

Outsmart your brain by knowing when you are wrong - mrtron
http://troysimpson.co/outsmart-your-brain-by-knowing-when-you-are-w

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gmurphy
For my 6th birthday party, my mother challenged all the kids to guess the
number of Smarties (M&M-like candy) in a tube. Everyone guessed in the range
of 15-20, except for one joker who yelled out 100. It ended up being 121.

This makes me think that underestimation is more common for the things you
want lots of (chocolate, tickets); with overestimation being the norm for the
things you want less of (enemy soldiers, incoming vehicle speed).

This would make sense from a what-happens-if-you're-wrong perspective.

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eru
Interesting. I did not know that Smarties were Europe-only.

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pmichaud
The US has a candy called Smarties, but they are different entirely, and made
by different companies.

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jessriedel
Smarties in US:
[http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Qm2M81VKS-s/SaC6lVU2-UI/AAAAAAAADn...](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Qm2M81VKS-s/SaC6lVU2-UI/AAAAAAAADnM/YmF-
_vGHM34/s400/smarties.jpg)

Smarties in Europe: [http://www.sogoodblog.com/wp-
content/uploads/2008/11/smartie...](http://www.sogoodblog.com/wp-
content/uploads/2008/11/smarties-3.jpg)

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tyng
Don't try to count or guess, use simple math shortcuts.

I took a rough average of the double digit numbers on the screen (35),
multiplied by the number of double digit numbers (16), and since 30 x 10 is
300, I guessed the total would be around 500.

This was all done within 5 seconds

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hyyypr
I think you are missing the point. No simple math tricks can overcome the fact
that I am impressed at the amount on my credit card bill at the end of the
month.

What the author tried to convey is more the incapacity of the brain to
apprehend a large amount of small numbers.

~~~
eru
Simple math will tell you to estimate your credit card bill using old credit
card bills as a reference, not your gut feeling about how much you spend.

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henrikschroder
Slightly related to the post: If you are in Kuala Lumpur, don't bother going
up the Petronas towers, you don't get up that high, the wait is long, the view
isn't spectacular, and the infomercials about the worlds nicest little
petroleum company gets pretty grating.

Don't miss the KL Tower though. It costs to go up (RM12, pocket change!), but
the view is spectacular and you can stay as long as you like. The rotating
restaurant is also very nice, but remember to book in advance.

~~~
mrtron
I can confirm the infomercial before you go up the elevator is VERY grating.

However the whole day was amazing for me resulting from the aquarium visit
right nearby the towers - the entrance is right where the picture of the
towers is taken from.

Here is the pictures from it, truly amazing. It has an incredible 100 meter
(!) underwater tunnel through a massive aquarium with a moving sidewalk.

<http://taiwan.teebyte.com/malaysia-day-7-kl-aquarium-visit>

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darwinGod
On this topic- any recommendations good books/articles on Maths/statistics, or
how the mind does estimation, and how to improve the same?

Back when I was in high school, I had read this book "How to develop a super
power memory", by Harry Lorayne. I daresay, it was not a complete success for
me :)

But you could pull-off some pretty neat memory tricks, like remembering lists
of items, phone numbers. The reason I quote this-the author's reasoning was
that the "memory" of human mind works best when it is irrational. For
instance,if you have a list of unconnected items like carpet,guitar,laptop-
make an illogical association of one item to the next.For instance, in your
mind's eye,"see" something ridiculous like you strumming a carpet, and so on.
This actually did work for me, back then.

So, has anyone tried out/read something similar for improving number
estimation?

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petewailes
I'd vote for this: [http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Mental-Math-Mathemagicians-
Cal...](http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Mental-Math-Mathemagicians-
Calculation/dp/0307338401/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1286369636&sr=8-1)
and this: <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Mental_Math>

~~~
darwinGod
Nice links! Hadn't seen wikibooks before..

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newsisan
I wildly overestimated (700) due to the emphasis you placed on telling me how
much I was likely to underestimate!

Maybe move that section to after the part where you ask the readers to guess?

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randomwalker
My favorite example of something people are terrible at estimating is the
number of leaves in a tree.

It's typically (rot13'd) bire n uhaqerq gubhfnaq.

~~~
zacharycohn
... why was this rot13'd?

But cool. I could see that. Lots of leaves in trees...

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mrtron
I would be interested to see what people guess the total number is - post your
estimate!

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bambax
I guessed between 500 and 700 because there are 4x10 blocks (40) with a range
between 0 and 40 tickets per block (time slot). But in fact the top two rows
are almost empty, and the bottom two have many tickets left.

That makes:

Max = 40 slots x 40 tickets div 2 rows = 1600 div 2 = 800

Min = 40 slots x 10 (average number of tickets) = 400

Probable range: somewhere inside 400-800 so lets say 500-700! (that is not a
"strong" reasoning, that is just what I thought).

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mrtron
Interesting - perhaps if you go the opposite way about how many tickets are
already taken it will result in you overestimating the results.

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Helianthus16
ha. what I've learned from reading the comments is that it's not necessarily
necessary to compensate for this error. (I also guessed 400 as a lower bound.)

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powrtoch
Most likely everyone commenting _was_ compensating for error, as the author
primes you by telling you about the error before asking you to guess. If he
had written that people tend to grossly overestimate, I bet you'd have a very
different result.

~~~
eru
A/B test!

