How Well Do You Estimate? 374
A random UK blogger has published a quiz asking readers to estimate various numeric values which they may or may not have knowledge of; and has analyzed the resulting answers to determine how well people guess. The first part of the results looks at some specific questions, and the second part takes a look at the quiz overall.
How Well? Not Better than the crowd (Score:3, Informative)
Re:how well do you resist to a slashdotting ? (Score:4, Informative)
How to Lie with Statistics (Score:2, Informative)
have a... (Score:3, Informative)
Google Cache (Score:5, Informative)
Part 2 [66.102.9.104]
Re:Mythical Man Month (Score:5, Informative)
Clearly you don't. That section is in Programming Pearls by Bentley, not the Mythical Man Month.
Estimation vs Prediction (Score:4, Informative)
Estimation is making an educated guess at a quantity without scientifically measuring it, usually with some sort of observation.
"I reckon thats 8 inches long and 2 inches thick."
Prediction is using past experience to state that an event will happen.
Re:Mirrors (Score:3, Informative)
In other words, people really do know what they don't know, and approximately how well they don't know it. Of course, I didn't actually read the article, but I believe this to be a reasonably good summary of it.
Re:Estimating Anecdote (Score:3, Informative)
The text is white on white, so it's probably really secret.
used for bidding hogs, oil leases, etc. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I estimate that... (Score:2, Informative)
Of course that is true. A black person in african is African African
Not all African-Americans are black.
False. At least by the people that define these things. I personally would consider a white person from Africa who now lives in the US as African American, but this is not how the US government defines it. From the census bureau [census.gov] it defines African American as:
Black or African American. A person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa. It includes people who indicate their race as "Black, African Am., or Negro," or provide written entries such as African American, Afro American, Kenyan, Nigerian, or Haitian.
EZ Guide to Karma Whoring (Score:4, Informative)
If you're need quick karma, do the following:
1. Post only to new discussions - those with less than 30 comments.
2. Do not reply to main story - instead reply to the first highly modded post.
3. Quote lots of facts or say something political (but keep it loosely on topic and don't use inflammatory statements or you'll get modded a troll).
4. Make your posts long. Long posts are always "Interesting". It's axiomatic.
This will probably get modded Offtopic but since I've got karma to burn and I know how to get it back - I don't think I really care.