6 essential numbers to have in your phone

1. local cab company
2. free information line ( goog, or free 411)
3. ICE ( in case of emergency)
4. delivery food (other than pizza)
5. florist ( if you're a guy or a girl, the ability to send out a last minute gift is important)
6. the folks ( call em once a week, it'll make em happy)

There are plenty of others that almost made the list like sig-O, car service, AAA, etc. For my money these are the important ones

6 Science teacher desk to

1. Newton's cradle
2. "floating" top/pen
   
3. Drinking Bird
4. Radiometer
5. Hand Boilers
6. Gyroscope

collected observations over the years

6 Uber Geek Skills That Can Be Learned In A Day

1. Solving a Rubix Cube
2. Memorizing Pi to 10 Decimal Places
3. Programming a Ti-82/3
4. Compiling a Linux kernel
5. Basic Math on a Slide Rule
6. RSA Cryptography

6 Animal Condiments

1. Ham Powder
2. Bonito Flakes
3. Bacon Salt
4. Pork Sung
5. Shrimp Paste
6. Bacon Bits ( the real thing)
   

6 Pies

1. apple
2. rhubarb
3. pecan
4. pumpkin
5. blueberry
6. steak and kidney

Threw the last one in there to keep ya thinkin, honorable mention to chicken pot, key lime, pizza, and of course banana cream

6 geek loves

1. Dungeons and Dragons
2. Star Trek
3. Magic Cards
4. World of Warcraft
5. Casemods
6. Star Wars
   

Collected in conversations

6 things you learn in operations

1. Don't starve the bottleneck
2. L = λ W ( thanks John Little)
   
3. Manage the bullwhip ( reduce information latency)
4. Variability Causes congestion
5. Real problems are often NP Hard, use a heuristic or simulate the hell out of it
   
6. Forecasts are always wrong, good forecasts are just less wrong and for a near horizon

Some of these you learn in school, some of these you learn on the job. Real world learnings that almost made the cut are below

• Grads students are cheaper to hire than undergrads or consultants and produce better work
  
• Real supply chain optimization is an exercise in contracts not math
• No one really cares about the best solution, any improvement is met with praise
• Performance Metrics only have to be representative, not truly meaningful, if they are truly meaningful and not deftly named they'll never get monitored