Results tagged “massachusettsinstitute”

While Six Sigma's goal-oriented blather and obsession with measuring everything was jarring, it was also weirdly familiar, inasmuch as it was strikingly reminiscent of my college Maoism I class. Mao seemed to be a good model for Jack Welch and his Six Sigma foot soldiers; Six Sigma's "Champions" and "Black Belts" were Mao's "Cadres" and "Squad Leaders."

Continue reading "Television Watching: Dateline Exposed?"

It's a holiday weekend for the NY Times Weddings Announcements!

Leave it to the Wall Street Journal to spend 2000+ words complexifying a a relatively straightforward question: what's the best way to split up a cab-fare when everyone is going in the same direction? We've faced this problem literally dozens of times, and usually end up with one of two situations: the person who gets off last pays for the entire thing (as an act of generosity, figuring that giving a lift to the other person going in the same direction hasn't actually increased his fare), or the two people split the fare (thus avoiding the embarassment of arguing over who has saved more and why.) Of course, economists love to argue. Here are their methods:

1. The trip-leg method: "Before consulting with economists, my sense was that all three passengers should evenly split the first leg of the trip to A's house, because each one needed to go that far anyway. Then B and C should split the leg from A's house to B's, and C should pay for the rest."

Continue reading "The Economics of Splitting a Cab"