new user on MacOsX.
Ruby version:  ruby 1.8.2 (2004-12-25) [universal-darwin8.0]
intel MacBook Pro

Working thru the examples in Programming Ruby, I got what I didn't
expect:

Integer(33.80 * 100) ==> 3379

however, 

Integer(3.380 * 1000) ==> 3380

Doesn't seem like a floating point round off error.

joe