Turnstile Travels

I attempted to go to "the strip" one night, but it didn't work out so well. Basically, I walked the wrong direction and ended up walking briskly for two hours. Dodging ashes from Grannys' cigarettes wasn't exactly my idea of fun.

I really didn't have much of a desire to go back down there, but I decided I had to ride the roller coasters, at least. Plus, I hear there's some servo-controlled fountains down there, so I must see those as well. (Yeah, yeah... Make fun of me. But hey, when was the last time you saw a robotic garden hose? Yeah... See???... No, you don't see... Ok, I'll go back to my corner.)

After discovering I could be walking for hours, I decided to buy a day pass for the monorail. The monorail basically travels the length of the strip and is completely automated, as far as I could tell. To get to the monorail loading platform, you have to put your ticket in an automated turnstile. Once you do that, it opens up and you're free to pass.

George was curious, but Ben was even more curious. "What keeps people from getting through without a pass?" thought Ben. There were no attendants. Ben walked up to the turnstile gate and nothing happened. Discouraged, Ben put his pass in the big machine and the gates opened. Suddenly, an alarm started up, and Ben realized he had tricked the machine into thinking that two people had gone through with one pass. After a few seconds, the alarm stopped, and Ben jumped up and down for joy. "I'm SO cleaver!" thought Ben. "I tricked the big, nasty machine!"

On his way out, Ben discovered he had to go through a different set of turnstiles. Unlike those he used to get in, Ben found that these turnstiles didn't require a ticket to open. Ben walked up to the gate, and it opened. Ben walked through, but he was curious. "What keeps people from walking the wrong way?" Ben reached over to the adjacent turnstile and put his arm in the exit gate. Suddenly, the alarm started going off again! "I'm SO cleaver!" though Ben. "I tricked the big, nasty machine into thinking I was going in instead of out!" Ben became so excited that he started setting off the alarm over and over, but he suddenly discovered something strange. If he set the alarm off before it stopped, the alarm sound would play on top of itself... "This can only mean one thing," Ben scowled defiantly. "Some idiots put single-board computers running Windows XP in every turnstile!"

Ok, so it wasn't that dramatic and I'm not cleaver. It was just surprising to me that someone would install a single-board computer in each turnstile when a simple Rabbit microcontroller would have sufficed.

And, yeah... I did feel a little embarrassed. The first alarm incident was accidental. The second... well, I didn't think anyone was around until I saw an employee staring at me and giving me a look that seemed to be indicative of his low esteem for my mental constitution (well, at least he got that right!) while I danced around the turnstiles like a monkey. I looked the employee straight in the face and exclaimed, "Don't take candy from babies!" and walked off. To tell you the truth, I was in a shady area of town and being alone and in a deserted area, I wanted an escort, so getting the police to trail me really was my goal.

Ok, ok... So the story got a little embellished. Gotta keep it interesting! Most of that was made up, and all I discovered was they're probably using Single Board Computers (SBC's) in their turnstiles. :-)