The difference is in the type of defect. Information overload can be the result of a *design* defect, where the design specification doesn't adequately take into account how much data a trained pilot can absorb. (Alternately, it could be the result of inadequate pilot training.) A buggy display system is an *implementation* defect, where the display doesn't show what was intended by the programmers, such as the display showing a random bit pattern rather than fight data.
So after reading the article, it was quite hard to tell whether the problem was information overload or a buggy display system. The relevant quote is:
âoeBut for now, thereâ(TM)s only so much data you can put in front of the pilotâ(TM)s eyes before it all merges, especially at night. He or she has got to take in information about their speed, altitude, dive and climb angles, and manage their fuel levels and weapons systems. Add images of the surrounding airspace and it all becomes too much. Essentially, the pilots were being blinded.â
The reporter seems to take the phrase "green glow" literally, rather than figuratively. The blinding referred to in the quote is information overload. The 1,000 mph figure seems merely illustrative, rather than a point at which the helmets suddenly malfunctioned. Information overload is a serious problem for pilots and must be considered in aircraft design, but this appears to be a case of poor design rather than the display failing in mid flight. Perhaps someone out there has better information.
The effect of a genetic modification depends on what was changed. Some genetic modifications have given clear and reasonable cause for concern. In the case of Monsanto's "Round-Up Ready" seeds, greater use of pesticides (Monsanto's "Round-Up") on crops is possible. Pesticide exposure is a serious risk for farm workers as well as the environment and a point of reasonable concern for consumers, though low-dose toxicology is tricky business. Another problematic modification is the addition of BT toxin genes to crops. Although, BT is approved for use in organic produce, the chronic low dose of BT toxin is a problem because it allows pests to evolve to become resistant to this useful compound more easily than would occur with occasional external application of higher doses. BT toxin resistance has already developed in India in response to crops incorporating the BT gene. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus_thuringiensis It would be reasonable to expect more widespread resistance to occur with continued use of crops with BT genes.
The use of the spinach gene to give bacterial resistance to orange trees mentioned in the aricle does not have these issues. The article notes that this bacterial resistance gene is widespread, existing in variants in many plants and animals. Also, having orange trees with this gene would allow for reduced use of pesticides, which the article notes have tripled in response to the encroachment of the insect which carries the bacterium responsible for the destruction of the orange trees.
I would argue not for a ban on genetically modified organisms, but for careful scientific review on a case-by-case basis whether a modification carries a net benefit, not just on whether a particular crop is safe to consume. A serious problem with previous approvals is that they ignored effects like evolution of resistant organisms and incentives to use more pesticides.
Everyone already knows it, but they need an outside consultant to say it. That's why you were brought in. Senior management is not ignoring the problems at all. They know that costs are out of line and that there is dissatisfaction. Your job is to carefully document what everyone knows to be true, so they can get rid of the under-performing IT manager. Talk to everyone, compare to industry standards and write it all up in your report.
"(2) The processing of respondent's DNA sample's CODIS loci also did not intrude on his privacy in a way that would make his DNA identification unconstitutional. Those loci came from noncoding DNA parts that do not reveal an arrestee's genetic traits and are unlikely to reveal any private medical information. Even if they could provide such information, they are not in fact tested for that end. Finally, the Act provides statutory protections to guard against such invasions of privacy. Pp. 26-28."
1. It is not possible to simulate a system when you don't know the rules of the system. We don't know how neurons work. Sure, we know much about neurons and we can set up small networks that seem to give interesting results, but there is a vast amount about real neurons that is unknown. We don't even know what all the types of ion channels are, let alone the varied states of modulation (phosphorylation of proteins and binding of various neuromodulators). We know little about how the brain learns. We have some knowledge about how a neuron might maintain a mean firing rate over time or how certain connections may vary in fairly artificial stimulus regimes (pairs of spikes with varied timing) in slices of brain tissue (typically hippocampus) in vitro. We have only basic understanding of how the brain is wired up on a microscopic scale (e.g. cortical columns). At this point people are still making fundamental discoveries about how the retina works.
