write small programs
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We first play and then analyze wars of attrition; the games that afflict trench warfare, strikes, and businesses in some competitive settings. We find long and damaging fights can occur in class in these games even when the prizes are small in relation to the accumulated costs. These could be caused by irrationality or by players' having other goals like pride or reputation. But we argue that long, costly fights should be expected in these...more
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A perennial favorite is the idea of time travel. What would happen if we could go back in time and alter the future a la “Back to the Future”? The great narrative of the history of life has a complexity rife with subplots and twists, many of which we will never uncover. Yet somehow the story of life on Earth began with a prebiotic ooze and ended with the awe-inspiring diversity of life we see today – including us. But like any story, th...more
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Wirt explains that the invention of the electric motor revolutionized the way factories operate. With steam power, there was one central boiler which dictated how the factory had to be organized. As electric motors evolved, it became possible to make small motors that could be distributed around the plant to provide power to individual machines allowing for greater flexibility. Now, electric motors are everywhere, he says....more
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With his tetrahedral carbon models van't Hoff explained the mysteries of known optical isomers possessing stereogenic centers and predicted the existence of chiral allenes, a class of molecules that would not be observed for another sixty-one years. Symmetry operations that involve inverting an odd number of coordinate axes interconvert mirror-images. Like printed words, only a small fraction of molecules are achiral. Verbal and pictorial ...more
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Anand Chandrasekaran, Producer of Tapestries of Hope, tells the tale of a small soap maker who realized that the gum they were giving away as a promotional item began to outshine their core product. The company had to make a bold decision to focus on what's selling, rather than what they deemed their core competency, and the rest is entrepreneurial history. Chandrasekaran's lesson is that we should keep ourselves receptive to new ideas and...more
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Hawkins talks on the importance and inevitability of portablity. With portability comes small size, low cost, simplicity and the need for less power. With wireless networks on their way to becoming very inexpensive, Hawkins envisions a T1 line with high horse power and large memory in the pocket! The need for portability will make the item in your pocket the center of your universe, he says. He notes that there will be obstacles, but belie...more
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Development is responsible for the complexity of multicellular organisms. It helps to map the genotype into the phenotype expressed by the organism. Development is responsible for ancient patterns among related organisms, and many structures important to development shared by many life forms have changed little over hundreds of millions of years. Development is expressed combinatorially, allowing a relatively small amount of genetic inform...more
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Google tries to keep an entertaining and enriching corporate culture by taking company trips and implementing a dog-friendly policy.At the same time, the company tries to maintain an entrepreneurial culture by forming small teams that act like individual startups. The founders have discovered that the groups tend to become more traditional as they grow larger.
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A good idea is critical - but it's only a small fraction of a company's success as compared to its founders, says investor Ron Conway. Investor Mike Maples attributes enterprise success to the market, and its power to pull a start-up toward greatness.
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Doerr talks about how Grameen Bank, started by Professor Muhammad Yunus, proved to be a creative solution to the never-ending problem of poverty for many small villages in Bangladesh. Doerr shares the story of finding this solution and the ideas behind how the bank came to be formed.
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Eisenhardt shares several strategies that a small company can use to protect their market. This includes marketing alliances, getting funded by larger competitors, and buying out smaller competitors.
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