[plug] billion (was Unix Epoch: 1 billion seconds breakfast function.)
John Knight
anarchist_tomato at hotmail.com
Mon Sep 3 11:51:33 WST 2001
Time for my usual rant of pedantry, but would this be an English or an
American billion? I've always been quite puzzled by this as according to the
dictionary, a billion is 10 to the power of 12 (a million millions) unless
you live in America or France where it is 10 to the power of 9 (a thousand
millions).
Why does everyone use the US billion even if modern dictionaries say that
it's 10 to the power of 12? I'm not trying to point out an error, this has
simply been puzzling me for years.
>>
>>The Unix(tm) epoch is ticking over to 1 billion, and we're having a
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