Coming up often and just noted that again in Ger's answer in the thread 
above.

What is the meaning of percentages higher than 100? I don't get it.

If my bottle of wine is considered 100% full, what would be 200%? Two 
bottles of wine? :-)

-- 
Thomas

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Thomas de Groot wrote:

> Coming up often and just noted that again in Ger's answer in the thread
> above.
> 
> What is the meaning of percentages higher than 100? I don't get it.
> 
> If my bottle of wine is considered 100% full, what would be 200%? Two
> bottles of wine? :-)
> 

The answer is pretty simple. 
If 1 (one) core is working on povray that would be 100% load. If 2 cores are 
working on povray that would be 2 x 100%. So, in my case that would be 8 
cores, each working at (or close to) 100%, so 800%.
The percentage load is taken from the "1 core" or "1 proc" view.
-- 

Ger

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On 1-9-2015 11:32, Ger wrote:
> Thomas de Groot wrote:
>
>> Coming up often and just noted that again in Ger's answer in the thread
>> above.
>>
>> What is the meaning of percentages higher than 100? I don't get it.
>>
>> If my bottle of wine is considered 100% full, what would be 200%? Two
>> bottles of wine? :-)
>>
>
> The answer is pretty simple.
> If 1 (one) core is working on povray that would be 100% load. If 2 cores are
> working on povray that would be 2 x 100%. So, in my case that would be 8
> cores, each working at (or close to) 100%, so 800%.
> The percentage load is taken from the "1 core" or "1 proc" view.
>

OK. I missed the 8 cores obviously. it makes sense, but

Still, I feel uncomfortable with the notion itself and would rather 
think that povray is rendering at 100%, divided over 8 cores... each 
working at 100%... for me, that does not add up to 800%, only to faster 
rendering, which is why I guess this is a semantic question.

-- 
Thomas

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> OK. I missed the 8 cores obviously. it makes sense, but
>
> Still, I feel uncomfortable with the notion itself and would rather
> think that povray is rendering at 100%, divided over 8 cores... each
> working at 100%... for me, that does not add up to 800%, only to faster
> rendering, which is why I guess this is a semantic question.

Yes, typically % is defined as % of some (obvious) maximum. Defining CPU 
load as a % of only 1 core being fully loaded seems a bit 
counter-intuitive. But so long as everyone is aware of this, and they 
know exactly how many cores are in the CPU then it shouldn't be a huge 
problem. If we didn't know there were 8 cores, 800% could mean anything.

Also, in general, when you combine percentages from various bits you 
need to sum the numerators and denominators separately, otherwise you 
get a wrong result.

eg

Bag 1 has 6 apples out of space for 10 : 6/10 = 60% full
Bag 2 has 3 apples out of space for 4  : 3/4  = 75% full

Combined there are 9 apples out of space for 14, so 64% full. NOT 135% full!

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On 1-9-2015 15:24, scott wrote:
>> OK. I missed the 8 cores obviously. it makes sense, but
>>
>> Still, I feel uncomfortable with the notion itself and would rather
>> think that povray is rendering at 100%, divided over 8 cores... each
>> working at 100%... for me, that does not add up to 800%, only to faster
>> rendering, which is why I guess this is a semantic question.
>
> Yes, typically % is defined as % of some (obvious) maximum. Defining CPU
> load as a % of only 1 core being fully loaded seems a bit
> counter-intuitive. But so long as everyone is aware of this, and they
> know exactly how many cores are in the CPU then it shouldn't be a huge
> problem. If we didn't know there were 8 cores, 800% could mean anything.
>
> Also, in general, when you combine percentages from various bits you
> need to sum the numerators and denominators separately, otherwise you
> get a wrong result.
>
> eg
>
> Bag 1 has 6 apples out of space for 10 : 6/10 = 60% full
> Bag 2 has 3 apples out of space for 4  : 3/4  = 75% full
>
> Combined there are 9 apples out of space for 14, so 64% full. NOT 135%
> full!
>

Thanks indeed. That sums it up nicely :-)

The case of Ger's which triggered my thread is pretty obvious and 
acceptable in the context. However, the misuse nowadays in all kinds of 
situations seems to be growing and can be pretty annoying sometimes.

-- 
Thomas

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> The case of Ger's which triggered my thread is pretty obvious and
> acceptable in the context. However, the misuse nowadays in all kinds of
> situations seems to be growing and can be pretty annoying sometimes.

Yes, whenever an athlete/sportsperson says they "gave it 110%" they 
should be immediately investigated for doping :-)

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On 2-9-2015 12:35, scott wrote:
>> The case of Ger's which triggered my thread is pretty obvious and
>> acceptable in the context. However, the misuse nowadays in all kinds of
>> situations seems to be growing and can be pretty annoying sometimes.
>
> Yes, whenever an athlete/sportsperson says they "gave it 110%" they
> should be immediately investigated for doping :-)

That's a fair assumption indeed ;-)

-- 
Thomas

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Am 02.09.2015 um 09:15 schrieb Thomas de Groot:

> The case of Ger's which triggered my thread is pretty obvious and
> acceptable in the context. However, the misuse nowadays in all kinds of
> situations seems to be growing and can be pretty annoying sometimes.

I think there are plenty of cases where values >100% are perfectly ok,
such as:

"This year, our budget has increased by 250% [compared to last year]."

"Let's see for how long we can push the engine to 120% [nominal] thrust."

"This amplifier has a gain of 420%."

"This telescope rod can extend to 550% [of its retracted length]."

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> "This year, our budget has increased by 250% [compared to last year]."

Reminds me of my last company, where the profit was always hovering 
around zero (and sometimes negative). The column "profit compared to 
last year" was always an amusing one, it could be 1000000% or negative, 
or the year after a negative amount they didn't know what to do so left 
it blank that year :-)

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On 2-9-2015 16:21, clipka wrote:
> Am 02.09.2015 um 09:15 schrieb Thomas de Groot:
>
>> The case of Ger's which triggered my thread is pretty obvious and
>> acceptable in the context. However, the misuse nowadays in all kinds of
>> situations seems to be growing and can be pretty annoying sometimes.
>
> I think there are plenty of cases where values >100% are perfectly ok,
> such as:
>
> "This year, our budget has increased by 250% [compared to last year]."
>
> "Let's see for how long we can push the engine to 120% [nominal] thrust."
>
> "This amplifier has a gain of 420%."
>
> "This telescope rod can extend to 550% [of its retracted length]."
>

Yes, I suppose so but more often than not the bracketed portion is 
omitted which results in confusion, at least for me.

-- 
Thomas

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