> Mike Rosing[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > > On Tue, 9 Apr 2002, Ken Brown wrote: > > > I'd rather have stiff cards than floppy paper ones. At least you can put > > them into the slot of a machine easily. > > But with an RF tag you'd not even have to pull it out of your pocket :-) > Putting RF Tags in cash is one of those ideas with Unintended Consequences. Muggers would love having a way of determining which victims are carrying a wad, as would many salesmen (and JBTs looking to perform a 'civil confiscation' on 'a sum of currency'.)
> > But paper money is such a 20th-century thing! These days we're slowly > > drifting back to higher value metal coins (2 pounds out for a few years > > now, 5 pounds coming soon I think). Much more fun. Feels like real > > treasure! Less of the floppy stuff, we want our ecash to look like real > > cash. > > 18th century actually. And the point is the same - people don't like to > change (pun intended!) > > Patience, persistence, truth, > Dr. mike > I was living in Britain (and of an allowance-recieving age) when decimalization occured. While we lost the big penny, we gained the 50p piece. In those days, it was a large, heavy, seven-sided coin, bigger than a US half-dollar, and worth $1.20. It felt good in your pocket. Since then, the Brits have shrunk it to a much smaller size. Do they still call the 1 pound coins 'maggies'? Actually, the mutability of British currency is quite astonishing to Americans. Bills and coins seem to change size and/or color every few years. Of course, there's a good chance Britain will join the Euro soon, which would be another change. Re going back to coins - it's not happening everywhere. The US Mint would love to get rid of the $1 bill, but the proposed replacements have been resounding failures. In the mid-70's they started minted 'pseudo-silver' dollars for the Bicentennial. While fun, these were just too big, and did not work in vending machines. A few years later they tried the 'Susan B Anthony' dollar, but it was rejected as well - it was similar in size and color to a quarter, and the two could be easily confused. Just about a year ago, they tried again, with the 'Sacagawea' or 'Golden Dollar'. This is a very handsome coin, gold in color, but it was the same size as a SBA dollar (to fit the machines). You can still confuse it with a quarter in your pocket or in the dark. It's been months since I've seen one. Peter Trei
