Re: when is a C not a C

[dennis roberts]

At 04:14 AM 2/5/2003, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

If you need an 80 to pass a rifle test in the military, 79.99 is not good
enough. 80 means 80.

well, 80 is 80 but, what it means is anyone's guess

At my university to get a grade of 'A' or above, you must make a MINIMUM of
90, not 89.999.

but then again ... what sort of combination of scores for a student would yield a possible average of 89.999????

we are taking these values FARRRRRRRRRRR too seriously ... to think that a % of 89.999 has any meaning ... at that level of decimals .... is silly

i really doubt that 1% makes any sense either

In business it doesn't quite work that way.  If a machine must produce
something and the limits are set, then if the machine fails to do what it
must do, it FAILS and is stopped and fixed.

you make it sound like out there in real life (business) ... there are perfect solutions for things ... NOT TRUE

last night on pbs ... a nova program focused on the competition between the boeing and lockheed companies ... battling for the big prize of the next generation of fighters ... we are talking about a competition for perhaps hundreds of BILLIONS OF $$$ in contracts ... and, the engineers at boeing were sitting around trying to make a decision about two different tail fin configurations ... and 5 guys were making the decision ... 2 said A and 2 said B ... and the one breaking the summarized his decision as ... well, up until an hour ago, i liked A but now, i think B is better ...

business decisions ... and ways to fix problems ... are HIGHLY subjective


_________________________________________________________
dennis roberts, educational psychology, penn state university
208 cedar, AC 8148632401, mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://roberts.ed.psu.edu/users/droberts/drober~1.htm
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