Re: Graphic converter query - transparency

Jim <jim@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

> Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> 
> > <very puzzled again>  No, 600+kB/s is around about 338kB/s as far as
> > handwaving regarding this sort of thing goes.  Double or half the data
> > rate is `about the same'; ten times or a tenth isn't.
> 
> That's subjective of course.

<puzzled>  No, it's conventional scientific *****sment of numbers.  I'm
just using the sort of conventional hand-waving judgements that any
scientifically knowledgeable person would use when faced with the
variations that exist in reality - in this particular case, I'm looking
at the variations that exist in typical internet downloads using a
broadband connection, assuming that what I see is typical (and it is
typical, from what I've gathered reading here and talking to a few other
people).

> To me, double-or-half isn't "about the
> same" at all, 

What I say on this subject is indubitably true - although for a given
context.  What context?  One in which the numbers vary by orders of
magnitude.  When you're dealing with variations that large, double and
half are `about the same'.

(Do rememeber that I'm the one who wanted to be an experimental
physicist and did the degree to do so and I was pretty damned good in
the lab though I say so myself)

And that's what we get with internet data rates, innit?

Since no download I've seen has ever had a rate that's stayed put to
within 20% while it's been happening, I don't see how you can think
you've got it right on this one.

I see download speeds varying from less than 1 kB/s to several hundred
kB/s, depending.  

Your +/-20% band for `about the same' is clearly not quite right.  I'd
say that if you had two downloads, and they arrived at an average data
rate within 20% of each other, that'd count as `practically identical
data rates' from the `broadband internet download' point of view.

>it's significantly different. +/-20% would be "about the
> same" to me (where typical broadband speeds are concerned), but no more
> than that.

That might be your particular point of view, but it's not the general
one and it's certainly inappropriate for this kind of thing.

Rowland.

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