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Comment by jtreminio | Hacker News Reader

> to the tune of $1.5 x 10^8 USD

Was it really necessary to type it like that?

     _|_    __  ___   ___      ___    ___    ___      ___    ___    ___      ___    ___  
    / |_)  /  )| __) / _ \    / _ \  / _ \  / _ \    / _ \  / _ \  / _ \    / _ \  / _ \ 
    \_| \   )( |__ \( (_) )()( (_) )( (_) )( (_) )()( (_) )( (_) )( (_) )  ( (_) )( (_) )
    (_|_/  (__)(___/ \___/ /  \___/  \___/  \___/ /  \___/  \___/  \___/ () \___/  \___/ 
      |

For general sanity: $150,000,000

To be pedantic, 1.5e8 carries additional information about accuracy: $150,000,000 ± $5,000,000. By contrast, 1.50e8 would be ten times as accurate, and so on.

Of course, accuracy is hardly relevant here.

s/accuracy/precision

Sorry, I don't usually try to be pedantic, but when the conversation is already about nitpicking, I think it's necessary.

Significant figures are precision, not accuracy. Accuracy is "being in the ballpark". Precision is "tight groups".

I'm sorry for the confusion. English is not my first language, and I resorted to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accuracy_and_precision to pick between "accuracy" and "precision".

To put it another way: "pi is exactly 3" is extremely precise, but not very accurate.

On the other hand, if you had said "Pi is 3", you would have been accurate, but not very precise. If you said "Pi is "Pi is 3.14", you would have been so precise that you could have gotten to the moon and back.

Damn, and here I thought I needed to build a gigantic rocket.

My statement was accurate, just lacking in precision on the details :P

The very next task of mine

is a new value of pi to define.

I think I'll use 3

it's much simpler you see;

than 3.14159

You've simpified pi, that's fo' shore.

But rivalry says "level-up score".

With competitive drive,

It's yet higher I strive.

The value I'll use shall be four.

Well played

Or, the usual and shorter $150M.

At the very least keep it to multiples of three, as in 150e6 or 150 * 10^6! Though a very simple 150 million is easy to think of in terms of erasing past donations that sounded impressive.

I don't think that they mean , one hundred and fifty times ten to the sixth factorial

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