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Get the Summary of Vaclav Smil's Invention and Innovation in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. Vaclav Smil's "Invention and Innovation" examines the evolution of human inventions across four categories: simple tools, machines and mechanisms, new materials, and production methods. The book contrasts the USSR's failure to innovate with China's successful adoption of foreign technologies. Smil notes an acceleration in...
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Get the Summary of Walter Isaacson's Invent and Wander in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. Original book introduction: In this collection of Jeff Bezos's writings-his unique and strikingly original annual shareholder letters, plus numerous speeches and interviews that provide insight into his background, his work, and the evolution of his ideas-you'll gain an insider's view of the why and how of his success. Spanning...
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Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. Original book introduction: In this collection of Jeff Bezos's writings-his unique and strikingly original annual shareholder letters, plus numerous speeches and interviews that provide insight into his background, his work, and the evolution of his ideas-you'll gain an insider's view of the why and how of his success. Spanning a range of topics across business and public policy, from innovation...
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#1 When a supercomputer operating at a speed of 36. 8 petaflops improves its intelligence, it is rewriting its own program. It is becoming more and more intelligent, and soon it will be more intelligent than humans.
#2 The ASI is a thousand times more intelligent than the smartest human, and it's solving problems at speeds that are millions, even billions of times faster...
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#1 George Washington was the president of a company that was developing the navigability of the Potomac River. He was offered valuable shares in the company for himself and his heirs, but he only accepted if he could give whatever dividends that came his way to charities.
#2 The United States was formed in 1776, but was not fully formed until 1789. Until then, the thirteen former British colonies were held uneasily together by the Articles of Confederation....
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#1 The name China was adopted by Westerners and given new meanings which were then transmitted back to East Asia. In European minds, China became an ancient, independent, continuous state occupying a defined portion of continental East Asia.
#2 The idea of a pre-eminent China traveled from Europe to East and Southeast Asia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth...
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#1 On December 25, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev delivered his last speech as president of the Soviet Union. He signed the papers that would formally dissolve the Soviet Union, and began to speak. His voice was soft and forced at first, but it became more controlled as he went on.
#2 The country that had come into existence after the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 had...
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#1 Crosswicks is a typical New England farmhouse that has withstood the batterings of many storms over the years. It stands staunchly on the crest of one of the Litchfield hills in the northwest corner of Connecticut.
#2 I had a happy childhood, but my parents were planning to move to Europe after the Wall Street crash. They were planning to have the summer in the French...
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#1 Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor between 1493 and 1519, was not the most astute of rulers. He spent a lot of money on projects that never really went anywhere, like an imperial postal service. But he did have imagination, and he harnessed the power of the printing press more effectively than any other ruler.
#2 The Roman postal service was an achievement of breathtaking...
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#1 In 1863, at age sixteen, Alexander Graham Bell first started work on his speaking machine. He planned to give the contraption a human form, and then to play this mechanical body like an organ, with keys that depressed the different portions of the tongue and lips.
#2 Aleck was very close with his brother, Edward, who was just one year younger. But after finishing...
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#1 The train to Paris, which was expected at 2:37 p. m., arrived five minutes late. Louis Le Prince, Albert's brother, had come to visit him. He had been working on a moving picture machine, and he would soon bring it back to the United States with him.
#2 Louis and Albert were not very comfortable together. They would often discuss finances, which neither had much of....
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#1 The Scottish Reformation was the work of one man, John Knox, and he was able to turn the Scots into God's chosen people and turn Scotland into the New Jerusalem. He imposed the Calvinist Sabbath on Scottish society, and banned all traditional forms of collective fun.
#2 The Kirk, which was the main church in Scotland, turned its back on secular values and embraced God alone. It...
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#1 The term racial is used to describe a pattern of oppression of one group of people by another. It is not an automatic promotion to oppressor, and historically, racial dissimilarities have not only been artificially used, they are themselves artificial.
#2 By considering racial oppression in terms of the substantive, the operative element, namely oppression, it is...
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Book Preview: #1 The majority of consumer products are invented by large companies nowadays. The only way an entrepreneur can manufacture a product is through the Internet, which was invented in the 1980s.
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Get the Summary of Matt Ridley's How Innovation Works in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary and not the original book. Original book introduction: Innovation is the main event of the modern age, the reason we experience both dramatic improvements in our living standards and unsettling changes in our society. Forget short-term symptoms like Donald Trump and Brexit, it is innovation that will shape the twenty-first century. Yet innovation remains...
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#1 Around 780,000 years ago, the Yellow River flowed much closer to the place we call Beijing than it does now. The area was home to two tribes, the Hu and Xi, from whom the Han Chinese claim descent.
#2 The Yellow Emperor, who is said to have invented writing, is the basis of the popular claim that China has 5000 years of recorded history. The earliest hard evidence...
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Get the Summary of Margaret Cheney's Tesla in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. Margaret Cheney's biography of Nikola Tesla delves into the life of the inventor known for his meticulous and eccentric nature. Tesla's early life in Croatia, under the influence of his inventive mother, set the stage for his later achievements. His ability to visualize inventions in detail and his prodigious memory were both a gift and...
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#1 The concept of intelligence is based on the traditional IQ test, which was invented by Alfred Binet to measure, objectively, comprehension, reasoning, and judgment. However, contemporary research shows that intelligence is not fixed at birth and can be developed throughout life.
#2 The brain is much more flexible and multidimensional than any supercomputer. It can...
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#1 The first machine gun was invented by Hiram Maxim in London in 1883. It was a device that discharged six cartridges automatically, on a single trigger pull. The date can be deduced from patent number 3493, which Maxim registered on 16 July 1883 for an invention of improvements in machine or battery guns, and in cartridges for the same and other firearms.
#2 Hiram...
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Get the Summary of Saul Griffith's Electrify in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary and not the original book.
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Griffith, an engineer and inventor, calls for grid neutrality, ensuring that households, businesses, and utilities operate as equals, we will have to rewrite regulations that were created for a fossil-fueled world, mobilize industry as we did in World War II, and offer low-interest "climate loans." Griffith's...