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How Well Do You Estimate?

Posted by michael on from the SWAG dept.

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.

4 of 374 comments (clear)

  1. Re:how well do you resist to a slashdotting ? by easter1916 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Tony Benn is a Labour politician in the UK.

  2. Google Cache by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Part 1
    Part 2

  3. Re:Mythical Man Month by Alomex · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  4. used for bidding hogs, oil leases, etc. by peter303 · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.