2. Throwing a supercomputer at the problem would be orders of magnitude too weak, even given huge simplifying assumptions, such as using "integrate and fire" neurons.
Anyone attempting to do whole brain simulations at this point is simply wasting their time and a lot of electricity. When they promote the idea they waste other people's time. A perfect example of this is the fool who claimed that he had simulated a cat visual cortex, which though only a presentation at a conference, not a published paper, got attention here on Slashdot. He included one equation and randomly connected his network and then simulated on a large compute cluster. His "chief scientific conclusion" was that he could replicate the propagation speed of data through the layers of the network - a feat that could have been accomplished with paper and pencil in less time.
If a site encrypts user's email addresses, they also have to store the key in order to decrypt the email addresses. Once the site has been cracked badly enough to retrieve the password hash file, the key needed to decrypt the emails would likely also be vulnerable, so encrypting user email addresses typically adds little security. The nice thing about hashing passwords is that there is no key to store or be discovered.
Client side execution means running whatever code a web site that you visit directly on your home computer. Server side execution means running code uploaded by the server's administrator. This is a very different situation.
The news report, contrary to the summary, states that part one terminal - not the whole airport - was shut down and that for only 40 minutes. The costs would be borne by the airline in terms of possible employee and fuel overtime since some planes must have been delayed.
I haven't ever replaced a socketed CPU, but I have added one. My work machine only had a single 4-core CPU, but had an empty socket, so now I'm running dual CPU! Its a nice way to future-proof a computer, especially since the second CPU might be purchased at a lower price or as budget allows. (Yes, I do use all 8 cores.)
You're assuming fixed demand for leather products and meat, independent of price. If there is additional supply leather from bio-reactor production, the price of leather is likely to decline until it reaches a point where all leather produced is purchased. Econ 101. You may indeed end up paying more for meat because some people buy bio-engineered leather rather than the traditional variety. This price increase is likely to decrease meat consumption, so the beef industry will kill fewer cows.
Creation of new nerve cells (neurons) in the adult human brain has only been only confirmed in a couple areas. (Granule cells of the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus, an area involved in forming new memories and cells which migrate to the olfactory bulb.) Much searching in other places including studies looking at uptake of radioactive particles from atmospheric nuclear bomb testing has shown that if new neurons are created in other areas, the rate must be extremely low. The plasticity of the adult nervous system comes from forming new connections between neurons, pruning existing connections, changing the strength of those connections and changing the sensitivity of a neuron to inputs. This forming of new connections and changing of connection strengths between neurons is lifelong and robust and is key to adult learning. Research that showed "critical periods" for certain kinds of brain development, such as binocular vision, led some to assume that this meant that new learning was more limited than it is and this idea sometimes got mixed in with the rarity of new neuron growth as a limit to plasticity. All that said, early intervention can be hugely helpful as the young brain is much more plastic than the adult brain.
The treatment regimen for the mice was to stop suppressing the gene that they had attached a chemically activated genetic switch to, so this particular treatment would not be applicable to humans who haven't been genetically engineered from birth to have this switch in the first place. If it were possible to insert a copy of this gene into humans with the proper regulation that might be a route for treatment, but the regulation bit is critical and difficult and I believe beyond what we can do with current technology. Perhaps someone who actually knows genetics might be able to comment on this question better than I.
They do suggest that there could be treatments for this genetic defect. They mention that drugs that block the (metabotropic) glutamate receptor "might hold promise for designing treatment strategies for non-syndromic autism," since the gene in question regulates this glutamate receptor.
The cool thing about the paper is that is showed that they could "rescue" the mice by turning on the gene switch and they were able to see that the mice recovered typical function at a cellular level and at a behavioral level, suggesting that if it were possible to re-enable this gene in humans that you might see some similar effects.
PS If you want to read the original paper, post here and I'll send you the pdf.
First, this is not an OnStar rental service. This is RelayRides adding a feature, allowing people with OnStar equipped vehicles to easily participate in their service without having to have the special module from RelayRides installed. The module provides the GPS, network connection and locking/unlocking capability which is all stuff that the OnStar system is capable of.
