Thread

1. miffy900 · 1789683723 · focus · HN ↗

   I really wish people would stop saying N times smaller than something when making a comparison; that makes no sense - it's 1/9th (11.11%) the size. You don't get a smaller quantity by multiplying by a number greater than 1.0. You could instead reverse the subjects being compared - "the original model is 9x bigger than this new smaller, efficient model" or some such. That makes sense.

   I keep seeing this being used when people talk about efficiency or performance gains and it's just very unintuitive language.

   1. peey · 1789698697 · focus · HN ↗

      It's simple

      If 9 is "9 times greater" than 1 then 1 must be "9 times smaller" than 9

      It'd help if you read "9 times" with the operator which is what's being flipped instead of with the number

      1. a3w · 1789737111 · focus · HN ↗

         Its complicated:

         50 percent smaller means either half, or two-thirds the size, depending on Apple Marketing doing the math.

         0.999 times smaller means size is nearly zero. 9 times smaller means you get negative memory from loading it.

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.