ikono

I just had the same though except substitue OpenDNS with Google. OpenDNS would be better for users but this feels like a Google-y thing to do especially after the whole China debacle.

PPA aside, what's interesting is that PokerStars just announced a partnership with the Wynn recently. I don't know that it's the US brick and mortar casinos that are behind this.

I think technically gambling online is illegal in the US but it's covered by the wire act and not UIGEA.

I'm not 100% sure as it's been a while since I've kept up with this but I believe that Poker has always been in a sort of gray area. I think there is suppose to be a distinction between games of chance and games of skill. In the past only online sports books or true online casinos had ever been prosecuted in the US.

It's kinda cool to see a link to 2+2 at the top of HN, sucks that it has to be for this though...

Let me start off by saying I clearly added an extra 0 pre-edit. Tiger hasn't been alive for a million hours.

Second, I said closer to 100,000 than 10,000. So I'm taking the over on 55k hours. Although I do think 100k is possible, even if unlikely(say 4-5 hours a day from 2-21, then 18 a day from 21-present). I do think he's probably averaged more than 8 hours a day since he turned pro if you include all activities that are meant to improve his ability on the golf course. That's clearly pretty close to the upper bound but more likely than 10k.

Finally I agree that it's dismissive towards incredible golfers and I think that's why it's so many people looked at the article and commented here. I have no doubt that if someone puts in 10k hours over 6 years they would likely be a damn good golfer(better than scratch) but touring pro level is very unlikely. The issue in my mind that this article is stupid because either 1) It's obvious that you could get very good but perhaps not incredible at something after 10k hours of practice or 2) because we go by the title and realize that becoming a touring pro after not touching a golf club in the first 30 years of your life is not at all likely.

But the title is can he become a golf pro. There wouldn't be over a 100 comments here if it simply said "How good of a golfer can you be with 10,000 hours of practice?"

Not all hours are equal, it's pretty close to impossible to be as productive while you're tired as when you're well rested. Not to mention that the person you're quoting is not a professional golfer. Tiger is probably closer to 100,000 hours than he is to 10,000...

It's far more reasonable to change this to a challenge to become a scratch golfer or something similar. I don't think Gladwell meant that anyone could become one of the best in the world at anything with 10,000 hours of work. Such a statement is somewhat insulting to those that have devoted their life to their craft. Instead, that with 10,000 hours you could become very good at anything. Enough so that you could be considered very skilled/knowledgable in that craft/field.

The running motif of Apple = Joker, Google = Batman is hardly a good way to get an intelligent conversation going...

I think more specifically, the battery is cheap. It's the size of a refrigerator and provides very little power (a few AA batteries?) but it uses water instead of lithium.

All that said, if they can find a comercial use for it in it's current form, they may be able to improve the standard of living for a lot of people while funding the research needed to bring it to the developed world.

"With a single gallon of water, Nocera says, the chip could produce enough electricity to power a house in a developing country for an entire day."

I think a house in a developing country is key. They say the chip is 10x more efficient than a natural leaf. I don't think 10 leaves produce a whole lot of power...

I'm curious how it compares to a traditional photovoltaic solar cell.

It's not just about having apps, it's about having good apps. Good mobile apps, in most cases, would not make good desktop apps and vice versa.

If nothing else, playing poker has taught me this: The correct answer is always "it depends".

In my opinion, RIM's problem is that they feel like they defined what it was to be a smartphone. Now that they are no longer king of the hill, they are trying to replicate the current definition of a smart phone. Like the author alluded to, what they should be doing is re-defining a new space for themselves. RIM's never going to make the best iPhone. They need to go back to making the best Blackberry, whatever that is.