Slashdot Mirror
London Launches World's First Contactless Payment Scheme For Street Performers (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Here's a casualty of the cashless society you might not have previously thought of: the humble street performer. After all, if more of us are paying our way with smartphones and contactless cards, how can we give spare change to musicians on the subway? London has one solution: a new scheme that outfits performers with contactless payment terminals. The project was launched this weekend by the city's mayor, Sadiq Khan, and is a collaboration with Busk In London (a professional body for buskers) and the Swedish payments firm iZettle (which was bought this month by PayPal for $2.2 billion). A select few performers have been testing iZettle's contactless readers on the streets for the past few weeks, and Khan now says the scheme will be rolled out across London's 32 boroughs.
Now "Sorry, I don't carry cash" is no excuse. We can all donate to those unsung heroes of our society, people who do robot dances in the middle of the sidewalk.
And you don't have to get peed on to be tainted forever.
Not the crusty jugglers. Who's next? Homeless people?
The burden of Dick Van Dyke's atrocious accent.
People are already detached from social interaction. Do we really need this nonsense? How is the street performer going to look the person in the eye and thank them?
Great, yet another job where you can't just set up on your own, now you need accreditation and infrastructure to make a living.
What's next, EFTPOS for beggars?
...that some enterprising busker does not put the reader at waist height in a crowded area and gain hundreds of "taps" from unsuspecting passersby.
Now I don't have to risk touching the filthy beggars to make them go away with money. Can I get one on the end of a baton for maximum range? Perhaps on the end of a cane that also sprays delousing agent?
So their modest income is now trackable by the government, if not now, very soon. It’s only a matter of time until even the oldest profession in the world is monitored by governments for taxes due.
It feels weird saying this but street performers in China have had QR codes for both WeChat and Alipay for a while now. It's been around so long it isn't even an a novelty any more.
This won't solve anything. Very sad stuff.
I have seen a street performer with a QR code panel for payments.
Looks like a great way to do contactless pickpocketing?
Isn’t this the reason they exist?
#DeleteChrome
In brief, get a real job.
I thought one of the advantages of a cashless society was the minimization of street solicitation via restriction of payment opportunities.
Also 1600+ 'acid attacks' since 2010.
Here's a casualty of the cashless society you might not have previously thought of: the humble street performer
No, I've totally thought about it... them and the bums. I have loads of cash on me but I refuse to give any of them a dime. Especially the ones who try to scam the "I need $15 for a room" No you don't... shelters are free. And the "I need $20 to get a train ticket." And they're there for weeks. You don't need no train ticket.
STOP ENABLING THE LEECHES
Or, get out of my chair!
the murder rate is astronomical and rising rapidly
Looking at the graph for homicide it looks like there's a general downward trend dipping to the lowest point in 2012 and rising a little since. A note is made that the 9 people killed in the London Bridge and Finsey Park attacks are included in the 2017 figures.
In fact, the graphs of all violent crime show the same downward trend across the last couple of decades.
Do you have any source of information that shows differently? The wikipedia article cautions about the difficulty of obtaining information and that the data from the police needs to be treated with caution. It's possible that there's something that's been missed, but all you have at the moment is an assertion and some vague implications about 'Muslim extremists'.
100% digital cash is very useful for a dictatorship. Of course China is ahead.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
I guess either A: All street performers in the world suck or B: You're some kind of blinders-on type of asshole who boasts about being anti-patronage online for... standard slashdot asshole cred points - And it's not A.
And they're jailing journalists for engaging in journalism.
London is being crushed by one violent knife attack after another, the murder rate is astronomical and rising rapidly - and not coincidentally, the city is almost universally known as Londonistan. The entire country is being overrun by Muslim extremists. And getting cashless payments to street bums is something they consider important?
citation? where do you find this astronomical murder rate, from all information I can find it is the opposite.
has ever been dumb enough to give money to a street performer?
I have, many times, and in many cities. If they put on a good show, and make me laugh, I am happy to contribute a few bucks to their livelihood and keep street culture alive.
China has even beggars accepting WeChat Pay for at least a year or two already.
In what way is this system “World’s First”?
and yet london despite its "relatively" high murder rate is still safer than most US cities. Most of those stabbings also have absolutely nothing to do with religion, the majority are just the average nightclub/bar fight.
It's only by focusing on specific months that happen to be outliers on both sides that the "London more dangerous than New York" claim can be made. e.g. find a month in which there was a dip in the NY murder rate and a spike in the London murder rate, and they can overlap, for just that one month.
