In Reply to: Every now and then they pop up! posted by Cory on May 1, 2002 at 12:49 AM:
It has been suggested numerous times, and repeatedly rejected. Hank has said many times that making a bulk-entry interface would be incredibly easy - probably take seconds for him to do. Why doesn't he? Would allow people to enter huge numbers of fake bills at once. Heck, even without a multple-entry form, people have entered large numbers of fake bills.
At one point I asked why anyone would do that - Hank said that they just do. Click here for the forum post - look for the response by "Chris in Columbia" (me)
For example, a "George-O-Matic" has been suggested before
Another post where multiple bill entry was suggested...
And here's one with specific examples by Hank...
And yet another one...
Here's an interesting idea for bills already entered - another idea that doesn't quite work
As for typing serial numbers offline and later uploading to the database - well that just goes against basic rules involving actually having the bills *when* you enter them. It's just plain much easier to simply let the database put the *current* timestamp on the bill entry rather than having to be told (by the PDA or whatever) what the time should be. Also, that would probably make it easy to fake a really fast hit or a long sleeper.
Although you are pretty accurate about what you say about the applet idea - it would limit the number of people that could use it (yes, some people have browsers that can't handle stuff like that) and Hank simply would like to make it as simple as possible, using an absolute minimal amount of Javascript, applets, etc. (actually I believe he has said that there is *no* Java, just some Javascript, on WG).
: You've seen them, most likely, but I sure notice them, every now and then people show up in the forums offering Hank so "programming help" and claiming to be able to program, which I am sure they can, but it does not always sound like Hank actually needs all of them. So I was thinking, you know what would be a really spiffical program these bored Georgers could do? Make a Where's George? program for entering bills. You won't have to sign onto the whole webpage, it will just be a program where you enter the stuff (maybe if Hank decides to okay it you can enter multiple bills, but sounds like there is some problem there cause we aren't able to anyways so I doubt he would) and the program would check if if was a valid serial number (immediate results for the slow connection people like me) and once it approved the bill, it would send it to Where's George and automatically enter it for you. You could make this program to work offline then send the bills next time you sign on, or maybe make an applet version that you can put on a webpage... but that might not work cause only WG visitors would use it and it would take a while to load possibly... anyways, feedback anyone? Is this possible or am I just fantasizing?(spelling?) I think it would be a handy program. Anyways, Happy Georging All
: Cory