Eric's Beijing Diary

Well, my cell phone finally seems to be drying out. I put it in water the other day. I don't really recommend it. I was setting it down on a window sill and glancing over my shoulder at something on the news, and I ended up putting it in a little homemade vaporizer I made from an old juice bottle. When I made the vaporizer, I had considered crafting a mesh to prevent just this kind of occurrence. But at the time I reasoned that since I am the only one here, and I would never do anything so stupid, I didn't need to worry about anyone else.

It happened on Saturday, actually. I dried it out overnight, and I could turn it on, but it would not function properly. I then got a brainstorm to soak it in alcohol, because alcohol bonds easily with water, and evaporates much more quickly, so it is very effective as a drying agent. But I decided to try drying it out one more night over the radiator, and that seemed to do the trick. Good thing--the alcohol brainstorm could have been disastrous. Alcohol does vaporize more quickly than water, but it is also more corrosive. It might have evaporated parts of my phone that I didn't want evaporated.

With the transition to solid state electronics (which happened in my lifetime) we have seen the development of a status quo such that electronic components tend to reach obsolescence before they wear out. There are no tubes to burn out. But computerized systems have three points of vulnerability. They are excessive moisture, extremes of temperature, and shock. If you can protect your computer (using the term broadly now--watches, calculators, cell phones and mp3 players are all computers) from these three, they will last forever. The exception to this, is moving parts. Hard drives will wear out, because they are subject to friction. But flash drives are becoming larger and larger now. I have one that holds 4GB. They day may come soon when hard drives themselves will be obsolete.