11 ms·

I'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, w

by yosito 5y ago

I'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.

globular-toast 5y ago
It's become quite popular in the UK. People frequently pull out guns or munitions like grenades and cause streets to be closed by the police. I'm not sure if they ever pull anything useful.
hybridtupel 5y ago
Indeed it is [1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnet_fishing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnet_fishing
murkle 5y ago
It's very dangerous especially in France due to old ordinance. Google magnet fishing
- crackercrews 5y ago
  "Ordinance" is legislation. "Ordnance" is the explosive stuff. Old ordinance can also be troublesome, but is rarely deadly.
  - abrowne 5y ago
    At least in jurisdictions that have abolished capital punishment.
  - scrollaway 5y ago
    I'm not GP but as a non-native speaker, thanks for the tip! I never realized :)
    - jkubicek 5y ago
      I'm a native english speaker, and I also never realized those were two different words.
      - dcminter 5y ago
        The classic usage for Brits is the 'ordnance survey' (maps) which originate in the need for accurate maps when calculating angles for artillery! Also, while I'm a native speaker who does know this one I think it's obscure enough that most don't. In fact I suspect it's obscure enough that the mis-spelling will replace it eventually anyway. Incidentally the products of magnet fishing often turn up on Reddit's /r/whatisthisthing sub. You also see quite a few munitions. Often enough, in fact, that they have a munitions bot that warns people to contact the authorities (and not, e.g., twist the end to see if it comes off...)
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    Also, at least in American English, “ordinance” is not a mass noun. An ordinance is a piece of legislation. So I would say “an old ordinance can also be troublesome…”
    - KMag 5y ago
      Ahh, a fellow soul feeling the burden of knowing the difference between mass and count nouns.
  - celticninja 5y ago
    And just to confuse things a little more we have in the UK: https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/ https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/ Which is not a survey of explosive devices.
    - leoedin 5y ago
      But it is (or was, originally, when it was named) a survey for directing military ordnance.
      - celticninja 5y ago
        Directing military ordnance in the 1700s.
    - nicoburns 5y ago
      Huh, and I've been pronouncing that ordinance. I guess those two words are pretty similar.
- verst 5y ago
  Same in Germany. I never considered magnet fishing growing up there and now I remember why: it was super common for WW2 explosives to be found that didn't explode on impact but had corroded over time.
Animats 5y ago
Why people don't use magnets on strings to search for lost things in European canals more often. Could be an interesting hobby. Magnet fishing is a thing. There are web sites for it. Amazon sells kits with very strong magnets and ropes.
- rurban 5y ago
  When I did riversurfung in European rivers and canals we always had a cleanup day at the begin of the season, and we pulled out a lot of gear. Bicycles, chairs, various stuff, but never a laptop, watch or phone. We jumped into it and dived. Magnets are only for tiny things. Only the big things block the way and are dangerous.
- pvaldes 5y ago
  Maybe is the combination of rust iron, salmonella, chilling cold water and skin cuts. Aren't such big magnets an hazard for anything digital near them? Everything has a computer inside now, starting by cars.
  - Cerium 5y ago
    Large permanent magnets are a fairly minor hazard to most electronics.
    - lostlogin 5y ago
      A phone or iPad will take 3T and work ok afterwards. I’ve seen engineers photograph the cold head on an MR scanner and the phone has held up just fine. Sometimes they turn off for a bit and need a little rest.
      - ska 5y ago
        Unless they are taking the photo from near or in the bore, the camera isn't seeing anything like 3T (or, for that matter 1T). Most such photos are taken from outside the 5G line which is a very different kettle of fish. You are right that lots of electronics will be safe in the sense that it will not function in the field but be ok afterwards outside the room - so long as you don't move it around too fast. On the other hand, most consumer electronics would likely fly out of your hand and smash into the bore well before you get anywhere close to the peak strength.
NoNotTheDuo 5y ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/magnetfishing/ https://www.reddit.com/r/magnetfishing/
geocrasher 5y ago
If you got an email in your inbox that said to click a link to find out what personal item of yours somebody had found with a magnet, would that be considered magnet phishing?
- toxik 5y ago
  Only if you provide proof by a magnet link. Magnet magnet fishing phishing.
capableweb 5y ago
> I would have just given up and bought a new iPhone If people didn't already realize that most of people hanging around on HN have the top 10% of the world's wealth, this made things clearer than ever (the phone in question costs around 1000 EUR) Makes all the conversations around finance here make so much more sense.
