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Judge Says U.S. Money Violates Rights of the Blind
An anonymous reader writes, "The United States is one of the few countries in the world whose currency isn't distinguishable by blind people. Most other nations use raised text, different-sized bills, or other methods to assist blind people in spending their money. If a recent decision by a federal court in D.C. survives appeal, however, that will soon change. Under Sec. 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, federal programs cannot deny 'meaningful access' to people with disabilities. Because blind people are unable to distinguish U.S. currency without assistance, the court held that they are denied meaningful access to their own money. U.S. District Judge James Robertson ordered the Treasury Department to come up with ways for the blind to tell bills apart. He said he wouldn't tell officials how to fix the problem, but he ordered them to begin working on it." How Appealing notes that Judge Robertson opened the door to a speedy appeal of his ruling.
Well, you have to carry it around, but there are machines out there that when a bill is scanned through them, will report it's value. So, is there really a need to redesign the bills so that they're accessable to the blind?
US currency is the easiest to forge in the world. You take a $1 bill, wash it clean and reprint it with a $100 bill. This will really increase the costs to forgers, and they should sue the treasury for loss of earnings.
The bills in the US are difficult to distinguish under conditions other than blindness, it's about time we caught up with the rest of the world. We make coins different shapes, sizes and textures, why not bills.
I can see quite well with glasses, and this very thing has annoyed me plenty of times. Why the hell are all our bills the same size, shape, and color? :)
Make them more distinct, and you'll speed up all cash transactions.
If nothing else the fast food industry will thank you
I respond to your sigs
No one should be handling cash anymore. It is filthy and sucks for all the reasons mentioned in the article.
Credit cards and direct deposit now exist and you can stop living in fear that someone is going to mug you for your cash. It also gives you a good excuse to feel no guilt as you walk past a homeless person.
Got change?
No. I got debt.
Integrating the blind into our cashless society would be a far better thing than to stick them with those dirty rags we call greenbacks.
Then blind people can carry around a conveniently sized RFID reader.
Just swipe past the reader and it'll tell you how much money is in your wallet. Or is that the amount in the next person's wallet? Ok, forget it.
[% slash_sig_val.text %]
China are hardly alone here! For example Euros and Pounds Stirling are both use different sizes for different amounts.
Exactly what they should do. Most currencies today are done like that, stacking currency is only done in the same bill, so you can tell the difference. Hence most other currencies uses different colours for each note.
The US is behind.
Clicked pie.
I know, Why don't we just have RFID tags implanted in all of our hands. I mean, wouldn't swiping your hand under an RFID reader be so much easier ;)
- Aetheral Research -
For 'are both' read 'also' :)
Why is the Treasury Department appealing this ruling? They should embrace it and start solving the problem.
Who exactly is harmed with this decision? I don't even see why it went to court in the first place.
The cost to retool the machinery is significant. I don't know where they'd be able to scrape together that sort of cash.
I always did wonder how, in the U.S., blind people dealt with money. I ended up meeting a friend of my father's who was blind, so I asked him. He told me that he has someone (someone who can see, obviously) fold his money a certain way -- singles get folded in half, 5's got folded into an L-shape, 10's got folded another way and so on so that he always knew what denomination of money he was taking out of his wallet.
Ramps built into buildings for wheelchairs make it easier to get heavy gear in and out. Braile on ATM keyboards and lift buttons make it easier to distinguish between keys. Audio-tactile devices on pedestrian crossings provide a better UI for people regardless of whether they can see or not.
Trust me. US currency will be better for everybody if it accomodates blind people.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Scratch and sniff.
Make each bill smell like something else. Make a five smell like coffee, since thats what a coffee at starbucks costs. Ten smells like pizza. Twenty smells like chinese food, and a hundred smells like fine leather.
The one doesn't smell like a damn thing, since you can't do much with it anyway.
Have a wad of $1's and put a $100 note in either side. Or just have 1 odd $1 in the pack and short change the sucker by $99
Accessibility of the physical dollar to the blind is the least of the Treasury's problems. How about addressing it's declining value?
Also, speaking as a business owner, changing the bill's size would cost me time and money. No thanks!
Or some easily distinguishable raised section?
this has the added benefit of adding an extra anti-forgery mechnaism.
http://www.ecb.int/bc/flash/security/index_en.html
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
About 8 years ago I working in a building that had a blind man (none of this legally/partially blind bs) running the convience stand. He showed me one day how he determined the value of the currency handed to him. He felt the ridges on the corners of the bills. He could also feel the patterns of the faces.
Pull out an old style $1 from your wallet. This the type of bill he was working with at the time. The black ink is slightly raised. The newer bills have slightly raised black ink too with different patterns. Run your finger nail across them to feel the ridges.
Come to think about it, ATMs must be nigh on impossible to use too.
Inserting the card and entering a PIN sounds doable blind - but then you're presented with screens to navigate via soft keys (and it's different between ATMs). No chance.
Funny the things us sighted people take for granted.
biopowered.co.uk - catalytically cracking triglycerides for home automotive use since 2008. Just say no to big oil!
I am surprised that the US still uses bills for $1 and $5. Equivalent value denominations in Europe are generally (and I am talking about pound sterling and Euros) coins. As an occasional visitor I have noticed that US bills have the least variety across the range I have every come across. It's probably time for a redesign.
Why on earth would you want to stack different denominations of currency? It would have to be quite a high stack to pose a 'topple' risk due to the difference in sizes.
Never mind the fact that 25 countries in Europe use the Euro.
and turn it into a coin. Not this half-assed production of a few coins and predominantly bills. Get it over with and make it purely coins. It'll make vending machines more convenient. Coins are easily distinguishable.
On mony, just have an imprinted (raised) mark whereever the denomination number is printed. It doesn't have to be elaborate - just dots like braile.
I'm surprised this didn't come sooner with the Americans with disabilities act, or some such.
Europe does the same thing, unfortunately.
I'm from Europe, but when I lived in the US for a while (year), I really preferred USD.
The coins are part of that though. For some reason I always ended up having less useless change in my pocket than i have in Europe.
On a trip to the states a while back, in a dimly lit strip club, I accidentally gave several $20 bills to a stripper instead of $1s, got a bit more than I bargained for. Wouldn't say it was a waste exactly, but you can't claim that shit back on expenses!
Oh no... it's the future.
I hate the US Treasury and everything it stands for. I buy my dollars from a perfectly legal Russian website for 10c on the dollar.
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You don't have to put bumps etc on the notes. In Australia each note is 3-4mm longer than another of lower denomination, but they are all the same width. That way, it's easy to handle with vending machines (width) and easy for blind to sort out (length. And they stay nicely. They are also polymer-based, almost indestructible and carry vastly more electronic counter-measures than the old US currency. Don't re-invent the wheel, just check out what other countries have come up with (after countless iterations).
You can't change the size or shape of the currency. There's way too much currency handling equipement, e.g. bill counters, bill changers, and atm's, in place to be able to be able to handle that. Any encoding scheme like OCR, magnetic ink or rfid would require a reader device which might be awkward. The only thing I can think of is to punch holes in the money, a sort of negative braille. You'd have to arrange the hole patterns so that any attempt to modify them would produce an invalid pattern. And you'd want to reenforce the holes slightly so they wouldn't tear too easily.
