Category Archives: Science

Friday Fun: Correlation

From the excellent xkcd comic. Related: Correlation is Not Causation – Does the Data Deluge Make the Scientific Method Obsolete? – Understanding Data – Theory of Knowledge – What Makes Scientists Different 🙂 – Dangers of Forgetting the Proxy Nature … Continue reading

Posted in Data, Fun, Science, Statistics | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Friday Fun: Correlation

Embrace Diversity, Erase Uniformity

Guest Post by Jurgen Appelo, author of the Managing Software Development blog. Five years ago, when I started working for my current employer, the entire organization (about 30 people) consisted only of 20-something white straight single males. The atmosphere was … Continue reading

Posted in Management, Science, Software Development, Systems thinking | Tagged | 1 Comment

Does the Data Deluge Make the Scientific Method Obsolete?

The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete by Chris Anderson “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” So proclaimed statistician George Box 30 years ago, and he was right. But what choice did we … Continue reading

Posted in Creativity, Data, Innovation, Science | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Multitasking Decreases Productivity

The problems with multitasking are becoming more and more well know, thankfully. Here is another article on the lower productivity multitasking produces – Multitasking Madness Decreases Productivity by Barbara Bartlein: In a recent study by Eric Horvitz and the University … Continue reading

Posted in Management, Process improvement, Psychology, Science | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Fairness Matters

Sense of Fairness Affects Outlook, Decisions Burnout has been long associated with being overworked and underpaid, but psychologists Christina Maslach and Michael Leiter found that these were not the crucial factors. The single biggest difference between employees who suffered burnout … Continue reading

Posted in Management Articles, Psychology, Respect, Science | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Packaging Improvement

McDonald’s Branding Makes Food Tastier for Tots Researchers at Stanford University have found that children tend to rate food that is wrapped up in McDonald’s-branded paper as tasting better than the same food wrapped in plain paper — a finding … Continue reading

Posted in Creativity, Customer focus, Management, Psychology, Science | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Drug Price Crisis

In 2005 I posted about some of the problems with drug pricing. It is nice to find at least a couple of people at MIT that want to have MIT focus research on the public good instead of private profit. … Continue reading

Posted in Creativity, Economics, Health care, Science | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Inside Honda’s Brain

Inside Honda’s brain by Alex Taylor III why is Honda playing with robots? Or, for that matter, airplanes? Honda is building a factory in North Carolina to manufacture the Hondajet, a sporty twin-engine runabout that carries six passengers. Or solar … Continue reading

Posted in Innovation, Management, Science | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Car Powered Using Compressed Air

Jules Verne predicted cars would run on air. The Air Car is making that a reality. The car would be powered by compressed air. Certainly seem like an interesting idea. Air car ready for production: Refueling is simple and will … Continue reading

Posted in Fun, India, Innovation, Lean thinking, Management, Science, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Losing Consumers’ Trust

Last week their was a recall of 143 million pounds of beef in the USA. Lets take a short systemic view at what is going on. The public has an interest in a safe food supply which is difficult to … Continue reading

Posted in Economics, Management, Psychology, Science, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments