NEWS

Researchers Hope "Cashless" Society Is Far Into The Future

Written by Anna Creech
Published January 29, 2006

On Wednesday, January 25, physicists from the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen, Germany, and the University of Santa Barbara, California, released a report of a study that used the US paper currency tracking website WheresGeorge to simulate the spread of disease. Ironically, this was only a few weeks after the TowerGroup released a ViewPoint Report indicating that the long-awaited cashless society is nigh.

graphic representing data set

WheresGeorge users voluntarily enter information about the paper currency in their possession, and then spend the bills as they would normally. Usually the bills stay within the same geographic region in which they are spent, but some eventually travel great distances. The researchers used data scraped from the site to model the human-to-human transmission of infectious diseases. According to Hank Eskin, creator and owner of the site, the researchers are interested in getting a much larger data set to continue to study human traffic patterns, and he is eager to assist them.

The numbers of visitors to the site doubled and tripled over the next few days as news organizations picked up and ran the story, creating a bit of a Slashdot effect that left the site limping, but it has since recovered and added about 10,000 new registered users to the 3.3 million already on the rolls. I hesitated to post this story on Blogcritics, but now that the initial flurry has died down a bit, it seemed safe enough.

I've been an active member of WheresGeorge.com for over five years, and it warms my heart to know our little hobby has a purpose in addition to providing entertainment. Pull out your wallet or purse right now and enter the bills you have in it. Do it for Science. As one Georger put it, "For years I have been laughed at for this hobby and now I can point to this [report] as a practical use for what we do."

mug shotAnna Creech is a librarian and blogger who dreams of a day when she can improve the ratio of read-to-unread books in her house.
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Researchers Hope "Cashless" Society Is Far Into The Future
Published: January 29, 2006
Type: News
Section: Sci/Tech
Filed Under: Sci/Tech: Internet, Sci/Tech: Science
Writer: Anna Creech
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#1 — January 30, 2006 @ 00:06AM — John

Here is some of the text from my wheresgeorge profile, which I think expresses my enthusiasm not only for wheresgeorge but for this particular experiment and its results:

Imagine a day in the future when scientists at the Center for Disease Control sit in a control room...hooked to a stream of economic data...waiting for a surge in cough syrup sales which will tip them off to the beginning of flu season, so vaccine can be rushed to areas just at the perimeter of the outbreak--! Imagine tracking down loathesome criminals (like serial killer sex deviant Brian Duncan of Fargo, North Dakota) by some small and personal economic quirk, like unique convenience store purchases.

Oh, yes, I worry about Big Brother. You bet that I do. More than most people, honest to god. But there's no denying that more often government is trying to help me than hurt me, trying to pave my street or give me student loans, trying to keep my food safe, trying to do a million things for me. So I'm not worried about all that data in the hands of government, particularly since the natural course of economic and technological development would probably put all that data, first, in the hands of private parties.

So imagine and dream of all the possibilities of that future world. (But if you're originally from North Dakota, you might try having any kind of imagination at all before you tackle something *this* challenging. Baby steps. Baby steps toward Nodaks having imagination. Baby steps toward Nodaks having the internet. Baby steps toward Nodaks having money in their pockets)

And then register those bills, baby. Find those wild georges and enter them. Economic utopia needs data.

Stats: Bills Entered: 10,675 Hit Rate: 13.31%

Bills with Hits: 1,421 Total Hits: 1,660
Days of Inactivity: 1 George Score: 1,046.08

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