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Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with text stuff from how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Be there and welcome to tech stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren boc Obam. And it

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Speaker 1: looks like we've got a little listener mail to take

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Speaker 1: care of today. Yes, Henry wrote in by a Facebook

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Speaker 1: and asked, can you please make a show explaining ingrish

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Speaker 1: protection and water resistance for electronics? Specifically, what exactly does

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Speaker 1: x feat up to x minutes resistance mean? That's an

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Speaker 1: excellent question, Henry. Yes, thank you. Yeah, we're very thankful

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Speaker 1: for you sending that in, and we wanted to talk

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Speaker 1: about this because you know, that was one of the

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Speaker 1: things I always wondered for a while too, like what

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Speaker 1: what does water resistant versus water proof mean? What does

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Speaker 1: it take to make something like that? Why don't we

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Speaker 1: see more tech that's water proof? I mean, come on, iPhones,

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Speaker 1: as soon as you drop it in the water. Everyone

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Speaker 1: knows that if you drop your iPhone in the water,

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Speaker 1: it could short out. You've got a broken iPhone, And

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Speaker 1: those folks at Apple are just like, we don't cover

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Speaker 1: water damage. Yeah, you shouldn't have dropped it in the water. Yeah, time,

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Speaker 1: try not dropping it in the water, and whereas we say, look,

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Speaker 1: I understood that I was holding it wrong, but could

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Speaker 1: we at least make it so that it can withstand

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Speaker 1: some water. Well, here's here's the whole deal about it.

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Speaker 1: We're gonna talk all about waterproofing and why we want

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Speaker 1: to do it in the first place. So what the

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Speaker 1: heck is it about water that ruins tech in the

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Speaker 1: first place. Well, here's the thing about water. Water, unless

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Speaker 1: you're talking about distilled deionized water, is conductive. Yeah. Conductive

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Speaker 1: means it allows electrical current to flow through it. That's

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Speaker 1: what conductive is. Right. So, if you have a material

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Speaker 1: that allows electric current to flow through it, and you

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Speaker 1: put that in contact with an electrical circuit where electricity

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Speaker 1: is supposed to run a very specific pathway, right, which

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Speaker 1: all electrical circuits are based on. Mean, it's there. The

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Speaker 1: electricity in your iPhone isn't just like bouncing around all

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Speaker 1: Willie Nilli going through extremely specific path right. I kind

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Speaker 1: of like the vision of a of a phone that

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Speaker 1: if you were to open it up you just see

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Speaker 1: electrons going all over the place. That would be a

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Speaker 1: broken phone. Yeah, also possibly a terrible Hollywood movie. But

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Speaker 1: if if you were to introduce this conductive material to

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Speaker 1: a circuit and allow electrons to flow through a direct

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Speaker 1: pathway from point A to point B instead of going

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Speaker 1: through all these different gates like it would in a transistor,

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Speaker 1: like a series of transistors, you get what's called a

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Speaker 1: short circuit. Now, a short circuit is uh is not

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Speaker 1: a good thing. I mean, this is where you have

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Speaker 1: two different voltages, difference in voltage, and you create a

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Speaker 1: pathway directly between the two and then the voltage essentially

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Speaker 1: equalizes as soon as it possibly can. And if that

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Speaker 1: is on two parts of an electronic device that wasn't

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Speaker 1: intended to be connected, you can have some some problems,

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Speaker 1: including actual circuitry damage a k a. Frying your electronics. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so if you've ever heard about something in electronics hitting water,

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Speaker 1: and you've got a whole list of things you're supposed

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Speaker 1: to do, and the first one is make sure it's

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Speaker 1: powered off as long as you're safe about it. Because

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Speaker 1: what we'll get into that specifically, the reason for that

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Speaker 1: is because it otherwise the the this current, this the

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Speaker 1: circuit can't work the way it was supposed to because

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Speaker 1: you've got this conductive fluid messing everything up. Now we

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Speaker 1: did say d distilled and de ionized water is different.

