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Showing posts from September, 2012

Being More Efficient - Division of Labour

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Have not written a post for quite a while now. Have been distracted by lots of work and my new kindle (have finished several books already in a span of a few weeks). Anyway, back to our topic of the day. The Division of Labour. This is quite a well known phenomenon, most of us can imagine factories having products going along a conveyor belt whilst different parts are introduced at each stage to make up the final product. Initially mainly used to produce cars, this is now widely seen in most factories. Manufacturing good in this way is more efficient than making each product individually before moving on to the next one. And not just in factories. At home, if we cook dinner together with friends, housemates or families, usually the person that cook best does the cooking, whilst others take on individual tasks - be it peeling potatoes or washing up the dishes afterwards. As common experience can tell us, this is far quicker than if we were all trying to make the same dish.

Project "shriking my shirts"

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This was such an unexpected event, I have decided to write this down as something that I have learned. The story started when I went to Milan earlier this year and got myself a number of colorful shirts. Back home, shirt sizes are pretty standard, so usually you just pick the design you like at the right size. In a hurry, I bought the shirts without trying them on thinking that size doesn't vary that much across the EU... When I got home I realised my overly priced (albeit on sale) Italian shirts are too big! The shirts looked fine on me when you try them on with jeans and roll up the sleeves, but they are simply too big to be worn with suits.  In a desperate attempt to justify wasting my hard earned cash, I considered several options including giving them away as generous gifts to a friend or see if any tailors can make the sleeves a little shorter. I was bitterly disappointed when my local tailor told me it would not be possible to re-size the shirt - time to do