My partner is way, way smarter than me and basically never had to put in any effort to learn difficult material. I admire him for this, but I'm also incredibly jealous. I want to be a genius too. How do I deal? [more inside]
posted by anonymous on Dec 11, 2009 - 40 answers

When is it actually worth it to attempt to do any better than average? [more inside]
posted by jnnla on Oct 21, 2009 - 16 answers

Trying to get some modified AVERAGE results in Excel. [more inside]
posted by FatherDagon on Aug 5, 2009 - 5 answers

ExcelFilter: I want to calculate an average food spend, but the days I buy food are irregular throughout the month. How can I draw up a table/graph that gives an average based on a date and amount (for OpenOfficeCalc)? [more inside]
posted by Gisela on May 21, 2009 - 11 answers

How much tap-temperature water (say 15 C) would you need to add to 1 litre of water to make a mass of water 80 C? [more inside]
posted by doozer_ex_machina on May 15, 2009 - 4 answers

[Statistics Filter]: What's the best way to calculate a meta-median? [more inside]
posted by lord_yo on Feb 23, 2009 - 4 answers

MathFilter: When you take the average of a series of ratios expressed as fractions, you get the same result whether you add together all of the fractions, then divide them by the size of the series or divide the sum of all of the numerators by the sum or all of the denominators. What's this called, and what's the formal proof for this look like? [more inside]
posted by ignignokt on Oct 29, 2008 - 14 answers

Two years ago, when the DJIA was at 11,200, I thought the market was approaching its peak, and I moved money from an index stock fund to government bonds. For the next two years, I kicked myself as the market hit 14,000. [more inside]
posted by CollectiveMind on Oct 12, 2008 - 15 answers

What is the average price of a pint of beer in the U.S. in 2008? What was it 10 years ago? [more inside]
posted by Gagglehack on May 7, 2008 - 13 answers

I am looking for some information on average salaries for french cities. I read an article in a french magazine about a year ago but I can't find any reference to it online. Anyone know of a resource in French or English that will give me average salaries for French cities.
posted by tirebouchon on Jan 18, 2008 - 2 answers

I'd like a spreadsheet (OpenOffice Calc) to give me the average of the numbers in a certain row that will be filled over a period of months, and I'd like the formula for the average to remain valid even as I fill it, cell by cell. How? [more inside]
posted by regicide is good for you on Jan 14, 2008 - 7 answers

I report on weekly sales and pricing information, and weekly data points are often skewed by one-time promotions, seasonality, and other random effects. When I create a 52-week rolling average of the data, it shows trends much more smoothly -- and accurately, I believe. My coworkers are not accustomed to seeing data as a rolling average, and I'm concerned that they won't understand it. What is a clear way to explain to them 1) how a rolling average works, 2) why it is useful for visualizing trends, and 3) any other benefits?
posted by scottso17 on Aug 2, 2007 - 10 answers

I need help writing a macro that will divide a 5000 row table into groups of 30 rows, and find the average of certain columns in each group. [more inside]
posted by beammeup4 on Jul 2, 2007 - 10 answers

Excel Filter: How do I calculate average speed with a start and end time? [more inside]
posted by bytewrite on Jun 6, 2007 - 7 answers

Do concerts generally sell out? [more inside]
posted by Julnyes on May 1, 2007 - 8 answers

Microsoft Access. An SQL "GROUP BY" query. How do I generate the mode of the values that it's grouping, when I want averages in other multiple fields? [more inside]
posted by Jimbob on Dec 13, 2006 - 3 answers

What's the median cost of a wedding these days? The average must be skewed high by the outrageous spending of the super-rich. [more inside]
posted by croutonsupafreak on Jun 4, 2006 - 39 answers

Grading dilemma: Can the median be a fair measure of a set of quiz scores? Here's the situation ... [more inside]
posted by imposster on May 8, 2006 - 24 answers

Is there a website that provides a National average for various car repairs. As an example what can I expect to pay to replace an alternator? What can I expect to pay to replace a fuel pump, ect? Thank you in advance!
posted by Mckoan1 on Dec 31, 2005 - 8 answers

Excel Wizards (or Apprentices, Probably) Grading is upon me again and there's something I've always wanted to do in Excel automatically -- from a range of values, drop the lowest N values and average the rest. [more inside]
posted by ontic on Dec 19, 2005 - 7 answers

Remedial weighted averages for the mathematically illiterate – or, can the 10% of you who understand math help the remaining 95% of us who don't? [mi]. [more inside]
posted by RavinDave on Jul 11, 2004 - 3 answers