I read every post, and enjoyed them all. I appreciated knowing that you would have a post up everyday. If everyday is too much, then every other day would be good too. I really do think you should try to have a consistent schedule, even though that seems like it might limit the creative process.

It is true that the media needs to hype the danger, but that doesn't mean there isn't a danger. After all 63000 people die annually from seasonal flu in the US alone. So even if swine flu is no worse than regular flu when the fall season comes, it would still kill an awful lot of people. This is particularly worrisome when you consider that swine flu seems to hit young people much harder than regular flu. As far as Avian flu goes, the danger is that it has a high fatality rate, so if it does jump the deaths could be orders of magnitude above seasonal flu. So considering the other dangers being hyped in the news, like the latest toxin scare, or birdstrikes on planes, swine flu is downright legitimate.

@feather

I agree that claiming to have mastered something is quite likely arrogant. I don't know how good Tynan is, but I think his point is that he has made pickup a habit, and doesn't need constant practice to be good (frankly I suspect that practice is necessary to keep a high level of skill, but maybe he doesn't need a high level of skill for what he does, or gets enough practice in daily life). But I am going to use your example to have a quick rant on using malcolm gladwell as a source. Please don't take personal offense, but this has been annoying me for sometime. Malcolm Gladwell writes compelling books that take something that seems unlikely a first glance, but is common sense on the second, and "proves" it through entertaining anecdotes. He is not scientific. So please don't use his rules of thumb as some sort of proof. The 10000 hours is the perfect example of abuse. Professions and skills are so diverse, and of such different complexities, that giving a set time to master them is ridiculous. Even Gladwell didn't intend the 10000 hour rule to be more than a general estimate. Now people act like that is some sort of hard and fast level you have to achieve to be an "expert" (however that is quantified). All he really did in outliers was give a lot of examples of how some people got lucky, and took advantage of it by practicing a lot. Wow: practice makes perfect. Luck is important. Great insight there. Okay bile spewing over. Just please don't act like Gladwell has proven something or done anything other than bring attention to some interesting if obvious phenomena.

I really enjoyed this podcast. The first link is wrong though, should be theartofcharm.com. The other one was about a book on being a model!

That's awesome, I didn't realize you were there. I ran on the last day which was rather unfortunate because of the crowds. At least I assume it was more crowded on the last day, but I don't know for sure. I'm also kinda surprised that Todd got kicked off for wearing 5 fingers. I ran in sandals and the police showed not the slightest interest. Of course there were too many people for them to check everyone. Are you going to post how the actual running went?

I think that anger can be a good thing, particularly when it is motivated by what happened to someone else. The difference is that anger about what happened to you is more likely to lead to selfish, petty responses, while anger at injustice, or evil can bring clarity and purpose.