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Do Your $20 Bills Explode In the Microwave?
msaulters writes "After repeatedly setting off RFID scanners in a truck stop, the author discovered the culprit was a wad of $20's in his back pocket. In a paranoid attempt to keep the government from tracking him, he attempted to fry the embedded chips in his microwave, with interesting results." Alex Jones has interesting theories about a number of things, but evidently a lot of readers were interested in this one.
And GEEZ. I remember being 12 and having a twenty burn a hole in my pocket, but...
*smacks forehead* Sorry.
Mom says my
..."And he came in wielding this huge wad of 20's and a microwave transmitter!!..."
Ads? What ads?
I always knew Andrew Jackson was giving me the evil eye.
Isn't destroying US currency against the law?
Seems pretty smart to me: 1)Committ a federal offense. 2)Post the proof on the internet.
-Nick
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
In Soviet Russia, money burns you.
This person isn't very smart. Why didn't he try it on one $20 bill to start with rather than all of them?
Putting together Internet hoaxes! If they were using the latest versions of Photoshop they wouldn't have been able to make all that fake cash to singe.
I'm broke. I just burned up $1K in the microwave, now please COME SLASHDOT MY SERVER AND MAKE MY HOST COMPANY CHARGE ME EXTRA FOR THE MONTH. ;)
Boy, when it rains, it pours.
Explosive devices and would you be allowed to take them onto planes. 'I'm sorry Sir, we're going to have to confiscate your bank notes'...
The Department of Homeland Security would like to remind you that you love Big Brother.
Webmaster Wanted - Entropic Reactions
So THIS is why conspiracy theorists never seem to have money.
Shoot Pixels, Not People!
While I can't believe this conspiracy theory made to to slashdot, I find myself wanting to experiment too.
Send all of your $20s to: PO Box 7565 Jackson, Wyoming 88096
Left 4 Dead Gaming Group - http://www.l4dgg.com
...AKA karma whoring for fun and profit
Mirror w/ pictures
According to NetCraft, Alex Jones' site is hosted at EV1Servers.net... I wonder if the sum total of the ruined money is $700? I guess it would save a lot of time to just burn the money rather than give it to SCO, yet you would still have the same end result: out $700, and nothing much to show for it.
hey, I just put some eggs in the microwave and they exploded - damn chickens have started putting RFID tags in their eggs already!
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
Well, I can't fault your methods, you've got every base covered. It would appear that you've conclusively proven this experiment to be a hoax!
Another peer-review success story.
the most mysterious thing you'll see today
What, are you kidding? And ruin a perfectly good crazy conspiracy theory?
Username taken, please choose another one.
$1000 in cash? At a truck stop? Worried about government tracking?
:)
Sounds like smugglers to me.
Xbox reviews.. We think they're funny.
Was she the funny smelling one with all the cats?
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Sincerely,
The Mozilla Foundation
1. If I ever shop lift, I'll be sure to get a roll of tinfoil while I at it.
2. If I ever decide to microwave American money, I won't microwave $1000 all at once.
Forget the tinfoil hats, now I need a new wallet.
Belvedere: Quiet, quiet, quiet, QUIET! There are ways of *telling* whether she is a witch!
Villagers: Are there? What? Tell us, then! Tell us!
Belvedere: Tell me. What do you do with witches?
Villagers: BUUUURN!!!!! BUUUUUURRRRNN!!!!! You BURN them!!!! BURN!!
Belvedere: And what do you burn apart from witches?
Villager: More Witches!
Other Villager: Wood.
Belvedere: So. Why do witches burn?
(long silence)
(shuffling of feet by the villagers)
Villager: (tentatively) Because they're made of.....wood?
Belvedere: Goooood!
Other Villagers: oh yeah... oh....
Belvedere: So. How do we tell whether she is made of wood?
One Villager: Build a bridge out of 'er!
Belvedere: Aah. But can you not also make bridges out of stone?
Villagers: oh yeah. oh. umm...
Belvedere: Does wood sink in water?
One Villager: No! No, no, it floats!
Other Villager: Throw her into the pond!
Villagers: yaaaaaa!
(when order is restored)
Belvedere: What also floats in water?
Villager: Bread!
Another Villager: Apples!
Another Villager: Uh...very small rocks!
Another Villager: Cider!
Another Villager: Uh...great gravy!
Another Villager: Cherries!
Another Villager: Mud!
Another Villager: Churches! Churches!
Another Villager: Lead! Lead!
King Arthur: A Duck!
Villagers: (in amazement) ooooooh!
Belvedere: exACTly!
Belvedere: (to a villager) So, *logically*...
Villager: (very slowly, with pauses between each word) If...she...weighs the same as a duck......she's made of wood.
Belvedere: and therefore...