Different sizes doesn't help at all, blind people are completely incapable of judging size anyway as it has no meaning to them; theirs is a world without size, colour, distance or space. I have a blind friend, so I am well aware of their plight. What I do for him is to regularly cut his money into different shapes, for example I would cut all his £5 notes into stars, £10's into zigzags and £20's into smiling faces. He has no trouble distinguishing his money now, although it is no longer legal tender and serves no purpose.
Seriously, what's next? Will they require money to be discernible by quadriplegics? Will they require radio to be accessible to the deaf? Where will this stop?
So the size of the bills determines how much useless change you have in your pocket...
If that's the case you're not an Anonymous Coward but an Anonymous Idiot...
This is just a really poor decision that should be blocked by the next court up the chain. Reading the decision the judge goes into how bad it is that the bill are all the same and how it places a hardship, which it does. However devices are available which allow around which allow the money to meet the law. The judge should of told the people sueing that they should go take it up with thier congressmen; instead of doing this stupid soapbox speech.
Some other decision by him:
Private unions cannot expell members who spread "falsehood and misrepresentation" because that breaks the members freedom of speech.
Has through out a few cases for companies giving expensive gifts to government officials.
In various court cases has just ignored major case points on various parties and ruled based on older laws that had been superceded.
Ain't going to happen. Europe does it (as well as integrating a whole bunch of additional anti-counterfeit measures), so it must be un-American. Never mind the blind, God (with a capital G) must hate them or they wouldn't be blind, right ? Also, it could help the terrorists. Dollar notes are just fine the way they are.
The way I see it the Federal Reserve is outside that court's jurisdiction. The Federal Reserver (misnomer)
is not a "Federal" but instead a privately owned bank, large shares distributed across the usual suspects
from Rockefeller to the Rothschildts themselves to the Bank of England.
Maybe the new "Amero" bills will be a little more friendly to the blind http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amero
Since most stores have dropped the 1 and 2 cent coins here in Holland I sure end up with a lot less red coins. I used to drop the red ones into a mug on my desk at the end of each day. These days I tend just to leave them in my wallet. I never get more than two.
Maybe
blind people are completely incapable of judging size anyway as it has no meaning to them; theirs is a world without size, colour, distance or space.
I can agree with you on colour, but without size, distance or space? I don't think so; they'd have trouble doing anything at all if they couldn't perceive those. Check out this guy.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Back when I was in elementary school, they had a blind lady visit and talk with us. She said something similar. But she added "and I don't let $100 bills out of my hand."
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
By far the worst was US currency. Tough to tell which was which without pulling it out and looking at it, and generally it was of poor quality too, especially the $1 notes. I was relieved when I got some $1 coins but they were few and far between.
Even Croatian currency was much easier to deal with. Different colours and sizes made it easy. I found the euro and pound to be ok, but they were too large of a size to fit in my wallet properly. This seemed to be a common porblem because they were always ripped on the ends indicating that it wasn't only me with this issue.
Still the best currency I have dealt with is Australian currency. It is made of plastic so it always in great shape and was in distinctly different colours and sizes to make it easy to use. It was small enough to fit in any wallet too. Must be a hard currency to counterfeit because of the clear plastic windows and such. I find it hard to believe the largest economy in the world can't change to this new technology!
WARNING: This sig does not contain a joke
Maryland State Motto: If you can dream it, we can tax it.
Why not let natural selection take its course instead?
Go AHEAD FUCKING FLAME AWAY OR WASTE YOUR G0D-DAMNED MOD POINTS FUCKTARDED SHITDOT SHEEPLE!
No. Not going to happen because not all vending machines accept dollar coins. Its one of the reasons why the coins never caught on.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
it's true, american money is ass when it comes to telling what note is what. how hard could it be to make each note a different size?
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
wow, i sense that somebody touched a nerve. When I read it, I assumed he was unfamiliar w/ the EU currencies but had seen (and disliked) the chinese currencies. Maybe there is some subconscious victimization complex at work here.
Don't do what China does and start offering money in different sizes. It's really annoying to use, and hard to stack.
Then the Chinese must be using sizes with large differences between them, which the Wikipedia article on the Renminbi does not show.
Australian banknotes are different sizes (comparable to the Chinese sizes) and I've never had a problem sorting, stacking or using them.
Just emboss the paper with "IN GOD WE TRUST, THIS ISN'T SPECIFICALLY CHRISTIAN BTW" in a different corner for each bill. Problem solved!
But I thought the Treasury was preparing to start using colors other than the standard green on certain denominations. That still wouldn't help a blind person though. Visually impaired maybe.
What? America is only doing this NOW??!! Sheesh! All our bills are different colours, sizes and can be handled by blind people. The only thing I really don't like, is the coins we have here: 5,10,20,50 cent coins which are TINY! and a R1, R2 and R5 (Rands) coins and then upwards it's bills. I have low vision, (to the degree of -20 diopters in each eye) and I struggle to manage the small coins, I usually end up throwing them all in a big cup, and once a year I make the effort to count them out and get "real money" (bills) for them at the bank. Just out of interest, it's about R7 (South African Rands) for $1 (USD)
What's the point of creating new bills when there's already a standard? It's time to switch to the Euro. And with your currency in free-fall, you'd be better off too.
Of course, it would have saved a lot of trouble if you'd switched a few years ago, when the dollar and Euro were equally valuable.
I wholly support doing what needs to be done to make the bills more accessible to the blind. But, interestingly, I have never found size/color to be a problem. Being from another country originally where bills are all manner of size and color, it was a shock to see bills exactly the same size and color. Interestingly, what happens is that one gets used to being more vigilant and checking the printed number and letters. The differently colored and sized bills were a huge problem -- you got used to one size and color for one kind of bills and then, bam!, new size and color were introduced and you had to train yourself differently. Mistakes were made all the time. Never, never once any mistakes with the USD.
UnNetHack: NetHack Improved!
1. Use hole-punching so blind can read bills.
2. Punch the $100 hole pattern in current $1 bills.
3. Profit!
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
This JURIST article:
e ral-judge-rules-us-currency.php
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2006/11/fed
has some primary sources readily available...
...please forgive me for offering my opinion when I say that I US currency sucks. All US bills are roughly the same size and colour. Besides the accessibility issues mentioned in TFA, I walk away from every transaction with "Did I Give Her A 20?" anxiety.
I humbly submit that Australian bills are superior, and you should consider upgrading. Australian bills:
* Have raised text, water marks, and a "clear window" security feature
* Are all different colours (leading most Americans to refer to our currency as "monopoly money", however it makes it a hell of a lot easier to tell a 5 from a 50 when you're drunk)
* Are made from a polypropylene polymer. Besides the geek cred, this makes them extremely resistant to tearing. Even better: leave it in your pocket, if it goes through the wash, its perfectly fine.
You might also like to take a leaf from our book and phase out 1 cent pieces. Trust me, your economy can survive without them. Just FYI.
I have wondered for a while why the US money was so similar, most other nations have different colour and size notes.
Check out the Aussie money for example, it is excellent, the US money by comparison is very backwards.
http://www.dfat.gov.au/facts/currency.html/
What about the cost to merchants when they have to replace every bill reader on all their vending machines, laundry card recharge stations, subway ticket machines, etc? These readers are everywhere.
As someone who on more than one occassion has accidentally lefts a couple of tens instead of a couple of ones for a tip at a bar, I certainly would welcome anything which allows me to discern bills more clearly when I have trouble focusing.
Just out of curiosity, what are the other countries that have same coloured and same sized bills?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Heard this on the radio on the way into work. Actually sounds really reasonable and plenty of examples abroad on how to do it. But then again, I almost never use cash now. Federal Reserve Debit Cards?
