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The Battle for Toilet Paper: USS SkipjackIn 1942, a submarine skipper grew frustrated when a requisition for an essential item was cancelled. His response is still famous in the Navy today.On July 1, 1941, a requisition was submitted for 150 rolls of toilet paper by an officer aboard the submarine USS Skipjack (SS-184). As the boat patrolled the Pacific, the requested item never arrived with other supplies. In March 1942, Lieutenant Commander James Coe took command of the Skipjack. As Coe settled into his new role, he no doubt learned of the dire situation. On June 19, Coe received a canceled invoice for 150 rolls of toilet paper. The request was the original from July 1941 and was stamped “cancelled-cannot identify.” Coe wrote a response that is famous within the Navy today.His letter read:USS SKIPJACKJune 11, 1942From: Commanding OfficerTo: Supply Officer, Navy Yard, Mare Island, CaliforniaVia: Commander Submarines, Southwest PacificSubject: Toilet PaperReference: (a) USS HOLLAND (5148) USS Skipjack req. 70-42 of 30 July 1941.(b) SO NYMI Canceled invoice No. 272836Enclosure: (1) Copy of cancelled Invoice(2) Sample of material requested.1. This vessel submitted a requisition for 150 rolls of toilet paper on July 30, 1941, to USS HOLLAND. The material was ordered by HOLLAND from the Supply Officer, Navy Yard, Mare Island, for delivery to USS Skipjack.2. The Supply Officer, Navy Yard, Mare Island, on November 26, 1941, cancelled Mare Island Invoice No. 272836 with the stamped notation "Cancelled---cannot identify." This cancelled invoice was received by Skipjack on June 10, 1942.3. During the 11 ¾ months elapsing from the time of ordering the toilet paper and the present date, the Skipjack personnel, despite their best efforts to await delivery of subject material, have been unable to wait on numerous occasions, and the situation is now quite acute, especially during depth charge attack by the "back-stabbers."4. Enclosure (2) is a sample of the desired material provided for the information of the Supply Officer, Navy Yard, Mare Island. The Commanding Officer, USS Skipjack cannot help but wonder what is being used in Mare Island in place of this unidentifiable material, once well known to this command.Were Brits more brave and less subjected to battle stress?5. Skipjack personnel during this period have become accustomed to use of "ersatz," i.e., the vast amount of incoming non-essential paper work, and in so doing feel that the wish of the Bureau of Ships for the reduction of paper work is being complied with, thus effectively killing two birds with one stone.6. It is believed by this command that the stamped notation "cannot identify" was possible error, and that this is simply a case of shortage of strategic war material, the Skipjack probably being low on the priority list.7. In order to cooperate in our war effort at a small local sacrifice, the Skipjack desires no further action be taken until the end of the current war, which has created a situation aptly described as "war is hell."J.W. CoeHere is the rest of the story:The letter was given to the Yeoman, telling him to type it up. Once typed and upon reflection, the Yeoman went looking for help in the form of the XO. The XO shared it with the OD and they proceeded to the CO's cabin and asked if he really wanted it sent. His reply, "I wrote it, didn't I?"As a side note, twelve days later, on June 22, 1942 J.W. Coe was awarded the Navy Cross for his actions on the S-39.Coe’s letter caused quite a stir and was circulated throughout the fleet. When the Skipjack returned to Australia after her patrol, she was greeted by quite a sight. The pier was stacked seven feet high with boxes of toilet paper instead of the usual crates of fresh fruit and ice cream. Toilet paper streamers decorated the dock, and a band greeted the boat wearing toilet paper neckties and toilet paper flying out of trumpets and horns. The men of the Skipjack would not have to do without toilet paper again, as they were greeted upon every return with cartons of the precious paper.If this all sounds familiar, it’s because the story was used in the 1959 film Operation Petticoat. In the film, Cary Grant portrays Commander Matt Sherman, commanding officer of the USS Sea Tiger. Upon receipt of a cancelled requisition for toilet paper, he dictates a letter echoing the sentiments of Commander Coe. The question was never answered in either situation: if the requested substance could not be identified, what was Mare Island using instead?

