{"id":97935,"date":"2018-01-30T07:00:01","date_gmt":"2018-01-30T22:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/?p=97935"},"modified":"2019-03-13T01:03:29","modified_gmt":"2019-03-13T08:03:29","slug":"20180130-01","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/20180130-01\/?p=97935","title":{"rendered":"Communication by hand signals, and other complex coordination problems"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Back in 1944, <a HREF=\"http:\/\/www.life.com\/\">LIFE Magazine<\/a> ran a series of photos showing some of the <a HREF=\"http:\/\/www.acontinuouslean.com\/2009\/03\/02\/hand-signals-at-the-stork-club\/\">hand signals used by club owner Sherman Billingsley<\/a> to communicate with his staff while he schmoozed with a customer. <\/p>\n<p>In a similar vein, the general manager of Eleven Madison Park <a HREF=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2011\/10\/02\/opinion\/sunday\/201110 02_Schott_Sign_Dining.html\"> demonstrates some hand signals used in his fancy restaurant<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m fascinated by hand signals and more generally the mechanisms by which complex processes are coordinated, particularly the subtle mechanisms that customers never notice. <\/p>\n<p>For example, when I visit a casino, I like to hang out near the craps table, not because I enjoy the game itself, but because I enjoy watching how the people who manage the table keep track of dozens of bets simultaneously. <\/p>\n<p><b>Bonus reading<\/b>: <a HREF=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2012\/08\/06\/opinion\/06schott-terms-of-service-restaurants.html\">The secret codes used in fancy restaurants<\/a>, <a HREF=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2012\/09\/09\/opinion\/sunday\/09schott-fashion.html\">the mechanics of Fashion Week<\/a>, and <a HREF=\"http:\/\/people.com\/celebrity\/how-to-tell-when-the-queen-is-over-you\/\">how the Queen signals her attendants at social events<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The secret language.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1069,"featured_media":111744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[103],"class_list":["post-97935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oldnewthing","tag-non-computer"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"<p>The secret language.<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1069"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}