The technology is called OCR. You just optically read the serial number off the bill as it's processed. This is hardly a new thing.
I was under the (perhaps mistaken) impression that this is already done when bills go back to reserve banks for the purpose of detecting counterfeiting.
37 bills all with the same serial number would be a touch suspicious.
I wouldn't call it impossible. But note that "things that aren't impossible" also includes all of the air in a room just happening to be in the left half due to random motions.
i.e. Have an open mind, but don't let your brain fall out.
"You've got people jumping on the notion that Wikileaks' recent problems are the result of an orchestrated plan to destroy it."
Ah, but your post is part of that conspiracy!
The news of the plot to kill wikileaks via fud was just barely posted, and suddenly people are crawling out of the woodwork loudly saying that the timeline doesn't work, and the facts don't fit all in an attempt to obscure the truth.
And Darpa is involved, for heavens sake! What can it be but a military conspiracy?
I think we can sum up many of the comments as follows. "How dare ATK try to use "our" commercial space subsidies to keep your jobs after you lost direct government support, instead of dying quietly. That would have been much more convenient for our particular views/politics."
*shrug* I doubt it'll go anywhere, but if they can convince someone to try to make a go of it, more power to them.
They're still in use. In museums and as research objects. And, in fact new versions of them have been manufactured so as to better understand how they were made.
They haven't died out. They've been repurposed.
We have quite a number of people who as a hobby or part of their job make new flint arrowheads with the same ancient tools.
But, if you take your assumptions, it doesn't matter if you have a decreasing population as long as that population is significantly greater than zero. The debt will still outstrip and require infinite growth to keep up.
Thus, your situation is hopeless. More pie or no, more people or fewer.
So, sell your paper investments now while they're still worth something and buy $1400 an ounce gold. I'll be happy to sell you lots of it. So what if I get a $30/ounce profit. By your reasoning I'll still just hold worthless ultimately overinflated paper. You'll snicker as I go broke in buying power.
And then I'll use the profit to buy good dollar denominated paper investments. Who do you think will turn out better in the long run, hmmm?
Odd thing. I've yet to see a hyperinflation that has persisted for decades on end. Italy kinda tried. Several South American countries were in the running in the 70s. Zimbabwe is currently trying. But no luck thus far. Something else always happens. Change in government. Default and repudiation. A revaluing deal, a turn around in the economy, etc, etc.
This is why in physics classes they note that following curves in models into the range they no longer apply is a bad idea.
Possible, but I'd think there'd be a lot of lobbying against such a measure.
The vaccine business is not a huge one compared to the rest of healthcare. It's a pond that can support so many as a legal industry. The money involved in a major infrastructure change would be huge.
Would you be able to get lawyers to go along with a pass on that much of a market? They've got an awfully powerful influence at all levels of government.
Studies show that self driving cars could greatly increase the traffic capacity on existing roads due to better coordination of control between individual cars. It would also likely be massively safer. (For Chicagoans, think the Ike expressway with no backups or wrecks during rush hour.)
Another angle that would be interesting would be to have the self driving cars be hybrids. With that, you could use fuel for the less major roads, but put in electrical pickups for major roadways and use electricity rather than onboard fuel for the longer runs.
That could make a major dent in oil use and help with one of the problems of wind/solar/nuclear. The lack of applicability to heavy long distance road traffic. (Batteries just aren't that good yet.)
The problem isn't the tech or the reliability. For here in the US at least, it's the liability.
Doesn't matter how many fewer people we kill on the roadway or how much more capacity our roads would have with self driving cars. If someone gets hurt or killed, expect lawsuits.
I predict a long string of posts pointing out why you are insensitive for not changing your situation.
Live in the wrong place. No problem. Move. Ignore that your family might have been in the same house for 50 years. Ignore that your house is fully paid for and in a low tax area. Ignore that you might have teenage children who you'd have to uproot and perhaps move to a place with poorer schools. Ignore any of many reasons you might have for living where you are.
Or job? No problem. You should have gotten a new one. Ignore that with the world downturn competition for jobs is high. Ignore that your particular skills aren't in demand closer to where you are living. Etc, lather, rinse, you get the idea.
Of course, those who say it's reasonable and so easy are often already in situations where it is reasonable and easy for them.
There is nothing so hard to fathom for many people than something that inconveniences others as long as they themselves aren't inconvenienced.
Well, if we're doing reduction to absurdity, then by that reasoning it was futile to hunt and gather in groups rather than individually as we'd just outbreed the increase in food availability it led to.
