I hope the guy's immunizations are up to date, given that he initially jumped into the canal and tried diving down for his phone.
Using a magnetic string to fish for a lost iPhone 12 in a Berlin canal
131–140 of 208 posts
Re: Using a magnetic string to fish for a lost iPhone 12 in a Berlin canal
#132I’m surprised to hear that bluetooth, GPS, and cellular don’t work in water. I wonder what’s the science behind this.
Lots of answers already, but let me contribute this little heuristic:
Radio waves, being EM radiation, are just light - like "visible light", except our eyes can't see it. There are some peculiarities related to wavelengths (particularly when they get very large, or close to the size of a regular surface pattern of an illuminated object), but to a good approximation, you can mentally replace "radio antenna" with "a lightbulb", and make correct determinations about how radio behaves.
In this case: much like you can't see much in water, compared to air, and a submerged flashlight also doesn't shine very far, a submerged phone has a hard time seeing signals, and its emissions don't travel far either.
Re: Using a magnetic string to fish for a lost iPhone 12 in a Berlin canal
#133I’m surprised to hear that bluetooth, GPS, and cellular don’t work in water. I wonder what’s the science behind this.
Radio is part of the EM spectrum. EM waves (including light) decay under water at an exponential rate due to absorption by the medium. So data transmission underwater must rely instead on mechanical waves (sound). This is why underwater robots mostly use tethers, otherwise you couldn't control them very well (RC control would stop working at a very shallow depth). Note: why are folks downvoting an honest question?
> (including light)
I remember being told in some physics class that visible light is actually the radiation which penetrates the most, and that indeed this may be the very reason why it's visible: eyes were developed when life was still aquatic, therefore they evolved to be sensitive to the range of frequencies that could reach them.
Re: Using a magnetic string to fish for a lost iPhone 12 in a Berlin canal
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you are making €200,000 per year, your time is worth around €100 per hour. Thus if this is going to take more than 10 hours, it is not worth your time.
Is going to the toilet worth your time? Or would you pay someone to do it for you?
Going to the toilet is inefficient, that's why I only eat precisely the calories and nutritional content that my body needs without anything left over to produce waste
Re: Using a magnetic string to fish for a lost iPhone 12 in a Berlin canal
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I had a dollar for every American I've seen working at the same companies that was spending $800+ a month for healthcare insurance coverage for themselves, their spouse, their two kids... And then over the course of a year probably a few-thousand in "co-pays" for doctors visits and minor things where the insurance doesn't pay 100% of the doctor visits. And then they still would have a $8,000+ deductible for many c…
This tax just comes with no guarantees - you're out of the job means all that you've spent is gone. In contrast a decent healthcare system will take care of you even when you're out of a job. A hospital in UK or Germany won't leave you on the street, even if they know you don't have insurance.
In Germany, it's even better: if you're out sick for longer than 6 weeks, health insurance takes over paying your wages, although at a reduced rate (~70% or such, got changed two years or so ago).
Re: Using a magnetic string to fish for a lost iPhone 12 in a Berlin canal
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suspect the vast majority of people on HN are in the top 1% globally. People don't realise how high incomes in the US are relative to the rest of the world.
> People don't realise how high incomes in the US are relative to the rest of the world. Gross definitely, but net (after taxes, healthcare, housing and other fixed costs)... not so sure. High CoL - seriously even as someone who lives in Munich, US housing prices are utterly incomprehensible , just how the fuck do y'all even manage to survive?! -, high costs for transportation, the utter madness that is US healthcare…
> Gross definitely, but net (after taxes, healthcare, housing and other fixed costs)... not so sure.
Actually, EU individual tax rates are on average similar to those of US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates
And yes, we also pay for healthcare one way or another.
Re: Using a magnetic string to fish for a lost iPhone 12 in a Berlin canal
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
An iPhone 12 weighs 164g [1], so, through the magic of the metric system, it needs to displace a minimum of 164ml of water to float. The iPhone has an external volume of 14.67cm * 7.15cm * 0.74cm = 77.62cm^3 = 77.62ml. So it would need to be about 2x the volume to float. [1] https://www.apple.com/iphone-12/specs/
Time to roll back this innovation and release the new iphone with 2x volume so that it'd float.
But then it would be heavier, and need to be even bigger than 2x.
Re: Using a magnetic string to fish for a lost iPhone 12 in a Berlin canal
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
> People don't realise how high incomes in the US are relative to the rest of the world. Gross definitely, but net (after taxes, healthcare, housing and other fixed costs)... not so sure. High CoL - seriously even as someone who lives in Munich, US housing prices are utterly incomprehensible , just how the fuck do y'all even manage to survive?! -, high costs for transportation, the utter madness that is US healthcare…
If I had a dollar for every American I've seen working at the same companies that was spending $800+ a month for healthcare insurance coverage for themselves, their spouse, their two kids... And then over the course of a year probably a few-thousand in "co-pays" for doctors visits and minor things where the insurance doesn't pay 100% of the doctor visits. And then they still would have a $8,000+ deductible for many c…
The tax rate for $100,000USD/yr is roughly the same between California and British Columbia. But you only get healthcare in one of those.
Re: Using a magnetic string to fish for a lost iPhone 12 in a Berlin canal
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I had a dollar for every American I've seen working at the same companies that was spending $800+ a month for healthcare insurance coverage for themselves, their spouse, their two kids... And then over the course of a year probably a few-thousand in "co-pays" for doctors visits and minor things where the insurance doesn't pay 100% of the doctor visits. And then they still would have a $8,000+ deductible for many c…
The tax rate for $100,000USD/yr is roughly the same between California and British Columbia. But you only get healthcare in one of those.
Exactly, although healthcare and taxes aside, the market ratio of gross salary (as measured in USD) for a certain position relative to cost of real estate and cost of living is a lot higher in many places in California than in BC. The same job might pay the equivalent of $130k USD/year in a big city in CA but would be $105k CAD/year (equivalent to $87k USD/year) in Vancouver.
Not that housing costs in many big cities in CA aren't also ridiculous - but BC seems to be setting new records in unaffordability.
Re: Using a magnetic string to fish for a lost iPhone 12 in a Berlin canal
#140I've gotta give them props for the persistence. I would have just given up and bought a new iPhone. It's impressive that the iPhone survived the whole ordeal, without even turning off. And the amount of stuff they found makes me wonder why people don't use magnets on strings to search for lost things in European canals more often. Could be an interesting hobby.
> It's impressive that the iPhone survived the whole ordeal
My SE just survived a trip through the washing machine. It got very mildly scuffed by buttons and zippers, but you couldn't tell it spent 30-40 minutes sloshing around in dirty water.