Penalty for not tapping the Opal card is too high

I've been a bit ranty lately about Opal cards. Not working from within your wallet; the wait even at our small station, even when there are only a small percentage of travellers using it; how much it's going to cost me for forgetting to tap on where there is no gate to pass through.

This last point I guess I could chalk up to forgetfulness tax - perhaps it will even train me to remember. A small price to pay I guess, two dollars or so penalty to rewire my brain. Not so costly as to make me do the wrong thing and jump the gate when I realise that I forgot to tap on.

Today however, I realise* that it is a little more costly than I imagined:

Not only do you get charged for a full network journey, but it does not count your trip! Remember that the "weekly travel reward" fare discounting system on the Opal card is based on paying for only 8 trips per week. That means this trip that was charged full price, and not counted in fact cost me $5.67 extra. This changes things a little. I don't know that I will be as inclined to do the right thing at a cost of five dollars.

The whole idea of penalising people for forgetting to tap on or off is a bit wrong in itself if you ask me, but this almost seems like double dipping with the penalty - I mean I did take the trip, you charged me for it, count it. Can't we just presume that most people are honest and charge me for the journey that I usually take? We could do this at the station window if you like - might give the station attendant that used to sell tickets something to do in this new system... The trip at least should count.

Perhaps it is a bug in the system*. Perhaps it will be one that causes quite a bit of extra revenue** in the system: I wonder just how many people are forgetting to tap and as a result paying for 9 or even 10 trips in a week. I wonder would Sydney Trains be inclined to fix this kind of problem if it will be a cost in lost revenue for them to do so.

I wonder.

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* Okay, so I did just check on the Opal default fare info page and yes it does mention this. But only mention mind you, I think they should probably point it out more explicitly just how much it will cost you to not tap on or off. And I still think it is too great a penalty, until they have gates at all stations and the only way to "forget" is to "accidentally" jump the gate.

** So not a bug, but I would like to know what percentage of the revenue is trips that are accounted as "No tap to/from xxx"

correct horse battery staple

I have been bad. I have re-used passwords. Mea culpa. Sure I have lastpass and generate great, strong, long passwords for most sites, but what about apple id that I have to type in on the phone, or live.com that I have to type in now to log into my windows 8.1 instance? It is just too hard to remember good secure passwords. Or is it...

xkcd password generator

I have pretty much switched over to using passwords/passphrases of this type when I am likely to have to type the password in, or tell it to someone else (live.com does not do shared developer accounts, I have to give the marketing guy my password so he can update the app description... but that is a whole nother rant) I just change over to it, still store it in lastpass and have to look it up maybe a few times but after a week it is stuck in my brain, and it stays in lastpass should I ever forget it. These longer passphrases are pretty much immune to shoulder snooping too, just too many characters to follow as long as you are not holding the device perfectly still.

So I was just resetting the password on live.com as I was sick of trying to type in g2A16S0DDFt4efsv just to log in, and generated up something like "look double headed parts". But am foiled thrice by Microsoft's take on what is a secure password:

"Your password can't be longer than 16 characters."

Geez, really? You can't spare a couple of bytes? Okay then, this is less secure... it's not my personal account so - care factor - m'okay: "look double part":

"The password contains characters that aren't allowed."

Wha? Is it the spaces?... It's the spaces. FFS are you serious? "lookdoubleparts"

"Please choose a password with a mix of lower and upper case letters, numbers and symbols."

Well, okay that is probably a reasonable objection, so what do I end up with now? "l00kDoubleParts"

Wow. So easy to remember (see xkcd).

So your advice Microsoft is this: "Make a password with different cases and symbols, wait, wait, not that symbol, good, good, hey no, not so many." Strangely enough, it will accept "password1" which should pretty much be universally banned.

Delivery

Two weekends ago, we had a luverly delivery in the office…

I took the cabinet in and we set it up!

I just fits in the patrol:

 

Connecting up with Han and Boba looking on:

  

And finally, the very first game. (In the office.) Which was 1943!

  

The End.

Complete!