RelayRides restricts its service to renters with at least two years of driving experience and a clean driving record. I don't know what they consider clean and I don't think this is configurable. You also have the option of being able to look at a renter's history and feedback on the site before choosing whether to rent to them.
Yes and the offender is charged for the damage. Also, in business you gotta take the good with the bad. You usually get good renters, and sometimes get bad renters, but you always get paid. Hopefully you're satisfied with your returns on your investment.
From the RelayRides Terms for Renters. (Answers this question and some related ones.)
"12. Fees. You are responsible for paying all fees when they come due in connection with your use of the service. You give permission to RelayRides to charge your credit card for all amounts due including but not limited to usage fees, fines/penalties, deductibles and damages. You will be responsible for payment of usage fees from the start of your rental period until the time you return the car. You will be responsible for all of the costs relating to any citations and fines (e.g. tolls, parking tickets, towing fines) incurred during the rental period (and after if the car has not been parked in an authorized and legal parking space). You are also responsible for any insurance deductibles that are related to damage or liability incurred during the rental period. "
From the RelayRides web site: "If you return the car more than 30 minutes after the scheduled return time then you will be charged $25 for every 1/2 hour past the expected return time." Since you're required to return the car to its home or within 1/4 mile (400 meters) of its home if the car doesn't have a dedicated spot, I'm guessing that leaving the car across town will incur fines, half of which go to the owner.
If you get a car that isn't what you expected, you can leave a bad review. Also, you can decide not to rent that car again. Owners have a strong incentive to take care of their vehicles to get new renters and to keep old renters coming back.
Insurance is covered by RelayRides and usually explicitly not covered by owners policies when renting out a car.
For non-obvious damage your choice on whether to rent your car depends on your appetite for risk. Compensation for that risk part of what you're getting from your rental fee. This might not be enough for you, especially if you have an expensive car or an emotional attachment to your vehicle.
Yeah, but at work you don't know who the scoundrel is. With RelayRides, there is accountability for obvious abuse, since owners can leave reviews of renters. Owners can simply refuse to rent to bad renters. Renters driving records are also checked, prior to being accepted.
Right where the GPS says he left it. Yep, RelayRides rentals are GPS equipped. This way renters and owners can find the car easily. I used it recently when my car was in the shop. Relay Rides gave me a link to the GPS coodinates of the car. Click to Google Maps and there's the car. I returned close to its home and I was all done.
Great point about my proposal being a weak form of digital currency.
I believe there is still an important role for paper money and that its security can be improved. The advantage of the system I proposed is that it maintains the ease of use of the current paper system, while adding optional validation. The nice bit is that not everyone has to validate to make successfully distributing counterfeit bills substantially more difficult.
The question that interests me the most is whether counterfeiters could effectively overcome the problem of distributing counterfeit bills without revealing their source in a world with occasional validation.
There is an alternate approach to digital signatures which is to use a longer "serial" number by appending 12 or so random digits to the number, making the space of valid bill ID numbers quite sparse. In either case the attacker has to get their hands on a large number of bills to copy so they don't make too many clones. This is still just as vulnerable to the replay attack, but if I want to check whether a bill is legit, I would have to ask the issuer. This is a key advantage, since the government could track all the validation requests since I would have to ask them whether a bill's number is valid. Now the government could check when and where the bills appear. Certain patterns may indicate that there are duplicates in circulation. If a bank validates a bill and discover that it might have a long-lost twin, they might want to check to see if their copy is legit by submitting it to experts. Watching the pattern of these twin appearances might help reveal their source.
Suspicious patterns could include:
1. A set of bills that had been seen to be disbursed widely appearing as a set again, reversing the natural entropy of currency.
