Points of Interest: Act Smarter Than You Are

[cloudscudding]

• 11:50 + Hot cinnamon rolls for breakfast.
• 11:51 + A nice bike ride into work on a newfound bike path (on a street ironically called Park).
• 12:42 After eating leftovers at my desk, it occurs to me that maybe I should have gone out for lunch to celebrate. Ah, well.
• 13:38 Want a good estimate? Make 2 and average them. SciAm: ping.fm/7Qjv5

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Comments

[kitryan]

re: SciAm - I guess I'm smarter than I realized- my usual estimating system is to look at the scenario at my most optimistic, come up with an estimate of the cost or time or work, then to look at the same situation at my most pessimistic- then I figure it'll probably be somewhere in-between. However, when I'm estimating costs to send upstairs (I work on the 2nd floor, while all the accounting/budgeting folks are on the 3rd, so it's literally upstairs), at work, I always give them the pessimistic estimate :)

[cloudscudding]

Yeah, when people are going to be holding you to whatever it is, worst estimate rules!

I'd just never consciously considered the "make an estimate, think about everything that could make that estimate not valid, make another estimate."

[braddr]

First off.. happy birthday. You really should have done something special for lunch!

As to estimations, the rule of thumb I tell people is double whatever estimate you came up with and then up the unit of time one notch. ie: 1 minute --> 2 hours. At least you won't be late that way. :)

But seriously, for most people I've worked with (primarily software developers), doubling seems about right.

[cloudscudding]

Thanks!

Timewise, yeah, doubling is generally about right--though I wouldn't actually up the time increment. Seems like that could get ridiculous mighty fast!

Re: Park Ave

[rphaedrus]

Please be very careful in the left hand bike lane on Park - there were two people killed there by inattentive drivers in May

Re: Park Ave

[cloudscudding]

Yeah, I'm super-paranoid about turning cars. And if there's a red light, I always pull well-forward so they can see me.

I tend to be the annoyingly visible bicyclist, not the meek, tucked-way-over-to-the-side, out-of-the-way bicyclist.

I saw the ghost bike.

Re: Park Ave

[rphaedrus]

> I tend to be the annoyingly visible bicyclist,
> not the meek, tucked-way-over-to-the-side,
> out-of-the-way bicyclist.

Perfect!