Patty was excited about today’s book club meeting with, “The Boys.” She had started calling her husband Rob, her former co-worker at ACME and now research technologist at Ivy U, Pete, and The Professor “The Boys.” Even though The Professor was much more polished than Rob or Pete, he went along with their recommendations to read books about World War II for their book club.
Even though Patty always found the books more interesting and enjoyable than she thought they would be, she was ready for a change. Still, she had to admit that D-Day Through German Eyes, Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich, and The Second World Wars were not only interesting, but often spellbinding.
Through Patty's urging, the group read through N.N. Taleb’s series, Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, Antifragile, and Skin in the Game. They were now reading Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress and would soon start Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World–and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling.
As Patty and The Boys settled into The Professor’s large office, Pete, always the most chatty, began.
“I really enjoyed Taleb’s four books, I never appreciated how much we can be fooled by randomness,” Pete cheerfully commented.
“I thought The Black Swan was the best,” Rob added. “Taleb’s point that the state of the financial markets is almost completely the result of large swings brought about by unforeseen events, helped me to not always be looking at how the stock market is doing day to day,” he added.
There was a murmur of agreement in the room.
“I think this is one of the three key points I have learned this year,” Patty exclaimed.
“What are the other two?” The Professor thoughtfully asked.
"When I don’t ride into to Ivy U with Rob, I listen to audio tapes. While listening to 7 Tipping Points That Saved the World, the author pointed out that a student asked him, ‘What caused slavery?'” Patty began.
“And the answer is?” Rob teased.
“The author told the student, ‘You’re asking the wrong question, you should ask what caused freedom. The natural state of the world has been tyranny and slavery. Freedom is the welcome exception,’” Patty replied.
“Wow that one is a tough one to beat,” Pete chuckled.
“Well, the last one is close,” Patty went on.
“The suspense is killing us,” The Professor chuckled.
“I got the idea of reading the book Factfulness from an interview of Bill Gates by Time magazine (p 23, April 16). In the interview, Gates said one of the most profound thoughts I’ve ever heard,” Patty mused.
“Which is?” Rob demanded.
“I have the article let me read it,” Patty said.
"With few exceptions things don’t get better because of heroes. There were heroes 1,000 years ago and the worldwasawful. Modernity is a miracle of systems. Jonas Salk was an amazing scientist, but he isn’t the only reason we're on the doorstep of eradicating polio – it’s also thanks to the coordinated vaccination effort by health workers, NGOs and governments. We miss the progress that’s happening right in front of us when we look for heroes instead of systems. If you want to improve something, look for ways to build better systems.” – Bill Gates
Patty and The Boys discussed this profound topic and the latest book they were reading for 20 minutes or so.
As they were wrapping up, Patty said, “Remember about a month ago we talked about using an SMT pretest before giving a workshop to determine the level of the people in the workshop.”
“Sure. How did everyone do?” Pete asked.
“Well, the average was 20%,” Patty answered, “almost no one knew what SAC meant.
Even The Professor said “Yikes!”
“But, it really helped me to focus the workshop. When I discussed SAC solder, I knew I had to tell the students what each letter stood for,” Patty explained.
“I’m giving a Lean Six Sigma workshop next week and I’ve decided to develop a pretest for this workshop too,” Patty went on.
“I assume you brought it with you?” Pete teased.
“Here it is. And don’t say it’s too easy,” Patty teased back.
Patty’s Pretest
- 2x-7 = 14x+5, solve for x
- 1/x = 9x, solve for x
- Pi= ?
- y = 10x, solve for x (hint: use logarithms)
- Bill can paint a house in 40 hours, Mary takes only 30 hours, how long do they take working together?
- The perimeter of a square is 1 meter, what is its area? (Hint: the answer is not 1).
- F = C(9/5) + 32. F = -40, what is C?
- X4=1, x=?
- 4! (i.e. 4 factorial) =?
- A fair coin is flipped 4 times. What are the chances of 4 heads?
Pete and Rob both said in unison, “It’s too easy.”
Is it too easy? The first person to submit a test with no errors gets a Dartmouth sweatshirt. Send your answers to [email protected]. Please do the test by yourself without looking anything up.
Cheers,
Dr. Ron