2. A set of bills that don't appear to be part of a sequence showing up together and all having twins.
The forger has an interesting problem in disbursal of their cash. They have to amass a large number of bill ID numbers to make duplicates. They can watch these bills pass through organizations that handle large amounts of cash such as banks or organized crime and record the IDs. When they create the forged bills they could make a series of bills in serial order, which would be vulnerable to 1, above. They could issue the bills in random sequence, but then anyone getting a suitcase full of such bills in new condition might demand a steep discount because they would be vulnerable to 2, above, and might need to figure out how to disburse the cash to avoid suspicion. Someone attempting to launder these bills might have a hard time explaining to the bank how they got all those twin notes. Anyone legitimately accepting large stacks of cash, such as car dealers, casinos and banks, can easily check the bills for twins and reject the transaction if there are too many twins appearing in the transaction and has good incentive to validate since nobody wants to accept a bill that has a 50% or greater (for triplets etc.) chance of being fake. All the launderer can do is slowly feed the fakes into a legitimate cash stream and hope nobody notices.
Now, please poke holes in this idea! (Or at least add to the list of suspicious patterns.)
An alternative to increasing supply is to manage demand. Much demand is unnecessary and places large costs on business and consumers. Here are a few ways demand can be managed:
- Efficiency regulations for fridges, air conditioners (improved compressors), lighting, washers (high-speed spin for less work for the dryer and front-loading for less water to heat), wall wart power supplies (old ones are always warm, new ones not so) and TVs (reduction in standby power).
- Consumer information (Energy Star labels telling you how much an appliance will cost)
- Lighter colored roofs (huge savings on AC bills)
- Improved insulation (high up-front cost for retrofit, cheap at time of construction).
Much of the reason for these inefficiencies is that the cost of improvement is borne by the appliance producer or home builder, but the power cost is borne by the consumer. Even a well-intentioned builder or manufacturer might not be able to justify a $10 cost on a better fridge that saves the consumer $20 per year. This can be resolved with a well-informed savvy consumer and/or regulations. Efficiency may not be as exciting as nuclear power or windmills but its hard to argue with the economic and environmental benefits. The potential savings are vast.
Slashdot Mirror
The difference is in the type of defect. Information overload can be the result of a *design* defect, where the design specification doesn't adequately take into account how much data a trained pilot can absorb. (Alternately, it could be the result of inadequate pilot training.) A buggy display system is an *implementation* defect, where the display doesn't show what was intended by the programmers, such as the display showing a random bit pattern rather than fight data.
So after reading the article, it was quite hard to tell whether the problem was information overload or a buggy display system. The relevant quote is:
âoeBut for now, thereâ(TM)s only so much data you can put in front of the pilotâ(TM)s eyes before it all merges, especially at night. He or she has got to take in information about their speed, altitude, dive and climb angles, and manage their fuel levels and weapons systems. Add images of the surrounding airspace and it all becomes too much. Essentially, the pilots were being blinded.â
The reporter seems to take the phrase "green glow" literally, rather than figuratively. The blinding referred to in the quote is information overload. The 1,000 mph figure seems merely illustrative, rather than a point at which the helmets suddenly malfunctioned. Information overload is a serious problem for pilots and must be considered in aircraft design, but this appears to be a case of poor design rather than the display failing in mid flight. Perhaps someone out there has better information.
The effect of a genetic modification depends on what was changed. Some genetic modifications have given clear and reasonable cause for concern. In the case of Monsanto's "Round-Up Ready" seeds, greater use of pesticides (Monsanto's "Round-Up") on crops is possible. Pesticide exposure is a serious risk for farm workers as well as the environment and a point of reasonable concern for consumers, though low-dose toxicology is tricky business. Another problematic modification is the addition of BT toxin genes to crops. Although, BT is approved for use in organic produce, the chronic low dose of BT toxin is a problem because it allows pests to evolve to become resistant to this useful compound more easily than would occur with occasional external application of higher doses. BT toxin resistance has already developed in India in response to crops incorporating the BT gene. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus_thuringiensis It would be reasonable to expect more widespread resistance to occur with continued use of crops with BT genes.
The use of the spinach gene to give bacterial resistance to orange trees mentioned in the aricle does not have these issues. The article notes that this bacterial resistance gene is widespread, existing in variants in many plants and animals. Also, having orange trees with this gene would allow for reduced use of pesticides, which the article notes have tripled in response to the encroachment of the insect which carries the bacterium responsible for the destruction of the orange trees.
