3 ms·
I guess this makes me a pedant, but it bothers me to see big O notation used as a shortcut for "within an order of magnitude." It would probably be fine if ever
by ksenzee 11y ago
I guess this makes me a pedant, but it bothers me to see big O notation used as a shortcut for "within an order of magnitude." It would probably be fine if everyone on HN had taken an algorithms class and knew the formal definition. In reality, a lot of people here are still learning what that capital O thing means, and if they see it used as "within an order of magnitude" we're doing them a disservice. (As someone who wormed their way into the field without a CS degree, I had to learn it on the job, so maybe it matters more to me than it should.)
The point you were making, however, is well taken. There's just no way for us to know what patent-related assets are involved in a deal like this.
- emcq 11y agoGood point - it is kind of a lazy shortcut. Next time I'll type out the extra words :) It probably would have been sufficient just with the approx ~
- S4M 11y agoAlso nitpicking, but in the mathematical sense, 1000B/year or 1k/year are also O(1B)/year.
- ksenzee 11y agoYes, which is precisely why it bothers me. All I see in my head is a flat line on a graph.
- ghayes 11y agoyeah, O(1)
- StavrosK 11y agoAre they really? AFAIK you need to have a variable in there, so all those simplify to O(1) (not 1B). Which is in line with your point, I guess.
- S4M 11y agoYeah, O(1) or O(1B) is the same. However, 1B is o(0.01 * (age of the company)), even though the sun will have exploded before a company who's revenue is 1 cents * its age reach 1B.