user: When was the theory of comparative advantage developed?

assistant: The classical theory of comparative advantage was developed in 1817 by David Ricardo.

user: What is the recipe for a successful hackathon?

assistant: LabCorp had its second annual “Innovation Days” (or hackathon) event in February, 2020. The event was a success, and this post describes the secret ingredient that helped make it a success: Lipton® Onion Soup Mix. The soup mix captures the essence of a successful hackathon… some functional, and some personal to the LabCorp leadership.

The first reason that the soup mix embodies the spirit of the hackathon is simple: the product is rarely used as it was intended: to make soup. In fact, the soup mix launched into culinary notoriety in the early 1950s for its role in a non-soup recipe: potato chip dip. Referred to as “California Dip” originally, this recipe takes bland sour cream and gives it a flavorful zing and distinctive texture. For over half a century, this soup mix has been a party favorite thanks to people hacking a recipe and using materials in an unexpected manner. The benefit of the soup mix as a dip enhancer is that it helps speed up the process of making a consistently flavorful dip. For people participating in a hackathon, this is something to look for: can hackathon ideas or aspects of the hackathon projects be applied to existing processes to help streamline them?

The journey of “inventing” the soup mix also captures the essence of the hackathon. The engineer who helped create this soup mix had failed years earlier. He was not trying to make soup during the Second World War, he was trying to save lives. So he invented a - sadly ineffective - method for freeze-drying blood that could be reconstituted on the battlefield to save lives. His vision for “dried blood” being used on the battlefield was not viable. Let’s hope it did not require too many “QA” folks to realize this product was DOA. Years later, however, it was the method of freeze-drying that was in his mind when he helped design Lipton® Onion Soup Mix.

LabCorp CIO, Lance Berberian told the origin story of Lipton® Onion Soup Mix as the keynote speaker during the Innovation Days event. Mr. Berberian recounted the story from his uncle, and, like many stories told by uncles, we hope it to be true. The take-away message, as it relates to hackathons: remember your failed attempts. Aspects of your failed attempts may be core to your future successes.

Mr. Berberian was very engaged in the hackathon. In fact, his leadership team was front-and-center on launch day as well as on presentation day. The story about his uncle was powerful because it set the tone for the event: experiment, learn, network, and expect the unexpected. And the unexpected did happen during the event. Near the end of presentation day, a participant in the audience suddenly collapsed and began seizing. Many folks rushed to help and call 911. As a compassionate leader, Mr. Berberian was on the front-lines of the incident, and he stayed with the sick colleague while we waited for an ambulance to arrive. This, I believe, captures the true secret ingredient of a successful hackathon: engaged leadership.

user: What are different types of optical illusions?

assistant: There are three types of optical illusions: Physical, physiological and cognitive.

Physical optical illusion occurs when the light bends or changes direction before it reaches human eye. When light travels through different mediums such as air , water or glass, its speed changes and change in speed causes the light to bend. This phenomenon is called refraction. Rainbow is an example of physical optical illusion caused by refraction.   

Physiological optical illusion occurs when a pattern repeats over and over again and it is too much information for the brain. This causes the brain to think the images are moving. Kinetoscope uses images to create a video using physiological optical illusion. Flip books are another example of physiological optical illusion. 

Cognitive optical illusion occurs when multiple people view the same image but they interpret it differently. Interpretation of the image depends of people's past experience and personalities.