I would argue not for a ban on genetically modified organisms, but for careful scientific review on a case-by-case basis whether a modification carries a net benefit, not just on whether a particular crop is safe to consume. A serious problem with previous approvals is that they ignored effects like evolution of resistant organisms and incentives to use more pesticides.
Everyone already knows it, but they need an outside consultant to say it. That's why you were brought in. Senior management is not ignoring the problems at all. They know that costs are out of line and that there is dissatisfaction. Your job is to carefully document what everyone knows to be true, so they can get rid of the under-performing IT manager. Talk to everyone, compare to industry standards and write it all up in your report.
The DNA collected is not used to get an entire genome sequence. The court's reasoning is summarized here:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/12-207
"(2) The processing of respondent's DNA sample's CODIS loci also did not intrude on his privacy in a way that would make his DNA identification unconstitutional. Those loci came from noncoding DNA parts that do not reveal an arrestee's genetic traits and are unlikely to reveal any private medical information. Even if they could provide such information, they are not in fact tested for that end. Finally, the Act provides statutory protections to guard against such invasions of privacy. Pp. 26-28."
Please don't waste your time with this nonsense.
1. It is not possible to simulate a system when you don't know the rules of the system. We don't know how neurons work. Sure, we know much about neurons and we can set up small networks that seem to give interesting results, but there is a vast amount about real neurons that is unknown. We don't even know what all the types of ion channels are, let alone the varied states of modulation (phosphorylation of proteins and binding of various neuromodulators). We know little about how the brain learns. We have some knowledge about how a neuron might maintain a mean firing rate over time or how certain connections may vary in fairly artificial stimulus regimes (pairs of spikes with varied timing) in slices of brain tissue (typically hippocampus) in vitro. We have only basic understanding of how the brain is wired up on a microscopic scale (e.g. cortical columns). At this point people are still making fundamental discoveries about how the retina works.
2. Throwing a supercomputer at the problem would be orders of magnitude too weak, even given huge simplifying assumptions, such as using "integrate and fire" neurons.
Anyone attempting to do whole brain simulations at this point is simply wasting their time and a lot of electricity. When they promote the idea they waste other people's time. A perfect example of this is the fool who claimed that he had simulated a cat visual cortex, which though only a presentation at a conference, not a published paper, got attention here on Slashdot. He included one equation and randomly connected his network and then simulated on a large compute cluster. His "chief scientific conclusion" was that he could replicate the propagation speed of data through the layers of the network - a feat that could have been accomplished with paper and pencil in less time.
If a site encrypts user's email addresses, they also have to store the key in order to decrypt the email addresses. Once the site has been cracked badly enough to retrieve the password hash file, the key needed to decrypt the emails would likely also be vulnerable, so encrypting user email addresses typically adds little security. The nice thing about hashing passwords is that there is no key to store or be discovered.
Client side execution means running whatever code a web site that you visit directly on your home computer. Server side execution means running code uploaded by the server's administrator. This is a very different situation.
The news report, contrary to the summary, states that part one terminal - not the whole airport - was shut down and that for only 40 minutes. The costs would be borne by the airline in terms of possible employee and fuel overtime since some planes must have been delayed.
No. Board passes all checks and later fails. Imagine a weak solder joint for instance.
I don't think that this is the kind of soldering job that an enthusiast could do, unless you happen to be up for reflow soldering.
I haven't ever replaced a socketed CPU, but I have added one. My work machine only had a single 4-core CPU, but had an empty socket, so now I'm running dual CPU! Its a nice way to future-proof a computer, especially since the second CPU might be purchased at a lower price or as budget allows. (Yes, I do use all 8 cores.)
You're assuming fixed demand for leather products and meat, independent of price. If there is additional supply leather from bio-reactor production, the price of leather is likely to decline until it reaches a point where all leather produced is purchased. Econ 101. You may indeed end up paying more for meat because some people buy bio-engineered leather rather than the traditional variety. This price increase is likely to decrease meat consumption, so the beef industry will kill fewer cows.
