Posts by TRT

Re: and fake HIS plates...

Or her plates. But probably his.

Re: Thanks for the antipodean information...

Yes, I do think someone is going to go to the effort of printing a fake - I've seen them. My friend has shown me them. I've even run a 4-colour printing press capable of producing passable fake credit cards and plastic photo IDs onto plastic blanks in bulk, and that was in 1999. Easily detectable to the touch or with a magnifying loupe as it used a 4-colour process to simulate the solid pantone inks of the genuine articles.

A whole generation of Oyster cards are now invalidated due to poor security implementations. Several generations in fact.

As for revenue inspectors, I can speak only for the UK's TfL and the three mainline TOCs that my son has worked for... as a revenue inspector!

I'm not prepared to go into depth on what would prompt a closer inspection of the ticket, but they don't need to check every ticket, though they do need to be seen to absolutely detect fakes and free loaders and to always collect penalty fares. Their role is primarily deterrent.

Re: Thanks for the antipodean information...

Because it's to do with the rules. It matters not a jot if the principle is the same, it matters if the rules are being followed. It matters if the TICKET is valid not if the fare has been paid. The fare having been paid is part of but not the same as the ticket being valid. How many ways can I put this?

As an interesting aside, for the last week or so UK transit operators whose services intersect with Virgin train routes have been told, when validating through ticketing, to accept avocados as proof of discount validity for 26-30 year olds.

UK. London.

But the point isn't "How do the prove they've paid", the point is "Do they have a valid ticket?" and there's a world of difference as I pointed out with the Annual Gold Card discount on other ticket purchases. I get 1/3 off a ticket to Manchester if I buy it whilst presenting my Annual Gold Card London commuter card. I can shout and scream and cry until I'm blue in the face, produce banks statements, receipts, little pieces of paper to show that I've paid my fare to Manchester, but if I am not carrying my annual season ticket Gold Card then the ticket isn't valid - further, my Gold Card isn't valid unless THAT is accompanied by the same numbered photo ID card. So I need THREE things before my ticket is valid. OK, I've paid the fare, but that's not enough to make it a valid ticket.

Or pay a penalty fare.

Re: Thanks for the antipodean information...

There are Oyster forgeries. I've seen them. Why isn't it a relevant idea? Bank cards could be forged just as Oyster cards could, and if someone handed me a dodgy looking bank card, I'd be more thorough in checking it and verifying the fare details.

NFC bank cards operate in a different way to Oyster - when your "ticket" is checked they simply at the very least record the information proffered by your device - if it's full and correct to charge a bank account with, and isn't blacklisted, then you're allowed to go on your way. In this mode, the various taps in and out are rationalised by the back end at the end of the day (4am), and the appropriate amount charged.

The lack of a reliable means of contacting the backend for verification of a tap in on a NFC card or device is a hinderance, and a motivation for them putting WiFi in trains and 3G/4G/LTE coverage across as much track as possible. There's another mode of operation where the inspector, who has more time than the gateline machines, can and does sometimes now wait to see if the card proffered by a passenger has actually been recorded as entering the system, but as the device/card has no memory of its own (at least not writeable by a box in a station), they have to wait for the communication to go back to base, be checked, then returned.

It's different to Oyster where the balance is held on the card itself, a pre-set amount is deducted on tap in, the tap in is recorded on the card's memory, if inspected the reader can tell you when and where you tapped in (God help you if you haven't), then using that tap in information the correct fare can be refunded or excess deducted when you tap out. The account details are copied back to the back end for verification later and any discrepancies are updated on the card itself on another occasion.

The point is that the definition of what is a valid ticket can be different for different means of payment. That it's a bit of orange card, a paper-printed ticket, an airline-style card, a QR code on a screen, an Oyster card, a NFC bank card or an iPhone matters little - they will have different definitions of what makes them valid. The purists would argue that the payment itself is what makes it valid, because that is what is common to all the things, but real life isn't like that.

Re: I don't think he knows what 'agnostic' means...

Or 'attention seeking twat' either. Still, one should revel in the glory of the diversity of humanity.

Re: I'm that old I skipped carousel ...

I'm still busy collecting and freezing fish and sea greens, plankton and protein from the sea.

Thanks for the antipodean information...

I've never been to Australia, or seen an Opal card. Thanks for the description.

You, on the other hand, have never worked on or been close to someone who works on a transport system, or else you would know that the look and feel of an official card is part and parcel of spotting forgeries. Typefaces, shades of colouration, position of the logo relative to the edge of the card, areas of raised inking, peeling surfaces etc etc all can clue someone in to a potential forgery. I've seen National Rail tickets that have been confiscated as forgeries and some are very good, identical to genuine barring a spelling error on one part (that took me about 30 minutes to spot whereas for my friend who does this day in day out, it popped out like a red spot in a green field), others that are utterly laughable and would barely pass for real if flashed to a myopic, cataract ridden, disinterested member of staff in a thick fog at night.

