Question of Ethics... Kinda'

[Timestepper]

Okay, let me start off by saying that I've always loved a good practical joke. And on the rare times said practical joke has backfired on me, no one has laughed harder at me than I have. (Although, admittedly, they rarely backfire and I take them as good as I give them.)

Soooo... I have a Casio GZ'ONE cell phone - I've had it for almost 3 years, it's virtually indestructible and I absolutely love it. It's waterproof, dustproof and highly shock resistant. I have beat hell outta' this phone, used and abused it and turned down upgrades because it has served me so well. And did I mention that it's waterproof?

Now, I've got a fishing buddy who also loves his phone. It's one of those superduper smartphones and he brags about it more than I do mine. He's also really gullible. What I'm wondering is... Would it be unethical of me, next time we're fishing and he gets to bragging on his phone, to dunk my phone in the river, then tell him there's a really neat APP he can download that'll tell him the temperature of the water just by dipping his phone in the water?

[TrickyNicky]

Naw, be sure to set a timer so you can time how long he spends shopping for this great new app though.

[Timestepper]

Can't I just volunteer to "find it, download it and test it for him" and then explain afterwards that maybe his phone wasn't so smart after all?

[mikegideon]

I'm a practical joker too. I draw the line at anything that does permanent damage. He's likely to lose some stuff that he can't get back.

[Guest bkelm18]

If he's dumb enough to dunk his phone in the water thinking that it will read the temperature, let him do it.

[mikegideon]

And... if he dunks you in the water afterwards, your question will be answered . I guess it depends on the guy.

[gregintenn]

That would be great! My buddy waded off into a creek with his cell phone (NOT WATERPROOF) in his pocket. A couple of days drying inn the sun while laying in the dash of his pickup got it working again.

[mikegideon]

That would be great! My buddy waded off into a creek with his cell phone (NOT WATERPROOF) in his pocket. A couple of days drying inn the sun while laying in the dash of his pickup got it working again.

That's real hit and miss. Usually kills 'em dead. I've seen quite a few cell phones, pagers, Blackberrys, etc get dunked over the years, usually in the toilet.

[Caster]

I don't know about the app, but he loves that phone, you need to find a junk one.....so you can drop it overboard. That'd be a good joke.

[Timestepper]

There's a ballistic lubricant product called Strike Hold that I use exclusively on my guns which also contains a capillary action dialectric compound which dries out phones pretty good. In fact I'd used it several times before I found the phone I've got and it worked all but one time. Great stuff!

That said, maybe switching phones just prior to dunking and pretending to drop his phone in the river would be better - he already knows I've got butterfingers because I had to dive for mine last year (thank God the water was only 6 feet deep and really clear!)

Edited May 20, 2012 by Timestepper

[Timestepper]

MikeGideon does bring up a good point: How far is too far? And for those of us who enjoy practical jokes - how much are you willing to suffer in the way of revenge to maintain a friendship?

Example: Several years ago I had a good friend whom I knew hated snakes, so I, in the natural course of being a dear friend concerned with curing him of this particular phobia, would routinely walk by, drop a piece of rope in his lap and holler, "Snake!!!!" and, after he returned from the top of whatever tree he'd been sitting under at the time, would kindly point out that no, my bad - it was just a plain ol' piece of rope after all, YUK YUK! Well, much to my joy and gratitude, instead of reacting he finally one day just glared at me and said, "Oh hardy har-har! Why dontcha' try something original for a change?!!" So later on I caught a small grass snake, walked by where he was sitting, dropped it in his lap and hollered, "ROPE!!!!"

It took some doing, but he finally got me back and our friendship is still in good shape. I'd tell you what he did, but I don't think the statute of limitations has run out yet and like I said we are friends and I'd hate to see him get in trouble or anything.

