Business Insider

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Statistics Revolution - THE LADY TASTING TEA

The Lady Tasting Tea
Book Review:  The Lady Tasting Tea (How Statistics Revolutionized Science In The Twentieth Century)
Author: David Salsburg
ISBN:  0716741067
Topic:  Economics
Format:  Hardcover
Language:  English
Publication Year:  2001

 SPONSOR:  Authentic Designer Handbags

At a summer tea party in Cambridge, England, a lady states that tea poured into milk tastes differently than that of milk poured into tea. Her notion is shouted down by the scientific minds of the group. But one guest, by the name Ronald Aylmer Fisher, proposes to scientifically test the lady's hypothesis. There was no better person to conduct such a test. For Fisher had brought to the field of statistics an emphasis on controlling the methods for obtaining data and the importance of interpretation. He knew that how the data was gathered and applied was as important as the data themselves.

In The Lady Tasting Tea, readers will encounter not only Ronald Fisher's theories (and their repercussions), but the ideas of dozens of men and women whose revolutionary work affects our everyday lives. Writing with verve and wit, author David Salsburg traces the rise and fall of Karl Pearson's theories, explores W. Edwards Deming's statistical methods of quality control (which rebuilt postwar Japan's economy), and relates the story of Stella Cunliff's early work on the capacity of small beer casks at the Guinness brewing factory.

The Lady Tasting Tea is not a book of dry facts and figures, but the history of great individuals who dared to look at the world in a new way.

REVIEW:

The book is friendly to those who are intimidated by numbers.  After reading this, I went back to my business thoughts and began implementing new ways to view my data.  The goal is to increase sales by finding the story the stats are telling.

BLOW OFF STEAM - Video Games

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Art - The Devil is in the Details

Art restorers have discovered the figure of a devil hidden in the clouds of one of the most famous frescos by Giotto in the Basilica of St Francis in Assisi, church officials said on Saturday.

Story on Yahoo


The devil was hidden in the details of clouds at the top of fresco number 20 in the cycle of the scenes in the life and death of St Francis painted by Giotto in the 13th century.

The discovery was made by Italian art historian Chiara Frugone. It shows a profile of a figure with a hooked nose, a sly smile, and dark horns hidden among the clouds in the panel of the scene depicting the death of St Francis.

The figure is difficult to see from the floor of the basilica but emerges clearly in close-up photography.

Sponsor:  ART BOOK - Lorenzo Lotto