- gnopgnip 5y ago
  In Germany phone insurance is very common. You would just pay a deductible of 50-100 eur
- 1123581321 5y ago
  I wouldn't expect many in the 90% to buy an expensive iPhone in the first place. It's a narrow range that would buy one but not a replacement. Regardless, kudos to them for persevering. As another user said, many people would assume the device to be inoperable, even if findable, so not try.
  - joe-collins 5y ago
    There are a lot of people in the US who buy iPhones (or comparable Android equivalents) on 2-year payment plans with carrier lock-in. Many can afford an extra $40 per month, but don't have the savings to drop $1000 in one go. > In 2018, the median earnings for full-time, year-round cashiers were $22,109, compared with $35,301 for retail salespersons and $42,421 for first-line supervisors of retail salespersons. > In contrast, the median earnings for all full-time, year-round workers was $48,565 in 2018. I've spent ten years working retail here in California, and I'll offer my anecdata: a great number of even those cashiers own iPhones! Ten million people work retail in the US making no more than ~$40k, and that's a population that demonstrably owns iPhones but is hard-pressed to replace them on short notice. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2020/09/profile-of-the-retail-workforce.html https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2020/09/profile-of-th...
    - Tenoke 5y ago
      That's less common in Europe (and Berlin specifically). I'm guessing even less so for something like the 12 Pro.
modernerd 5y ago
> …makes me wonder why people don't use magnets on strings to search for lost things in European canals more often. You may be interested in “Below the Surface”, an exhibition of objects found in Amsterdam canals that have been dated from 2005 (phones, coins) back to -119000 (sea shells). https://belowthesurface.amsterdam/en/vondsten https://belowthesurface.amsterdam/en/vondsten
- lostlogin 5y ago
  I found a load of clay pipe stems on the bank of the Thames. My father found a 16th century corkscrew there too. It makes a very distant past feel much closer.
  - hutzlibu 5y ago
    The past is all around us ... or below us.
riekus 5y ago
My 12 year old niece fished a handgun out of a canal couple months back, that is pretty uncommon heren in the Netherlands
- KMag 5y ago
  It's also pretty uncommon in the U.S, largely due to there not being a lot of canals relative to land area.
teachingassist 5y ago
> why people don't use magnets on strings to search for lost things in European canals more often. There are TikTok accounts devoted to this (where else?) - it seems surprisingly common to find safes.
- virtue3 5y ago
  ... or they plant them :)
  - celticninja 5y ago
    Nah, stolen safes end up in canals very often, guns and knives too. They are easy places to dispose of small heavy items and they usually stay hidden for a long time.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
walshemj 5y ago
They do quite often the find dumped guns etc search for magnet fishing videos on YouTube
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
pmlnr 5y ago
They do. Cambridge, UK, has regular magnet fishers.
walrus01 5y ago
> the iPhone survived They had a lot better chance of success since it was fresh water, vs if it had fallen in the ocean...
- yosito 5y ago
  I'm not sure I would call the water from the video "fresh"...
  - walrus01 5y ago
    but certainly less conductive in terms of total dissolved salts than the ocean. I meant "fresh" water in the sense of, not ocean water, not something you'd want to drink :) https://www.lenntech.com/applications/ultrapure/conductivity/water-conductivity.htm https://www.lenntech.com/applications/ultrapure/conductivity...
    - jhugo 5y ago
      The phone is IP68, so I would think the conductivity of the water is not a major concern unless there is some mechanical damage that impacts the waterproofing
      - walrus01 5y ago
        The lightning or USB-c connector on a phone has voltage present, and exposed copper like that plus salt water surely isn't a good combination. Without making an ip68 rated twist lock huge charger connector I don't see how the port itself can be waterproofed.
        jhugo 5y ago
        The IP68 rating applies to the entire device, it doesn't exclude the charging port. These connectors are well-protected against complete shorts (e.g. people sticking a piece of metal into the port). Both Lightning and USB-C have protocol negotiation at low-voltage/low-current before any meaningful current will be delivered by either side.
steve_adams_86 5y ago
> 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.
adrianN 5y ago
Magnet fishing in Germany is of questionable legality. In any case you have to dispose of everything you pull out, leaving it or throwing it back in is definitely illegal.
- globular-toast 5y ago
  Interesting. On the one hand the bikes and miscellaneous scrap people leave on the sides in the UK is an eyesore, but on the other hand it was already there, it was just hidden. Is scrap metal harmless at the bottom of a canal or river? Are they not doing a public service by exposing it and allowing more easy disposal by local authorities?