That's despite 2017 being a "record low" for New York, with 290 murders, while London saw 116 murders the same year.
e.g. even the high estimate for London murders this year, assuming short-term trends continue, is less than New York had only last year. If New York is safer, that's because New York's rate has fallen so much, not because of a particularly alarming rise in London.
Of course, because you're not a jerk. And you never know who the person with his instrument case open on the ground might someday become. The list of famous musicians who were once buskers is very long.
Rod Steward, B.B. King, Steve Martin, Janis Joplin and Robin Williams were all street performers at one time. Busking is an honorable livelihood.
People who say they would never give money to a busker simply do not have any soul whatsoever.
And let's not forget that master musician Sonny Rollins used to walk the few blocks from his New York apartment to play on the Williamsburg Bridge. He ended up getting a famous album out of it, reigniting his career and creating an image that was later used during the introduction to The Simpsons, with Lisa playing on a bridge. I seem to recall Rollins was even in an episode of the show.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Thank you, I appreciate the link.
The judge's comments seem deeply out of touch. More interesting was the the graph and some commentary around it further on in the article. Reported knife crime does seem to be making a marked climb from a recent low.
Below the graph, the following information is provided - fatalities per year from stabbing 186, 212, and 215, respectively for 2015, 2016 and 2017. It then mentions that in the first 100 days of 2018, 53 people have been killed, some by knife. Even if we assume all 53 are knife attacks and we assume the rate remains constant, it would imply that 2018 will have a total of ~180, lower even than 2015. Why not say so? Is 'in the capital' the same as 'in London'? I'd assume so, but in that case why not make it explicit. The way the information is presented is inconsistent - I'd prefer to believe that it's just incompetence, but I'm concerned that this is designed to feed an agenda.
I find knife bans odd for the very reason the judge acknowledges - they are ubiquitous. Banning pointed kitchen blades isn't a solution. Re-shaping a blade is trivial; making a blade is trivial - it's one of the first tools mankind made, second, perhaps, only to a hammer.
This is a good lesson to you younger Slashdotters out there: racism makes you stupid. Look what's happened to poor Brett Buck (811747). He was probably just like you or me at one time, and could tell the difference between a National Front/Fox News fever dream and reality. Now, all he can do is holler things that are provably untrue.
Don't be like Brett Buck. You have your life ahead of you and there's just no coming back from racist insanity when it gets to that point.
You are welcome on my lawn.
OK, I'm a little lost.
Serious question; what of this was trolling?
I'm providing evidence to support disagreement and call out that it may not be complete or unbiased. I've avoided a 'citation please' when asking for something to support the original statement. I've dismissed the race-baiting as being unrelated to the original statement.
Or is this moderation a kind of meta-troll?
Don't be like Brett Buck. You have your life ahead of you and there's just no coming back from racist insanity when it gets to that point.
Awww, shoot. Here I am waitin fer the Powerball show ta come on and you go and bring me down worse'n a catfish enema. I just had ma heart set on bein narrow-minded AND short-sighted. Damn. Now I am depressed. Gladys! You fat bitch! Fetch me anudder PBR! Hey Popedude. You know PBR stands fer Putin's BeeR? Ha! I shoulda been a co-median.
By the way, don't try that catfish enema thing, even with a mostly dead one. You'd think it'd feel interesting, but the watchword here is: serious spines.
why have a terminal that needs maintenance, can break down, cost money etc.. why not just use a QR sticker that linked to the performers bank account...
In India we can pay the taxi driver, street shops etc by just scanning the QR code displayed by them...
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/us-fantasies-of-islamised-britain-do-matter-twwxk8qfx
The Times claims that everything you just said is totally untrue and it's not that way at all.
Yes, it's paywalled, but you can read enough to get where the rest of that article is going.
I think that's a sign of a woefully broken society. People aren't meant to (not) interact like this. This isn't healthy.
I don't respond to AC's.
In so-called "third world countries" ("emerging markets" in PCish), we call that, for some reason that currently escapes me, "Corruption".
While you do go to some effort to take your somewhat on target point too far, let me reply.
The WHOLE point of this is diversion.
The people who 'feel good' from the idea of the noble busker getting money are happy.
The people who are incensed at the local government putting its effort in to this are up in arms about this payment scheme, therefore diverting them from the things the local government would rather they did not focus on.
So, it is basically a win win for these people.
So yes, they consider it important, because it helps them stay in power doing what they want to do (most of which is kept carefully out of public view).
