On: What's a virus, anyway? The bare-bones basics

[FabHK]

  4 x 9 + 4 x 12 + 3 = 87 
  4 x 3 + 4 x  4 + 3 = 31.

That’s the only genesis of this error I could come up with - somehow they associated billion with 3 and trillion with 4 (conceivably because “N-illion” = 1000^(N+1) [1], and then forgot about the factor of three embedded in the base of 1000).

[1] in the US system. In Germany and historically the UK, apparently, it’s 1000,000^N = 1000^(2N), which I personally prefer.

[zaarn → FabHK]

In germany the step size is twice as large; million, milliard, billion, billiard, etc. Makes things neater IMO.