Creation of new nerve cells (neurons) in the adult human brain has only been only confirmed in a couple areas. (Granule cells of the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus, an area involved in forming new memories and cells which migrate to the olfactory bulb.) Much searching in other places including studies looking at uptake of radioactive particles from atmospheric nuclear bomb testing has shown that if new neurons are created in other areas, the rate must be extremely low. The plasticity of the adult nervous system comes from forming new connections between neurons, pruning existing connections, changing the strength of those connections and changing the sensitivity of a neuron to inputs. This forming of new connections and changing of connection strengths between neurons is lifelong and robust and is key to adult learning. Research that showed "critical periods" for certain kinds of brain development, such as binocular vision, led some to assume that this meant that new learning was more limited than it is and this idea sometimes got mixed in with the rarity of new neuron growth as a limit to plasticity. All that said, early intervention can be hugely helpful as the young brain is much more plastic than the adult brain.
The treatment regimen for the mice was to stop suppressing the gene that they had attached a chemically activated genetic switch to, so this particular treatment would not be applicable to humans who haven't been genetically engineered from birth to have this switch in the first place. If it were possible to insert a copy of this gene into humans with the proper regulation that might be a route for treatment, but the regulation bit is critical and difficult and I believe beyond what we can do with current technology. Perhaps someone who actually knows genetics might be able to comment on this question better than I.
They do suggest that there could be treatments for this genetic defect. They mention that drugs that block the (metabotropic) glutamate receptor "might hold promise for designing treatment strategies for non-syndromic autism," since the gene in question regulates this glutamate receptor.
The cool thing about the paper is that is showed that they could "rescue" the mice by turning on the gene switch and they were able to see that the mice recovered typical function at a cellular level and at a behavioral level, suggesting that if it were possible to re-enable this gene in humans that you might see some similar effects.
PS If you want to read the original paper, post here and I'll send you the pdf.
I'm not sure I'd want to give all robots rights ... until they earn them!
First, this is not an OnStar rental service. This is RelayRides adding a feature, allowing people with OnStar equipped vehicles to easily participate in their service without having to have the special module from RelayRides installed. The module provides the GPS, network connection and locking/unlocking capability which is all stuff that the OnStar system is capable of. RelayRides restricts its service to renters with at least two years of driving experience and a clean driving record. I don't know what they consider clean and I don't think this is configurable. You also have the option of being able to look at a renter's history and feedback on the site before choosing whether to rent to them.
Yes and the offender is charged for the damage. Also, in business you gotta take the good with the bad. You usually get good renters, and sometimes get bad renters, but you always get paid. Hopefully you're satisfied with your returns on your investment.
From the RelayRides Terms for Renters. (Answers this question and some related ones.)
"12. Fees. You are responsible for paying all fees when they come due in connection with your use of the service. You give permission to RelayRides to charge your credit card for all amounts due including but not limited to usage fees, fines/penalties, deductibles and damages. You will be responsible for payment of usage fees from the start of your rental period until the time you return the car. You will be responsible for all of the costs relating to any citations and fines (e.g. tolls, parking tickets, towing fines) incurred during the rental period (and after if the car has not been parked in an authorized and legal parking space). You are also responsible for any insurance deductibles that are related to damage or liability incurred during the rental period. "
From the RelayRides web site: "If you return the car more than 30 minutes after the scheduled return time then you will be charged $25 for every 1/2 hour past the expected return time." Since you're required to return the car to its home or within 1/4 mile (400 meters) of its home if the car doesn't have a dedicated spot, I'm guessing that leaving the car across town will incur fines, half of which go to the owner.
If you get a car that isn't what you expected, you can leave a bad review. Also, you can decide not to rent that car again. Owners have a strong incentive to take care of their vehicles to get new renters and to keep old renters coming back.
Insurance is covered by RelayRides and usually explicitly not covered by owners policies when renting out a car.
For non-obvious damage your choice on whether to rent your car depends on your appetite for risk. Compensation for that risk part of what you're getting from your rental fee. This might not be enough for you, especially if you have an expensive car or an emotional attachment to your vehicle.
