Sigh. That's what I get for not checking my arithmetic. You're right, of course. I stand corrected on this example, but if you change the example to be O(1) at 1 year vs. O(N^2) at 1ns*N^2, the size of the dataset for the second to become slower becomes a lot larger. (Specificly, around 178 million items.) Also, there's the consideration of O() notation being the worst-case senerio. For example, even though bubble-sort is O(N^2), for nearly-sorted input, it can be quit efficent.
Warning: Unless otherwise stated, code is untested. Do not use without understanding. Code is posted in the hopes it is useful, but without warranty. All copyrights are relinquished into the public domain unless otherwise stated. I am not an angel. I am capable of error, and err on a fairly regular basis. If I made a mistake, please let me know (such as by replying to this node).