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
A simple embossing of text could prove to be a benefit to counterfeiting. U.S Mint should look into it.
This is modded 'funny', but instead I would mod it 'horrifying'. This is EXACTLY how the system would be exploited. The only use for this system is to make it so blind people don't need to ask for help to verify the money is legit. This con would then make it so they still need to ask for help. How did anything improve?
Okay, I suppose if they want to count the money in their wallet, and they KNOW it's all legit, this would help. But they each probably already have a system for that, anyhow. Different folds, dog-ears, etc. At the expense of the whole of the United States, we can help them NOT ONE BIT.
Sounds great, let's do it.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
just think you walk into the strip club and bam they already know how much money you have on you, and you get service accordingly...
Which part of "that's part of it (it meaning my preferring US money)" didn't you understand, idiot with a name?
By China you mean virtually every other country in the world. Besides, if US used coins for 1 & 2 dollars (and got rid of dollar bills) you wouldn't have as many bills to stack. Nor is stacking a necessity. My euros are usually crumpled up and stuffed in my pocket. I don't even need to unfold them to know what I have - a grey one is a five, a red one is a ten, a blue is a twenty and so on. By contrast the similarity between US bills makes sorting and folding a virtual necessity.
But the solution to the aforementioned problem is to make the highest currency bill have the least holes. Therefore, you could turn a $100 bill into a $1 by punching holes, but not vice-versa. There are other problems with the idea, of course.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
So, where in the constitution does it say "The blind have the right to tell different bills apart"?
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
...So does clothes
$ cat
cat:
Do you know why both attempts at using dollar coins have failed? Because people HATE coins. Coins are ridiculously annoying to have. Who wants a huge heavy pocketful of coins when you could have a much lighter wallet? Besides, have you ever seen paper money bounce off the floor when dropped and roll under a vending machine / down a crack where you can't get it / etc? If you want to suggest an overhaul of our money, get rid of coins entirely.
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...But my great grandfather, who went blind at 60 to Glaucoma, was able to identify a denomination with 100% accuracy. It was a dinner-party trick that always delighted the crowd. He lived until 90 and, while I'm not sure if this was an acquired skill, as long as I knew him (the last 10 years of his life), he was never wrong. So there must be SOMETHING to it. I always speculated that it could've been that he could actually feel the boundries of ink in the paper, or something like that. I once thought that he was just guessing based on how worn the bill was, but crisp bills worked just the same.
Also, this was with the pre-clinton era currency.
Maybe he was a freak, but have they actually asked any blind people about this?
Wouldn't such a move (assuming that they use raised lettering, or some kind of thread pattern that can make bills easy to distinguish) make it more difficult to counterfit the bills? How much money have we spent on all these "new" bills, just to prevent counterfitting?
Of course the judge didn't say they had to use a raised lettering system. One poster suggested changing the shape of bills, which would accomplish their goals much more cheaply.
I think the grandparent is correct, albeit a bit too abrasive. The average person would have used, "Use the same-sized currency. I've used Chinese currency before and it's hard to stack the bills." Your subject would be considered off-topic and possibly inflammatory since the main point of the issue is the size of the currency, not the actions of China.
You might as well ask if seeing eye dogs are free, or Braille computer terminals are free. Of course they're not free. Adaptive equipment is expensive. But redesigning the world around a small minority of people who aren't within a range of commonly-accepted norms would be more expensive.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Somewhere along the line our nation went from a Republic to an odd politically correct hybrid of socialism where the rights of the few outweigh the rights of the many. 1% of the population can now dictate and control 99% of the population. That simply isn't right.
I'm certainly not for making the life of Blind people harder, or anyone with a disability. However, the disabilities act just is abused. This is a perfect example. Look, it sucks to be blind I'm sure, but it is not your god given right to have a society bend around you to meet your needs. It is your responsibility to find a way to work in the society. I can't ride in little sports cars, because I'm too tall... does that mean the automakers are violating my "right" to drive in their cars? The disabilities act may have been passed with good intentions, but it's just another example of liberals who are short sighted (or worse).
Blind people can use a money reader, or they could use credit cards, etc. Blind and people with disabilities often have to by special equipment, and there is nothing wrong with that. Frankly they aren't the only people in society that can't do things like normal people. Hell, if you are too tall, you have to go to specialty stores to buy clothes. The Government shouldn't be able to pass a law and mandate Wal-Mart carry all Big and Tall sizes.
The truth is this isn't about Blind people. This is about some a-hole lawyer/firm trying to make a name for themselves. Even worse a bunch of liberals, the self proclaimed "knower's of what's best for everyone else" will jump on board and give this some weight. This will cost society big $$ for no good reason.
I'll tell you one thing; this kind of stuff sure as hell isn't what the founding fathers had in mind when they founded the nation, that's for sure. Don't even get me started on legalized discrimination, a.k.a. Affirmative Action.
I've been dreading this for years: U.S. money comes to look like monopoly money. I really value the standard size and color. (And I don't see where color changes would help the blind, or the color-blind, for that matter.) If they have to make a change, I hope they do it in the form of adding texture (Braille?) or, if absolutely necessary, changing the length only, as the Australian posters have suggested. I definitely do not want a mess of different-sized bills to go through when sorting money.
Sincerely, Derek
A curious little blog
One of them is a maximum budget deficit of 3%.
Like the submitter says, most countries have done this for years. This isn't a new concept (though will be marketed by the treasury dept as "innovative" and "groundbreaking").
It's kinda sad the courts need to get involved in this. I'm convinced the Treasury dept intentionally makes currency confusing, so that people (especially foreigners) need to examine it, and hence make it stick in their minds.
You know how many tourists confuse coins in the US?
You know how many Americans confuse the "dollar coin" with another coin of less value? Among other popular mistakes.
Here's a hint: just about all at one point or another.
It really is sad that our country is so behind the times... yet it bills itself as being decades ahead. What next? Affordable prescriptions?
Just ban currency.
Make everyone carry a fedreal government provided 'funds card' that only works in government controlled ( and monitored, and taxed ) readers. Oh, and tie them to an individual person so you cant 'share' your funds.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The Wikipedia article doesn't do a very good job of showing sizes, but there is actually quite a difference. The largest banknote, the 100 yuan, is 155x77mm (around 6 inches x 3 inches), while the smallest common banknote, the 1 jiao (0.1 yuan), is 115x52mm (around 4.5 inches x 2 inches). You can stack them easily though, because the size (and colour) difference makes them easy to sort, and you can just put the small ones on top of the big ones. I do this in my wallet anyway to make it easier to find the right change.
There are also some even smaller banknotes, 1 fen (0.01 yuan), which are 90x42mm (2.5 inches x 1.5 inches), but they're hardly ever used because the value is so low - I see one about every 3 months.
Have you looked at the $10's and $20's lately? They are colored. The $20 is blue/yellow and the $10 is red. I think the treasury is doing a great job keeping the forgers off guard while keeping our currency as classy and confidence inspiring as it has always been. Adding few braille dots are no big deal. The idea might even be combined with the security strips that were added a few years ago.
an ill wind that blows no good
It's a lot easier with different sized bills, a bit of colour doesn't go amiss either.
I was in Detroit last year, a homeless guy posed for a photo, asked for a dollar, so I pulled out a greenish bill - he skipped off down the road singing my praises - I felt sorry for the guy, a dollar made such a difference to him, only noticed my mistake back at the hotel - I'd given him a 100 dollar bill.