Let’s look at the 8th grade math curriculum of Common Cores, and examine how its contents are covered in China (K-12 Math textbooks by People’s Education Press) :Exponents and scientific notation: 10th grade in ChinaOne variable equation: 7th grade in ChinaTranslation and angle relationship: part in 9th grade, part removed in ChinaFunctions: 10th grade in ChinaLinear relations: 10th grade in ChinaSystem of linear equations: 7th grade in ChinaPythagorean theorem and volume: 8th grade in ChinaBivariate data: 8th grade in ChinaWhile the above comparison is far from precise, it presents a fact that might surprise many people—-the math curriculum in China is NOT ahead of the American curriculum at all.But then why do people think Chinese students (on average) are “better” at math? The main reason is that the math exams in China are much harder. See the sample exam questions below from US and from China, all for 8th graders. I don’t need to specify which is which.Sample Geometry Question 1:Sample Geometry Question 2:As illustrated in the Figure, D is the midpoint of AB and E is the midpoint of AC. How many of the following propositions are correct?[1] [math]BC=2DE [/math][math][/math][math][/math][2] The perimeter of [math]\triangle ADE[/math] : the perimeter of [math]\triangle ABC[/math] = 1:2[3] The areas of [math]\triangle BOD[/math] and [math]\triangle [/math][math]COE[/math][math][/math] are equal[4] [math]\triangle BOD \cong \triangle [/math][math]COE[/math][math][/math]Sample Algebra Question 1:Sample Algebra Question 2:Then you might wonder: (1) why are Chinese exams much harder than American ones, given that the curricula are at roughly the same level and that their top students are also roughly at the same level? (2) how do Chinese students learn to deal with the harder questions?Answer to (1): Because Chinese colleges and high schools admit students purely based on their exam grades. There is the famous Gaokao, for college admissions. Each prefecture also has a Zhongkao exam, for high school admissions. Since everybody wants to get into a good college/high school, the competition has become fierce and school exams have become harder.Answer to (2): (Good) schools usually cover much more stuff than the required textbook. Those who are not happy enough with their schools can use coaching institutes to learn even more.

The answer to this question varies depending onWhat kind of market you are sizing - i.e. what is the product and market type (b2b or b2c)What level of sizing data are you looking for - granular (by entity), regional, segment etc.What kind of sizing metric you're after - number of entities that can buy, or revenue potential per entity/region/segment/country etc.In cases where you are looking for granular data such as "Customers that look like THIS have THAT much to spend on THIS product" you are actually looking less for market size and more for "Wallet estimate". This nice part about wallet estimates is that you have the granular data and then can roll them up to aggregate data.You generally have a few starting point possibilities. I will cover a few cases of either breaking aggregate data down or building wallet data up.Some of the methods will be broad brush business rules that are "good enough" for whatever decisions you want to drive. Others are real statistical modeling techniques with all kinds of fancy math.Pay Someone to Do itThere are consultants that specializes in this kind of thing and offer results that run from common sense calculations of projections useful for broad brush decisions all the way to statistically significant and tested data results.(e.g. http://www.citdb.com/)Buy Some Data and Tweak ItMarkets have niche providers of data that develop market sizing information specific to certain products and industries.e.g.http://www.klinegroup.com/market-research/research_industries.asphttp://www.lodgingeconometrics.com/That information is useful, but it's fairly frequent that the results are:For a general category of products that are too broad for your particular situationOnly available as broad-brush aggregates against regions and/or countriesSo you take the data, and come up with a reasonable approach to breaking it down so that it applies to your kind of product or service. There are various ways to do this.Come up with a hypothesis that gives you a ratio of money spent on your category of interest versus the purchased data. Apply the ratio to the purchased data.Decide if you want to test your hypothesis or just call it good enough for whatever the business decision at hand is.If you want to do a basic test, you could try surveying a sample of people to find out if your predicted ratio is accurate across a few segments of customers.Various Sorts of Quantile ModelingHere are a couple of research papers that describe some of these approaches in detail, although their focus is on the wallet outcome rather than the aggregate:http://hercules.ece.utexas.edu/~srujana/papers/crm05.pdfhttp://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1281297The core method boils down to this (I think):Find a representative sample of entities (people, households, business locations) where you are confident that you know how much they spend on the products of interest, and that they are your highest spending customers. This is easier to do for established businesses with a customer list to drawn on.Segment that sample by some relevant data that is available in the public domain for your universe of buyers (demographics, employee count, type of business, whatever) so that you can establish bands. e.g. People age X to Y with incomes from A to B spend XX money on blah product.Do a bunch of math to get more solid predictions by segment member.Buy census data that gives you the whole universe of entities that exist with enough data to slot them into your chosen segments.Apply your wallet predictions to the universe.