How many zeros in a billion?

An interesting irony...

A friend sent me a copy of this particular article, as one of the 'round robin' type viral chain-letters you occasionally see. However, this one interested me for two particular reasons.

Firstly, the content is thought provoking and I like that, but secondly because there's an interesting irony which neatly illustrates my disliking of American software (ok, Microsoft in particular) which allows you to save in web (HTML) format.

The 'source code' to the original article was some 18KB long. Not a great amount in the grand scheme of things, but none the less a long tangled mess of HTML which would have made editing a complete nightmare.

I thought to myself that it would provide an interesting exercise to 'improve' the document, optimising it and thus saving space at the same time. The page you're reading now is the result of that, and the article size has been reduced to under 4KB - plus my new source code is clearer, easier to edit in future and generally more efficient all round.

If you want to view it, the original, unaltered (other than to add the standard vigay.com header and footer - the same on both copies) is here.

The point I'm trying to make is that with a five minute edit, I've not only made a web page 4.5 times smaller, but made it clearer and easier to maintain too.

Just think for a moment. Without companies like Microsoft encouraging 'bloat' in everything, the internet would be 350% faster and leaner. Think of all the cumulative time saved just in downloads, not to mention storage space and bandwidth consumption.

This is a small example, but the content of this article made me think, and chuckle to myself, smug in the thought that by using efficient RISC OS computers, I'm doing my little bit to save those zeros....

Sourced in U.S.A. but applies here as well !!!!

Ever wonder WHY the financial collapse was 'Engineered'? Possibly it's later than many people think!

How many zeros in a billion???

This is too true to be funny...

The next time you hear a politician use the word 'billion' in a casual manner, think about whether you want the 'politicians' spending YOUR tax money.

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend,but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in one of its releases.

A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.

A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it.

While this thought is still fresh in our brain...let's take a look at New Orleans ...It's amazing what you can learn with some simple division.

Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu is presently asking Congress for 250 BILLION DOLLARS to rebuild New Orleans ..

Interesting number...what does it mean?

Well... if you are one of the 484,674 residents of New Orleans (every man, woman, and child) you each get $516,528.

Or... if you have one of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans, your home gets $1,329,787.

Or... if you are a family of four... your family gets $2,066,012.

Imagine, now $700 billion bailing out banks in the U.S. That's enough to fund complete medical care for every man, woman and child currently alive in the US, for 11 years!!

50 billion to bail out the auto industry??? Washington, D.C. & Ottawa ONT ..

HELLO!!!

Are all your calculators broken??

Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL License Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Federal Income Tax,

Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)
IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Tax
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Property y Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service charge taxes
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax (Truckers)
Sales Taxes
Recreational Vehicle Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee - tax upon tax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Tax
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax
Income Tax
Everything Tax or even NSW Taxes

STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY???

Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago... and our nation was the most prosperous in the world.

We had absolutely no national debt...
We had the largest middle class in the world.
And Mum stayed home to raise the kids.

What happened?

Politicians happened

And I still have to press '1' for English.

I hope this goes around the US & CANADA and AUSTRALIA at least 1 billion times

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Last edit: 10th Apr 2016 at 1:55pm
(2936 days ago)

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