Schneier is always worth reading; but I find that I'm getting depressed lately by all the "security" blabber that's ultimately not about security at all but rather about someone else controlling ever more aspects of my life.
Hardly anyone in politics and few people in tech business seem to be willing to think of citizens as responsible grown-ups these days, and few citizens seem to feel how patronizing and disdainful they're treated.

In a comment to a recent article of mine on the same subject, http://cwoehrl.de/?q=node/120 (German), someone spoke about the "organoleptic" qualities of printed books, and even though I agree some used books can stink rather than just smell, that's one thing that still draws me to oldfashioned printed stuff.

More important to me, the physical qualities of different printed books (weight, paper quality, typography, cover art) have an impact on my memory in a way an e-book reader probably never can: For a lot of my favourite books, I can tell how they look and feel in my hands after 10 years or more, and that knowledge also helps to keep my memory of the books' contents alive.

In contrast, an e-book reader always feels the same regardless of what I'm reading, be it 14th century or contemporary stuff. Thus the reader will level out secondary characteristic differences of books and make them less distinguishable. In short, it values itself more than the content it's supposed to deliver...

Magic Kingdom published as "Download"? I'm sure I've read it as "Backup"...

Cheers, Christian

(good news anyway, this one; at my bookstore I'd been told just the other day that "Upload" wouldn't arrive before April...)

Hey Cory,

any chance you'll be in Hamburg some time soon?

Hooray! Best wishes to all of you! And what a magnificent name she has :-)