Slashdot Mirror
Top 10 Inventions in Money Technology During the 1900's
scuggums writes "The DaVinci Institute has put together an interesting historic piece to help put the world of money technology into perspective. While I'm glad to see the ATM machine made the list, I had no idea it was invented back in 1939. Other items on the list are barcodes, spreadsheets, and RSA encryption. This looks to be one of the research pieces the Institute's doing for their upcoming Future of Money Summit in October."
They mentioned VisiCalc, but not Apple, the only widely available platform it ran on?
Another one worth mentioning, Plastic money as used in several countries now, starting as a collaboration between a couple of countries using technology developed in Australia. It's a late 80s thing and only fairly recent, but something upwards of 30 nations use last I looked.
They are actually being used in Europe for all sorts of different purposes. One of which is my movie pass, which when I purchase 20 seats in advance gives me a great discount of at least 7 CHF. So they are being used, only not in your backward assed Texan run country
They've become reasonably popular on college campuses to operate vending machines, laundry and they like. However, they're probably on the list for their future potential more than anything that's been realized yet.
what exactly does a "smart card" have to do with money technology?
You must be an American--in much of Europe, all of the credit cards are smart cards. When I was in Spain about 3 years ago, I couldn't use my credit card to make pay phone calls because the phones were all equipped with smart card readers and couldn't read my American credit card with only a mag strip.
Eagles may soar, but weasles don't get sucked into jet engines...
Obligatory Where's George link.
"The social impact of the credit card cannot be under-estimated.
That means it's really small! I think they mean it can't be oversetimated."
In this instance, the "cannot" does not mean "we are unable to underestimate the social impact", but rather, "The social impact of the credit card should not be under-estimated". In other words, don't under-estimate the social impact....
or something like that. The author used the term correctly.
Smart cards probably have other advantages/disadvantages as well, but that's the only thing I picked up on when I was there.
They don't seemed to have considered things like government bonds (this underlies the whole system of currency!), and more importantly in the last 100 years, financial futures (futures contracts on bonds and the like) which to quote the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT); "In 1975, the CBOT expanded its offering to include financial contracts, initially, the U.S. Treasury Bond futures contract which is now one of the world's most actively traded."
... as once upon a time money was all gold and silver coin, the note being a promissary document to pay equivalent amount in bullion ... and some banknotes still say things like 'the bank of x promises to pay the bearer the sum of ... '.
These are integral parts of the whole system in regulating and pricing the money supply! The article only seemed to have considered things that affect "money" as people would normally handle in the day to day running of our financial affairs; but still they chose to include inter-bank transfers, the armoured car, and the like.
Pre-1900 there is the invention of paper money itself
-A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed-
No inflation, ever, 'cause the total supply of money is completely static.
That isn't actually true - there's a smaller island near Yap where the special coins were periodically quarried and rafted back to Yap.
Incidentally, Milton Friedman tells the story of how when Yap was part of the German possessions in the Pacific, the German colonial government once tried to force the Yap Islanders to assist in building infrastructure improvements on their island. The islanders weren't really terribly interested.
So the colonial government drove around the island, and painted black crosses on many of the largest stones, signifying that the government had assessed them as a fine. Since these stones were now "off-limits" and removed from the money supply, the Yap economy suffered sudden, massive deflation. The panicked islanders, faced with a collapse of their economy, hurriedly agreed to help construct the required roads. Whereupon the Germans drove around and erased the crosses, enriching the islanders once more.
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
I guess you don't have a checking account. Here in the US it takes one to five days to get checks reconciled. So even if you don't ever use your checkbook. The very fact that you have a checking account puts you at risk from having your account cleaned out.
In some ways, smart cards are just like checks, they don't get reconciled immediately, but they can get reconciled within a few seconds if necessary.
I have a chip like that on my PSU ID and despite being only about a year old it sporadically decides not to work.
Stop sporadically sticking it in the slot backwards!
Seriously, I work with smart cards and I find your statement very hard to believe. Unless the contacts on your chip are really filthy and prevent the reader from getting a good connection, the chip will either work or not. I suppose it's possible that some really stupid software on the chip occasionally goes into a bad state (and then somehow recovers???) but given that a chip essentially "reboots" every time it's inserted in a reader, that would have to be some really bad software.
On further reflection, one other possibility does occur to me: If the contact plate has partially broken loose from the chip underneath, it could be that it's only making contact intermittently. I've never seen a chip do this, though; usually if you manage to break the leads, they're broken and will *never* make contact.
In any case, what you're experiencing is very uncommon. I recommend breaking the chip so that it *never* functions and then taking it in and complaining so that they give you a replacement. You can break it pretty easily if you place your thumbnails on the contact plate and crease it sharply. You can also shatter the chip by placing it on a hard surface (concrete works well) and hitting it hard with a hammer.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
One more idea: You are using it correctly, right? People often have a tendency to treat smart cards the same way they do a magstripe card in a self-service gas pump reader. With a smart card you have to insert it in the reader and then *leave it there* until the two computers (the one in your card and the one in the reader) are done communing. Generally this means you don't take the card out until the reader tells you to.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Yes, the concept of paper money (made from dried strips of mulberry bark) was first experimented during the 1200s in China during Kubla Khan's reign.
2 07 02.html
n ey .html
Some Googled links
http://www.gold-eagle.com/gold_digest_02/stott0
http://ias.berkeley.edu/orias/MarcoPolo/papermo
I can remember going to the department store with my mother back in that era. The department store used special models of cash registers that were huge and had many more buttons than a normal cash register. They also had a pneumatic tube system to send paperwork from one department to another.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
The readers that are in vending machines and all other devices that are open to the general public (as opposed to, say, at a checkout counter in a store) hold the card while it is in use so you *can't* remove it early.
Capturing readers are nice.
To be fair, I have suspicions that one particular reader in a vending machine in my dorm somehow screwed things up
I can't see any way a reader could mess up your card... overvoltage, maybe? But that would tend to make the card completely unusable, rather than intermittent. Of course, since I've never seen a card that functions intermittently, I can't be sure.
I wish I could test your card.
Anyway, I can assure you that your experience is not common. Smart cards either work, or not, and they pretty much just work. They're much more durable and reliable than, say, a magnetic stripe or a printed barcode.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.