Simon Green

Comment Threads

• scott-sanford commented on Some rambling thoughts on region restrictions
  As the article on Banker's Drafts notes, paper instruments for transferring money are going away. As will surprise nobody who's read Neptune's Brood, that's coming hand-in-hand with the assumption that everyone will have nigh instantaneous communication over all distances at all times. Need to buy a tractor on a Saturday in Nebraska? No problem. Need to get money out of your London bank when you're in Thailand? No problem. Of course, that communication needs to be not only nigh instantaneous and ubiquitous but also secure - if your credit card is being copied to Russia or the bank on the...
• David L commented on Some rambling thoughts on region restrictions
  From an auction site that deals in plant liquidations and such. I'm surprised they take cashier's checks. These are another name for Charlie's "Banker's Drafts". Anyway, yes you can do cash. But you can also set this up electronically. An important part of this is that some (many?,most?) of the people (in the US) who talk about needing cash for everything also talk about black helicopters and 5 year supplies of food and ammo. 3. Deposits. A Security Deposit of $1,000.00 will be requested from all Auction bidders wishing to register and participate in the Auction sale. PIS, in its...
• anonemouse commented on Some rambling thoughts on region restrictions
  maybe this virtual credit card generator could be distributed as freeware. It would need to be picked up by the banks, not the customers; the people deploying it would need access to Visa (or whoever)'s credit card creation API. It's kinda double-entry transactions, where you alert your "store of value" that an amount is to be paid and receive a transaction ID, then give the payee that transaction ID to allow them to redeem the money from your store of value. Building it on credit cards takes advantage of existing infrastructure. Part of the problem with credit cards for micropayments...
• Nix commented on Some rambling thoughts on region restrictions
  Ian S, voice is 'higher bandwidth' than text to you? How slowly do you read?...
• Sean M commented on Some rambling thoughts on region restrictions
  Simon, the problems with a novelist becoming a one-man press is that most authors are better being authors than managers, and that now the author has to spend money in advance in hopes of making it back later (the first law of commercial publishing is "money flows towards the author"). Some people find that the best choice but it has serious consequences, and Our Generous Host has an essay on the problems under Common Misperceptions About Publishing....