That’s it. It is done. Just moved it to my place and tried it connected up to a TV for the first time. Looks and sounds awesome. Here are a couple of pic of the last things I had to complete, the drawer slide, and the handles:

 

And here, for the final time in the workshop, is the finished cabinet, complete with control deck:

Mic helped me bring it over. We had a quick session of 1943, Raiden, Galaga, Mortal Combat and Double Dragon.

 

I have to fiddle with the control mappings a little tonight and then it will be in the office at 1300 hours tomorrow.

Cable Porn

Hard-core wiring action, you can see its cable ties!

 

All done bar the handles.

Worked on hardware installation yesterday.

Completed the doors, drawer and latches:

  

Attached the deck to the top frame:

One day this week I will pop over and put one last coat on the outside. Another evening will be given over to wiring in the spinner and the trackball. Then next Sunday is MAME inauguration day – I’ll put the handles on the doors and the drawer in the morning, then drive the thing over to the office for a bit of a Sunday arvo MAME Party!

Woohoo!

Last weekend…

Just a pictorial update of the work I did last weekend. (Got a chance to take a photo just now)

Oh yeah. It’s black!

The doors and drawer front are just balancing in their positions… That is pretty much all that needs to happen this weekend: hinges, drawer slides and base, handles, attach the deck to the top frame.

Last night I completed the control wiring for the sticks and buttons, spinner and trackball to go – will need to break out the soldering iron for those. I also had a bit of an issue with the I-PAC controller but after a super fast response from Andy at Ultimarc it looks like it is a case of pebkac and rtfm. Will fix that after the weekend and should be able to deliver to the office the following weekend. The TV might even be on the wall by then… perhaps

Wiring harness

Got started on the wiring harness last night, did a little more tonight. I have the common ground for all the microswitches in and the active wires in for the player one controls:

 

I took a couple more close-ups of the top side of the control deck. The player one controls, the spinner and the trackball, and the coin button!

 

With the player one all wired in I can now try the deck out. I am just tidying up the machine that will be running the emulator, getting the rubbish off it, and getting MAME and the controller configuration programs on.

Buttons

What better to do while watching television? Buttons!

Putty, Paint and Perspiration

First thing this afternoon was a couple of small jobs that I didn’t get time for when I was working on that part of the build. That is, the door and drawer front trim pieces, and the routed bit to get the joysticks a bit higher out of the deck surface:

 

Then, after a bit of putty work and a lot of sanding… Paint! I have grey primer on the whole of the outside and the edges:

 

I got a good thick coat on because I want to give it a really light sand so the black coat rolls on nice and smooth. The edges certainly take a lot of paint.

The last thing that I did just after I got home was to finish cutting out the holes in the vinyl for the buttons and other controls:

Awesome. It feels almost complete. I have the computer at work now. This week I can put in the buttons and get to wiring them up and configuring the controllers.

Not long now!

There’s a hole…

First things first, small modifications to the plan, including nutting out the spacing for the top buttons. Actually, there were also “on the job” mods to the spacing around the spinner that I have incorporated here:

The idea with the control sets is that they are centred about the midpoint between the stick and the first buttons. They are equally spaced between the sets on that centre, with a little extra for the centre sets (player 1 and 2). It does look like the right most set is closer to the edge than the leftmost, but the centres are the same distance – when you are standing in the playing position you feel like you are all pretty evenly spaced.

Day two this weekend, holes marked out and centre punched:

 

Drilling them out in sets, 28mm for the buttons and the spinner, 16mm for the joysticks, one 24mm for the coin button, and a large one at 86mm for the trackball I did with the jigsaw:

 

Here is a shot of all them holes:

After a dust off and a shop clean-up I got out the vinyl and the t-moulding for a nice, neat finish to the day:

Top and a lick of paint

First thing completed today was the console deck frame:

 

 

Then there was a bit of clean-up of the edges to be done, they are planed flush with the sides.

With the frame complete the top can be measured exactly and cut to size. I marked up some layout lines on the control surface, and freehanded some curves on the front:

The last thing today was the slot for the t-moulding, and I painted the edge of the top in preparation for the application of the top vinyl – the last step before I can make the holes and cut-outs for the controls, after that I can take the top home and wire up the controls at home.

Feels good to get a bit of paint on the thing

Next time will be marking out and drilling for the controls, here is the layout for the deck: