機器 － 致未來 之 13 。 Machines - DearFuture series #13

Dear future,

Don’t be surprised when I tell you what this machine does.

Let me describe it a little bit. It is a stand alone ticket machine deployed in dozens of metro stations of Taipei city. It’s in no way small - roughly less than human’s height, but larger in width. Sort of like a medium sized refrigerator, yeah.

What can it surprise me, or anyone? Since it is a ticket machine, it should be selling tickets or something like that. What’s there to surprise then? Oh, it must be so intelligent that it can help you with lots of things as a traveler right!? I know! There were something called information kiosks at your times! I saw it in the museum! I know that information is not so easy to access decades ago, so a machine as an access point can really help! I got it, right? I do know a lot of ancient stuffs …

You said. I imagine.

But, I am afraid not. On the contrary, I am going to tell you what it exactly does - the one thing and the only one thing it does.

That is, topping up your Easy Card (Taipei MRT payment card). It only does this.

Furthermore, for this specific kind of ticket machine, it only allows you to top up ONE NOTE only. If you want to add more money into your card, you’ll have to do it twice - that is,

Put Easy Card on the designated area -> insert one note into it -> wait for note verification -> press NEXT -> wait for topping up to process -> OK. you can take away the card now.

All these trouble just for adding $3 or $30 (NT100/1000) to your card. Not to mention that I believe that pressing NEXT is totally a redundant process (if it’s only gonna process ONE note, why does it need me to confirm NEXT?)

A machine of this size in your time, I believe, should be capable of like navigating itself to explore a far away PLANET on its own. But for this dumb machine in 2018 Taipei, it puts one note worth of money into your card to make your trip more convenient! Woohoo~~~

No, this is totally NOT the technological limitation of this time. This is the failure of human governance system, failure of bureaucracy, failure of collective decision making.

We already have the blockchain technology for crying out loud!!

I hope you are amused. Maybe this machine exists to amuse or to remind us that we are far from perfection.

Have a good day in the future,

Sincerely,

deanliu from the past.

親愛的未來你好，

今天我要跟你分享一台機器的故事。

這台機器是台北捷運站裡常見的機器：單鈔加值機，是它的名字。它的數量有幾百台吧，放在各捷運站。尺寸不小，略低於人的高度，大概是個中型冰箱般的大小。

那這機器有什麼故事可以說呢？不就是加值（充值）嗎？還能幹嘛？喔，我知道了，我在古代博物館裡看過一種東西叫做資訊機（information kiosk），可以讓當時的人們查詢各種訊息，我知道在古代，資訊並不是隨手可得，而是需要一個連接點。猜對了吧！它不只加值，還能給民眾許多有用的生活訊息，是嗎？

我自已想像你這麼回我。

不過，抱歉，猜錯了。可能剛好相反。沒錯，它可以加值你的票卡（台北捷運悠遊卡），這是它唯一會做的事。

而且，它一次只能加值「單張紙鈔」，如名字所述。單張紙鈔，一百元，或是一千元。想加兩張鈔？那就做兩次：

悠遊卡放上平台 -> 放入紙鈔一張 -> 等待驗證紙鈔 -> 請按『下一步』-> 加值中請等待 -> 加值成功請取回。

對。就是這樣。然後，我一直認為這裡有個多餘步驟：既然你只加一張鈔票，到底為什麼要我按『下一步』？不會就自動加值了嗎？

未來，我相信，在你們的時代，這種尺寸的機器，可能都可以自動導航到宇宙深處發掘新星球了吧！？但在2018年的台北，這樣大小的機器，對，還只能服務旅客們把一張鈔票的價值加入卡片內，看看它多認真檢驗那張鈔票！

希望你不要誤會，這絕對不是什麼「當代」科技的限制！這只顯示了：集體決策的愚蠢，官僚體系的無能，或是人類治理的落後 …

你要知道，我們所在這個「過去」，可是區塊鏈這個偉大技術出現的年代啊！

希望這故事有點娛樂性。或許，這個加值機的存在，是為了提醒我們，科技或許可以讓世界更美好，但人類肯定會從中作梗的~~~

願你在未來有個美好的一天！

此致，未來。

#dearfuture


photo credit - deanliu