I'm all about rules of thumb

I recently stumbled across an addictive site called 'Rules of Thumb' which has become a bit of an obsession over here at chez treppenwitz.

Simply put, if you can think of any basic rule you use for estimating something, making decisions or predicting results... it is probably there (or should be).  Not only that, but the site is organized into handy categories so you can find helpful (and occasionally not-so-helpful) rules relating to nearly any subject.

For example let's say my lovely wife Zahava, who is a graphic designer, wants to see what rules of thumb exist for her field of expertise.  She would scroll through the main rules collection and then click on 'Design'.  In the blink of an eye she would see a list of all the current rules of thumb related to the design world.

Since Zahava knows a thing or two about that realm, she can also rate any rule on a scale of 1 to 10 (with 1 being 'total B.S.' and 10 being 'Torah from Sinai') so that future supplicants will have a better sense of how far to trust a given rule.  This is an important feature of the site since there is no guarantee that someone posting a rule has the slightest idea what they're talking about.  It is for this reason that newly posted rules don't get moved to the main collection if they score less than 5 out of 10 on the first 10 reviews.

Some of the rules are meant to be funny or tongue-in-cheek such as this one from the 'Parachuting' section:

"If your parachute doesn't open at the normal opening altitude (2,500 feet), you've got the rest of your life to solve the problem - all 15 seconds of it."

While others are genuinely informative (such as this one from the same section):

"On the average jump, figure on six or seven seconds of freefall time for every thousand feet of falling."

It's incredibly fun scrolling through all the topics... even the oddball ones like farming, mathematics and yes, parachuting... to find out neat factoids and rules.  New rules of thumb are always being posted and rated so be prepared to add this site to your regular surfing routine.

But don't take my word for it... check it out for yourself.

And as always, don't thank me... I'm a giver.

Hat tip: Book of Joe