Posterwire.com’s movie poster of the year
The 2nd Annual Posterwire.com Movie Poster of the Year Award
Bill Sullivan photographs
Elevator photos from Bill Sullivan. [via DP]
Ridgid drill
“It lights up when it’s plugged in! And it has a picture of a drill on it so you know which cord to unplug!”
New $1 coins
The Presidential $1 Coin Program: “The United States is honoring our Nation’s presidents by issuing $1 circulating coins featuring their images in the order that they served, beginning with Presidents Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison in 2007.” The new coin features
edge-incused inscriptions.
Brother, Would You Take a Dollar Coin…Please? talks about previous dollar coins that never quite took off.
Despite the fact that the Susan B. Anthony was minted for three consecutive years (and again in 1999), the coin was, for the most part, regarded as a sad aberration among consumers…
Just a month after the coin’s introduction, the magazine Forbes was already hinting at trouble. From the Aug. 6, 1979, issue:
The public’s vote won’t be in for a while but banks and retailers are showing reservations, presumably because the coin’s size — slightly larger than a quarter — could lead to expensive confusion in handling. One department store cashier in Washington, D.C., where the Susan B. was first circulated, says flatly: “I reject it on the grounds that it is not paper and it’s got an old woman on it.”
Danny Cohen
on 23 Feb 07I sort of felt that the New $1 Coins’ backside looked like they were designed by a geography book. There’s none of the elegance found on paper money… although, I do like that America is getting some heftier coinage!
nursegirl
on 23 Feb 07I have that drill! I thought it was brilliant when I saw it, too. I wish all of my appliances had cords like that.
Benjy
on 23 Feb 07I love the drill cord w/ the icon… not sure it really needs to light up to show it’s plugged in, but I’d love it if more things had product icons on the plugs. When I bought my new TV, I had to basically disconnect all the components to my home theater/stereo set-up because there were 6 nearly identical plugs in the power strip behind the wall unit.
As for the dollar coin, I wish we’d just make the move already and get rid of the dollar bill. Are there any other countries where the largest commonly used coin has so much purchasing power? Clearly, given a choice, people will stick with the status quo—especially when uninformed cashiers question them, won’t accept them because there is no drawer slot for them, etc. Of course, I guess there would be some sort of transition costs involved with register drawers, banks, etc. to accomodate wide use of a new coin. Maybe get rid of the penny… Why is it that Americans seem to be so traditional when it comes to currency? Whenever I travel, I find foreign currencies to be much better in terms of usability w/ different colored bills, more differentiation in coin size/shape, braille and/or raised text, etc. Here, to add “color” they put raining 20’s around the White House.
Eamon
on 23 Feb 07Anyone who’s ever spent more than a day in Europe knows that dollar coins are the absolute worst. Having pockets full of heavy, noisy change is a huge annoyance, plain and simple. Hope you like wearing a murse, boys!
John B
on 23 Feb 07Dollar coins aren’t so bad at all. We have them, and two dollar coins, up here in Canada and I like them. At vending machines and paying for parking they’re much easier to use. And if you have some change in your pocket you often have more money than you think. Plus, they save the government a lot of money, something that I think is quite a concern in the U.S.
Bryan C
on 23 Feb 07I think Eamon is right. Coins are just a bad idea from a usability perspective. Why on earth should I be expected adopt a heavier, bulkier form of currency? If the US gov’t wants to save money they should stop wasting time on new coins that no one actually uses and investigate something like switch over to plastic-based “paper” that lasts longer in actual use.
I never carry change for more than a day. It all just goes into a jar at home and gets cashed every couple months, and judging by the CoinStar machines at every grocery store and mall there are a lot of people who do the same thing. I suspect dollar coins will soon disappear even in Europe as soon as speedpass-style card swipes become more common.
Marc L
on 23 Feb 07From a financial and retail business perspective, dollar coins will never take off until the penny and the dollar bill are retired.
Who wants to deal with 5 different kinds of coins when they already have to deal with 4? Its another tray to count in the drawer. Another box of coin you have to buy from the bank. And why would you want to buy a huge heavy box of $1000 in dollar coins when you can get a light pack of 1000 dollar bills?
