Card-reading problem
Behind the cash register at smoke shop no.2 in downtown San Francisco, Sam Azar swipes a customer’s credit card to ring up Turkish cigarettes. The store’s card reader fails to scan the card’s magnetic strip. Azar swipes again, and again. No luck.
As the customers begin to queue, he reaches beneath the counter for a black plastic bag. He wraps one layer of the plastic around the card and swipes it again. Success. The sale is rung up. “I don’t know how it works, it just does”, says Azar, who learned the trick years ago from another clerk.
It is one of many low-tech fixes for high tech failures that people without engineering degrees have discovered, often out of desperation, and shared.
Mobile losing charge
If your cell phone loses its battery charge too quickly while idle in your pocket, part of the problem may be that your pocket is too warm. Cell phone batteries do indeed last a bit longer if kept cool. The 98.6 degree body heat of the human, transmitted through a cloth pocket to a cell phone inside, I enough to speed up the chemical processes inside the phone’s battery. To keep the phone cooler, carry it in your purse or on your belt. You can even turn off the phone and put it in the hotel refrigerator overnight to slow down the battery’s tendency to lose charge.
Salvaging a wet mobile
If the mobile had a bath(!) for brief while, wipe the phone gently with a towel, and shove it into a jar full of uncooked rice, as rice has a high chemical affinity for water.
SRINI
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