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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear FF: that URL required leading a single line a mile long. I found another URL about a Phi Beta Kappa address, which gave the same attribution to Steinmetz:
But, how do we value our engineers? This anecdote, which some of you know, may shed
some light on that question. Legend has it that long after Charles Steinmetz retired from GE
he got a panicky request from a GE employee to come fix what was wrong with a complex
system of machines that had broken down. Steinmetz agreed and came to the facility. He
walked around testing the various machines, and then took a piece of chalk out of his pocket
and marked an 'x' on a specific spot on one particular machine. The GE people took that
machine apart and found that the defect lay exactly beneath Steinmetz' 'x.'
Shortly after that, GE received a bill for $10, 000 for services rendered. Management
protested the amount and asked for an itemization. Steinmetz' bill read as follows:
Making one chalk mark -- $1; knowing where to make it -- $9, 999.
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526 |
Thanks for alerting me to that.
I related this story to my oldest daughter some years ago and told her that that is why she's going to school - so she'll know where to make the X.
k
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467 |
Perhaps the most influential person of the twentieth century was Karol Wojtyla, also known as John Paul II. My argument for his inclusion on the list is that of all those who opposed Communism, if JP II had not existed, Communism would still be the controlling system in the Soviet Union.
It is of course inappropriate to say that he defeated Communism single-handedly, but ...
TEd
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Posts: 688
addict
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addict
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Posts: 688 |
Noah Webster
1758 ~ 1843
About as word related as they come! And having been in the home he grew up in, I feel a special bond.
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Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 200
enthusiast
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OP
enthusiast
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 200 |
The Influentials: Noah Webster
Lovely! I asked for ideas, and in flew Angel's.
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member
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member
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Sorry if it looks like I'm picking nits, but having just finished a fascinating book called The Calendar , which encompasses the mathematics necessary for calendrical reform as well as the calendar itself, I feel I must correct TheFallibleFiend. Fibonacci did not 'introduce' Hindu-Arabic numerals into the west. From said book: "The first Hindu numbers known to have been scrawled on a European manuscript appeared in northern Spain in 976 and used the 'western' Arabic form of the numbers...Twenty years later, in the 990s, Gerbert of Aurillac taught the Hindu numbers to his students, undoubtedly picking them up after a stint in Spain... Mention of the numbers all but disappeared for another century until the Englishman Robert of Chester (c.1100) visited Spain..." etc etc, Euros reluctant to use this magical-looking symbols... Anyway. The book is by David Ewing Duncan, and I highly recommend it for being easy to read... and Fiend, sorry again if I appear to be acting lofty alexis 
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
Sorry if it looks like I'm picking nits
For something as important as correctly attributing the introduction of Hindu-Arabic numerals to western "civilization" I grant you unlimited nit-picking rights, alexis.
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661 |
Replace Enrico Caruso with Nadia Boulanger. Replace Princess Diana with John Wayne. 
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 872
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 872 |
Shoot muzak, I wanted to be the one to replace Princess Di. And you know darn well that I can't replace John Wayne. Oh well... KING JAMES THE FIRST to replace MACHIAVELLI THE DARK PRINCEThe King James version of the Christian Bible directed and influenced the expantion of the redeaming values of western culture more so than other any controlling mechanism or impetus. Thank you King James.  (By-the-way musick, just between me and you, you put that Boulanger chick in there just to be politically correct, didn't you?) - mw
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661 |
...just to be politically correct... Moi? Shirley, you jest... at least there was a after that!  Nadia Boulanger also had quite an impression on Quincy Jones (who, also, could replace Enrico Caruso in a heartbeat)!
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