How frequently do you screw up at work? I'm wondering if it's "normal" to screw up at work with the frequency that I am, and I should cut myself some slack. Alternately, I'm considering the possibility that it's a big problem.
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posted by silly me
on Mar 26, 2013 -
18 answers
I have recently been introduced to the concept of
pseudoreplication as a mistake that people often make when using inferential statistics to evaluate treatment outcomes. My field (evolutionary and conservation biology) makes heavy use of inferential statistics, including techniques that are vulnerable to pseudoreplication, yet nowhere in my formal education have I been taught about how poor experimental design and lack of statistical rigor can lead to fallacies like this. My personal statistical proficiency is poor, but I am working to remedy that. To that end, could folks help me by identifying and ideally explaining whatever other potential pitfalls you can think of, and explaining how they can be avoided through careful experimental design and data-analysis?
posted by Scientist
on Jan 26, 2013 -
5 answers
Is there some sort of free-as-in-beer program to tell you what if anything is wrong with an image?
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posted by anonymous
on Dec 4, 2012 -
10 answers
I am making stupid mistakes at work and I need a strategy to help myself overcome them. Sorry for the length.
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posted by anonymous
on Aug 9, 2012 -
11 answers
You procrastinate. You're disorganized. You make multiple careless mistakes weekly. How did you go from being a Bad Employee to a good one who actually contributes positively to your organization?
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posted by anonymous
on Jun 9, 2012 -
34 answers
The user's actual email address ends with ".com", but it is POST'ed to the application as ".cPr". This has happened with multiple users. Any ideas on what would cause that?
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posted by foggy out there now
on Oct 26, 2011 -
14 answers
What technologies, procedures, or incentives exist to ensure proper rolling of coins?
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posted by Nothlit
on Sep 20, 2011 -
3 answers
Are grammatical errors more frequent in English than in other languages? What about spelling? Do foreign language have as many substitution errors as English? Do ewe speak a pear of foreign languages or more and what are you're experiences of these kinds of errors? Watt do there grammar Nazis do?
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posted by sien
on Mar 28, 2011 -
24 answers
How do I actually get the documentation that I have been asking for at work?
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posted by soelo
on Dec 20, 2009 -
6 answers
Is the company I work for unusual or is most corporate data this messed up? Every month I see hundred and sometimes thousands of the same errors.
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posted by anonymous
on Nov 4, 2009 -
16 answers
When is an individual most likely to make a serious mistake (say, on the job or at some task involving risk)? I recall research that suggesting a "seven year rule" that after seven years of doing something, one has acquired enough mastery over the job or task or skill that complacence begins to creep in -- and with it, vigilance drops and disaster ensues. Any leads much appreciated.
posted by adamrobinson
on Sep 16, 2009 -
13 answers
Can anyone point me to literature about conceptual "sign flipping" or "parity errors" and confusion of opposites in humans?
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posted by rwhe
on Apr 4, 2009 -
30 answers
How can I figure out if my webhost is blocking Google indexing? A site I manage is listed on Google but any references to it are at least several weeks old. More info inside.
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posted by tropikal
on Feb 21, 2009 -
5 answers
YASTAM (yet another speeding ticket) I received a citation for speeding the other day. All of the "driver" information is correct. (Just about) all of the vehicle information is wrong. Are there any outs?
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posted by those are my balloons
on Feb 3, 2009 -
29 answers
What are innovative ideas for healthcare to save money, increase efficiency and improve outcomes?
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posted by mintchip
on Oct 18, 2008 -
14 answers
I can't believe I'm asking this, but oh well.... Okay, I write and troubleshoot a lot of code in classic ASP and have IIS running on my local machine...
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posted by SoulOnIce
on Mar 19, 2008 -
5 answers
Specifically I'm looking for the tendency, I believe this is correct, for practitioners in a domain (e.g., surgeons, race car drivers, whatever) to become prone to errors after seven (7) years, owing to perceived expertise, complacence, and that this becomes a particularly dangerous time. Any leads GREATLY appreciated!
posted by adamrobinson
on Mar 14, 2006 -
2 answers
I run Abyss Webserver, and of late.. sometimes when I try to rename/move/delete any folder within htdocs folder, it doesn't let me to. It says access denied. I try removing the read-only attrib, and it comes back.
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posted by Devileyezz
on Mar 10, 2006 -
1 answer
I'm using BBEdit to type a long weblog entry. I'm deep in the process of writing, so I don't save for a long time (so no lectures). Finally, when I'm nearly done, I save. I get the spinning beachball of death. I sense trouble, so I try to close other open applications via the dock. No go. The first app I try to close hangs the rest of the system. It's been five minutes now and the spinning beachball of death keeps spinning, but nothing else is happening. I can move the cursor, but mouseclicks do nothing. I have a feeling that the computer will stay like this until I power down or until you, my dear fellow mefites, help me to recover my precious writing.
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posted by jdroth
on Sep 11, 2005 -
19 answers
I popped in a Win2000 disk into my Toshiba laptop (600 Mhz Celeron Satellite). Proceeded to reformat into FAT32 and it claimed that the disk has errors and refuses to format. No information lost but I've been looking at harddrives and they're priced at $65 and higher. Specs for the replacement harddrive are [2.5 inch - ATA-100 - 44 pin IDC - 4200 rpm - buffer: 8 MB]. I don't want to pay that kind of money for a relatively worthless computer. What can I do? Thanks in advance.
posted by SeizeTheDay
on Aug 8, 2005 -
3 answers
My friend cannot send emails from his .mac address to my .gmail address. We can send emails back and forth routing to/from different addresses, so it's not our accounts individually. Anybody else have this problem?
posted by billysumday
on Jan 12, 2005 -
8 answers
I'm proofreading an OCR file of a 25-year-old book, and after I fixed it up the company (whose history it is) said I had to put back in all the original (non-OCR) mistakes (words spelled wrong, incorrect tenses, text inconsistencies, semicolons used miserably) for copyright reasons. I told them it's their copyright, and they can do whatever they want with it. No, they say, it's a historical record. It's also their money, so I'll do whatever they want . . . but are they right? Are misspelled words and poor punctuation a copyright issue?
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posted by LeLiLo
on Apr 28, 2004 -
19 answers