[plug] billion (was Unix Epoch: 1 billion seconds breakfast function.)

[Andrew Francis]

On Mon, 3 Sep 2001, John Knight wrote:

> 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).

France is the home of the metric system, so I guess it makes sense to
follow their lead when it comes to expressing quantities.

-- 
Andrew Francis
locust at iinet.net.au