How can you maximize success—and limit failure? Wall Street Journal reporter Ben Cohen brilliantly investigates the mystery and science of streaks, from basketball to business. "A feast for anyone interested in the secrets of excellence." —Andre Agassi For decades, statisticians, social scientists, psychologists, and economists (among them Nobel Prize winners) have spent massive amounts of precious time thinking about whether streaks actually exist. After all, a substantial number of decisions that we make in our everyday lives are quietly rooted in this one question: If something happened before, will it happen again? Is there such a thing as being in the zone? Can someone have a “hot hand”? Or is it simply a case of seeing patterns in randomness? Or, if streaks are possible, where can they be found? In The Hot Hand, Wall Street Journal reporter Ben Cohen offers an unfailingly entertaining and provocative investigation into these questions. He begins with how a $35,000 fine and a wild night in New York revived a debate about the existence of streaks that was several generations in the making. We learn how the ability to recognize and then bet against streaks turned a business school dropout named David Booth into a billionaire, and how the subconscious nature of streak-related bias can make the difference between life and death for asylum seekers. We see how previously unrecognized streaks hidden amidst archival data helped solve one of the most haunting mysteries of the twentieth century, the disappearance of Raoul Wallenberg. Cohen also exposes how streak-related incentives can be manipulated, from the five-syllable word that helped break arcade profit records to an arc of black paint that allowed Stephen Curry to transform from future junior high coach into the greatest three-point shooter in NBA history. Crucially, Cohen also explores why false recognition of nonexistent streaks can have cataclysmic results, particularly if you are a sugar beet farmer or the sort of gambler who likes to switch to black on the ninth spin of the roulette wheel.

Published in paperback for the 20th anniversary of Ben & Jerry's Homemade, Inc.--the business philosophy of a company that has won the taste buds of America as well as earned the admiration of Wall Street.

Benjamin R. Cohen uses the pure food crusades at the turn of the twentieth century to provide a captivating window onto the origins of manufactured foods in the United States. In the latter nineteenth century, extraordinary changes in food and agriculture gave rise to new tensions in the ways people understood, obtained, trusted, and ate their food. This was the Era of Adulteration, and its concerns have carried forward to today: How could you tell the food you bought was the food you thought you bought? Could something manufactured still be pure? Is it okay to manipulate nature far enough to produce new foods but not so far that you question its safety and health? How do you know where the line is? And who decides? In Pure Adulteration, Benjamin R. Cohen uses the pure food crusades to provide a captivating window onto the origins of manufactured foods and the perceived problems they wrought. Cohen follows farmers, manufacturers, grocers, hucksters, housewives, politicians, and scientific analysts as they struggled to demarcate and patrol the ever-contingent, always contested border between purity and adulteration, and as, at the end of the nineteenth century, the very notion of a pure food changed. In the end, there is (and was) no natural, prehuman distinction between pure and adulterated to uncover and enforce; we have to decide. Today’s world is different from that of our nineteenth-century forebears in many ways, but the challenge of policing the difference between acceptable and unacceptable practices remains central to daily decisions about the foods we eat, how we produce them, and what choices we make when buying them.

VHDL Coding Styles and Methodologies was originally written as a teaching tool for a VHDL training course. The author began writing the book because he could not find a practical and easy to read book that gave in depth coverage of both, the language and coding methodologies. This book is intended for: 1. College students. It is organized in 13 chapters, each covering a separate aspect of the language, with complete examples. All VHDL code described in the book is on a companion 3.5" PC disk. Students can compile and simulate the examples to get a greater understanding of the language. Each chapter includes a series of exercises to reinforce the concepts. 2. Engineers. It is written by an aerospace engineer who has 26 years of hardware, software, computer architecture and simulation experience. It covers practical applications ofVHDL with coding styles and methodologies that represent what is current in the industry. VHDL synthesizable constructs are identified. Guidelines for testbench designs are provided. Also included is a project for the design of a synthesizable Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter (UART), and a testbench to verify proper operation of the UART in a realistic environment, with CPU interfaces and transmission line jitter. An introduction to VHDL Initiative Toward ASIC Libraries (VITAL) is also provided. The book emphasizes VHDL 1987 standard but provides guidelines for features implemented in VHDL 1993.

A key figure in the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, Benjamin V. Cohen (1894–1983) was a major architect of public policy from the first days of FDR’s presidency through the early days of the Cold War. Although he kept a low public profile, Cohen’s influence extended across a wide range of domestic and foreign policy initiatives. In this biography, William Lasser offers the first account of Ben Cohen’s life and career, and an assessment of his contribution to the origin and development of modern American liberalism. Cohen’s life provides an extraordinary lens through which to view the development of the evolving political philosophy of the Roosevelt and Truman presidencies. A brilliant lawyer noted for his good judgment and experience, Cohen was a leading member of FDR’s “Brain Trust,” developing ideas, drafting legislation, lobbying within the administration and in Congress, and defending the New Deal in court. The book traces his contributions to domestic financial policy, his activities during the war years in London and Washington, his service as counselor to the State Department and member of the American delegation to the United Nations after the war, and his role in the American Zionist movement. From Cohen’s life and work, Lasser draws important insights into the development of the New Deal and the evolution of postwar liberalism.

Just a few generations ago we were a nation of seed savers because it was essential to our survival. Many of us have lost touch with this ancient practice, but the knowledge is still inside each and every one of us just waiting to be unlocked. As the demand for locally grown food increases, the demand for local seed is not far behind. After all, food is only as local as the seed that grows it. Remember, there are seed stories within all of us and there are new stories waiting to be written every day. The following pages are filled with tales from many seeds and their keepers; I hope that they inspire you and I hope that they entertain you but most importantly, I hope these stories get you to ask yourself the most important question, "What's your seed story?"

In Values-Driven Business, Ben & Jerry's co-founder Ben Cohen and Social Venture Network chair Mal Warwick team up to provide you with a way to run your business for profit and personal satisfaction. This practical, down-to-earth book details every step in the process of creating and managing a business that will reflect your personal values, not force you to hide them.