Tag Archives: Fun

Getting Retweeted by Marc Andreessen Generated a Flood of Retweets

Posted on November 9, 2015 by John Hunter

On Twitter today I was getting more than 30 times the notifications I normally get. So I took a look to see what is going on. One of my tweets was getting retweeted and liked quite a lot (nearly 100 times each, so far). I figure most likely someone with many more followers than I must have retweeted it. A bit more investigation and sure enough that is what happened. Marc Andreessen had retweeted it. He has 432,000 followers (a … Continue reading →

Posted in Innovation, Science | Tagged , , ,

We are Being Ruined by the Best Efforts of People Who are Doing the Wrong Thing

Posted on January 30, 2012 by John Hunter

Deming’s Second Theorem: “We are being ruined by best efforts.” What did Dr. Deming mean by this? Another quote by Dr. Deming might give you a clue? “Best efforts will not substitute for knowledge.” Irwin, the porcupine at the Animal Rescue League Wildlife Center has to work a little harder for his breakfast in this clip. The wildlife center likes to provide animals in captivity puzzles and challenges to keep them interested in their environment so they stuck his breakfast … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Psychology, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

Technical Non-Support

Posted on August 12, 2010 by John Hunter

A bit of fun from Dilbert. I have had the exact experience Dilbert does of tech support refusing to think about the actual symptoms of the problem and insisting on following some script and wasting my time – repeatedly. The second act takes on another time waster with a management tip from Dogbert: “Always postpone meetings with time wasting morons.” Dogbert hasn’t quite adopted the respect for people principle. via: The final word on making meetings better Related: Dilbert and … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Fun, webcast | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Highlights from Recent George Box Speech

Posted on November 16, 2009 by John Hunter

The JMP blog has posted some highlights from George Box’s presentation at Discovery 2009 [the broken link was removed] Infusing his entire presentation with humor and fascinating tales of his memories, Box focused on sequential design of experiments. He attributed much of what he knows about DOE [design of experiments] to Ronald A. Fisher. Box explained that Fisher couldn’t find the things he was looking for in his data, “and he was right. Even if he had had the fastest … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Design of Experiments, Six sigma, Statistics | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Red Bead Experiment Webcast

Posted on April 22, 2009 by John Hunter

Dr. Deming used the red bead experiment to present a view into management practices and his management philosophy. The experiment provides insight into all four aspects of Dr. Deming’s management system: understanding variation, understanding psychology, systems thinking and the theory of knowledge. Red Bead Experiment by Steve Prevette Various techniques are used to ensure a quality (no red bead) product. There are quality control inspectors, feedback to the workers, merit pay for superior performance, performance appraisals, procedure compliance, posters and … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Deming, Education, Management, Performance Appraisal, Psychology, quote, Respect, webcast | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Friday Fun: Correlation

Posted on March 6, 2009 by John Hunter

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 of Data – Seeing Patterns Where None Exists

Posted in Data, Fun, Science, Statistics | Tagged , ,

Tiger Woods and Lightning Bolt

Posted on August 22, 2008 by John Hunter

You have done pretty well when you can get people to post your ads on their blogs for the enjoyment of their readers. Enjoy this creativity and have a nice weekend. While on sports I also will mention Usain ‘Lightning’ Bolt’s performances in the Olympics: they were amazing. In contests (100 and 200 meter dash where the victor is usually a few hundreds of a second faster he won the 100 by 20/100s and 200 by 66/100s officially [52/100 but … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity | Tagged ,

NCAA Basketball Challenge 2008

Posted on March 17, 2008 by John Hunter

Once again I have created a group on the ESPN NCAA Basketball Tournament Challenge for curiouscat college basketball fans. To participate, go to the curiouscat ESPN group and make your picks. This year we also have a second challenge, using sportsline, that rewards picking upsets. So those that enjoy the tournament please join the fun. The password for this one is cat Go Badgers and Go Davidson,

Posted in curiouscat.com, Fun | Tagged

The Cat and a Black Bear

Posted on June 10, 2006 by John Hunter

Tabby cat terror for black bear A black bear picked the wrong yard for a jaunt, running into a territorial tabby who ran the furry beast up a tree – twice.Jack, a 15-pound orange and white cat, keeps a close vigil on his property, often chasing small animals, but his owners and neighbors say his latest escapade was surprising. “We used to joke, ‘Jack’s on duty,’ never knowing he’d go after a bear,” See larger photo – AP Photo by … Continue reading →

Posted in Fun | Tagged | 12 Comments

Googlebombing

Posted on September 22, 2005 by John Hunter

The Google blog has a new post on: Googlebombing ‘failure’ Basically they explain that Google is not making a judgment that the result top results for “failure” represent Google’s opinion of who is a failure. The top result is the Biography of President George W. Bush [the broken link was removed] on the whitehouse.gov web site, and the second result is Michael Moore’s home page. As Google explains: By using a practice called googlebombing, however, determined pranksters can occasionally produce … Continue reading →

Posted in Fun, Google | Tagged

Dilbert and Deming

Posted on June 5, 2005 by John Hunter

5 June 2005 Dilbert Strip on motivational posters – [update – well the pointy haired bosses running the site removed the page so we removed the link] New update the phb has been overthrown. Here is the strip: The point of that poster is your spirit should soar like an eagle while you continue to do mundane work Dilbert can show the silliness that is common place in many workplaces, as just that – silly. Point 10 of Deming’s 14 … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Psychology | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

NCAA Basketball Tournament

Posted on March 13, 2005 by John Hunter

Sign up for the curiouscat.com group on ESPN to compare your picks to other Curious Cats. You can link your existing entry to the group or create your account for ESPN, then make your picks and then link to the curiouscat.com group. Go Badgers

Posted in curiouscat.com, Fun | Tagged ,