Ditto for agriculture.
Sorry. Don't buy it. The simplistic version of Malthus just doesn't hold well in the real world.
Minecraft? *snerk* Never played. I was more into Empire on the Plato system or Master of Orion.
Though I must admit, the ALU done in fire that someone did in Minecraft was rather impressive.
They're called things like: The Great Depression. The Dot Com Bubble. The Housing Bubble. Lather. Rinse, forget the well known standards of stable investing and corporate governance. Repeat ad nauseum.
I somehow doubt it will take that many more people to raise living standards in many places.
Example: China. You have a society that is modernizing at a rapid rate. The problem isn't a lack of people, it's a lack of uniform progress in that. The urban east is much farther along than the western part of the country. In fact, they have a program called Go West to try to deal with this.
Another: India. It's dealing with many of the same problems.
Go try to tell people in either of those countries that they somehow don't deserve a higher standard of living just because it would make the world resource load easier. I imagine they'd bust a gut laughing at you.
I sure haven't seen the US rushing to implement major limits on growth. Nor the EU. In fact, they're been positively frantic the past 3 years that there wasn't enough growth with the world downturn.
This info is getting filtered by Elmer who made the determination that something fishy was going on with the account.
That's in some respect a judgement call. It'd be pretty easy to have a list heavily biased toward those politicians/celebrities you don't like/agree with.
Slashdot Mirror
The technology is called OCR. You just optically read the serial number off the bill as it's processed. This is hardly a new thing.
I was under the (perhaps mistaken) impression that this is already done when bills go back to reserve banks for the purpose of detecting counterfeiting.
37 bills all with the same serial number would be a touch suspicious.
Crassus simply had all of them crucified along the road back to Rome.
It's amazing how dangerous thumb tacks and sharpie markers are.
One of whose sigs was: "Woof woof glug glug, who drowned the judge's dog?"
Ah, the days of atrocity tourism watching the forever flamewars on alt.religion.scientology. :)
I wouldn't call it impossible. But note that "things that aren't impossible" also includes all of the air in a room just happening to be in the left half due to random motions.
i.e. Have an open mind, but don't let your brain fall out.
"You've got people jumping on the notion that Wikileaks' recent problems are the result of an orchestrated plan to destroy it."
Ah, but your post is part of that conspiracy!
The news of the plot to kill wikileaks via fud was just barely posted, and suddenly people are crawling out of the woodwork loudly saying that the timeline doesn't work, and the facts don't fit all in an attempt to obscure the truth.
And Darpa is involved, for heavens sake! What can it be but a military conspiracy?
Therefore, it must be true!
I think we can sum up many of the comments as follows. "How dare ATK try to use "our" commercial space subsidies to keep your jobs after you lost direct government support, instead of dying quietly. That would have been much more convenient for our particular views/politics."
*shrug* I doubt it'll go anywhere, but if they can convince someone to try to make a go of it, more power to them.
They're still in use. In museums and as research objects. And, in fact new versions of them have been manufactured so as to better understand how they were made.
They haven't died out. They've been repurposed.
We have quite a number of people who as a hobby or part of their job make new flint arrowheads with the same ancient tools.
Thankfully many of the bomb makers for such groups don't think through the failure modes very thoroughly.
Amen to a revert to old button. Waaaaay to much white space in the new.
In other news, the kids hate me cause I tell em to get off the lawn and wave my cane at em.
How about:
http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1963090&cid=34978270
Currently modded at +5 informative.
Try replacing "Jews" with any group. Most social groups are incapable of seeing their own shortcomings.
Slashdot readers. Definitely.
(And yes, I include myself in that.)
As if a left/right=Rebublican/Democrat flame war wasn't enough.
Let's drag in one of the most vicious, long running and intractable disputes in the world.
This should be good for a few hundred highly polarized replies. ;)
But, if you take your assumptions, it doesn't matter if you have a decreasing population as long as that population is significantly greater than zero. The debt will still outstrip and require infinite growth to keep up.
Thus, your situation is hopeless. More pie or no, more people or fewer.
So, sell your paper investments now while they're still worth something and buy $1400 an ounce gold. I'll be happy to sell you lots of it. So what if I get a $30/ounce profit. By your reasoning I'll still just hold worthless ultimately overinflated paper. You'll snicker as I go broke in buying power.
And then I'll use the profit to buy good dollar denominated paper investments. Who do you think will turn out better in the long run, hmmm?
