How Well Do You Estimate?

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.

Comments

Re:how well do you resist to a slashdotting ?

[easter1916]

Tony Benn is a Labour politician in the UK.

have a...

[Ciqala]

google cache of second link http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:DB1CxyRtiNsJ: ex-parrot.com/~chris/wwwitter/20040903-but_i_wore_ the_juice.html+ex-parrot.com+/~chris/wwwitter/2004 0903-but_i_wore_the_juice.html&hl=en&start =1

Google Cache

[Anonymous Coward]

Part 1
Part 2

Re:Mythical Man Month

[Alomex]

Does nobody here on Slashdot even remember the Mythical Man Month any more? The section on estimation and back of the envelope calculations was quite enlightening.

Clearly you don't. That section is in Programming Pearls by Bentley, not the Mythical Man Month.

Estimation vs Prediction

[Mateito]

Yeah, I know everybody is after funny mods, but you don't "estimate" a future event, you predict it.

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.

used for bidding hogs, oil leases, etc.

[peter303]

This issue has been studied for many decades in order to help organizations minimize losses on bad bids. Courses are taught on this. I took something like this once. There was an exercise to estimate the number of beans in jar. People's guesses fell along a curve called the binnormal distribution. From this equation you can estimate the best price to offer versus other people's bids in order to ocassionally win and make money at it.

EZ Guide to Karma Whoring

[irhtfp]

Or "How to get quick karma when you're a newbie."

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.