3 ms·

ehm, yeah, n=2 will not get you anything useful... that'll be like trying to determine the average salary in a company with only two known ones, which could be

• selcuka 3y ago
  > that'll be like trying to determine the average salary in a company with only two known ones, which could be the janitor's and the CEO's Ironically that would be somewhat close to the actual average.
  • mcherm 3y ago
    It would be significantly above the average unless the company is ridiculously top-heavy or has shockingly little variation in salary. Or if the "salary" for the CEO ignores certain compensation (eg: paid a salary of $1 + stock options).
    • selcuka 3y ago
      Sure thing. I could have worded it better, but I was trying to say that it would be much more skewed if the two samples were, say, CEO and the CFO, or two janitors.
• pixel8account 3y ago
  Even with n=1 you can get something useful. IIRC "on average" if you have ID x than the best population estimation is 2*x. Of course the error margin is immense, but it's still better than nothing.