(pause)
Villager: A Witch!
All Villagers: A WITCH!
(they do consequently weigh her across from a duck on Bedevere's largest scale, and she does indeed weigh the same as the duck.)
Witch: (to camera) It's a fair cop.
First off, having worked at a Kmart for several years, I have a pretty good idea how the antitheft systems currently in place in most stores and libraries work, and they don't yet use RFID tags;
First time working at Kmart has qualified anyone for anything....
...apparently has money to burn :)
[sorry, I couldn't help myself... ]
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
That little strip inside of the bills appears to be aluminized mylar. We all know what happens when you put aluminum foil into a microwave oven.
I made that mistake once, about 20 years ago. My mother gave me a Wendy's Kid's Meal, I didn't eat it right away. Later, I wanted to warm it up so I put into the microwave. I didn't open the box, and I forgot that they wrapped the burgers in a foil type wrapper. It was like fireworks. Bright flashed of blue-white light were coming out of the Kid's Meal box.
I nearly soiled myself out of fear. In those days they led you to believe that if you put metal in a microwave it would be like the Ghostbusters crossing the streams of their proton packs.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Moral of the story: don't put a wad of cash into the microwave.
You expect us to take you seriously when you don't even know the basic recipe for heating a $20?
Quack.
there are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots
"Paranoia, paranoia, everybody's coming to get me!" I guess i can't blame them to much though....
Derek Greene
Yeah right, there's no such thing as a two dollar bill. Taco Bell helped disprove this silly statement of yours.
Kip Hawley is an idiot.
He's flirting with you.
There's an even easier way to see the twin towers hidden in U.S. currency. Take two $20 bills. Hold one in each hand so the long sides are oriented vertically. Bring your hands together. Notice that the bills look like two identical skyscrapers right next to each other!!! Clearly this proves the US government had prior knowledge. Why, I'll bet it was actually Dick Cheney at the controls of both airplanes. He wanted Halliburton to seize the Iraqi oil fields.
What's the matter? That's a hell of a lot better than the Slashdot story that actually got accepted!
What Would Jesus Do
(for a Klondike bar)?
would anyone explain to me why conspiracy theory loonies seem hell bent on obsessing over radiowaves, microwaves, etc?
what i'm getting at is, your average pop psychology understanding of paranoid schizophrenia suggests that people are "out to get you", so, controlling your thoughts, tracking your movements, etc. through invisible waves is a wonderful example of this kind of thinking
but what about viruses? why not nanobots?
what i'm getting at is these loonies seem inordinately obsessed over invisible rf waves, but there are a million other "invisible hand" type illuminati control mechanisms they can obsess over
perhaps rf is just easier to understand, reflecting the general low intelligence of paranoid schozophrenics in general i guess
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"Dude! You did not pull a proper 720 corkscrew! I order you to smoke a phatty!"
(I think you mean border , not boarder.)
I'd be happy to help check this out. I think the easiest way would be for everyone to send me whatever bills they happen to have. I'll carefully check them out, inspecting them for any metal strips. To ensure that whatever bills I receive are in fact legal tender, I will then proceed to the nearest Best Buy or Fry's to see whether these fine institutions accept them as such.
I know, it sounds like it will be a lot of work, but its the least I can do to furhter the knowledge of teh Slashdot crowd.
No, but you'll need 1.34 Canadian $20's to get the explosive power of a single American $20.
Simply put, you just don't get as much bang for your buck.
Original transcript of article before it was "prettied up" for public consumption.
Me and Bubba was hanging out in this truck stop. We had just escaped a pack of UFO's on highway 66 in our Kenworth while hauling grapes from Florida to Nevada! I saw em! They had lights on them and these strange whirling blade above them!
At this point we had been on crystal-meth for about 46 hours, so obviously our minds were a-clear. So there we were in the truck stop counting all the money we done made transporting meth across state lines for this "mex" called Jose. We had a huge wad of cash! As we left, this young pencil-neck (probably an alien in disguise) started hasseling us about how we hadn't paid for some chewing gum in out pockets or something. That's when I started a wondering how they KNEW?! Must be one of dem R.I.D.E. tags I hear the guberment is using to control our minds! They know our thoughts!
So, Bubba and I bought us some shiney tin foil and wrapped it on our heads. Thank the lord Jesus for the Crystal Meth! We couldn't have come up with this idear ta stop em without it! Well, we started to leave again, and the lil alien started bugging us again about the gum. THEY STILL KNEW! I figured right about then that it must be OUR MONEY! Sure, Bill Gates controls the money, and Jose must have put tracking devices in it fer him!
