Mensa Convention

[Karl/Pa.]

There was a Mensa Convention in San Francisco recently. Mensa, as you probably know, is a national organization for people who have an IQ of 140 or higher.

Several of the Mensa members went out for lunch at a local cafe. When they sat down, one of them discovered that their salt shaker contained pepper, and their pepper shaker was full of salt. How could they swap the contents of the two bottles without spilling any, and using only the implements at hand?

Clearly, this was a job for Mensa minds.
The group debated the problem and presented ideas, and finally came up with a brilliant solution involving a napkin, a straw, and an empty saucer.They called the waitress over, ready to dazzle her with their solution.

"Ma'am," they said, "we couldn't help but notice that the pepper shaker contains salt and the salt shaker has pepper."

But before they could finish, the waitress interrupted."Oh, sorry about that." She leaned over the table, unscrewed the caps of both bottles and switched them.

There was dead silence at the Mensa table.

Kind of reminds you of Washington, D.C., doesn't it?

[M14man]

You don't have to be an engineer or in Mensa to appreciate this story.

A toothpaste factory had a problem. They sometimes shipped empty boxes without the tube inside. This challenged their perceived quality with the buyers and distributors. Understanding how important the relationship with them was, the CEO of the company assembled his top people. They decided to hire an external engineering company to solve their empty boxes problem. The project followed the usual process: budget and project sponsor allocated, RFP, and third-parties selected. Six months (and $8 million) later they had a fantastic solution - on time, on budget, and high quality. Everyone in the project was pleased.

They solved the problem by using a high-tech precision scale that would sound a bell and flash lights whenever a toothpaste box weighed less than it should. The line would stop, someone would walk over, remove the defective box, and then press another button to re-start the line. As a result of the new package monitoring process, no empty boxes were being shipped out of the factory.

With no more customer complaints, the CEO felt the $8 million was well spent. He then reviewed the line statistics report and discovered the number of empty boxes picked up by the scale in the first week was consistent with projections, however, the next three weeks were zero! The estimated rate should have been at least a dozen boxes a day. He had the engineers check the equipment, they verified the report as accurate.

Puzzled, the CEO traveled down to the factory, viewed the part of the line where the precision scale was installed, and observed just ahead of the new $8 million dollar solution sat a $20 desk fan blowing the empty boxes off the belt and into a bin. He asked the line supervisor what that was about.

"Oh, that," the supervisor replied, "Bert, the kid from maintenance, put it there because he was tired of walking over every time the bell rang."

[Niner Delta]

NASA spent millions inventing an ink pen that would write in the zero gravity of space, so the
astronauts would be able to write.
The Russians used a pencil.


(This is a joke, because you can't have graphite powder floating around in a space capsule.)


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[M14man]

NASA spent millions inventing an ink pen that would write in the zero gravity of space, so the
astronauts would be able to write.
The Russians used a pencil.


(This is a joke, because you can't have graphite powder floating around in a space capsule.)


.

What do they do about dandruff??
I'd rather deal with the finitely small graphite that may come off. Crayons?

[Niner Delta]

NASA and the Russians have all used gas-charged ball-point "Space Pens" since the mid-'60s.
A guy named Fisher invented them and NASA bought 400 of them for $6 each, back then.
You can buy your very own Fisher Space Pen, like the astronauts use, for $10 on Amazon.

They have air filters for dandruff and graphite is bad for electronics........


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