Myki automatic blocking

Remote unblocking improves myki customer experience

Date Published: Tuesday 11 December 2012

Metropolitan customers whose myki card is blocked following a failed auto top up payment request will now have their myki card remotely unblocked.
A blocked myki card will be unblocked when a customer touches on at a myki reader or myki gate, or uses a myki machine. A card will also be unblocked at a Premium Station ticket office or myki retail outlet, provided a customer is completing a myki top up transaction.
The change means customers no longer have to post their myki to customer care to be unblocked and significantly reduces the amount of time between making the required payment and being able to use the myki card.
Auto top up adds value to a myki card and then requests payment from the customer’s linked bank account or credit card later. If this payment request is unsuccessful, the myki is blocked until payment has been made.
If an auto top up customer has their myki card blocked, they can make a payment via their online account or by calling 1800 800 007. A successful payment immediately triggers a request to be sent to myki devices across the system to unblock the card.
Customers should allow at least 24 hours for their payment to be processed and for the unblock request to be available at devices.
Remote unblocking has initially been introduced in metropolitan Melbourne. Bus passengers in regional towns where myki operates should note that the software is currently scheduled to be deployed on regional buses by the end of 2012. It is possible to unblock a myki at a myki machine in regional towns.
Auto top up is available to registered customers and provides ‘set and forget’ convenience. When a customer’s myki money balance falls below their nominated threshold, it is automatically topped up with an amount of the customer’s choice so that they are always ready to travel.
Customers should ensure that their bank account or debit/credit card details are kept up to date in their myki online account, and that sufficient funds are available to pay for any top up that has been applied to their myki.

http://ptv.vic.gov.au/news/news-promotions/remote-unblocking-improves-myki-customer-experience

It sounds like if you're courageous enough to use auto top up then you'd better be clever enough to have another card - especially with the unblocking delay. Ridiculous.

Also, I had a dream where I didn't add the fried onion packet into my instant mi goreng. Scary scenario.

Visiting Melbourne

Dot points because I can't be bothered forming paragraphs:

• Took an overnight Greyhound coach. The bus driver stalled at a major intersection.
• Got to wake up next to a lovely young lady in the morning though. Well, several times in fact and to the smell of fried chicken at the 4AM meal break stop.
• $11 a day for two zones' travel seems a bit steep.
• Police operations held up a train. It seemed like twenty PSOs and police converged to encourage one young man out of a carriage, while his companions continued leaping around inside.
• Contrastingly cheap weekend fares and good 10 minute frequency in the middle of the day.
• Original wording of City2Sea public transport options could be trying to hide the fact that there is no easy way into the city on Sunday morning!

Before: Public transport travel in Zones 1 and 2 is free for your journey home from the event on event date only.

After: “Trains, trams and buses are the best way to get home from the City2Sea run on Sunday 11 November with public transport travel included in the cost of the event ticket.  

Public transport travel in Zones 1 and 2 is free from first to last service on Sunday 11 November by simply presenting your chest bib when requested by public transport staff.”

• Indeed the first trams of the day were full of participants.
• Trams are slow and stop too often!
• New fences won't do much to stop people jaywalking:

• Lots of small random shops moving into the shopping centre:

 

• Also: saw an elderly Caucasian lady drinking a can of Mother energy drink while dragging a shopping cart

DIY bicycle mudguard

I have a rear rack and so most of the muck from the road doesn't reach my back. However, my chain and gears have been getting quite dirty after cycling on wet roads. Not really needing a full mudguard and having an unused packet of polymorph pellets of thermoplastic from Jaycar, I went about mashing out my own mudguard. It required a clothes iron, baking paper and some scissors and cable ties to fasten it to the frame. We'll see if it's any good or indeed whether it melts away in summer...

brute-forcing a shower drain

It's possible - I wore a pair of thongs and stomped on the open drain port over and over, mimicking plunging action. The shower was draining very slowly.  It took quite a few attempts spread over a few days (after giving up every now and then). Eventually it worked out.

simple tone/music player

Here's a reasonably simple way to get ugly square waves playing music, much like an old Nokia ringtone. It has been configured to use the G2211 that comes with the MSP430 Launchpad. It doesn't really need any special functions and can run on other value line MSP430s. This project uses Code Composer Studio 5.2 with Grace.

All you need to add is a speaker between P2.6 and GND (they're adjacent pins) and press the button connected to P1.3. The code isn't all that elegant and I've ignored all the new ULP rules.

The DCO is set to 12MHz for the purposes of interrupts. I have included a spreadsheet that calculates the constants from music note frequencies into the adjusted DCO periods. The main function changes the note and duration while the interrupt routine toggles the output and keeps track of time for the note period and total duration.

http://db.tt/HKXGJrFq

This particular file plays 'Thaxted'. I found the sheet music from the Mutopia Project's website.

Temperature readout

I've got a bad habit of leaving things on breadboard for tinkering with later... but it never really gets finished. But this time I really do need to clear off a breadboard for something else. It uses an MSP430-F2012's internal temperature sensor. It seems to be a bit high in the room - I spotted keyword 'self-heating' mentioned elsewhere.
All eight bits of port 1 and two bits from port 2 are used to drive the display. It's not enough to give the decimal point so a transistor pulls the decimal point LED low when digit two is displayed.
Behind it is a TPS60121 to boost the two AAA cells up to 3.3V. The datasheet shows that it works down to 1.8V so hopefully I can use up 'flat' batteries in this application.
The TPS60121 was a nice and friendly TSSOP-20 package so I purchased boards to make it DIP-friendly and tiny SMD ceramic capacitors from RS components. All $2.09 worth of capacitors with free shipping. Crazy pricing.

silly flashback

I remember paying a key deposit for a London hostel by credit card. After completing the stay there the funds were returned to the account but I had lost money because of exchange rate movement in the meantime. Uncool.

it's easier to change the sticker this way

another rebrand

Some new colours, change of name and maybe some behind the scenes musical chairs. At least the URL is shorter:

metlinkmelbourne.com.au
ptv.vic.gov.au

But then again this is the same amount of characters to type:
metcard.com.au 

So overall not so useful to me.
I hope they don't rip out decent Metlink signs in the streets too soon.

Night cycling revisited

On new year's eve I was fortunate enough to have the good company of three friends to go see the fireworks from a hill. Cycling on the Koonung Trail to Yarra Bend near Chandler Highway, we enjoyed a fairly clear run through the darkness, with the eerie rustling of the trees on the sides of the path. I hadn't bothered setting up serious lights so I had two compromise set-ups. A Cree XR-E on a bit of aluminium and boost converter. The boost converter was running pretty warm. A Seoul Z-power also on a bit of aluminium but a buck converter from 4 AA cells cable-tied to the bottle holder. I had lost my converted to Cree XM-L torch holder as it was on my cheap Big W road bike that was pinched on that same night.

There were only two encounters on the path. One was a group of young people dressed mostly in white and with glowsticks. They bid us a happy new year as we passed them near Balwyn. The other was a young couple hiding out from their house party by sitting on a dark part of the path. After not seeing what they were getting up to, but getting awfully close to colliding, we exchanged new year greetings and that was that.

As we left the hill, a lady further up ahead threw her cigarette into the scrub. Parking also looked impossible there. Indeed, it was difficult to find a good standing spot.