What's next, all receipts must be in Braille so that they are not getting ripped off on their check card transactions?
Look at the item number 3 in the picture./ main.asp?file=priznak_2004_eng/Opisan_50R_eng.htm
http://www.cbr.ru/eng/bank-notes_coins/bank-notes
That's not Braille, but a similar scheme, a raised pattern. The same pattern can be easily added to the dollar bills. It won't cost much and won't require any adjustments to the bill readers.
I'd say that redesigning the money supply would qualify as an undue hardship imposed on the Federal government.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
Never mind the actual bills. Can someone please tell me why the keys on drive through instant tellers have braille on them?
I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
Ok, I feel sorry for the blind who can't tell which bills they are handing over - but what is with all of the posts from people who think visually identifying a bill by the printing on it is difficult? My kids learned their numbers in pre-school and have no problems identifying a $1, $5, $10 from each other.
Now if the judge had ordered that all existing stocks of money be recalled, you might have a point. But taking blind people into account during redesigns that are going to happen anyway is hardly an undue hardship.
Well a great start to this would be to stop making freakin' pennies. We'd probably save enough money there to convert the machines to print with slightly raised numbers.
Pennies have become completely useless and a major nuisance. Back about 10 years ago there was talk of convenience stores doing away with them to save time on transactions. There was no problems with price setting in the store, the problem came with gas purchases. I suppose now with most gas purchases being done with credit/debit this idea would be more feasible. Set the gas pumps for force the pump to the next multiple of 5.
Anywho, my Aunt is blind. She folds her bills a certain way to know what is what. I'm sure she'd really appreciate raised numbers on the bills.
posting AC because i don't feel like burning karma on something offtopic, but yes, strip clubs already do this (sortof). Spearmint Rhino is just one chain I know of minting their own chips (vegas-style gambling chips) for purchase with credit card to use to pay for dances. this may not be abroad yet, but i know it is prevalent on the westcoast of the US. it's a great little scam for them too, as they tack on (iirc) a 20% surcharge to your credit card, and then also charge the dancers 10% or 15% (forget which) to "cash" the chips. Probably something in the latter half of that transaction is illegal, but i'll save that for others, as IANAL. The only upside to the customer is the ability to use your (corporate? hehe) credit card, which in addition to convenience, allows you to write this off as a business entertainment expense since it will usually be billed by "Inland Venture Ent, LLC" or some other innocuous-sounding entity.
as a side-note, most strippers do at some point have a customer attempt to pay them occasionally with change while onstage.. and they hate it. if you've ever wanted to figure out how to get an exotic dancer to spontaneously attempt to beat you with her shoe, simply toss her a quarter while she's onstage.
erm... it's not 25, it's 12 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurozone in the Eurozone plus Montenegro.
...and just think of the money to be made in Florida with all hanging chads!
Before I start my questions, let me just say I am a US citizens and I don't give a flying fig if US money gets changed as long as it is done in an intelligent manner (which rules out most Congress critters) and not god awful ugly. I've been in non-US countries and haven't minded different sizes, colors, etc, although in some countries, the smaller denominations are awful easy to lose.
The judge used a law that talks about federal programs to mandate his requirements for changes. I ave assumed programs are things like after school stuff, food stamps, etc. You know, laws Congress established by passing laws supposedly based off the constitution to get stuff done. Can anyone honestly tell me that printing money is a federal PROGRAM ? I kind of thought the minting/coining/printing of money was something mandated in the constitution as solely Congress' responsibility and as such does not fall under the program moniker. If it isn't a program, then the judge is full of hooey.
Not being a wise guy here, but since it is now unfair to discriminate in coining money, what about people who are blind and have lost their hands ? Different colors and different sizes won't work for these folks. I know that sounds ridiculous and like I am an elitist snob or horse's back side, but just how far should this be carried?
Finally, given the separation of powers that is supposed to exist in the constitution, how does the judge get off telling Congress how to live up to the laws Congress passed ?
Here - take a lesson from Sweden:
http://www.banknotes.com/se62.htm
While modifications for accessibility are certainly not free to a business owner, neither are modifications for the non-disabled such as doors, windows, lights, etc. And most of these amenities are free to the clients.
Not to mention that in some jurisdictions, the government will give grants to business owners making adaptations for the disabled.
Good point. How cynical of you to think that someone might try to take advantage of the blind by abusing this otherwise perfect system, however. ;)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
From "Eye of the Beholder":
(paraphrased since it's been a long time since I've seen it)
Waiter: "Here's your drink, sir. That'll be six fifty."
Blind man: *hands him a folded bill*
Waiter: *lying* "Uhh...this is a five."
Joanna: *glances over* "No, you asshole, it's a TEN."
Waiter: "Oh, m-my mistake." *hurries off*
Blind Man: *smiles* "It's alright dear. I knew. See, I fold the fives the short way, and the tens the long way."
Caffeine is my anti-drug!
Duranin - A NWN2 Roleplaying Persistent World
Eight of those will make a Starman.
Foxnews has a report on the Judge's ruling. It should be added to article.
\
I didn't see Daredevil have any problems with his monetary tokens. And what's good enough for a crime-fighting, toxic waste surviving superhero is good enough for me.
...does your crack dealer take credit too?
We are looking at this form the wrong position. It is not the money that is discriminating. The problem is that we are all not blind. After the 30 sit down session from the government the only logical way to make this fair is to require Americans to gouge out their eyes so everyone is equal.
I'm sure the eye gouging stations will be brought up in the next congress hearings. And I'm sure riders will be added to protect Haliburton stockholders and a random crushing of some freedom that is seen as obsolete.
Really I am looking at the positive side of this....
When I was your age we didn't have music file sharing utilities. We had to go out to a store and shoplift the CD.
How would anyone profit if the blind hand them a $1 bill to pay for $100 worth of goods or services?
In a place I used to work, the candy vending machine had braille on the buttons, which correspond to "D", "1", etc. Great idea, until you realize that "D1" wasn't always the Twix bar - the guy that fills the machine is free to put the candy in whatever row he wants to (as long as it has the correct price). So, to the blind, it was pot luck candy dispensing. Just another 'not too well thought out' idea, I suppose.
I for one welcome our new [insert main topic] overlords.
Why is it so difficult to put some simple indentations in the bills? Can't decide a standard, why not use something that all (or most) blind people already use, like...oh, I don't know, BRAILLE maybe?
Canadian bank notes are all the same size, but differ in colour. In the upper right hand corner of each note has its value in braille that a blind person can just simply feel so they know what note it is.
Even the ATM's and debit machine all have brail on the number pad. It can't possibly be so difficult of a change for a currency (pardon the pun) to include brail. It can still look the same, but a tiny section is what might feel different.
Of course, sometimes it makes you wonder, since even the drive through ATMs have braille buttons....
My business goes elsewhere, and that also costs you money.
I just checked the six $20 (CDN) bills in my wallet.
They were new from the atm on Saturday, and I don't sit on my wallet.
All the raised dots are so flattened out that I can't feel them. The only way I can find them is to hold the bill edgewise to the light and glance along the edge of the bill.
Sorry, doesn't work.
The big advantage of paper currency is it is easy to carry a lot of it around. When I was a kid I knew a bookie who carried a couple thousand dollars in wads of twenties. He must've paid a fortune to the mob for protection because so far as I know he was never robbed.
But bookies aside, most large transactions are done by plastic, and paper is used for small transactions. So why not replace paper money with coins?
