In English: If a widget factory costs F and makes a widget for W dollars, how much will it cost to build N widgets? If you have a budget of B dollars and you need to build N widgets, how much can your process cost per widget? If your budget is B and your widgets cost W, how many can you build?

  y = mx + b
  ("basic financial costs") = ("per unit cost")x + ("baseline")

Makes so much more sense, and I can think about that in software quite easily. I've been working professionally in software for 20 years, and programming as a hobby for about 13 years before that. As a kid, I got in to programming early on, but never really grokked 'math' as a formal thing, and while I know I can do a lot of 'math stuff', I don't know the lingo very well above algebra stuff.

It's a bit hard "confessing" that sort of stuff in a forum like this amongst loads of people who likely are all demonstrably smarter than me in multiple disciplines, and many of whom are self-taught as well. I feel like I should have a 'kick me' sign on me at times - perhaps this is the famed "impostor syndrome"?

It wasn't very good phrasing, but it's genuinely hard to phrase these things when you can't just say, "y=mx+b". This then has the problem that I've actually heard of a case in which a professional working at a nonprofit with other professionals said "y=mx+b" and received blank stares.

Thanks.

FWIW, I wrote "I'm in mensa" not to brag so much as ... I got in through test scores, and (obviously) have some raw measure of ability in cognitive areas, but still wasn't able to immediately get that algorithm from the english. I get what it means, and understand the implications of the algorithm, but couldn't make that immediate jump. The older I get, the harder it is for me to tell when someone is sharp and maybe just can't grasp something immediately, and when they truly can't get it. I probably make more allowances than I did in my youth, precisely because I know my own shortcomings more now than 20 years ago.