forces from living in a complete bubble, separate from the political and social systems they're trying to change.

In the Iraq case described in the article, there seemed to be some concern (misguided in my view) that hooking up online, posting nudies on CL, etc., is prejudicial to the "good order and discipline in the armed forces." While agreed that the Secret Service exhibited very poor discipline in soliciting prostitutes in Colombia, I'm not sure I see how a "casual encounter" between two soldiers in Baghdad undermines good order or discipline.