Have you or a friend ever been hit? I can say from personal experience approaching thousands of girls with guys nearby that it's actually pretty hard to get into a fight. I think this is an urban myth predicated on the fact that most guys don't make the move very often.

Yes I can, but only in the past few months did I learn. I used to use all of my fingers but my hands sort of danced around the keyboard and I would have to look down to check alignment every so often. I learned to touch type qwerty for 3 months, then switched to programmer dvorak a month ago. I wish I had stuck with touch typing when I first learned it in middle school.

While he could have stated his point more succinctly, what made the article notable was how he used his personal experiences to make the point. You can google and pull up dozens of takes on the first amendment that come to a similar conclusion, but this article was interesting for providing an account nuanced by Neil Gaiman's first-hand experience.

One more here. I don't think we're extremely common but we're also not alone. I'm coasting in community college while my parents pay for room and board and I try to get some revenue off of projects. I've realised that the only way for me to survive is to create something of my own or find an environment where I have enough intellectual freedom to stay engaged.