alt Hacker News> "order of magnitude" seems to also be silly-speak very often, trying to sound more technical than "ten times".
But these are two different things. If I hear "ten times" I assume the person actually means ten times; when they say "an order of magnitude", I'm aware they might mean 8 or 12.
agreed...thought of that after writing it, and thanks for noting it too.
i thought the order of magnitude is often hipster phrasing, even on HN at times, but, when actually intended, it's like saying floor(log_base10( whatever )), so the ten times thing would have to be "roughly ten times" for example, to be comparable.
Also, in some contexts the base isn't presumed to be 10, of course, though around here in loose jargon that's usually what folks are saying.