[Jaysan60]

Many years ago, a friend was deer hunting as a guest on a large Texas ranch. He climbed up in a tree over a trail and had been sitting there a few hours. The weather was iffy so he took along an old black rain slicker. A couple of hours before dark, another hunter came sneaking down the trail looking every way but up. As he approached the tree, my friend pitched the raincoat down and screamed. The other hunter tried to run but fell tangled in the raincoat. My friend almost fell out of the tree laughing but when the other hunter realized what happened, he was not amused. My friend spent about another hour apologizing to keep the hunter from shooting him. Needless to say, he was never invited back to the ranch and has never played any tricks again on a person holding a weapon.

[DaveS]

Well friend, if'n he takes "yer top knot" with his fillet knife, you know you went to fer. A good joke is too hard to pass up though!

Dave

[Guest cardcutter]

I don't know about this one. I see somebody toten an asswhoppin over it. You or him one but somebody will I think.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Some water will leave lots of deposits on the circuit boards. To say nothing of deposits left behind by a bath in coca cola, fruit juice or beer.

Usually doesn't hurt to disassemble as good as possible and flush liberally with distilled water before drying.

Fast reflexes might be the best way to save a device. Am guessing maybe if you could grab a phone and pull out the battery real quick after it gets doused? A few years ago I (accidentally) dumped a 16 ounce glass of water in a $2500 MacBook. It took about 10 seconds before the thing fried, but Apple wanted so much for a new mobo that it was about as cheap to toss the laptop and buy a new one. And make sure not to let top-heavy water glasses anywhere near the new one.

I tried to power it down after dousing the MacBook, but wasn't fast enough. If had been thinking quickly, maybe a better strategy would have been to snatch out the battery as quick as possible. It would have cleaned up and dried fine if it hadn't got a chance to fry.

[mikegideon]

In geek speak, water shorts everything out, and causes individual devices to exceed their power dissipation limits and fail. It's almost an immediate thing. You're real lucky if that doesn't happen.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Yep mainly one might get lucky if able to power down quick enough before outside water gets to the right places inside. Apparenly in my MacBook it took about 10 seconds for the water to get to the right places.

Back when I did component-level electronic repair on musicians gear, got quite a bit of doused equipment in for repair. Sometimes they would get doused when powered up and parts would need replacing, and other times doused when powered down or doused and then powered-down "real quick". Regardless whether anything gets fried, there is usually nasty stuff needs washing off the innards. Sometimes it was surprising how quick some of the parts would corrode. Doused yesterday, disassembled today, and some parts already badly corroded.

One guy got real lucky-- He was getting a new roof put on the house and a storm came up and blew off the tarp and doused all his studio gear and nice keyboards with nasty old asphalt-and-glue roof water. That was a mess to clean up, but nothing burned. There was one korg synth that for some reason must have corroded nearly instantly. It had quite a few traces that corroded open in just a couple of days wet, so nothing was burned out but I had to jumper a bunch of bad traces.

[hornett22]

i too draw the line at damage. If it might get damaged i'd suggest it's something cheap enough that you don't mind replacing it.

[KahrMan]

This thread reminds of a tweet I saw recently..."I long for the days when you could push someone in the pool and not ruin $1000 dollars worth of electronics."

[Timestepper]

I don't know about this one. I see somebody toten an asswhoppin over it. You or him one but somebody will I think.

Naw, that's the thing about true friends - you might get a little worked up once in a great long while, but you know each other well enough to know that it'll never come down to an ass whoopin'. He's got a smart phone, but it's a cheap, lower-end smartphone and something tells me that either A. He won't fall for it. Or B. He'll insist that I keep in it the zip-loc baggie he carries it in when we're fishin'.

Truth is, I think my Pat (my buddy) will be more impressed with the lengths I'm willing to go to for a practical joke (he's pretty damn good at 'em himself - he once taped a smoke bomb to my trailer axle and had me convinced that my freakin' brakes were on fire!) that he'll forget to whoop my ass (as if he could! ) even if I manage to pull this off.

Guess I'll find out for sure tomorrow - he'll be here at 07:00 and we'll be on the Clinch by 07:30!