Be Excellent To Each Other

I originally put this in the youtube thread, but I want more attention. Because I'm vain.

If you are a Londoner, then you'll know the oyster cards. If not, well it's a card used to magically wave yourself into, and out of the tube.

And I've dissolved my oyster card!



A guy called Chris Woebken came up with the idea. And it's awesome.

If you want to play along this is your shopping list:

1) ~ 400ml of Nail Varnish Remover - I bought 2 bottles of Boots own brand at 99p each. I could probably have got by with one.
2) An oyster card - I bought a prepay one for £3, though I got a funny look when I didn't want to top it up there and then.
3) A jar big enough to contain the oyster card</span> - I bought a jar of beetroot (urgh) for 72p.

Total Cost: £5.70


I've never used a webcam/youtube/imovie before so sorry for the quality. The smudge on the card that appears about half way in is from when I poked it with a pencil, and the paint on the pencil stripped off. It's best to keep checking the card, first it will get soft, then after about 90 mins it folded over and I was able to peel off the first layer of the card, exposing one side of the chip. Then I cut the centre of the card out with scissors (so there was less plastic for the acetone to work on). I put these pieces next to the jar, and I was quite suprisied when the time-lapse showed them wobbling about. Then after another half hour or so, the other side of the plastic loosened enough to peel that away exposing the intact chip and antenna.

Leaving me with this:


So tomorrow morning I'll attempt to use this naked oyster card to journey to work. If I'm successful I'll have to decide what my new oyster card will be. So far I'm thinking either stitching it into my watch, or wrapping it around a magic wand (though that might kill the signal). I'll look so swish making the doors open with my magic wand. Until they shoot me for acting like a terrorist.

That is so damn cool.

I had an Oyster card for a while, I left it with a friend who collects bus tickets in Sri Lanka.

He said "I have one bus ticket from every district in Sri Lanka"

I said "And now, you have one from every station in London"

That's awesome. If it does work, I am so copying this idea.

I'm fucking there with the magic wand idea.
I used to work for the company that made (invented, actually - they're based on the microchips they tag animal with) those cards, and there's no reason to think that it won't work.

You have to attach it to a kitten's collar and press it against the reader. YOU HAVE TO.

I AGREE.

Noseybonk has one of these inside his gloves, except it's magic and can open every door in the world.

Be awesome like that all the time MrD.

thanx for this, looks cool

@grim.. are they myfare baseD?

So maybe topping it up there and then might have been a plan?

This is an excellent idea and I want a custom cased Oyster

Hehe, indeed.

Though this is interesting, I wonder what the inspectors would make of it when they saw your naked card?

What I would be inclined to do is to cold laminate it in between two crudely crayon-drawn pictures of an Oyster card, for maximum coolness.

No, because if it doesn't work, he'll have wasted his money. He can always fill it up at a machine (if it works).

Make a bendy version of an Oyster card, put the chip in, and whack it in a bottle. Perhaps put sails on it for good measure.

You can top them up by a pound though, can't you? i would have been tempted to have spent that extra pound for the sake of it.

Yeah but it does mean his first test is at a ticket machine, which seems an anti-climax somehow. Like Meems I think I'd have stuck a quid on there.

Never mind though, I love the wand idea. Bonus points for yelling something appropriately harry potter on use.

"Alohomora" is the Harry Potter spell to open doors.

"Another bacardi?" is the magic spell to (censored - Moral Ed)

I'm super skint, so I'm quite happy not topping it up till I know it works. That and my tubes so busy that if it doesn't work I'll have people crashing into me, as I have to get out the way.

I'm off to test it now!

Ace, well done Lave

I'd doubt that wrapping it around a wand would work at all well. You wouldn't be intersecting the reader's magnetic field at all.

I would stick to the same length of wire, so that if you make it smaller you have more turns and larger, less turns. The smallest we deal with are the keyfob size cards which have an antenna about the diameter of a 10p.

What are you going to do with the toxic waste BTW?

You need to fill in forms to dispose of chemical waste nowadays. I attended a safety talk on it. Turns out "Kill it with fire!" is not the answer they were looking for.

NB: Don't attempt to burn acetone, it will burn rather well.

Currently I'm keeping it for my Wunderkammer. Or at least until I work out how to dispose of it...

I could slowly dab it in a million cotton wool buds then throw each individual one away

You wouldn't wrap it round the wand, you put it inside the tip.

See here.

+10 Awesome points!

Sew it into your shirt cuff, so that you can get through gates just by placing your hand on the scanner. Or stick it to the bottom of a whiskey bottle, and use that to open them.

boris doesn't want you to do that.

oh, and hello everyone, i've been lurking for a while, but I will also be dissolving my oyster card tonight.

I like Gordon, he seems super-fun.

I wonder what sort of greeting a someone would get if they were "MassiveDisappointmentNigel".

Hello sir!

I will be dissolving my Oyster card too, as long as I get a postive working report back.

Then I have to wonder what I can make to house my new Liberated Oyster. I am crap at making things. Maybe I could sew it into my right hand?

Underpants. Then you can have special travel underpants and get to dry hump the ticket machines.

If you want to do it to - I've got a slightly more detailed description of what I did here.

Hello Super Fun Time Gordon of Fun!

putting it in your forhead would also be a good one to do.

I too will dissolve... well probably a new one just in case, assuming the wand idea has legs.

Wands don't have legs, you ninny.

UPDATE: It works!

I've updated my post to include a video of it in use, but I will reproduce it below too...



I wouldn't use your proper oyster card as
1) It's very, very easy to break the induction loop to the chip
2) They'll probably think you are a terrorist.

Now I need to find a decent magic wand. Or maybe a sonic screwdriver...

excellent!

I've got a toy sonic screwdriver which would be perfect.

i want to use a moses action figure.

You have to do this.

Indeed you do.

Oooh, made metafilter!

You should use it to blow up trains.

Quick Back To Piracy-FTFY

You could walk up to bus, aim screwdriver at payment slot, and engage the "wssssh" sound effect whilst waiting for the RFID chip to do it's thing. For added effect you could put a second Oyster chip into a set of psychic papers.

Edit -- my colleague adds

Rooks saying I should go to jail (slight exaggeration, he'ld be happy with a £1000 fine) over on Penny Arcade.

It's just a fun look at technology. But apparently that's bad. (and I like rook )

Or you could do that now by simply putting a normal oyster card into the palm of the glove.

Shhhh... there wouldn't be as much time-wasting fun involved.

Personally, I'd get it surgically implanted into my forehead and simply nut the scanner to allow me in. Making additional comedy weak "eh!" noise for added.. comedy.

Still scans both ways-FTFY

Goddamn it! I should read threads beyond what myp has to say.

Why? No one else does.