The most money I ever carry around in cash is about $200; if there were coins in all the same demonminations as bills up to $50, a person could easily carry several hundred, even a thousand dollars around.
We'd save a ton of money in printing. They'd be less convenient to counterfeit (imagine a suit case full of coins),and the larger coins could have electronic countermeasures to counterfeiting built in.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
While we're changing the money to make it more usable for those
poor folks that Jesus decided not to heal of their blindness,
could we maybe take off this little piece of free advertising
for churches? We put IN GOD WE TRUST on the money in 1954 to
piss off the Communists, but we don't need it any more since
God and Ronald Reagan scared them off. Perhaps it could be
replaced with something like the First Amendment.
"Skill shows through where genius wears thin." -Wittgenstein || Religion: uniting aviation and architecture.
Unless the US government does what the Australian government did when they replaced the old paper notes with new fancy (and good looking IMO) plastic banknotes and withdraws the old notes from circulation (replacing them all with new notes). Unless they do that, what will happen is that the people who are having trouble distinguishing between notes will continue to have trouble since they will continue to get the old (and hard to recognize) notes from ATMs, banks, shops and wherever else.
The other advantage of replacing all the notes is that you could make them much harder to counterfit and stop the bad guys from copying them.
Of course, it can never happen considering how many foriegn countries use the US dollar either as some kind of state sanctioned currency or (such as is/was the case in russia IIRC) as currency that isnt state sanctioned but is accepted by shops and stuff (in some cases even more so than the state currency) because the local currency isnt accepted by the rest of the world. And because of how many USD banknotes are in circulation worldwide.
There is an obvious solution. You see, the Constitution actually prohibits paper currency. While even the most strict interpretationalists would balk at the notion of the Court repealing it's Tender holdings, I think this is a good step. We'll just use coins for all currency. While not as portable (weight being a factor), at least it's easier to tell a penny from a quarter. We can create a 1, 5, 10, 20, 100 dollar coin.
However, I think this will likely be overturned. Why? Because checks only come in one size. Or, more specifically, the size of the check has no bearing on the value it represents.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
C'mon. Exactly how often does someone from the Treasury Department reply to a thread on Slashdot?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Accommodating the blind, like every service for disabled people, serves everyone. Not just because it gives "abled" people more easy access to disabled people without hassles in the transactions. But because we're all blind sometimes. Like when we want to handle cash without waving it around in front of our faces, like when paying in a dangerous area. Or when covertly getting a tip to someone. Or just in a dark room, where several cash-only transactions are popular.
And remember that machines are practically blind, too - machine vision doesn't accommodate all the conditions cash comes in when its handed to the machine, as anyone feeding wrinkled singles to a vending machine will tell you. These recognition systems can help machines to recognize bills more quickly and accurately.
Helping the blind helps everyone. It's long overdue, especially on something so universal and essential as handling cash.
--
make install -not war
Hey, paper money is also unfair to poor people. It discriminates against them in favor of more well off Americans.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Hmm, I think the larger problem here is that we cannot trust cashiers to tell a blind person they gave them a $20 bill instead of a $5 bill...
People are thinking about the other side of the equation -- blind people get paid in money, too.
You're right! We need a judge to fix this right now!
If it helps the blind then what is the big deal. In Canada we have $1 and $2 coins that replaced paper bills years ago. Everyone hated the idea back then but now nobody cares. The looney and the twooney are a part of Canadian culture now. We still use them an nobody thinks twice about it. There was talk about a $5 coin and people were rolling their eyes. If it happened nobody would ever think twice about it ten years down the road. They are more economical then paper money (last for decades) and are easier to distinguish for blind people. No matter what form money takes, people will still love having it in their pocket.
The U.S. Mint should try minting $5/$10/$20 coins - like they did with gold coins a long time ago. Don't make them bigger in size (have you ever put 4-5 Eisenhower dollars in your pocket?), and they don't have to be made of gold or be gold-colored - it is fiat currency, after all. Just make them bigger in denomination. It's better to try the larger denomination coins than keep minting dollar coins that get tossed after 1-2 years of minting...
What will happen to the US economy when this all gets traded up for the new shiny stuff...
Remember that this is the dollar bill we're talking about. Thousands upon thousands of machines only take dollar bills, not dollar coins; they would need to be refitted / reprogrammer. Then there's the fact that "singles" slip into strippers' garments - coins not so easily ;)
;) )
But, more important than anything else... it is an icon. It is not just a 1 Dollar bill. It is THE Dollar bill. That entire bill is the embodiment of The Dollar.
That said - sure, it can be done. Hell, entire nations dropped their -entire- monetary units and associated coins+bills for a new one (hello Euro). There's no specific reason the U.S. can't either. But imho, they're not about to.
On the other hand, maybe they would like to fix their coins. The Euro got them all messed up, too, of course (why is the 5ct greater than both the 10ct and the 2ct? Why do we still have those pointless 1ct and 2ct coins? At least in the U.S. there's places to go with your 1ct 'pennies' ( wishing ponds / pennny stretch machines
No - nothing is actually free to clients/customers.
If you complete eliminated my cost of doing business, I'd be able to sell you my product for almost nothing. If I have to install a ramp, an extra door, etc, it's for the convenience of my customers - and therefore, MAY bring me more customers. However, if the increase in business due to the existence of a ramp on the front of my building does not allow me to realize enough profit to justify said ramp, then it's costing ALL my clients because I'm going to have to raise my prices to recoup my costs.
I could keep my costs lower by selling stuff from a non-climate controlled barn, but the number of customers I'd lose wouldn't justify the savings in my costs. So, the door the non-handicapped client uses is a convenience that has increased my costs in order to retain customers who would be willing to pay slightly more to be able to purchase my product from inside a "real" building, and not a drafty barn.
So yes, there's no one "charging admission", but as soon as someone's cost of doing business increases, expect the cost to be passed on to their customers.
To stay on topic - we COULD force businesses to provide the blind with bill counters, but I'd rather leave it up to the business owner that wants to attract blind customers to come up with a way that is convenient and low-cost in such a way that everyone benefits.
-bs
That that is is not that that is not. That that is not is not that that is.
Somewhere along the line our nation went from a Republic to an odd politically correct hybrid of socialism where the rights of the few outweigh the rights of the many. 1% of the population can now dictate and control 99% of the population. That simply isn't right. [...] I'll tell you one thing; this kind of stuff sure as hell isn't what the founding fathers had in mind when they founded the nation, that's for sure.
Strange. Where in reading the Constitution and the early works of the founding fathers do you get the impression that majority will was always more sacred that minority liberty? Have you never heard the phrase "tyranny of the majority" as popularized by John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Toqueville? What do you think Madison was talking about in Federalist Paper no 10 when he said the following?
Why do you think that we have amendments specifically protecting freedom of speech, press, and religion from the popular will of the people if minority interests weren't intended to be preserved? Why has the minority party in the Senate always enjoyed the right of filibuster to preserve their interests? Why does the Senate itself even exist except to protect the interest of the smaller states against the larger? Why did we pass the 14th Amendment to protect the rights of all people at a time when people of one skin color and creed were by far the dominant majority?
