Pocket explosives
Earlier this week my digital voice recorder nearly blew up.
I'm the news editor for the university newspaper here and I write freelance articles for a magazine about the research done at the university. That day, I had done two fairly lengthy interviews for each publication. So this was a bad thing.
I carry the damn thing with me everywhere I go. In case I need it. At the end of the day I took it out of my pocket and noticed it was warm.
No, not warm. It was hot. Far hotter than it should have been just sitting in my pocket.
That was disconcerting enough. Even worse was the blank digital display, which always has at least the time on it.
I took the batteries out and found them to be near scalding. Worried they were about to blow up - yes, batteries have been known to do that - or leak battery acid all over my hands, I dropped them into a nearby resealable bag.
Starting to swear, I yanked the batteries out of my television remote and tried them in the recorder. Nothing happened until I took out the batteries. That was when random characters started flashing on the screen.
I tried this a couple times, the same thing happening each time.
Finally, fed up, I threw the recorder down on my bed and stomped off to watch television for a few hours. I was resigned to the fact that both interviews were likely gone, but hopeful that the recorder would be okay once we had each had a chance to cool down.
When I came back, the television remote batteries did nothing. For the hell of it, I took the now cool batteries out of the bag, wiped the crumbs off - the bag had held cookies until recently - and tried them again.
The unit turned on. The data was intact.
Big sigh of relief.
I'm the news editor for the university newspaper here and I write freelance articles for a magazine about the research done at the university. That day, I had done two fairly lengthy interviews for each publication. So this was a bad thing.
I carry the damn thing with me everywhere I go. In case I need it. At the end of the day I took it out of my pocket and noticed it was warm.
No, not warm. It was hot. Far hotter than it should have been just sitting in my pocket.
That was disconcerting enough. Even worse was the blank digital display, which always has at least the time on it.
I took the batteries out and found them to be near scalding. Worried they were about to blow up - yes, batteries have been known to do that - or leak battery acid all over my hands, I dropped them into a nearby resealable bag.
Starting to swear, I yanked the batteries out of my television remote and tried them in the recorder. Nothing happened until I took out the batteries. That was when random characters started flashing on the screen.
I tried this a couple times, the same thing happening each time.
Finally, fed up, I threw the recorder down on my bed and stomped off to watch television for a few hours. I was resigned to the fact that both interviews were likely gone, but hopeful that the recorder would be okay once we had each had a chance to cool down.
When I came back, the television remote batteries did nothing. For the hell of it, I took the now cool batteries out of the bag, wiped the crumbs off - the bag had held cookies until recently - and tried them again.
The unit turned on. The data was intact.
Big sigh of relief.
