Re: OT (and Flamebait): Top-Posting
On Fri, 2005-07-08 at 12:59 -0500, Cybe R. Wizard wrote:
> On Fri, 8 Jul 2005 08:43:32 -0400
> Stephen R Laniel <steve@laniels.org> wrote:
>
> > Earlier in our lives, it was a big deal when hard-disk
> > prices fell below $1 per megabyte. I recently bought a
> > 200-gig drive for $100. Assume the $1-per-meg limit
> > was hit 15 years ago (I think it was less than that, but it
> > was at most 15). So in 15 years the per-gig price of hard
> > disks dropped 2000-fold.
>
> Possibly I'm innumerate but this makes no sense to me. If something
> has a defined price and that price drops 1 (one)-fold doesn't that mean
> it is now free? I believe a one-fold price /increase/ doubles the
> price, right? How do you determine that 2000-fold figure?
>
> <hoping I'm just stupid from the heat today>
n-fold is equivalent to n-times. so you give me 10 widgets and then
a) i pay you back 1-fold (10 widgets)
b) i pay you back 2-fold (20 widgets)
c) a 2 fold increase would be 20 widgets
i'm not sure the phrase applies to decreases unless it's a half-fold
increase (5 widgets) but that sounds wrong so I guess common use means
a 1-fold decrease is (1/1) * 10 = 10 widgets (ie the same!) whereas a
10-fold decrease is (1/10) * 10 = 1 widget
that make any sense?!
>
--
Michael Bane
Atmospheric Physics Group
University of Manchester
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