The Fantastic Piece of Tinfoil in my Wallet

December 11th, 2025
rfid, tech
The gates in the lobby of my workplace annoyed me for years: they would often reject my access card, and I'd need to tap several times. After a while I realized that the reader was getting confused by the other RFID cards in my wallet, and if I pulled the card out of my wallet first it worked every time.

This turned out to be very easy to fix: tape a piece of tinfoil to the back of my access card:

I feel a bit silly that after spending months pulling the card out each time the fix ended up taking me a couple minutes. I often decide to put up with minor annoyances instead of thinking about whether there's a way to fix them, and I think overall that has made my life substantially better, but in this case even a little thought would have been well worth it!

Comment via: facebook, lesswrong, mastodon, bluesky

Recent posts on blogs I like:

Differential diagnosis of loveshyness

In my life coaching practice, I see a lot of male clients who have trouble getting dates (including fairly severe trouble, such as never having been kissed in spite of being in their thirties).

via Thing of Things February 6, 2026

2025-26 New Year review

This is an annual post reviewing the last year and setting intentions for next year. I look over different life areas (work, health, parenting, effectiveness, etc) and analyze my life tracking data. Highlights include a minimal group house, the usefulness…

via Victoria Krakovna January 19, 2026

Family Christmas

Unlike many families my family celebrates Christmas with really really a lot of our family. This past year there were about 29 people at my Grandfather's house in the week around Christmas. I know what you're thinking: how does that work? It's…

via Lily Wise's Blog Posts January 3, 2026

more     (via openring)