And where do people get their change? Not from the bank. From the retailers where they spend the $20’s that pop out of the ATM. Until retailers see a reason to carry decent quantities of dollar coins and start regularly giving them out as change, they’ll never take off regardless of whose head you put on them.
Coinage in general is a dying breed. Take a look at the population under 30 in the U.S. A huge percentage of them use their debit cards for almost all of their retail spending. Even vending machines are taking Mastercard/Visa now.
Dr. Pete
on 23 Feb 07@Eamon – On the bright side, it’s fun to empty your pockets at the end of the day and realize you have something like $37 US (especially at today’s exchange rates).
I have to concur on the lighting up of the plug; the icon is a great idea, but since when do I need an indicator to know power is flowing? I even question it on the USB printer cables. The only value I’ve ever found for it is stumbling around behind my computer trying to unplug it in the dark. Using a power drill in the dark is a bad idea to begin with.
Peter Cooper
on 23 Feb 07Giving tips sucks with coins. It feels tacky. Giving someone one or two generic looking bills just seems more discreet to me. In the UK it’s weird to tip someone with a £1 coin, but in the US it feels somewhat natural to throw $1 bills around.
star3night
on 23 Feb 07$1 coins are not supposed to take off. They are for collectors.
Scott T.
on 23 Feb 07Benjy,
”... the drill cord w/ the icon… not sure it really needs to light up to show it’s plugged in.”
This is actually pretty useful if you take your drill with you many unfamiliar places (e.g., for construction contractors); you know immediately when you plug in the drill whether the outlet has power or not.
Benjy
on 23 Feb 07Scott T, I guess you’re right… of course, you could also just pull the trigger.
Marcin Szczepanski
on 23 Feb 07As someone else has said, the home theater is the worst – 6 or 7 unidentifiable plugs in a powerboard. I used a low tech solution of some matte sticky tape and a permanent marker. The sticky tape is wrapped around the cord near the plug and stuck to itself to make a tag, just enough for a short bit of text (TV, DVD, PVR, CD, AMP, etc.. ). It doesn’t light up, but works well! :)
Darrel
on 23 Feb 07“dollar coins will never take off until the penny and the dollar bill are retired”
Yup.
The problem isn’t the new product, it’s the reliance on the old.
It’s a common problem. Can’t get people to use the intranet to share documents? Well, turn of file attachments in Outlook. Problem solved. ;o)
“This is actually pretty useful if you take your drill with you many unfamiliar places (e.g., for construction contractors); you know immediately when you plug in the drill whether the outlet has power or not.”
True, but no one plugs their drill into the wall. They plug it into the 100’ bright orange extension cord.
carlivar
on 24 Feb 07“It’s a common problem. Can’t get people to use the intranet to share documents? Well, turn of file attachments in Outlook. Problem solved.”
No, then they send around their sensitive business documents with Yahoo Mail and such.
Dean
on 24 Feb 07The UK got rid of the paper pound a long time ago, and a pound coin is worth twice as much as a dollar! We even have a two pound coin although that isn’t in as wide a usage as the pound.
The comment about coinage dying out was the wildest assumption I’ve heard with no supporting facts in a long while.
Dean
on 24 Feb 07Of course, when I say the pound is worth twice as much as a dollar, that’s not always the case.
Take Adobe for instance: the download upgrade for Dreamweaver costs $199 in the US or £204 in the UK – someone’s being ripped off and I think it’s me.
Even more bizarre is the fact that the download version is more expensive than the shipped box version (£198).
Leo Klein
on 24 Feb 07My how UGLY those Dollar Coins are! I think the U.S. Mint has totally lost the art of engraving. Each new coin looks uglier than the preceding coin.
No one’s going to value this dreck for anything if they don’t start looking better.
All I think when I see the current crop is: is it Chocolate or Bubble Gum.
Todd Hensley
on 28 Feb 07Does anyone else find the Bill Sullivan photos very Normal Rockwell-ish?
This discussion is closed.