The One With The All-In-One Card 

I read on one article in Computimes, MyKad: A step towards cashless society.

Excerpt :

"If then we have to carry at least four cards, namely IC, driving licence, ATM, Touch 'n Go for four different transactions, now we only need one, that is MyKad," he says.

Heheh.. I dont wanna talk about the rational, implication etc etc etc.. I just wanna share some experience.. when the worst case scenario happenned..

It may not be straight-forwardly related coz it happened 10 years back actually.. (way before Mykad came into the picture).. 1994, I went to (ermmm.. i couldnt remember which school, RMM I guessed) to play handball for our school team in district tournament.. excited with our winning streak.. 4 of us by mistake left our bags at a side of the field.. yup.. it was a hectic tiring day.. we completely forgotten about our stuff.. that day.. we celebrated winning the U-15 district tournament by losing our bags + wallets.. crap..

It wasn't that bad until when we wanted to make the replacement card.. First.. we went to police station to make a police report.. they gave us temporary ID which valid for (ermmm.. 3 days or a week.. i couldn't recall).. we had to bring that temp ID to JPN before we can request for new NRIC..

There... the major problem began.. we needed to have two copies of IC size picture + RM10++ for penalty.. heh.. of course.. when u are in a boarding school.. you don't carry so much extra money except in ur wallet and in ur bank.. since the wallet had gone.. we headed to the bank.. we got the bank book but to withdraw money, we also needed an IC.. temp ID from police station was not accepted by Bank Simpanan Nasional as a legal document.. Is was so ironic when BSN said "No IC no money.. " while JPN said "No money no IC".. double crap..

In system development, we describe above mentioned scenario as 'dreadlock' 'dead-lock' and 'starvation' situation.. (for further reading u may google on dining philosophers which normally being used to explain the case).. In order to solve the dead-lock, additional resource(s) from outside need to be brought in.. in that case.. We had to borrow money from other friends.. (obviously we cannot borrow somebody's IC).. Few days later, school admin told us they'd found all our stuff except money of course..

So, if we have this all-in-one card in exercise.. and the worst case scenario happen.. Would this kind of dead-lock not occur anymore.. or could it become any worse? We shall see..