> Cannot slope also be interpreted as average amount of
> something per some standard unit?
No.
Slope is the amount of change in y per unit of change in x.
> I have a server.
> Many processes run on that server, but let's look at
> just one "command" = c.
> There is a variably large number of concurrent "c"
> processes running at any given time.
> "c" always consumes a certain amount of memory.
> "c" may live for hours, sitting idle most of the
> time.
> "c" may live for only a few seconds.
> "c" uses at most about 1% of a CPU, and mostly only
> about .1 % of a CPU.
> The memory consumption by "c" is held in RSS =
> resident set size.
> So, if I run a histogram of RSS for "c" using data
> from many days, I see that 9000 c's have an RSS that
> fits in the 7000 bucket, and that all the other
> buckets (in increments of 1000) are smaller than
> 1000, most much smaller than 1000.
> This fact supports/verifies what the "expert" says
> about "c".
> A tighter histogram with bucket increments of 100,
> show most processes of size 6700 and 6800, which
> further confirms the claim of the "expert". Again,
> the size of the other buckets are much smaller.
> So, the expert says that a better predictor of memory
> consumption is a fixed amount + a variable amount =
> 6800x.
> Now the regression shows that 6800 is way too shallow
> of a slope for any aspect of the data for "c".
>
> So, must I be doing something wrong?
There is absolutely nothing in this example that relates to slope. When you start talking about histograms and buckets, you are talking about a single variable. To get a slope, you need two variables -- one which is commonly called x, the independent variable, and one which is commonly called y, the dependent variable. Everything you say about your buckets is 100% unrelated to slope.
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