So we gots real smart and put our money in the microwave! Now it's OK to spend. Sure, it's brown and burnt, but we can still spend it at the titty bar! Thank god for Crystal Meth! Next time, Bubba and I will make sure we bring extra, just in case the guberment tries to bug our coffee.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
As my EM prof put it - putting tin-foil into your microwave turns it into a spark plug, and god help you if the sparks strike any explosive elements.
Thank goodness you posted that. I've been storing gasoline in my microwave for years thinking it was safe.
F.Y.I. The worst you could do to a microwave by putting metal inside is break the magnatron, and when it breaks, it will just die, not explode or any cool shit like that. This urban legend was debunked like last season. I can't even find the listing for it anymore.
The only thing that would be against the law is defacing currency and attempting to use it in commerce.
What if I draw moustaches on the presidents and sell the doctored notes as artistic portraits of Saddam Hussein?
if the fruit were married in california, could the truck only go to MASS and VT since their fructial union is honored there?
Clearly the government secretly placed an RFID tag in your paper towel sheets in order to track your every spill!!! Placing the towel in the microwave obviously caused the tag to explode, and from now on you should wrap all of you paper towels in tinfoil to prevent the government from spying on you!!!
... a kid who sets off those scanners ... because his body happens to generate the precise frequency of electromagnetic energy they're keyed to.
Like hell. That's a stolen kid! Put his parents under arrest!
There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
In recent manifestation of so-called "slashdot effect" power consumption in western united states peaked 200% around 11pm today after bunch of geeks tried to fry their 20 dollars bills in microware ovens in attempt to uncover government conspiracy to track them via hidden micro chips (called RFID tags) in their bills.
on the canadian $5 bill you can turn sir wilfred laurier into spock. just draw some pointy ears and the hairdo and voila! perfect likeness ..sigh.. i guess you guys win this round...
I never carry anything but quarters. This was a bit troubling when I paid the deposit on my house, but it's a small price to pay for keeping the prying eyes of The Man out of my financial transactions.
If the feds tried to arrest every person who had committed some sort of crime and then posted it to the internet, I have a feeling that Slashdot would be very quiet.
Actually, I believe the Secret Service would gift-wrap your ass and deliver it to your new husband Bubba for his exclusive use during your ten year stay in a Federal penitentiary of their choice...
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
Working at Kmart with excellent grammar and intimate knowledge of their security system no less ... sounds like a dangerous employee to me.
Tell me about it. I broke my Magnatron, and totally fried Optimus Prime too. That's the last time I play Decepticon Rays From Space with my Transformers.
I used to work at CompUSA (four years ago). We found a roll of those square antitheft stickers commonly found in DVDs and Microsoft software boxes. We then set about 100 of them, sticky side up throughout the store. Asshole (as we call him, the guy who checks your reciept as you walk out the door) couldn't figure out what the hell was going on when 95% of the customers (shoes, unknowingly) would set off the beeper on their way out. Best day of work ev-ar. To be 16 again...
moox. for a new generation.
"it impersonates all 2**64 possible serial numbers"
Oh gee, I can see that being *really* helpful when the Homeland Defense automated luggage checking system asks your luggage "Are you a suitcase nuke?" and it answers "Why, yes I am!"
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Ouch....
My...
Eye...
!!!
Australian Money is much more fun. As it is plastic, it melts in the microwave, and as a definate bonus it also releases toxic fumes!
Weren't you looking to hire another news editor?
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
Just imagine the scene at the bank when the intrepid couple goes to replace their cash:
"Umm, I want to replace my 20's because I was dumb enough to burn them in the microwave."
Actually, I'm not sure if banks will take seriously damaged cash. I know that there is a Dept of Treasury office that will replace damaged bills (as long as there is 51% of the bill left), but would a bank take a stack of them since they'd have to turn around and do the replacement? I imagine that the conspiracy couple would just love having to send their money into the government.
Government? Oh no no no, it reaches higher up then that.
It's really the aliens. You heard me.
*dons tin foil hat and wallet*
Go on. Keep living in your dream world of 'metal strips' and 'governments.'
The worst you could do?? You should've seen what happened when I put a can of gasoline in the microwave, you insensitive clod.
From the article: ... We then walked across the street to a store and purchased aluminum foil. .
"It's a conspiracy! They bugged my money! Quick - get some TINFOIL!" I wouldn't be surpriced if he used the rest of that roll to make a tinfoil hat and put in on his head.
Underholdning.info
Thats nothing, one day me and a few (lady) friends decided we would go to our local adult bookshop for a look around for an 18th birthday present. Obviously I had no problems being seen entering such a place with two attractive women at my side so we went and had a look around. A few giggles and $15 later we emerged with a plastic... massage... device deftly sealed up in a brown paper bag. We were pleased with our purchase and decided to get along with our day.
