Transparency
I’ve read on The Verge today that new Lorde’s album “Virgin” causes troubles with many CD players. I don’t listen to her music, and I last played a CD in my old car many years ago, so maybe I would have skipped the news. Until I read about the reason.

Lorde Virgin CD. Image: Lorde
The issue most players had with the CD was that it was almost completely transparent. They just didn’t understand that it was in, or refused to pull it in, as they didn’t recognize the disk.
I burst up in laughter because I had a similar issue before. When I was driving that car, I mentioned earlier. I replaced the head unit by that time though, so the issue was not with a CD.
We had a vacation in Croatia and were driving on a highway there when we stopped at a toll booth. Croatia had joined the EU but hadn’t yet switched to Euro. They were still using Kuna. Not a problem at all when paying with a credit card with a good conversion rate. And I had one.
I inserted it into the toll payment machine. It pulled it in, and… nothing happened. The barrier didn’t open, and after some delay, the machine asked to insert the card again. The queue behind our car had started to build up already. I had no other choice but to call support.
The support answered pretty quickly. After I explained the situation, they requested the info about the card.
“Uhm, it is a MasterCard” – I answered. I was baffled.
“No, what color?” – the support agent asked for clarification.
What a strange question I thought, but I replied: “Uhm, it has no color. It is transparent.”

My transparent card. Image: N26
“Okay” – I heard back, and soon afterward, something clicked inside the machine, and it ejected the card.
“Please use a different card” – asked the support agent and disconnected. Good that I had another one.
What’s the moral of the story? Transparency is good until it creates troubles.
This is post 33 of #100DaysToOffload
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