Ah, but it is not controlled, and more importantly tracked, by the local government (well, it is China, I'm sure they have back door access, but hey).
BTW, WeChat has spread a lot further than China, but not quite as commonly.
It is hard to see how people are thick enough to think that 'cashless society' is an advantage to them.
But people are always going out of their way to impress with their stupidity.
Aren't they always telling you not to give money to beggars too?
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Que?
Who the hell is going to fish out a visa card, type a value into a reader, swipe / wave the card etc. instead of just tossing a coin in a guitar case?
LOL. Keep telling yourself that.
the city is almost universally known as Londonistan.
Never heard that term. But maybe I live beyond the stretches of the universe (30 miles)
According to wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Londonistan) it seems to be American publications which have picked it up.
Busking is an honorable livelihood.
Busking & other street entertainment can be an honorable livelihood.
It can also be thinly disguised begging / harassment, e.g. those people who board a subway train and play a song to a captive audience whether they want to hear it or not. Or costumed characters who mill around tourist spots (e.g. people dressed as Romans around the Colluseum in Rome), causing trouble for tourists or each other on a regular basis.
The only way to separate legitimate performers from the rest is to require them to hold permits, abide by certain rules about where they may perform and have a system that prevents one group / performer from dominating a particular spot. Providing they have talent then none of these things should prove to be impediments.
Incidentally, London implements a licensing scheme for its public transport. I presume plenty of other cities do the same.
These are the Muzzi-Wog pestilent Brit imports that rape white teens ? They get paid how by Soros Juuboi ??
It's not about numbers to people like this, they don't like a demographic and everything else is seen as an opportunity to blame that demographic regardless of truth or credibility. The homicide per capita rate for the USA is over 4 times London's and the US rate although high by western european standard is low; that alone says everything about how credible any American claiming London is dangerous/has astronomical murder rates is.
has ever been dumb enough to give money to a street performer?
What has dumb got to do with appreciating some dirt cheap entertainment?
Oh yeah, the same people who will happily charge 2 pounds...oops...decimal point...200 pounds to a random person on the street.
Just because someone is a street performer doesn't mean they are automatically criminals or arsehats. The same can not be said for some Slashdot posters.
The list of famous musicians who were once buskers is very long.
While not famous, I saw the best guitar player at our school who has gone to do great things in the local musical scene busking long after he was able to afford to live as a musician without a second job to support him.
I asked him why, and he just said, why not. The difference between playing at home on the couch and playing here in the subway station is that I get free dinner doing it here.
London is fine, knife attacks are quite under control in a city of 8million, the vast majority of them never actually involve an attack, the murder rate is lower than it's been in the past and well below that of New York or Chicago, the city certainly isn't known as Londonistan to anyone other than racist fucks, and when you walk around there's no a Muslim extremist to be seen.
Speaking of being seen you can't see me giving you the finger right now for sharing such sheer and utter stupidity. You give the human race a bad name. I hope you get murdered by a Muslim terrorist, but you probably live in London given you are so passionate about the city so the odds of that happening are sadly quite low.
Yeah you could see it like that. The other way of seeing it is jailing people who re-offend multiple times of being in contempt of court. Oh and fuck you for calling Tommy Robinson a journalist. He is as much of a journalist as Freddy Krueger is a surgeon. Just because you have a knife or a mic in your hand doesn't make you that profession.
This is a good lesson to you younger Slashdotters out there: racism makes you stupid.
Except that "muslim" isn't a race.
Who's stupid again?
What people don't realise is why the UK is a powerhouse of comedy and music is because there is a very large population with lots of street and small venues to hone your skills at e.g. pubs. Edinburgh fringe being the perfect example for comedy, and the massive number of music festivals for music. Also if you are a terrible performer people will be polite, they just wont pay you any money which gives you time to improve your skills without any hostility.
You can start off at your local pub or working mans club, making contacts and honing your skills and work your way up to rock star!..
Put these readers at toilets in central London (and other places) so I can use my contactless to relieve myself when I don't have coins on me. Oyser users may also appreciate it if they can use their card for this purpose too.
"Everybody's naked underneath" -- The Doctor
I have noissue notgiving anything. But I will also not sta d there and then give nothing.
Most of the time I do not stop and go on my way and am annoyed by the speakers they have added, so that I can not ignore it.
If I add money when I am entertained, can I remove money when I am not and am annoyed?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
So the answer to "Who's stupid again?" is you. Trying to argue that you're not a cunt by saying you're a different kind of cunt still means you are a cunt.
