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The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

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Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#351

Post by SchemaLoad »

gosub100 wrote: post #205
jedberg wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Fed keeps rigorous track of every bill. They have a database with the serial number of every live bill. The money isn't valid until the serial is put into the database, and any time a bank gets a bill, they have to verify the serial number is in the database. And if it's not they have to turn it in for a replacement that is.

20 years ago before there were as many erosions of personal privacy and before I realized how important privacy was, I thought of a similar system to detect counterfeit money. Scan it and upload the serial to a database. If that serial has been registered somewhere else, before a plane could possibly transport it there, flag both registers to inspect that bill. If the serial has already been registered as counterfeit…

Same thing can be done to detect fake number plates.

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#352

Post by JoeAltmaier »

My bank had a little class dome full of shredded money - like the ones that cover a mantle clock? Tall, under a foot. A million in hundred dollar bills is a stack four feet high. Puffy shredded bills? Either they were thousand dollar bills, or the sign was just a wild guess, and very wrong.

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#353

Post by ionwake »

I dont know the answer.

But I DO know, the most of HN is probably autistic and mostly agree on an explanation that completely defies Occams Razor.

The truth imo...

Its mostly a million, fake, stuck to the sides, padding in the middle, with a few bills missing from the top for mementos from the last installer in the room. Every now and again some more bills are thrown in if people start asking too many questions.

Which ironically represents the FED accurately.

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#354

Post by __float »

Nextgrid wrote: post #348
mrandish wrote: post #91

> For all we know, the middle is just air and crumpled-up old newspaper. I think this is the answer. I suspect the exhibit designers had a cool idea for a display, did a rough estimate of the area needed and then commissioned the exhibit builders to make the big metal-framed cube. Either they made an error in their calculation or the innate variability in the size of stacks of used bills threw it off. It's also possi…

I think it's very unlikely there's real money in it. Most likely it's "real-ish" bills taken early from the production line without any of the security features, if not outright prop money - it's not like someone can inspect the printing or security features through the glass anyway. There's little upside in using real money, and plenty of downside. Let's say the cube gets damaged and needs to go for a repair or rebu…

Those downsides don't seem that bad to me. If something needed repair, they can bring a contractor on site, and certainly the Fed has cameras and police to monitor.

(In line with some other commenters, I'm more inclined to believe it's bills they've taken out of circulation than "almost finished" ones -- security features are built in throughout the process, not just an extra step at the end.)

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#356

Post by Nextgrid »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #188
ourmandave wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume there's a really big ink bomb in the center.

I assume that at least 51% of the non visible bill parts have been destroyed. Then you do not care if anyone tries some elaborate heist.

Or if the cube needs to go for maintenance or a rebuild. I very much doubt it's real currency with all the security features and stuff.

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#357

Post by __float »

Feuilles_Mortes wrote: post #172

Instead of writing the counting tool he could have used the Multi-Point Tool in ImageJ [1] [2]. I used it just this morning for counting some embryos I collected. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhFNiPsVRoM [2] https://fiji.sc/

It sounds like this may have been one of the pieces of software the author intentionally chose not to use:

> There are some clunky old Windows programs, niche scientific tools, and image analysis software that assumes you’re trying to count cells under a microscope...

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#358

Post by tasty_freeze »

Back in the late 70s my uncle was at an auto show in Chicago at the McCormick place. There was a VW filled with beer cans of some particular brand. You could submit your name and your guess of the number of cans of beer and whomever was closest to the actual count won the beer (but not the car). My uncle won.

How did he guess so well? He was there very early on and he noticed a stack of cardboard trays stacked up in the corner of the venue. He counted the number of trays, multiplied by 24, and submitted that number. :-)

EDIT: I forgot to mention he was a functional alcoholic who drank beer constantly. It is appropriate he won it, but I'm not sure if was good for him.

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#359

Post by Nextgrid »

__float wrote: post #354
Nextgrid wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's very unlikely there's real money in it. Most likely it's "real-ish" bills taken early from the production line without any of the security features, if not outright prop money - it's not like someone can inspect the printing or security features through the glass anyway. There's little upside in using real money, and plenty of downside. Let's say the cube gets damaged and needs to go for a repair or rebu…

Those downsides don't seem that bad to me. If something needed repair, they can bring a contractor on site, and certainly the Fed has cameras and police to monitor. (In line with some other commenters, I'm more inclined to believe it's bills they've taken out of circulation than "almost finished" ones -- security features are built in throughout the process, not just an extra step at the end.)

Cameras still need to be monitored which costs money. Plus sleight-of-hand and other tricks are a thing, so you'd probably still need to background-check any contractors and maintain a strict chain of custody over access to the cube and then recount and re-check to make sure none of the currency has been substituted by lookalike fakes. Police still costs money.

If there is no reasonable way for the public to notice, why not make everyone's life easier by using fake money? That would be easier and cheaper.

Leaks can be dealt with by the legal system (pay people decently and make them sign an NDA in exchange not to disclose the bills are fake) which is much easier than actually keeping track of 1M of currency.

Re: The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million

#360

Post by eru »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #343
IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we confidently say that top engineers have lost the battle with SEO spam ? Or they just gave up ? Or something else ?

With Google, at least, it was one division losing the battle with another division. https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-11/417557.pdf Searching some terms from this PDF (not in Google) brings up https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/ , which has a clearer narrative.

Thanks for the links, very interesting!
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