Our next stop was at the local Target supermarket so we entered and had a look around bought some CD's and went to leave. Not so fast unfortunatly a hidden anti-theft tag was atached to the phallus of my girlfriends new best friend. This lead to an interesting conundrum, we had the option of:
a. Showing a 14 year old girl (who was clearly working her first day) and a few interested onlookers what was in the bag.
b. Waiting for the Cops to rock up and then showing them what was in the bag.
c. Attempt to tell her what was in the bag whilst keeping as diplomatic as possible.
It should also be pointed out that it was infact me holding the bag and this was not something I would like to be seen with.
Ultimitly we were able to communicate the contents of the bag and one quick peek and a sheepish smile later we were on our way. I learnt a valuable lesson that day my friends. Don't forget your towel (of al foil).
I'm not terrorably concerned with the goverment tracking the movement of money
You are not TERRORably concerned with the government? Hm...
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Those detectors at Walmart are not anti-theft gates, they're warnings that a customer is leaving the store with money still in his pocket!
Because he needs a reserve of 'cash' on him in case the UN breaks into his trailer and steals his 'mattress'.
I'm wondering what kind of 'wallet' a stack of nearly 50 'bills' fits into, and how he could 'sit' comfortably with it in his pocket.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I particularly like the emphasis through bolding. It's a subtle and yet clear way of saying, "This is what I mean" in a way that also says, "I speak Swedish and you don't".
It's truly an inspired effort to be very clear and yet say nothing at all to your largely English speaking audience. Kudos.
Never confuse volume with power.
No I'm not!
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
foil covered wallet.
d00d, that's Gravitron. Not Magnatron. Ours played Led Zeppelin, and you could climb the walls about like spiders climb water. The G's generally pinned you to the wall and sent your stomach into the rafters.
This person isn't very smart. Why didn't he try it on one $20 bill to start with rather than all of them?
:-)
Well, I guess he wanted to try out a Beowulf cluster of them. . .
This message has been ROT-13 encrypted twice for higher security.
A mugger can get an RFID scanner, hide in a alley and only step up for business when he gets a strong signal. This eliminates the possibility of mugging people with only petty cash!
Bet you didn't even think of this !
actually, had you set it for a second or two less, and opened the door- it would have gone off in your face.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I learnt a valuable lesson that day my friends. Don't forget your towel (of al foil).
Shouldn't the valuable lesson be "leave the dildo in the car when you go into Target?"
This isn't any ordinary darkness. It's advanced darkness.
If I remember right, US bills have a mylar/foil strip running thru them. You can see it when you hold them up to the light. It also contains a blacklight sensitive dye. If this guy is afraid that strip is being used to track him, he can just throw the gummint off by sending his money to me.
Take it from someone who's learned it the hard way; DO NOT microwave your Visa card!
Open source is the art of letting other people write your bad code.
We don't need no water let the Andrew Jackson burn
burn Andrew Jackson, burn.
FLR
Shouldn't the valuable lesson be "leave the dildo in the car when you go into Target?"
Heh. Yep! Leave it to a geek to learn the impractical lesson. "Never leave the house without your cross-spectrum radio-frequency jammer, tin foil, and collapsable antennae, because otherwise you won't be able to take dildos with you into Target."
Which, granted, is advice I could have used on several occasions. Where was he then?!
The enemies of Democracy are
Why would they bother with paper money that they can't tie to any specific person? That would be pointless to say the least.. It would make much more sense (and is MUCH easier) to use cell phones and credit cards to track people. Try sticking your credit card in the microwave you clod.
Mod +5 Drunk
Our first microwave came with a recipe book for the microwave, one recipe was for bownies that included the tip, put a bit of foil in the corners to keep the brownies from drying out. It was the first time we had ever used a microwave, and you can imagine the shock when lighting began flying around the microwave.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Photoshop doesn't work with the new $20 bills. :)
Wait a minute. This guy is trying to determine whether cash has RADIO FREQUENCY ID's embedded in it... by exposing them to MICROWAVE FREQUENCY radiation?
Something tells me he slept through his Physics for Crackpots lectures.
Will the microwave oven work on the chips in my head too?
1. Cut a grape in half and put the two halfs next to each other on a paper plate.
2. Set microwave to 30.
3. Profit!!!!!
Grapes have embedded chips!
Apparently, a number of slashdotters have tried putting $20 bills in the microwave. Well, I thought I'd try the same with other currency and the results are nothing short of a fullblown implication of our government! (Yes, you can even try this at home to verify that everything I'm doing is real.) I placed $10 in quarters into the microwave and it lit up like the 4th of July. Clearly, the government is tracking even currency down to the coin level!
"Negative, I am a meat popsicle"
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
is not punctuation, but More Cowbell!
Of course they're in his eyes. The government is using them to track or 'watch' us! ;)
It's a camera device!
There you are, staring at me again.