• boonhet@sopuli.xyz
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    12 hours ago

    Well, if you want to get exact, sure. But if we’re talking about half units, like 11 and a half billion, then 11.4 is so close to 11.5 there’s no difference and calling it just about 11 sorta implies that it’s a more significant difference IMO

    • MattBlackAlien@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      You need to be as precise as your resolution, otherwise the precision is meaningless. I guess you could argue that your resolution is units of half-billion (since some things are measured like that), but the initial value of 0.1B, and your use of 0.5 rather than ‘half’ suggests a resolution of 0.1B.

      This is different to the aphorism ‘The difference between a million and a billion is about a billion’, both because of the difference in scale, and the quoted resolution.

      • boonhet@sopuli.xyz
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        3 hours ago

        If a man worth 11.5 billion loses 100 million, it affects him less than you or I losing a thousand. In fact it doesn’t affect him.

      • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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        5 hours ago

        59 seconds is 1000000000000 pico seconds away from a minute, so I’m not sure you could say 59 seconds is “so close” to a minute.