Scariest thing I’ve read all year: The Dunning-Kruger Effect

When Will Ferrel describes his George W Bush impression, he says he just imagines having a lot of “unearned confidence.” How would you know if you were one of these people? I first heard about the Dunning-Kruger effect in a comment on Hacker News and it immediately made me question a lot of things.

David Brent: Classic case of the Dunning-Kruger effect

The Dunning?Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which an unskilled person makes poor decisions and reaches erroneous conclusions, but their incompetence denies them the metacognitive ability to realize their mistakes

Throughout my life I’ve forced myself to be confident in my abilities (ie. gotten out of my comfort zone) in an effort to improve my skills and do more things. I’ve always considered being optimistic and determined to succeed was a positive thing.

Luckily, according to Dunning and Kruger if I suffered from this effect I wouldn’t be able to recognize and change anyway. WIN.

Odd Man In Problems

Sorry Odd Man In fans, I’ve been having trouble locating the last few bugs from the server upgrade. One or more of my queries are failing because of some new reserved words in mySQL. I should be able to fix it soon, but in the mean time don’t start any of your games. If you already started your game, email me and I’ll unstart it.

Update: I think they’re all fixed now.

Vineland Music Festival delayed until 2009

Well, with no lineup announced I’m not that surprised that it has been delayed.

Vineland, originally scheduled for August 8-10 in Vineland, N.J., has been moved to early summer 2009. Producers C3 Presents and Festival Republic made the change in response to the heavy festival traffic in the Northeast and major bands’ tours of the area at the same time.

Recently, Coachella producers Goldenvoice/AEG Live announced the inaugural All Points West festival for the same weekend as Vineland at Liberty State Park, just across from lower Manhattan in New Jersey, and another large Northeastern festival is also believed to be targeting August 8-10.

Check the Roof

I did something really dumb on Thursday after work. I had a bunch of stuff to take home and it took a while to put it all in the car. I pulled out of the drive way and made a quick left when I heard something fall off the roof of my car.

Oh crap.

I pulled over and checked my bag. My iPod wasn’t in there.

I slowly stepped out of the car and saw the iPod still sitting on the roof of my car. My radio transmitter is what ended up falling off and even that was still sitting on the trunk! Whew.

Hand Injury

Jake has a bonfire every year at his house and what originally started as a case study in laziness turned into a family tradition. He didn’t want to haul any wood to his bonfire, so he told everyone to bring their own logs. My cousin Anna asked if she could decorate hers and rest is history. It’s now a full on competition to see who can bring the best log to the bonfire.

I got a little carried away this year. As in, carried away to the emergency room.

I don’t want to completely reveal my original log idea in case I decide to do it next year, but it involved drilling large holes. When the accident occurred I was actually working on Jeanne’s log when the drill bit slipped and cascaded nicely across my left thumb, tearing into skin, muscle, and an artery. Blood was seen and a trip to the hospital ensued.

Ten stitches later I finished my log and won the contest anyway, lobster claw and all.

Click here to see a picture of my hand after they stiched it (cell phone cameras are great for recording valuable history like this). It’s gross and that’s why I didn’t post it out in the open.

I just got the stitches out today, but it will still be a few weeks before it’s fully healed.

Update: For those that wanted to see the log, here it is. It’s a crime scene log with some of my actual blood on it.

Jake has a bonfire every year at his house and what originally started as a case study in laziness turned into a family tradition. He didn’t want to haul any wood to his bonfire, so he told everyone to bring their own logs. My cousin Anna asked if she could decorate hers and rest is history. It’s now a full on competition to see who can bring the best log to the bonfire.

I got a little carried away this year. As in, carried away to the emergency room.

I don’t want to completely reveal my original log idea in case I decide to do it next year, but it involved drilling large holes. When the accident occurred I was actually working on Jeanne’s log when the drill bit slipped and cascaded nicely across my left thumb, tearing into skin, muscle, and an artery. Blood was seen and a trip to the hospital ensued.

Ten stitches later I finished my log and won the contest anyway, lobster claw and all.

Click here to see a picture of my hand after they stiched it (cell phone cameras are great for recording valuable history like this). It’s gross and that’s why I didn’t post it out in the open.

I just got the stitches out today, but it will still be a few weeks before it’s fully healed.

Update: For those that wanted to see the log, here it is. It’s a crime scene log with some of my actual blood on it.

Haircuts Suck

I only wanted to take about a half inch off the top and just clean it up around my ears. The guy from Ed’s barber shop in Collingswood must have thought I said “leave about a half inch.” My girlfriend likes it, but it’s a little shorter than I wanted it to be.

The Tortilla Press on Haddon Ave in Collingswood is a great new restuarant to try out, but if you ever go there I wouldn’t order the chicken enchiladas. Everything else is very good especially their “virgin” margaritas, and by all means, go high class like we did last night and bring a giant half empty bottle of tequila to deflower your margaritas with. Buying a small bottle just for dinner is for suckers.

I only wanted to take about a half inch off the top and just clean it up around my ears. The guy from Ed’s barber shop in Collingswood must have thought I said “leave about a half inch.” My girlfriend likes it, but it’s a little shorter than I wanted it to be.

The Tortilla Press on Haddon Ave in Collingswood is a great new restuarant to try out, but if you ever go there I wouldn’t order the chicken enchiladas. Everything else is very good especially their “virgin” margaritas, and by all means, go high class like we did last night and bring a giant half empty bottle of tequila to deflower your margaritas with. Buying a small bottle just for dinner is for suckers.