10,000 hours concept

Malcolm Gladwell on NPR today... talking about the research that indicates the amount of time people generally need to get really good at something, be it basketball, computer programming, or being a doctor or music composer: about 10,000 hours of doing it, or roughly 10 years.

I always kinda said, if there's something you really love to do, you'll do it a lot, make a study of it, and eventually get good at it. (modulo some egregious differences in aptitude and physical ability)

wow, electric cars film, rent it

frobzwiththingz just rented us "Who killed the electric car?" ... hm, wow. Ok, so i know very little about all this stuff compared with say, *hobbit, and i should probably ask him about it all, but, thought-provoking documentary!

I had no idea GM had a practical plug-in electric car on the roads in the Nineties, and then killed the program and basically hushed it all up. I'd always sort of wondered what those 6 or so charging stations were doing in the Alewife parking garage... . I already knew GM and the petroleum interests intentionally killed the electric streetcars... which used to transport commuters between EVEN MY NEIGHBORHOOD and downtown Boston. Apparently the government found them guilty of criminal conspiracy over that in 1947 but let them go with a token fine. Again, PBS but can't find good writeup online yet... . Or that there was a battery that allowed it to go 100 miles or more on a charge, that GM bought the patent on, and then sold it to Chevron, which buried it. Hm.

Ovshinsky is brilliant. He's the one who invented the battery, and is busy making that thin film solar panel stuff now! (which phil says the first 3 years production of has all been bought by Germany...) Hm, i'm assuming better batteries may be out by now, but if not... is it possible to seize the patent by eminent domain, and then lease it to all comers? "National security", baby...

Hm, so advice to the new Administration:
-Pass a new zero emissions vehicle mandate.
-Make producing plug-in electrics a condition of GM's survival as a company
-Build that big solar farm in the Southwestern desert and use it to power the electric grid
-Forget the hydrogen fuel cell stupidity already

other links: Plug In America ... The Hype About Hydrogen" ... and, SQUEEEE! ah, but the price for a handmade conversion... *sigh