Good candidate for conversion? Methinks not - or perhaps yes :)

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Er… I’m not sure I understand your hypothesis. But look: the gist of it is if you show up in a bus with nonstandard stuff and try to hitch a ride, it’s bound to raise eyebrows and elicit a response - and rightly so. It’s no different from when I was a kid, and my buddies and I were hanging out in phone booths with a bunch of electronics. We looked suspicious as fuck, and you’ll look suspicious too in a bus whose driver expects to see a pink plastic credit card thing and you flash a magic Amal device floating in chlorhexidine or a Proxmark instead.

It’s not a matter of nanny state, tyranny, idiocracy or aggressiveness towards the unknown. It’s just that you don’t belong and you look up to no good. Even if the bus driver was a proficient biohacker who knew Amal and Iceman personally and he understood what you’re doing, he’d still tell you to go play somewhere other than in his bus.

Incidentally, if you scroll up this thread, you’ll discover that I tried long and hard to get this entire experiment vetted by my PTA. It almost was, but then COVID happened. And then the guy who was sympathetic to my endeavor was let go, and now nobody there will answer me. So I’m back to trying to make this work sneakily.

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Okay, so it’s not all doom and gloom.

I boarded my first bus back home, punched “Contactless payment”, entered my zones then approached my hand to the side reader and BAM it worked rightaway. As I did that, the driver went “Wait W… What?” I looked up and it was the same driver as this morning. “Oh it’s you… Need I ask?” he said. But the reader turned green and did the happy chime. So I flashed a huge grin, and he went “Oh well… Nevermind then.”

Then I boarded my second bus back home and did the same. Again, no problem with the payment implant. This time, the driver was a huge black guy (something of a rarity around these parts) who loudly exclaimed in French with a heavy African accent “Oh shit! is that cool or what?!” So I replied in French “Isn’t it though…” Double-whammy. The guy was floored to see an implant and floored to hear someone answering in French (something of a rarity too here).

I spent the 20 minute ride chatting with him on the way back home (under the “Don’t talk to the driver” sign, to the dismay of the other passengers). The guy’s name is Mamadou, he’s an immigrant from the Ivory Coast and he’s a pretty fun guy. We exchanged contact information. Several times during the ride, he asked me “Do it again! Do it again!” So I did: I bought several bus tickets (not before checking that it wouldn’t charge me on the banking app of course :slight_smile:).

Cool encounter. That’s one of the things I really dig about implants: they’re unbeatable conversation starters, and you never know how or when you get to meet new friends with em.

So, technically-speaking, I have me a transit implant. The price with the payment implant is identical to the price of individual fares using the dedicated bus card. That means if I need to take the bus and I don’t have the bus card, I can. Unfortunately, that’s a lot more expensive than a season pass, and those only work with the dedicated card.

Still, it’s better than no transit implant. I’m very happy about this. For once, the infrastructure itself has gotten better and expanded the usability of my implants. That’s really groovy, and it’s rare enough to be worthy of mention.

But… I haven’t given up on the dedicated transit card conversion yet. I’m thinking maybe, just maybe, the new reader that does contactless payments works in parallel with the old reader. Meaning I might be able to present my travel card to the wrong reader (the new one that works better) and it might ring. The first driver swears it can only reads Visa or MC cards, but I bet he hasn’t tried it himself.

So tomorrow I’ll “absent-mindedly” present my dedicated transit card to the payment reader, to see if it rings. If it does, there’s a very good chance my bus card conversion implant will work too. Hopefully Mamadou will be behind the wheel :slight_smile:

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That’s fucking awesome dude. I love this story.

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Now you’re really making me wish that my chips were here already. I probably shouldn’t post this as I’ve spammed Amal to unreasonable levels with questions about payments and shipping…

That’s awesome! Have you ever tried replying something absurd like “the reader likes me”, or “I’m an engineer, I love machines, and machines love me back”? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Don’t worry none good buddy, you’ll get there soon enough :slight_smile:

That’s a loaded question: I say absurd things all day long :slight_smile:

I probably did reply something nonsensical to some abrasive or adversarial person. I tend to lay down the irony heavily on that sort of people - especially when their friends are around. That cost me a couple teeth years ago. But it happens so seldom here it’s not something I do much to be honest.

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I sometimes say absurd things but always in a humorous way. Humor can be a good social lubricant in some cases. And I handle abrasive people either by ignoring them or by playing dumb depending on the situation.

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Sometimes I wonder if Rosco can even see me. He did create that script that banishes the undesirables from his sight.

Maybe I’m alone out here, floating in the void.

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Is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can here me? Is anybody home?

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You wouldn’t be the only one hahah :slight_smile:

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Well he almost certainly didn’t block you, so you just outed me :stuck_out_tongue:

I suppose my wax wings will melt and I’ll fall back down to earth now

Also, I had forgotten but now I remembered that

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:slight_smile:

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… and it doesn’t. Too bad.