Plurality and respect for the needs of the few over the wants of the many has been a central principle to the American democracy since its inception. If anything, it's the insistence on majoritarian dominance that is the greatest betrayal of our nations founding principles in our times as with it goes away all the rights and liberties that distinguish us from a totalitarian government.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I'm afraid your knowledge of Dalek military weaknesses is severely out of date. I can only assume you're not aiming for a job at the Torchwood Institute.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I don't know about the US but here there's been at least three situations in the last week where various stores have had their debit/Visa stations go down. In at least one case, I was told the situation was Canada-wide. Your plastic doesn't do much good if the machines that read it are non-functional, and Christmas shopping season is a not-uncommon time for the networks (debit/visa) to get slightly overloaded.
Furthermore, there are still some small shops around - even in big cities - that take only cash. These tend to be cafes, small eateries, or specialty shops, but I don't think anyone here has the right to say that those who are vision-impaired should just "shop elsewhere."
I can understand how forcing websites overall to be blind-friendly is a dumb idea - some sites/products cater to a visual audience - but for things such as cash and the necessities of life, you're damn tootin that it should be accessible to all.
It's cheaper for manufacturers to buy one set of keypad components for drive-up and walk-up ATMs than to buy two separate supplies and to manage the inventory.
Personally, I've always wondered how a blind person is supposed to read what's on the screen. Are their ATM cards flagged in some way to prompt the system to start reading options aloud to them?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
While the cost of retooling the printing machines and the whole printing process will definitely cost money, the overall costs of printing money bills should outweigh that. Blind people have a right for easy recognition of Dollar bills. The Euro has a recognizable relief in Braille for every bank note (don't know how well this works, if the bill is old or have been washed inadvertently). Furthermore, the Euro notes all differ in size. Should not be too difficult to (re)introduce that.
Oddly enough, I used to be friends with a blind guy who insisted he was able to tell the difference in denominations of paper bills by their feel. I was totally amazed, but I was able to hand him $1 or $10 or $5 bills and he could tell me which was which.
... but I guess it's something he learned to effectively use the majority of the time - if someone with sight wasn't able to tell him which bills were which.
The only thing I can figure is that maybe the smaller bills get used more frequently, so the paper has a slightly more "worn" feel to it. Of course, this probably doesn't do him any good if you hand him crisp, new $1's
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=dollar%20coin& ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wn
there are a new series of dollar coins on the way...
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I travel round different countries on work. I'm afraid I don't have the time to learn half a dozen different currencies by knowing the texture pattern of the faces. I am not from the US so I have no idea what the difference is between a new/old dollar bill. I just want to fly into an airport, take out some cash from an ATM, put it into my wallet and not have to spend five minutes in every shop/ bar pulling out all the notes and flipping through them to find the right ones to pay for my purchase. Every time I do that I feel like I've got a big neon sign over my head saying "mug me". As a fully sighted person, I find clearly different colours with distinct designs and a clear numerical value work for me. Plus I'd agree with other posters, get rid of one dollar notes and bring in coins for ones and twos.
Does "closing the tab" mean nothing to you?
For those of you who think the cash card helpd: she started using that frequently but would often be 'incorrectly charged' because asshole clerks would just scan something onto the list for themselves (pack of smokes here, pop there). But she was very good at counting blips and beeps so she'd ask the clerk to re-scan everything. Very shrewd woman. Still, it didn't always work and she'd have her husband marching down to the corner store and whatnot on occation to demand money back.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
Also, note that you can't just use debit cards for everything.There's nothing stopping them from using mastercard.
Oh, I thought this was an article about how some blind guy patented money and was suing the US for not paying license fees. Never mind then...
Life needs more saving throws.
Duh!
And the strippers will think they're $20's if they don't look carefully, and will be VERY nice to you.
(I learned this from my girlfriend. Yes, I'm serious. Well, at least about the who-I-learned-it-from part. And the weird thing is that it wasn't even the ex-stripper girlfriend who told me this.)
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
There may be good reasons to make currency in different sizes.
However, it seems crazy to force all cash-register-using merchants in the us to throw away the old machines and buy new ones. It seems crazy to make every ATM across American useless. Likewise machines that sell cigarettes or stamps or anything else that accepts bills, or bill changers. It seems lunatic to cause the kind of chaos to manufacturers of any kind of machine that processes bills.
This is causing chaos to the multitude to provide special privilege to the small group, and it's crazy. Or, more exactly, it's just stupid. It is roughly equivalent to outlawing CRT monitors or paintings in museums because blind persons cannot see them.
If you also think it's stupid, then give the judge's office a call and let him know it's stupid. The phone number is (202) 354-3460. (I'm not blabbing any secrets. Web search on 'U.S. District Judge James Robertson' presents the phone number to you.)
== buddha is as buddha does ==
Informative +1
...and when I visit the US I find the banknotes hard to distinguish. However, is there not a theory that hard-to-distinguish banknotes deter fraud (because you have to look carefully at them you are more likely to spot an iffy one)?
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
If they change U.S. currency to different size bills for different denominations, that will break dozens of popular bill-transformation magic tricks.
Hasn't anyone given any thought to how this would affect the livelihood of the hundreds of professional and semi-professional magicians in the U.S.?
Serving your airship needs since 1995.
And if you add some kind of relief on the bills as well then you will most likely cut down on counterfeit bills as well. Swedish bills have the numbers printed with reliefs and it's very easy just to run your finger over them to make a preliminary check (please) if the bill is real.
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
The big problem with USA notes is that not only are they the same size, but they are the same colour. There have already been studies showing the interpretation of text on a bank note is actually done after colour or size. This is why many countries use both size and distinct colour (blue vs green, as opposed to green vs some other shade of green) as clues to their different values. Examples: The EU bank notes does both, the UK bank notes are different colour, as are the Canadian bank notes are also of different colour. Add to all this the Australian bank notes, which are not only different colours, but are made out of plastic!!!
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I would be interested in knowing how stable various currencies have been historically to compare with how accessible they are. I'd guess that the more accessible they are, the more likely they are to have been changed because the previous currency became devalued in world markets.
The solution, of course, is to buy a car or bicycle instead of using a taxi, read your newspapers online (hey, it saves some trees, too!), get others to buy the drinks at the bar and skip donations to charities that only accept cash (what are they doing, supporting terrorism?).
easy: make the bills different colors!
This judge needs to be taken out and shot. He may be right that it would be a good thing to change our currency to be more blind-friendly, but it is certainly not mandated by Sec. 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. This kind of behavior by judges is in stark opposition to the U.S. Constitution which they are sworn to protect, and is why we are living in less and less of a republican (democratic) system of government. He is the very definition of a "domestic enemy of the Constitution".
"Lets see, is it three goats and a berry for an iTunes song, or is it four?"
Make that three goatse and a Blackberry, and you're on!
Where were you when the voynix came?
Coins and strippers. That *would* be a shame ... maybe.
Quack, quack.
Is anyone else envisioning this stirring up the same kind of drama that arose back in the Carter administration when there was the big push to make the U.S. join the rest of the world on the metric system? That went over great.
What needs to happen is this: Associate our current uniform currency color/size with terrorism in some way. Then we will happily change over to beads and shells if necessary.
I *hate* coins. They are heavy and cumbersome. Want to save money? Get rid of them.
Quack, quack.
I can't believe nobody mentioned the best part of having polymer bills -- get a nylon wallet and you can launder your money while you launder your clothes -- no more emptying your pockets on laundry day!
I have watched my wife for years struggle with telling one bill from another. Hardly a day goes by that she does not come to me to do the simple task of separating out bills. It about time this was done. Here's some simple ways that this might be accomplished.
Eliminate the $1 bill in favor of a $1 coin. That means we stop printing $1 bills. In a few months they will wear out and disappear. The reason $1 coins have never recived wide acceptance is that we keep printing the bills. Stop printing the bills and people will use the coins.