Odd thing. I've yet to see a hyperinflation that has persisted for decades on end. Italy kinda tried. Several South American countries were in the running in the 70s. Zimbabwe is currently trying. But no luck thus far. Something else always happens. Change in government. Default and repudiation. A revaluing deal, a turn around in the economy, etc, etc.
This is why in physics classes they note that following curves in models into the range they no longer apply is a bad idea.
Naive Malthusianism is similar.
Possible, but I'd think there'd be a lot of lobbying against such a measure.
The vaccine business is not a huge one compared to the rest of healthcare. It's a pond that can support so many as a legal industry. The money involved in a major infrastructure change would be huge.
Would you be able to get lawyers to go along with a pass on that much of a market? They've got an awfully powerful influence at all levels of government.
I'm all for it.
Studies show that self driving cars could greatly increase the traffic capacity on existing roads due to better coordination of control between individual cars. It would also likely be massively safer. (For Chicagoans, think the Ike expressway with no backups or wrecks during rush hour.)
Another angle that would be interesting would be to have the self driving cars be hybrids. With that, you could use fuel for the less major roads, but put in electrical pickups for major roadways and use electricity rather than onboard fuel for the longer runs.
That could make a major dent in oil use and help with one of the problems of wind/solar/nuclear. The lack of applicability to heavy long distance road traffic. (Batteries just aren't that good yet.)
The problem isn't the tech or the reliability. For here in the US at least, it's the liability.
Doesn't matter how many fewer people we kill on the roadway or how much more capacity our roads would have with self driving cars. If someone gets hurt or killed, expect lawsuits.
I predict a long string of posts pointing out why you are insensitive for not changing your situation.
Live in the wrong place. No problem. Move. Ignore that your family might have been in the same house for 50 years. Ignore that your house is fully paid for and in a low tax area. Ignore that you might have teenage children who you'd have to uproot and perhaps move to a place with poorer schools. Ignore any of many reasons you might have for living where you are.
Or job? No problem. You should have gotten a new one. Ignore that with the world downturn competition for jobs is high. Ignore that your particular skills aren't in demand closer to where you are living. Etc, lather, rinse, you get the idea.
Of course, those who say it's reasonable and so easy are often already in situations where it is reasonable and easy for them.
There is nothing so hard to fathom for many people than something that inconveniences others as long as they themselves aren't inconvenienced.
Well, if we're doing reduction to absurdity, then by that reasoning it was futile to hunt and gather in groups rather than individually as we'd just outbreed the increase in food availability it led to.
Ditto for agriculture.
Sorry. Don't buy it. The simplistic version of Malthus just doesn't hold well in the real world.
Minecraft? *snerk* Never played. I was more into Empire on the Plato system or Master of Orion.
Though I must admit, the ALU done in fire that someone did in Minecraft was rather impressive.
Yes it does.
It has downsides, though.
They're called things like: The Great Depression. The Dot Com Bubble. The Housing Bubble. Lather. Rinse, forget the well known standards of stable investing and corporate governance. Repeat ad nauseum.
I somehow doubt it will take that many more people to raise living standards in many places.
Example: China. You have a society that is modernizing at a rapid rate. The problem isn't a lack of people, it's a lack of uniform progress in that. The urban east is much farther along than the western part of the country. In fact, they have a program called Go West to try to deal with this.
Another: India. It's dealing with many of the same problems.
Go try to tell people in either of those countries that they somehow don't deserve a higher standard of living just because it would make the world resource load easier. I imagine they'd bust a gut laughing at you.
I sure haven't seen the US rushing to implement major limits on growth. Nor the EU. In fact, they're been positively frantic the past 3 years that there wasn't enough growth with the world downturn.
You seem to be worried that there isn't enough pie to go around.
Maybe part of the solution is to make more pie.
Well, even Peter might admit they're lunatics.
But they're the right kind of lunatics. :)
Yeah, I can hardly wait for all the posts about how the moon has such a delicate ecosystem.
We certainly must not disrupt a pristine environment like that.
Maybe Peter Kokh and the rest of the Lunar Reclamation Society (www.moonsociety.org) will see their dream someday.
I last heard from them in the late 1980s.
I note they have a chapter in India now. At least people somewhere haven't given up the dream.
This info is getting filtered by Elmer who made the determination that something fishy was going on with the account.
That's in some respect a judgement call. It'd be pretty easy to have a list heavily biased toward those politicians/celebrities you don't like/agree with.