On 2005-07-08, michael wrote:
> 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 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 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
A 2-fold increase (if you had 10 widgets) would be an increase of
20 widgets, giving you 30 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?!
No, it doesn't make any sense.
The price has decreased to one two-thousandth of what it was (I
didn't check the arithmetic; I'm only talking about the language).
--
Chris F.A. Johnson <http://cfaj.freeshell.org>
==================================================================
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach, 2005, Apress
<http://www.torfree.net/~chris/books/cfaj/ssr.html>
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