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>> Have different speed limits depending on how much pollution your car
>> produces. Allow the most fuel efficient cars to go slightly faster than
>> they can today, and make other cars go slower. In the centre of cities
>
> That would require more lanes. On a normal 2-lane (1 per direction) road
> different limits on same-class cars only generates angry drivers, while
> the traffic ain't smooth and easy anymore, but there's lots and lots of
> overtakes going on all the time.
Yeh I was thinking of just on the multi-lane-per-direction roads, as they
are the ones mostly used for long distances where a higher speed limit might
be an incentive for people to buy greener cars.
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On 20 May 2008 18:11:06 -0400, Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospam com>
wrote:
>
>Well the difference between a US and an imperial gallon is anecdotally
>easy to explain - evaporation over long sea voyages. How much truth
>there is in that, though, I don't know.
>
LOL My pet theory is that in the US you have 16 fluid oz in a pint the
same as 16 oz in a pound. While we have 20 fluid oz in a pint to make
a pint of water weigh a pound.
--
Regards
Stephen
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Warp wrote:
> Yeah, I love it that "ounce" means different things depending on whether
> you are talking about solids or fluids, "mile" means different things on
> land than on sea, and "gallon" means different things depending on whether
> you are in the US or the UK, not to talk that it also means different things
> depending on whether we are measuring solids or liquids...
Well, even if you try to be metric, the Americans have a different idea
about what constitutes a "billion"...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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> Well, even if you try to be metric, the Americans have a different idea
> about what constitutes a "billion"...
Dude, you're so out of date, were you even born when the UK officially
abandoned the idea that a million million is a billion?
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scott wrote:
>> Well, even if you try to be metric, the Americans have a different
>> idea about what constitutes a "billion"...
>
> Dude, you're so out of date, were you even born when the UK officially
> abandoned the idea that a million million is a billion?
It's new to me that it was *ever* abandoned. (Why would you do such a
thing?)
At any rate, I guess Word's "don't use that word" suggestion is the best
advice. [Oh, the irony of an M$ product producing good advice...]
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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>>> Well, even if you try to be metric, the Americans have a different idea
>>> about what constitutes a "billion"...
>>
>> Dude, you're so out of date, were you even born when the UK officially
>> abandoned the idea that a million million is a billion?
>
> It's new to me that it was *ever* abandoned. (Why would you do such a
> thing?)
To avoid confusion? IIRC back in the 80s (or maybe even earlier) the UK
officially stopped using "billion" to mean 1e12, and since then it has
always meant 1e9. Did you really think all those figures in the financial
part of the paper that say $6bn mean $6000000000000 and not $6000000000?
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>> It's new to me that it was *ever* abandoned. (Why would you do such a
>> thing?)
>
> To avoid confusion?
You mean "because America says so"? [Why don't *they* just change to the
correct way?]
> Did you really think all those figures in the
> financial part of the paper that say $6bn mean $6000000000000 and not
> $6000000000?
Yes.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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>> To avoid confusion?
>
> You mean "because America says so"? [Why don't *they* just change to the
> correct way?]
I don't think either way is correct or incorrect, after all it's just
assigning a word to an amount. Does it matter who changed?
>> Did you really think all those figures in the financial part of the paper
>> that say $6bn mean $6000000000000 and not $6000000000?
>
> Yes.
And you were never curious as to why you never saw any amounts between $999m
and $999999m written anywhere? Anyway, you know now :-)
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scott wrote:
> And you were never curious as to why you never saw any amounts between
> $999m and $999999m written anywhere? Anyway, you know now :-)
Well, actually a never read the kind of material where you might ever
see such numbers at all, so... ;-)
I think "million" and "billion" already sound way too similar for
numbers of vastly different sizes. Most people really don't notice the
difference between them.
I figure that's why nobody talks about "seventeen billion bytes". If you
said "seventeen million bytes", nobody would notice the difference very
much. That's why most people call it 17 GB and 17 MB. [Ah, but is that
2^10 or 20^3??]
I wonder what the hell people will call it when 4 terabyte drives become
common. MB => meg, GB => gig, TB => ???
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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>> And you were never curious as to why you never saw any amounts between
>> $999m and $999999m written anywhere? Anyway, you know now :-)
>
> Well, actually a never read the kind of material where you might ever see
> such numbers at all, so... ;-)
You must of at least seen or heard the headline of MS bidding to buy Yahoo?
That involved some number of billion dollars.
BTW, what you thought a billion was, 1e12, is such a big number that you
would never really see it applied to money. The largest companies in the
world don't even sell close to $1e12 worth of stuff. Only the largest 12
countries in the world have a GDP of above $1e12.
> I think "million" and "billion" already sound way too similar for numbers
> of vastly different sizes. Most people really don't notice the difference
> between them.
What makes you think that? Not noticing the difference could lead to some
pretty embarrassing situations - I've never witnessed anything like that.
> I wonder what the hell people will call it when 4 terabyte drives become
> common. MB => meg, GB => gig, TB => ???
terra?
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