I refused to be terrorized by this.

So the Boston Marathon was just a couple of days ago, and probably everyone reading this knows what happened. There were multiple bombs planted along the route; 3 are currently dead (one an 8-year-old), and possibly hundreds injured, including a large number of severe foot and leg injuries to the bystanders and participants (my understanding is that this was because a bomb or bombs were placed under bleachers, and the positioning led to a higher proportion of leg injuries). It was terrible; it was horrifying; and to anyone involved or affected by it, please accept my deepest sympathies and support for the full recovery or memory of you and your loved ones. It was awful.

And yet... It doesn't terrify me. It doesn't spur me to shrieks of indignation. It doesn't lead me to want to point out blame. It strikes me how immensely unsuccessful it was. With that kind of clustering of people, it could have been thousands; in a city like that, it could have brought down buildings or bridges and done infinitely more property damage. A man (or woman, not to be sexist) with a handgun could have done a significant portion of this damage. It could have been orders of magnitude worse. In no way do I want to undersell the horror of what happened to the people there, but the effect was - for a bomb going off in a packed crowd - absolutely minimal.

Far more eloquent people than me have commented on it:

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/04/initial_thought.html
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2013/04/15/something-else-to-talk-about/

And as I think both of those point out... Look up how many people have died in violence in Iraq or Iran over the past few days. Look up how the rockets and bombings affected Israel for years. Look up some of the domestic terror campaigns in Ireland.

Whatever this is... It doesn't terrify me; it's hard for me to even classify at it as a terrorist attack, just a crime by a pathetic excuse for humanity. It just makes me sad and angry.