The Gray Lady has an article titled Low-Tech Fixes to High-Tech Problems and one problem that they discuss happens to a lot of people: dropping your cellphone in the toilet (or in my case a cup of beer while at a NJ Nets game). My phone in that instance was ruined but maybe it didn’t have to be if I followed the steps below:
- Take the battery out immediately, to prevent electrical short circuits from frying your phone’s fragile internals
- Wipe the phone gently with a towel
- Shove it into a jar full of uncooked rice.
It works for the same reason you may keep few grains of rice in your salt shaker to keep the salt dry. Rice has a high chemical affinity for water — that means the molecules in the rice have a nearly magnetic attraction for water molecules, which will be soaked up into the rice rather than beading up inside the phone. I have a strong hankering to watch old Mr. Wizard’s World episodes right now…
The rest of the article is full of interesting info, like how you can extend your house’s wi-fi range by making a wave reflector out of an aluminum cookie sheet. Enjoy.