In the news

Ali G ?

Who's the skinny person jumping on the left?

Can't remember his name but he used to star in Rising Damp

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Reginald perrin.

The cap was lifted during COVID and is now going back to the old lower level despite NHS England and the new medical schools asking for it to stay lifted and saying they can fulfill the placement requirements

Cheap. And topical.

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It's defined in terms of the Planck constant now, not the physical kilo in Paris, so not stuck with kg technically anymore.

Incidentally regarding MM, it's no more consistent than anything else, as a billion isn't MMM in accounting it's Bn. It's just a convention and one no one else uses it. Everyone understands k, m, b or bn, t or tn or similar.

Also remember that the definition of "billion" isn't consistent.

Some consider it to be 1,000,000,000,000 (a million million, a long scale billion) and some consider it to be 1,000,000,000 (a thousand million, a short scale billion, or a one milliard).

Rabbit hole: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion

So, whilst there are many short scale (USD) billionaires, there are no long scale (USD) billionaires. Yet.

"Scientists invent a melting liquid robot that can escape from a cage".

Oh, boy.

Come with me if you want to live.

Best film Bruce Willis ever did:

I'm an accountant and MM is a new one to me.

Bruce Willis wasn’t in Bladerunner. You’re thinking of Matt LeBlanc.

But, in contrast with the film, the inventors of this robot believe their discovery can be used for good

Well.

To be fair, humans didn't invent the liquid killer robot in toy story, they created a self aware AI that invented it, and thankfully no one is really trying to make anything like that at the moment.

I'd like to understand this. You're not the first accountant I've heard say that but pretty much any financial spreadsheet or document I ever read from a bank or fund uses MM. I wonder if it's a convention that has only persisted for people working in certain sectors? I mean, MM predates M for millions by, well, centuries.

Bladerunner?

I'm also an accountant & have also never heard of MM being used for millions.

Is it just in financial services? That's not my area though I do deal with them a bit for corporate debt which is in the millions and they still haven't been using MM. Or maybe I've just drastically misunderstood the numbers I talk to them about!

I don't deal much with funds and most bank documents (and other stuff) I see just use the actual number (or a header that everything is denoted in 000,000s).

I've never seen MM either and I've been embedded in finance at the biggest and most corrupt of banks

All numbers should be shown properly I believe

I'm Jeff Bezos and I've never seen MM used before.

I reckon MM must be pretty archaic then. Must just be companies that fancy themselves as being the old boys that do it still. I mean, it is Roman numerals after all.

I for one, quite like the use of Roman numerals

I bet you do, 2200arthy