Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gottfried who wrote (34858)	4/19/2000 11:49:00 AM
From: Dr. Mitchell R. White	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 70976

OT! OT! Well, I hold the copyright, but you seem like you could use it in the future, so I'll allow you non-exclusive use, okay? <grin> How I came to use the term "One-point Trending:" When I worked at Dow Chemical, I had a committee job doing safety and operations reviews of the various chemical production units. Every two years, minimum, for each unit! A big job. And I was carrying the tag of "statistician" as well as chemist, so I got to be the mathematical conscience of the committee. At one review, a young engineer got up to explain his findings about how to improve the productivity of his operations. He showed a chart with a straight line through the current operation point, and he noted that he could get further out that line by simply cranking up his unit. I asked him how many points he'd taken to verify the line. "One," he said. I seemed to remember that one point didn't define a line, so I asked where the predictor line came from. "Well, I operate here now," pointing at his lonely data point, "and I get the origin for free!" I called a halt to the review before he could implement his concept, and maybe blow us all to Kingdom Come. And that's when I began to use the term.... Mitch "Old statisticians never die, they just get broken down by age and sex."