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Hmm.. but there's no ambiguity in "billion"? There's certainly less than in "giga dollars"

• djbusby 4y ago
  Billion is different in Short (10^9) vs Long (10^12) scale. See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales
  • airstrike 4y ago
    The short scale isn't a thing in English or when talking dollars which is implied by the dollar sign in "$95 billion" and the fact that this is a US company "$95 billion" simply means $95,000,000,000.00 and there's no ambiguity...
    • djbusby 4y ago
      A thread on HN yesterday regarding Credit Suisse where this ambiguity came up. That thread was in English and was about US Dollars.
      • kaashif 4y ago
        Are you talking about this comment? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35152388 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35152388 That doesn't read like anyone is actually confused over the meaning of "billion" , it seems like people are just speculating on whether this error is long/short scale confusion between languages. Personally, I think it was just a typo - there is no conceivable way that a billion CHF could ever be a million USD regardless of the scales used... Apologies if you're referring to a different comment.