Yeah, but at work you don't know who the scoundrel is. With RelayRides, there is accountability for obvious abuse, since owners can leave reviews of renters. Owners can simply refuse to rent to bad renters. Renters driving records are also checked, prior to being accepted.
RelayRides does offer manual transmission cars, too. They're not too common, but clearly indicated.
Right where the GPS says he left it. Yep, RelayRides rentals are GPS equipped. This way renters and owners can find the car easily. I used it recently when my car was in the shop. Relay Rides gave me a link to the GPS coodinates of the car. Click to Google Maps and there's the car. I returned close to its home and I was all done.
Great point about my proposal being a weak form of digital currency.
I believe there is still an important role for paper money and that its security can be improved. The advantage of the system I proposed is that it maintains the ease of use of the current paper system, while adding optional validation. The nice bit is that not everyone has to validate to make successfully distributing counterfeit bills substantially more difficult.
The question that interests me the most is whether counterfeiters could effectively overcome the problem of distributing counterfeit bills without revealing their source in a world with occasional validation.
There is an alternate approach to digital signatures which is to use a longer "serial" number by appending 12 or so random digits to the number, making the space of valid bill ID numbers quite sparse. In either case the attacker has to get their hands on a large number of bills to copy so they don't make too many clones. This is still just as vulnerable to the replay attack, but if I want to check whether a bill is legit, I would have to ask the issuer. This is a key advantage, since the government could track all the validation requests since I would have to ask them whether a bill's number is valid. Now the government could check when and where the bills appear. Certain patterns may indicate that there are duplicates in circulation. If a bank validates a bill and discover that it might have a long-lost twin, they might want to check to see if their copy is legit by submitting it to experts. Watching the pattern of these twin appearances might help reveal their source.
Suspicious patterns could include:
1. A set of bills that had been seen to be disbursed widely appearing as a set again, reversing the natural entropy of currency.
2. A set of bills that don't appear to be part of a sequence showing up together and all having twins.
The forger has an interesting problem in disbursal of their cash. They have to amass a large number of bill ID numbers to make duplicates. They can watch these bills pass through organizations that handle large amounts of cash such as banks or organized crime and record the IDs. When they create the forged bills they could make a series of bills in serial order, which would be vulnerable to 1, above. They could issue the bills in random sequence, but then anyone getting a suitcase full of such bills in new condition might demand a steep discount because they would be vulnerable to 2, above, and might need to figure out how to disburse the cash to avoid suspicion. Someone attempting to launder these bills might have a hard time explaining to the bank how they got all those twin notes. Anyone legitimately accepting large stacks of cash, such as car dealers, casinos and banks, can easily check the bills for twins and reject the transaction if there are too many twins appearing in the transaction and has good incentive to validate since nobody wants to accept a bill that has a 50% or greater (for triplets etc.) chance of being fake. All the launderer can do is slowly feed the fakes into a legitimate cash stream and hope nobody notices.
Now, please poke holes in this idea! (Or at least add to the list of suspicious patterns.)
An alternative to increasing supply is to manage demand. Much demand is unnecessary and places large costs on business and consumers. Here are a few ways demand can be managed:
- Efficiency regulations for fridges, air conditioners (improved compressors), lighting, washers (high-speed spin for less work for the dryer and front-loading for less water to heat), wall wart power supplies (old ones are always warm, new ones not so) and TVs (reduction in standby power).
- Consumer information (Energy Star labels telling you how much an appliance will cost)
- Lighter colored roofs (huge savings on AC bills)
- Improved insulation (high up-front cost for retrofit, cheap at time of construction).
Much of the reason for these inefficiencies is that the cost of improvement is borne by the appliance producer or home builder, but the power cost is borne by the consumer. Even a well-intentioned builder or manufacturer might not be able to justify a $10 cost on a better fridge that saves the consumer $20 per year. This can be resolved with a well-informed savvy consumer and/or regulations. Efficiency may not be as exciting as nuclear power or windmills but its hard to argue with the economic and environmental benefits. The potential savings are vast.