Change the dominate color of the bills, many blind persons can still detect color so if we have red $5, blue $10, green $20 Yellow $50 and white $100 many people could quickly tell.
Have the bill slightly different sizes as they increase in value.
Print in 10 point Helvetica type on each side of the bill the value of the note. So each note would have "five dollars" for example. This would permit the blind to use reading devices which are common in public libraries to read the bills many blind persons, including my wife, own such devices and there are portable ones as well. This would avoid having to purchase a special device just to read currency.
Braille on bills would seem to be problematic to me. How do we keep it from becoming crushed down and unreadable. Perhaps a Canadian here can tell us if this is an issue with their currency.
Make all the bills different colours, that'll help!.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
The thing is, this also impacts retailers as well.
They now have to buy all new cash drawers to accomodate newly resized bills.
And while not horrendously expensive, the amount of money spent for this with larger establishments will be non-trivial.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
In many countries the different bills are different sizes, no way to easily defeat this.
No sig for the moment.
After a trip to Aus and NZ I had some left over bills. A little wrinkled, but fit for framing (I've got a frame with currency from about 25 nations). I hadn't paid enough attention to realize they were plastic based (hats off to the folks making them. Great quality)) and ironed a NZ $10. It contracted like a piece of shrink tubing.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Even if you are familiar with it, its real easy to make mistakes. I've even seen it happen to my wife, and she's lived in this country all her life.
Now in Russia, when you change US money, they put every bill under a loop, to check if its fake. So not only is it currently hard to tell one bill from another, but its also easy to fake.
Squirrel!
Judges are NOT activists. This is another swing at judicial credibility that causes people to stop taking the rule of law seriously..... and I don't blame them.
Judges are becoming just as slimy as personal injury lawyers. They are believing that they have to make something of themselves in order to justify their occupation and give their career some meaning. Well, that's not how it works. You become a good judge by interpreting the law fairly, not by becoming an activist judge and defaulting to the less fortunate and/or more popular party.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
If they start changing money fit this ruling, I'm just going to start removing the changes or ironing out the Braille or embossing just out of sheer spite of this judge and his ruling.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
While we're talking about accessible currency, pull some American coins out of your pocket and tell me how much each is worth. Now pretend you're trying to do it with only a passing knowledge of English. It's tough. The coins we have in circulation don't have digits indicating their worth. The quarter? It just says "Quarter Dollar". You need to know that the word "quarter" means "1/4". The penny and nickel? Not quite so bad, reading "One Cent" and "Five Cents", though "1 Cent" and "5 Cents" would be a lot better. But the worst is the dime. What's printed on it? "One Dime". Great! WTF is a "dime"!? It says "one" -- Must be $0.01, right? After all, it's the smallest coin, it should have the smallest value...
Travel someplace where you don't speak the native language, and you'll be glad for actual Arabic numerals on the money!
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
I have a hard time seeing in low light. This will be great when I am tipping a stripper or paying a prostitute in a dark alley.
Judicial Activism.
How dare these judges legislate from the bench? Matters such as these should be left to the legislative branch, not the judiciary. How can we achieve equality with such activist judges?
I will write to my local congressman and ask him to impeach this activist judge.
Now this is just a personal grudge, but ... could y'all make your currency a little bit less ugly? I get the occasional American note from a tourist (call me a bad person if you must, but I savour the heartbroken look in their eyes when I tell them that American currency exchanges at par now), and they look horrible. Maybe they could be brightened up a bit? American coins aren't too shabby, but the bills look like some kind of econut's toilet paper. Green inks aren't that much more affordable than the other colours. Put some pictures of great American scientists on them, some bright colours. Maybe some unicorns and rainbows on the $50 to make homosexuals happy, a picture of Betty Page on the $5 for the rest of us, a cute little cocaine sensor on the $20 ... it would be fabulous!
Drop the penny, drop the dollar bill, redesign the 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100, and call it good. There is no reason for the penny still existing, and no reason for there to be paper dollars. Well, there is one reason, we are resistant to change.
Learn to love Alaska
Once you divide the cost of a ramp by the number of customer visits, it comes pretty damned close to being free to the consumer. Outside of egregriously high fixed costs, vendors only need to worry about marginal costs. Tens (or even hundreds) of thousands of dollars spread out over tens or hundreds of thousands of customer visits is a negligible cost.
What I want to know is, will we finally be able to ditch the Illuminati pyramid and eye and get rid of the crazy Latin phrases?
Maybe something more American, like "Either you're with us or you're against us." ha.
...that someone needs to look carefully at their money before they spend it?
What a heinous idea.
Oh, and y'know, there are lots of things blind people cannot do that sighted can. That's why it's called a HANDICAP.* What's next, we're going to complain that 'foul balls (in baseball) are unfair to blind people, who risk injury even TRYING to catch them, therefore they should be banned/prevented from happening"?
* for those benighted neaderthals that aren't politically correct.
-Styopa
Works as Intended. Will Not Fix.
US bills are the worst designed in the world. All the bills look so much alike, even normal people make mistakes. See this video, in which a police officer abuses a drive-thru clerk because the officer thought the clerk short-changed him.
The silly thing is, these days, they redesign the bills every few years to stay ahead of the counterfeiters, and the new bills are just as indistinguishable as their predecessors. Pathetic.
what color they are... Your ass is grass.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property"
I'd say that having things such that it's impossible for the blind to properly use cash money abridges their privileges, especially since cash money is essentially the only way to make a purchase while protecting their privacy granted in Griswold v. Connecticut.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Go read the Constitution, and read what the Founding Fathers had to say about judicial terms. Do you know why judges aren't elected? Because otherwise they'd have to worry about getting elected and they'd have to bow to popular pressure where they should instead be bowing to the Constitution.
I remember seeing someone with a sig saying What those who desire activist judges fear is rule by the people.My response? What those who hate activist judges fear is rule by the Constitution.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
I'm shocked no one has said it yet.
This is potentially a *good* use of RFID. Face it, RFID is coming to paper money. It's not a matter of "if" but "when".
Then blind folks will be able to scan with a portable RFID scanner and have the denomations read off to them.
I think the vending machine industry would LOVE different sized currency.
Because they would get to sell new machines to all their customers.
You're applying US money-counting methods, where you have to see the face of the note, ie. take it out of your wallet or spread it wide enough to see the figures. You can count aussie currency without taking it out of your wallet and without spreading the wallet wide. It's less visible to others near you. Edge on, it's easy to count. So in this regard, it's more secure even from a personal carrying point of view.
Anyway, by 'getting rid of them' I don't mean replacing them with paper currency.
Quack, quack.
"the tubes" in London
I assure you cannot pay for a ticket on the Tube with a $20 bill.
hahah that was just a point of reference for what the heck a "metro" is to us in DC. I think they take a 20-pound bill there though ;-)
look! it's a bird, it's a plane, it's....a girl? yes, a girl browsing Slashdot on Linux
Remember that this is the dollar bill we're talking about. Thousands upon thousands of machines only take dollar bills, not dollar coins; they would need to be refitted / reprogrammer.
;)
In Canada this took all of about 1 year for almost all vending machines to be switched over. Until then they were quick to deploy change machines that gave you quarters. However, if you notice, the Canadian one dollar coin is exactly the same size and shape as the US Sakajawaya (or whatever the hell you call it). Therefore, the hardware has already been designed - deployment could be nearly instantaneous with advance warning. In fact I saw some vending machines in the US that took the US $1 coins.
