colin sproule :-);-)

Does the fol­low­ing ever hap­pen to you?

Q: I would like to pay for these things I bought with­out embar­rass­ing myself, can you please explain to me what this awk­ward lit­tle sym­bol means in regards to the ori­en­ta­tion of my debit card in rela­tion to this awk­ward lit­tle slot?

A1: swipe with the stripe towards me

A2: swipe with the stripe towards you

A3: Give that card to me you idiot

A4: Look, we don’t get it either. See how we taped a cute/annoying/non-helpful note over the device to try and aid you?

My Pro­posal

This may sound crazy but stick with me. I am infor­mally propos­ing the cre­ation of:

THE TWO SIDED CARD READER

That’s right, it reads that lit­tle black stripe no mat­ter which way it faces. Why the hell doesn’t this exist?

I’m cer­tainly no debit-card-swiping-machine engi­neer but based on my wikipedia read­ing habits I feel this is within reach 4–5 years from now.