Today I was diagnosing some HTTP/HTTPS issues, and firefox was being a bitch by not showing me whether I was on a HTTPS or HTTP connection in the address bar. Turns out that in order to show the URL scheme you can change the setting in about:config. You need to change browser.urlbar.trimURLs to false, and then you’re back in business.
The amount of spam I’m receiving on this blog has just started to sky-rocket. I think shortly that comments will be disabled. It’s such a shame there are low-life spammers in the world.
If you’re interested in this article about the difference between absolute growth and relative growth, you might also be interested in How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff.
I searched the other day for the difference between an absolute growth rate and a relative growth rate, and didn’t easily find a helpful answer. I didn’t look too hard though.
Anyway, I figured it out just by thinking about it a little bit.
An absolute growth rate is given in units, while a relative growth rate is given as a percentage.
So, for example, I could have a growth rate of $100 per annum, or a growth rate of 10% per annum. The first growth rate is an absolute growth rate of $100 per annum, and the second rate is a relative growth rate of 10% per annum.
The difference is that an absolute rate just grows linearly, whereas a relative growth rate grows exponentially. So as the table below shows with $1,000 and an absolute growth rate of $100 per annum, after one year I’d have $1,100, after 2 years $1,200, after 3 years $1,300, and so on. Whereas with a relative growth rate of 10% after 1 year I’d have $1,100, after 2 years I’d have $1,210, after 3 years I’d have $1,331, and so on.
| $100 pa | 10% pa | |
|---|---|---|
| Start | $1,000 | $1,000 |
| After 1 year | $1,100 | $1,100 |
| After 2 years | $1,200 | $1,210 |
| After 3 years | $1,300 | $1,331 |
| After 4 years | $1,400 | $1,464.10 |
| After 5 years | $1,500 | $1,610.51 |
Maybe this explanation will help for someone the next time someone searches for the difference between absolute growth rates and relative growth rates.