by yosito 5y ago

globular-toast 5y ago

It's become quite popular in the UK. People frequently pull out guns or munitions like grenades and cause streets to be closed by the police. I'm not sure if they ever pull anything useful.

hybridtupel 5y ago

Indeed it is [1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnet_fishing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnet_fishing

murkle 5y ago

It's very dangerous especially in France due to old ordinance. Google magnet fishing

crackercrews 5y ago
"Ordinance" is legislation. "Ordnance" is the explosive stuff. Old ordinance can also be troublesome, but is rarely deadly.
- abrowne 5y ago
  At least in jurisdictions that have abolished capital punishment.
- scrollaway 5y ago
  I'm not GP but as a non-native speaker, thanks for the tip! I never realized :)
  - jkubicek 5y ago
    I'm a native english speaker, and I also never realized those were two different words.
    - dcminter 5y ago
      The classic usage for Brits is the 'ordnance survey' (maps) which originate in the need for accurate maps when calculating angles for artillery! Also, while I'm a native speaker who does know this one I think it's obscure enough that most don't. In fact I suspect it's obscure enough that the mis-spelling will replace it eventually anyway. Incidentally the products of magnet fishing often turn up on Reddit's /r/whatisthisthing sub. You also see quite a few munitions. Often enough, in fact, that they have a munitions bot that warns people to contact the authorities (and not, e.g., twist the end to see if it comes off...)
- tshaddox 5y ago
  Also, at least in American English, “ordinance” is not a mass noun. An ordinance is a piece of legislation. So I would say “an old ordinance can also be troublesome…”
  - KMag 5y ago
    Ahh, a fellow soul feeling the burden of knowing the difference between mass and count nouns.
- celticninja 5y ago
  And just to confuse things a little more we have in the UK: https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/ https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/ Which is not a survey of explosive devices.
  - leoedin 5y ago
    But it is (or was, originally, when it was named) a survey for directing military ordnance.
    - celticninja 5y ago
      Directing military ordnance in the 1700s.
  - nicoburns 5y ago
    Huh, and I've been pronouncing that ordinance. I guess those two words are pretty similar.
verst 5y ago
Same in Germany. I never considered magnet fishing growing up there and now I remember why: it was super common for WW2 explosives to be found that didn't explode on impact but had corroded over time.

Animats 5y ago

Why people don't use magnets on strings to search for lost things in European canals more often. Could be an interesting hobby. Magnet fishing is a thing. There are web sites for it. Amazon sells kits with very strong magnets and ropes.

rurban 5y ago
When I did riversurfung in European rivers and canals we always had a cleanup day at the begin of the season, and we pulled out a lot of gear. Bicycles, chairs, various stuff, but never a laptop, watch or phone. We jumped into it and dived. Magnets are only for tiny things. Only the big things block the way and are dangerous.
pvaldes 5y ago
Maybe is the combination of rust iron, salmonella, chilling cold water and skin cuts. Aren't such big magnets an hazard for anything digital near them? Everything has a computer inside now, starting by cars.
- Cerium 5y ago
  Large permanent magnets are a fairly minor hazard to most electronics.
  - lostlogin 5y ago
    A phone or iPad will take 3T and work ok afterwards. I’ve seen engineers photograph the cold head on an MR scanner and the phone has held up just fine. Sometimes they turn off for a bit and need a little rest.
    - ska 5y ago
      Unless they are taking the photo from near or in the bore, the camera isn't seeing anything like 3T (or, for that matter 1T). Most such photos are taken from outside the 5G line which is a very different kettle of fish. You are right that lots of electronics will be safe in the sense that it will not function in the field but be ok afterwards outside the room - so long as you don't move it around too fast. On the other hand, most consumer electronics would likely fly out of your hand and smash into the bore well before you get anywhere close to the peak strength.

