Long lasting issues --

[kinzel]

Were you connected during the GIF patent attack? Sigh... Guess what -- now MP3s are at risk! ... the issue seems to be who owns the MP3 format... will all you podcasters have to pay up? Will all us podlisteners be on the hook, too?

Meanwhile, about trees. Right, some of you guys know we have an interest in trees. We plant trees from tiem to time, and we let trees grow, which has infuriated our ex-farmer neighbor who seem to think the only good tree is one on a log-truck on the way to the paper mill.

So, having said this, imagine planting a billion trees this year!

Comments

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

I guess I could look it up somewhere, but if the British don't call 1,000,000,000 a billion, what do you call it?

Incidentally, the right "breaks" in numbering here in Japan are
10,000 - one man (pronounced mahn - long ah)
100,000,000 - one oku

so it goes ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, man, ten man, hundred man, thousand man, oku.

This endeth today's linguistic diversion.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Usually "a thousand million", although some of us still use "milliard" for 10^9. The British numbering is straight powers of a million, so billion = million^2, trillion = million^3, etc. The US system doesn't make any sense because a billion isn't two of anything (it's a thousand^2 times a thousand).

Does the Japanese system continue in factors of 10,000 agter oku, or doesn't it go that far?

(Unfortunately, due to very large amounts of US TV and reporting the US billion tends now to be used in Britain as well in most places, but there are still enough that use the real one to catch people out sometimes.)

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Thanks! a milliard, eh?

When I was learning the American system, we simply were taught that it was million, billion, trillion, quadrillion, quintillion, and so forth - based on counting millions, apparently, with that first one as some kind of odd one. Interesting how those early trained-in memories seem "natural" until someone points out that they have little rhyme or reason to them, isn't it?

The Japanese system does indeed have another factor of 10,000, but it is used infrequently enough that I can't remember it off the top of my head (since I learned the language as an adult, I have holes in my knowledge - sometimes gaping ones!).