Nice misogyny there you woman-hater. Lock yourself up for your incessant hate-speech you criminal offender.
This is a good lesson to you younger Slashdotters out there: racism makes you stupid. Look what's happened to poor Brett Buck (811747). He was probably just like you or me at one time, and could tell the difference between a National Front/Fox News fever dream and reality. Now, all he can do is holler things that are provably untrue.
Don't be like Brett Buck. You have your life ahead of you and there's just no coming back from racist insanity when it gets to that point.
When you respond with derision instead of fact it suggests the original poster is presenting truth you don't want spoken. If it's so dumb and silly you ought to be able to refute it properly.
How about stating he didn't provide any sources instead of ad-hominem attack?
He identifies as a journalist, so who are you to say otherwise, you hateful bigot?
If Bitcoin were more widely adopted, it would be a simple (and cheap) matter for a street performer to tape or glue a printed QR code to a makeshift sign above the jar/hat/guitar case/etc so that those without cash can digitally transfer cryptocurrency to a waiting wallet.
The beggars and street bums in San Francisco already are equipped to take credit cards, but this will really step up their game. Thanks, tech industry!
Sounds great until the government decides they don't want the street performers and simply shuts it all down electronically. Or decides to take 90% of their money, or pays even more as a way to inspire more street performers.
These schemes put too much control in government hands. next thing you know they lock up anybody that says something not liked. Somebody like TOMMY ROBINSON.
This is a good lesson to you younger Slashdotters out there: Propaganda makes you stupid. Look with your own eyes and see what is happening. Believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see.
Muslims are a problem, you can see it yourself.
Politicians are silencing your voice, if you doubt me then go speak out in favor of Tommy Robinson and against islam and see what happens to you.
e.g. people dressed as Romans around the Colluseum in Rome
Of course the people who live in Rome dress like Romans. Pretty much by definition. People in Albuquerque dress like Albuquerquians.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
PopeRatzo never claimed it was.
All that was claimed is racism makes you stupid, and prone to rants like the above.
I think cause and effect are being mixed up though. Those afraid of everything become racist because they live in constant fear and feel that it's one of the ways they can fight their fear.
Not one bit. I'm also a street performer (3 card monte) and I definitely only want cash.
For years, my standard response to the panhandlers infesting our downtown area has been, "Do you take debit?"
If this catches on, I'll have to revert to my former practice of politely asking them to fuck off.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Obviously, if you say things the Muslim-cock-smoking UK government doesn't like and exposes their bigotry against their own citizens, you're not a journalist...hell, you're not even a human-fucking-being, and they can do anything they like to you because abducting and raping children and selling them as sex slaves is a Muslim Right.
Perhaps actually reading what he (the judge) said might help. He did not say get rid of kitchen knives, only the point at the end of said knives, acknowledging that most people at home rarely need a pointed knife at home for cooking. He's retiring and simply stating the majority of knives used in attacks were standard chef knives in the 8-10 inch size.
He did NOT say start dulling the blades. He did say remove the sharp tip. A very clear distinction.
I disagree with the current trend to not allow people to carry any type of knife, and wonder how my Scouting days or my DofE expeditions would have been if we weren't carrying at least pocket knives (still have my Swiss Army knife from those days, as well as the larger fixed blade I frequently used to shave sticks for kindling and fire starters...). But I am currently back in the US, where we can own firearms, and I daily carry a folding knife (with a lock) because at least a few times a week at work it is the most useful tool to open boxes, etc.
You don't owe anything for unsolicited performances. Otherwise performers would owe ME money for expending energy to move away from their noise.
So it a well-functioning public transport system (they will know where you went and when), and public health care system (they will know all about your body).
I guess that's also why American don't have those either.
I identify myself as the pope. Are you going to bow down before me and kiss my ring?
Interestingly when you google his name, what do people in general identify him as? Oh that's right Political Activist. It's right there on his own wikipedia profile. Maybe if he identified himself as a journalist he would get that fixed.
Also you calling someone bigot is a bit pot calling the kettle black don't you think? I mean until you kiss my magical pope ring you have displayed just as much biggotry in this thread as I have.
Jack the ripper, shut your cake hole.
Racism itself doesn't make you stupid, the mental gyrations you have to go through to maintain it dull your ability to reason.
Though some on the other side blaming racism for everything seem to have a a similar, though more limited, problem.
Who's stupid again?
PopeRatzo (965947) is stupid.
But we all know that from the illogical filth and hate he constantly spews. He's /.'s #1 trollface.