Then there's the fact that "singles" slip into strippers' garments - coins not so easily
All I can say to you is if you haven't been to some of the seedier Canadian strip clubs, you have no idea... Two things: (A) Canadians also have a larger $2 coin, and (B) strip clubs in Canada are fully nude. I won't go any farther than that. Human imagination has no limits when it comes to erotic entertainment.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Also, issue a three dollar bill, which smells a bit queer.
I'm tired of carrying 1-dollar bills! It's about time we got rid of them and switched to $1 and $2 coins. This means less change to carry around and a 'slimmer' wallet with the same fat content. Look at the Canadians, they don't have any problems with Looneys and Twoneys!
-Palal
While slightly off topic, I think another thing that should be added to our currency is numbers denoting the value of each coin.
Look at a quarter, penny, or dime (I think).
They proudly say on them:
One Quarter
One Cent
One Dime
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Nothing can be done before the tremendous power!
RabidComics
Well excuse me if you're so hyper-sensitive. I mention China because I have lived there. I've never been to Europe so I wouldn't know about the Euro.
eTrade SUCKS
Of course stacking is done by the same denominations. Howevere, it's really easy for money to get lost in the wallet when I don't have time to sit down and sort my money (say if I'm in a rush or in a store).
When there's a small bill hiding behind two large ones in my wallet, it becomes really easy for the small bill to slip out or fall out when I am trying to get the large one. Plus it's hard to find the small bills hiding behind the large ones.
eTrade SUCKS
No kidding.
You'd think that someone who's familiar with the Chinese currency has probably lived there. Logic would tell you that people who go out of their way to go and live in another country would hardly be considered racist toward the host country.
eTrade SUCKS
Since you are suggesting that we go ahead and burden the American people with the taxes that will be needed to make all these changes for our blind brethren (and sisters), could we go ahead and leave the "In God We Trust" off the money so that us Atheists can feel that we aren't being discriminated against by our government (the one that is suppose to have a seperation of church and state?).
"The benefit from making forgery harder might well make it worth the effort."
Large-scale forgery may be a problem as it removes confidence in a currency, but a certain amount is manageable and can go unnoticed.
FACT: If the Federal Reserve creates more bills the value of each US bill in the world-market goes down*. Forgery increases the amount of currency in circulation without being declared. More currency in circulation is good for the economy. Therefore you are helping the economy by bleaching $1 bills and turning them into $100's. Do your bit for the economy, and help America grow! - excerpt from "How I got Rich helping the economy (and why the government was wrong to put me in prison)"
Next week: War is Peace (How America is bringing peace to the middle-east)
* For further reading see the whole private organization/inflation is a tax on your savings meme.
I would rather keep some purchases that I have made, and places I have been to myself.
modern bills all have strips that fluoresce under UV light in a different color and location (except for $1).
just get a reader and you are all set. "seeing" people would benefit by checking the authenticity of large bills with the same hardware, or in an environment where it is hard to see. Example:
I was passed off a phony $5 canadian bill at a gas station. when I tried to buy a falafel pita in ottowa, the pita lady told me my (last and only) $5 was fake! She pulled a good $5 out of her cash drawer and showed me the size, color and texture differences. My travelling companion graciously purchased my falafel for me and suggested I pass off the bill in a darker place. Getting drinks at the dance club later that night (unlike many slashdot users, I am actually not a total loser, but I couldn't C++ my way out of a wet paper bag...) I passed off the bill no problem. The barkeep was younger and sharper-eyed than pita-lady, but he didn't spot the fake because of poor viewing conditions. Therefore, a bill-reader that takes advantage of current UV or IR security features or future tech such as size, texture, would help detect frauds AND be a feature for disabled people.
Consider also that it would be a lot cheaper (and much faster) to distribute a device to authenticate money than to change the whole money supply... although they do that pretty frequently too...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Also, note that you can't just use debit cards for everything. There are quite a few things in life that you do need cash for, and blind people should not be excluded from being able to use regular money.
The US has perfectly good coins in denominations up to $1, which can be distinguished by blind people. If people are mainly using cash for small (for example, under $5) purchases, and cards for everything else, why not promote the use of coins for small purchases more?
Blind people who use cash already have methods to tell bills apart. The only one I'm really familiar with is folding the bills in different ways. If you get the money from a cash counter, you will probably ony get 20s now (at least anywhere I go you do) so you have your starting point... If you need other denominations, no point in asking the teller at the bank to help you, just ask for 5 tens, then ask for 10 fives... Actually, this method works fairly well, except when getting change back, if you receive a mix of bills, but the solution is simply to carry around enough of each bill to be able to come close, and know which bill you are getting back... ie I need to pay $26, so if I give $30, I'll have 4 $1 bills, but if I hand over $40, I could have a ten, or 2 fives and the 4 ones... even then, counting the bills should tell you what you got, and if the person at the cash is any good, the largest denominations should be at the bottom. If you don't want to ask for help, just shove the bills in another pocket, and then go to the bank at the end of the week, and have the teller write out the deposit slip for you...
If you can get the blind person's $100 bill to punch the holes to make it a $1, then you can just take the $1 bill. If it was punched prior to the blind person receiving it, then the blind person would either have received it as a $1 bill (so he's out no money), or he would be aware that he had a $100 bill that felt like a $1 bill and wouldn't be so casual about it. Again, not that there aren't plenty of other problems...
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
The real question is, does completely changing the way $$$ is produced (which includes the huge $$$ amount associated with such transformation & implementation = tax dollars) outweigh the benefits it would be to those that are blind.
To the blind maybe, but to others I'm not sure changing US currency would be completely justified considering the enormous price tag.
How many people are blind in the USofA? Is there an estimate somewhere?
OK, let's see how we can make currency accessible to the blind with a minimum of government involvement.
;-)
A cheap, do-it-yourself, pocket-sized Braille money marker was patented in 1997. But the vendor seems to be out of business, and I can't find a similar product for sale today. Makes me wonder just how painful the problem really is.
http://tinyurl.com/ymsxdo
Today's tech would easily enable a battery-powered money reader and Braille marker about the size of an iPod and costing far less than the $30 for which this non-reading manual embosser was offered. We're talking about an extremely simple optical character recognition subsystem that can read the large unique numerals in the corners of bills, and six solenoid-driven pins to emboss the Braille marks for 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, or 100 (the only denominations currently in production). Stick any or all corner(s) of a bill in the device and it automatically reads and embosses.
I'll wager that such a thing can be built with mail-order parts and open-source software by any State's high school science fair semi-finalist. (Well, maybe not Mississippi's.
The Treasury should publish standards for such a process, allowing entrepreneurs to build competing devices. Competition will keep prices down and encourage innovation.
Let the IRS give a tax credit to anyone who submits a receipt with his 1040, even if he's not blind. Anyone who chooses to help the blind (and the Treasury) by spending his spare moments embossing currency deserves a tax break, too.
This plan would get the job done faster and at less cost to taxpayers than the bureaucratic alternatives. Also, we'd learn just how badly blind people and their advocates really want Braille-encoded currency.
If you could get their $100 bill in order to mod it, wouldn't you just keep it? (Assuming you're going to be dishonest, that is.) If they received it already modded, then they would either have gotten it as $1 so no loss to them, or (more likely) they would know that they had a faulty $100 bill in their wallet and make sure they weren't giving that one away as $1.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?