NoNotTheDuo 5y ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/magnetfishing/ https://www.reddit.com/r/magnetfishing/

geocrasher 5y ago

If you got an email in your inbox that said to click a link to find out what personal item of yours somebody had found with a magnet, would that be considered magnet phishing?

toxik 5y ago
Only if you provide proof by a magnet link. Magnet magnet fishing phishing.

capableweb 5y ago

> I would have just given up and bought a new iPhone If people didn't already realize that most of people hanging around on HN have the top 10% of the world's wealth, this made things clearer than ever (the phone in question costs around 1000 EUR) Makes all the conversations around finance here make so much more sense.

gnopgnip 5y ago
In Germany phone insurance is very common. You would just pay a deductible of 50-100 eur
1123581321 5y ago
I wouldn't expect many in the 90% to buy an expensive iPhone in the first place. It's a narrow range that would buy one but not a replacement. Regardless, kudos to them for persevering. As another user said, many people would assume the device to be inoperable, even if findable, so not try.
- joe-collins 5y ago
  There are a lot of people in the US who buy iPhones (or comparable Android equivalents) on 2-year payment plans with carrier lock-in. Many can afford an extra $40 per month, but don't have the savings to drop $1000 in one go. > In 2018, the median earnings for full-time, year-round cashiers were $22,109, compared with $35,301 for retail salespersons and $42,421 for first-line supervisors of retail salespersons. > In contrast, the median earnings for all full-time, year-round workers was $48,565 in 2018. I've spent ten years working retail here in California, and I'll offer my anecdata: a great number of even those cashiers own iPhones! Ten million people work retail in the US making no more than ~$40k, and that's a population that demonstrably owns iPhones but is hard-pressed to replace them on short notice. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2020/09/profile-of-the-retail-workforce.html https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2020/09/profile-of-th...
  - Tenoke 5y ago
    That's less common in Europe (and Berlin specifically). I'm guessing even less so for something like the 12 Pro.

modernerd 5y ago

> …makes me wonder why people don't use magnets on strings to search for lost things in European canals more often. You may be interested in “Below the Surface”, an exhibition of objects found in Amsterdam canals that have been dated from 2005 (phones, coins) back to -119000 (sea shells). https://belowthesurface.amsterdam/en/vondsten https://belowthesurface.amsterdam/en/vondsten

lostlogin 5y ago
I found a load of clay pipe stems on the bank of the Thames. My father found a 16th century corkscrew there too. It makes a very distant past feel much closer.
- hutzlibu 5y ago
  The past is all around us ... or below us.

riekus 5y ago

My 12 year old niece fished a handgun out of a canal couple months back, that is pretty uncommon heren in the Netherlands

KMag 5y ago
It's also pretty uncommon in the U.S, largely due to there not being a lot of canals relative to land area.

teachingassist 5y ago

> why people don't use magnets on strings to search for lost things in European canals more often. There are TikTok accounts devoted to this (where else?) - it seems surprisingly common to find safes.

virtue3 5y ago
... or they plant them :)
- celticninja 5y ago
  Nah, stolen safes end up in canals very often, guns and knives too. They are easy places to dispose of small heavy items and they usually stay hidden for a long time.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

walshemj 5y ago

They do quite often the find dumped guns etc search for magnet fishing videos on YouTube

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

pmlnr 5y ago

They do. Cambridge, UK, has regular magnet fishers.

walrus01 5y ago

> the iPhone survived They had a lot better chance of success since it was fresh water, vs if it had fallen in the ocean...

yosito 5y ago
I'm not sure I would call the water from the video "fresh"...
- walrus01 5y ago
  but certainly less conductive in terms of total dissolved salts than the ocean. I meant "fresh" water in the sense of, not ocean water, not something you'd want to drink :) https://www.lenntech.com/applications/ultrapure/conductivity/water-conductivity.htm https://www.lenntech.com/applications/ultrapure/conductivity...
  - jhugo 5y ago
    The phone is IP68, so I would think the conductivity of the water is not a major concern unless there is some mechanical damage that impacts the waterproofing
    - walrus01 5y ago
      The lightning or USB-c connector on a phone has voltage present, and exposed copper like that plus salt water surely isn't a good combination. Without making an ip68 rated twist lock huge charger connector I don't see how the port itself can be waterproofed.
      - jhugo 5y ago
        The IP68 rating applies to the entire device, it doesn't exclude the charging port. These connectors are well-protected against complete shorts (e.g. people sticking a piece of metal into the port). Both Lightning and USB-C have protocol negotiation at low-voltage/low-current before any meaningful current will be delivered by either side.

steve_adams_86 5y ago

> 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.

adrianN 5y ago

Magnet fishing in Germany is of questionable legality. In any case you have to dispose of everything you pull out, leaving it or throwing it back in is definitely illegal.

globular-toast 5y ago
Interesting. On the one hand the bikes and miscellaneous scrap people leave on the sides in the UK is an eyesore, but on the other hand it was already there, it was just hidden. Is scrap metal harmless at the bottom of a canal or river? Are they not doing a public service by exposing it and allowing more easy disposal by local authorities?