With news about the H1N1 hogging the headlines, it is time to be seriously concerned about this pandemic. I have survived the fear and panic by consoling and convincing myself about the the number of persons infected vs. the total population of India, and a quick mental calculation of probability of being infected. The official number of detections with H1N1 today in India are just around 780 and we have some doomsday soothsayers predicting a 33.33% possible spread (why 33.33 and not 33.34 is a question I would like these quacks to answer...). A quick and easy web search was all that was left for me to do. Sites like pigflumap and healthmap each painted a different but not so bad a scenario for home, while the US shows a rather scary picture. I have grave doubts about the data depiction as most of such dynamically updated maps depend on crowd-info. If a blissfully unaware, blissfully lazy or worst - a nonchalant crowd, populates a certain region, the authenticity of such 'info-from-crowds' on maps is misleading. A media or communications drought in some regions could also result in the same.

The temporal resolution of maps to be of any significant use has become finer by each passing year but none to beat the demands placed by a dynamic theme like spread of a pandemic, the 'last updated' field for such will also need a time stamp...