Re: re: embedded the chip in his Oyster card into his wand.

TfL once issued staff "Oyster" cards inside official TfL watches. It wasn't popular.

Probably. Depends how they define a valid ticket.

The card itself may have contained other security features such as a holosticker or a serial number in human readable form. Inspection is more than just scanning an RFID. It's the transit authority's ticket - they can set the rules about how you use it. The breaking the law bit, in the UK at least, comes from the railway by-laws incorporated into the Transport Act 2000 - being on railway premises in a compulsory ticket area without a valid ticket. In the UK a ticket bought with a discount, using an annual Gold Card for example, is only valid with the associated photo ID; even if you've paid the fare if you forget the Gold Card & ID, the ticket's not valid.

Re: The meridian is, by definition, when the sun is directly overhead.

I'll try to remember that next time I'm standing exactly on the Greenwich Meridian in winter.

am and pm have lost their very specific meaning and now are understood as "in the early hours of the morning or the morning" and "in the afternoon, evening, night-time, I wonder if I should go to bed yet? Do you remember when the screen used to go to a white dot and whistle at you?"

It still doesn't help in the 12am/12pm issue. We don't have a 0am... what would that mean?

Re: Dates

@Pen-y-gors

The good thing about decimal Pi day in Wales is that you can ask people "What's recurring?"

Re: Plex server...

"If it's just for Audio, why are you bothering going down the Plex route? "

Because I have another Plex server for video on a more capable platform, and it makes it easier to change interface. TBH, my audio playback devices are a handful of cheap old recycled iPod touches hung on the wall in various rooms, running 8Player as DLNA clients.

Re: Dates

"This" and "next" is very relative terminology. You see for me, talking in a future tense about an event and using THIS or just saying the name of the day means it is the next occurrence of that day.

"I'll be going to match on Saturday", means "whatever day we are on, the next occurrence of Saturday is when I will be going to football". You cannot be referring to the Saturday that's in the past, even if it is in the same week as you are. Whenever your definition of the week starting is; for me, I've shifted mine to run Sunday-Sunday because that's the definition that a S.O.'s works uses to determine shifts and holiday weeks.

"Are you going to the match this Saturday?" means the same as just "Saturday".

Now, if you are going to use the word NEXT when you already have two acceptable ways of specifying the date as THIS COMING Saturday... three acceptable ways... then you must be referring to the Saturday AFTER the 1st future Saturday on the Calendar.

If you are using a past tense, of course, then you can't use next at all. You simply don't say "Did you see the game next Saturday?" Unless of course you have a private box and it's blue with a flashing light on the top.

Re: Midnight cowboy

Oh yes, I hadn't thought of that. 12 hours before is the same as 12 hours after. There must be a difference though? What about when it's combined with a date?

12 hours before midday on this given date... the date part applies to the meridian, surely?

So does 12pm on 12th October mean midnight as 12th October becomes 13th October, midnight as 11th October becomes 12th October, or midday on 12th October? And what about 12am on 12th October? There's no official definition of that, is there? I mean, there will be implementations of translations, but it's not mentioned in RFC3339 - they only use the word 'noon' once in the whole document!

00:00 12th October is unambiguously equivalent to 24:00 on 11th October.

If you can't use zeroes, the whole thing goes to pot!

Re: Dates

OK, who is down voting me for saying 12pm is midnight? Everyone known that 12 hours past meridian is midnight (+ or - daylight savings).

12 hours POST MERIDIAN. Meridian is MID DAY, when the sun is directly overhead.

12 hours ANTE MERIDIAN is 12 hours BEFORE midday, so it HAS to be midnight.

And when you DO start thinking about daylight savings, the fact that the solar meridian changes by an hour or two or a half in some places...

Oh I give up. Time is an illusion. 6 pints please, the world's about to end.

Re: Dates

Don't get me started on what constitutes "next Tuesday" or "Tuesday week" or "Tuesday fortnight"...

Re: I use them...

Mmm... incorporated into the socket itself, perhaps, then? Quick soldering iron job to replace the socketry, or a plug in like a cap? Would it be that bulky?

SATA?

Wouldn't SATA/SAS be better?

Re: Dates

You can't collapse the 0s, though.

Re: Dates

12pm is midnight because it comes after 11pm.

I have written my human readable time translation subroutines to return Noon and Midnight instead of any faffing around with ams and pms.

Plex server...

2 x 64GB flash drives. Holds a surprising amount of audio.

Re: Dates

I'm sure they only did that because of the civil war.

Anyway, as for barking mad... they do set a president.

I wonder what goes on at...

a Chinese burns unit?

Re: Fire!

The chemistry has napalm like qualities... Amazon Fire sticks.

Someone will be milking it...