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Speaker 1: Is different. That's because pure water, absolutely pure water that

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Speaker 1: has no ions in it, has no other uh contaminants

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Speaker 1: in it, no other particles of stuff. Right, it doesn't

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Speaker 1: conduct electricity. So if you've ever heard that water just

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Speaker 1: conducts electricity on its own, there's a little technically correct

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Speaker 1: pure old H two O. Yeah, there's a little asterisk there, right,

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Speaker 1: So uh yeah, if it turns out that there's not

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Speaker 1: the stuff in it, then um, it may not cause

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Speaker 1: a short circuit, which is good. You still don't want

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Speaker 1: to have with electronics. I wouldn't do that on purpose,

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Speaker 1: just to test it out. Don't don't go filling your

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Speaker 1: swimming pool would distill deionized water and then carry your

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Speaker 1: iPhone into the deep end. That's that's not really the

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Speaker 1: best solution. Also, that would be really expensive, yeah, and

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Speaker 1: also probably wouldn't last very long. I mean you'd soon

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Speaker 1: get contaminants in that way. I'm pretty sure that by

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Speaker 1: pouring it into a swimming pool you would negate the fact. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: if you invited any of my friends over, it would

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Speaker 1: definitely negate the effect. Um. Okay, But so some stuff

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Speaker 1: to remember about how to deal with electronics once they

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Speaker 1: get wet. Before we get into waterproofing technical bits. Um,

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Speaker 1: if if a device is a plug in device and

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Speaker 1: it is plugged into a wall outlet and it falls

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Speaker 1: into some water, don't don't reach into the water. No,

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Speaker 1: definitely do Yeah, that would be seriously uh, seriously hazardous,

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Speaker 1: and you do not want to do because electricity is

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Speaker 1: flown around all willy nilly, um. You want to disc

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Speaker 1: anected from the power. But probably the best way to

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Speaker 1: do that, if you, if you can, is to just

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Speaker 1: break the circuit, just to turn off the entire power

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Speaker 1: to that room, right, go to the circuit breaker and

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Speaker 1: turn off that circuit before dealing with anything else, because

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Speaker 1: you don't want the chance of any electricity arching from

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Speaker 1: the source and hitting you. I mean that could even

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Speaker 1: if it didn't kill you, it could severely injure you.

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Speaker 1: And so the best thing to do would be to

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Speaker 1: to trip the circuit breaker if it hadn't already tripped, um,

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Speaker 1: but then unplug it from the wall and then remove

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Speaker 1: it from the water. Once you don't have any active

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Speaker 1: electricity moving through It's not like you're going to have

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Speaker 1: like some sort of um residual electricity. Oh yeah, no, no

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Speaker 1: no know, once once it's done zapping, it's done. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so then you would want to remove the device from

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Speaker 1: the water once it once you're shirt's safe. If it's

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Speaker 1: a battery operated electronic device, you're probably going to be

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Speaker 1: safe just removing it because the voltages there are very low.

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Speaker 1: It's not like it's going to be I'm talking about

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Speaker 1: like a typical battery up like a mobile device like

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Speaker 1: a phone or a watch or a tablet something like that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you're not going to have enough voltage there for it

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Speaker 1: to really do any harm. You really could just reach

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Speaker 1: out and grab it and pull it out. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: if for any reason you do have any concern about

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Speaker 1: whether there's still some residual electricity going through the outlet

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Speaker 1: or anything like that. Heavy duty rubber gloves like like

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Speaker 1: the kind like like kitchen gloves or Doctor Horrible cosplay gloves,

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Speaker 1: you know. Um, anything that covers any skin that you

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Speaker 1: might submerge will help keep you safe. See that's exactly

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Speaker 1: why I have mine in my bathroom, but I don't

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Speaker 1: tell people that's why I have them in the bathroom.

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Speaker 1: I approve of this plan. Um. Also, like wooden or

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Speaker 1: plastic salad tongs or chopsticks or anything like that. Would

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Speaker 1: you know, a non conductive man, you want to use metal, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that would be bad. Yeah. Once again, conductivity not not

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Speaker 1: your friend. So if it's a battery operated device and

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Speaker 1: the battery is removable, take out the battery, you know,

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Speaker 1: make sure the device is powered off, take out the

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Speaker 1: battery and set it aside. Uh. The longer the battery

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Speaker 1: sits in there, and the longer there there's water in

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Speaker 1: this device, the worst off it's gonna be. Because Uh,

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Speaker 1: one of those short circuits that you could talk about

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Speaker 1: is like just imagine a battery where you connect the

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Speaker 1: to the two sides of the battery with a direct

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Speaker 1: path that burns out a battery. Fact, So you want

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Speaker 1: to get that battery out of there, and you want

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Speaker 1: to allow the electronic device to dry thoroughly, and that

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Speaker 1: can take up to a week or longer. Um. And

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Speaker 1: if you're talking about a device that actually plugs into

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Speaker 1: the wall, I wouldn't feel comfortable ever telling anyone to

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Speaker 1: try it out again. Uh No, I would take that

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Speaker 1: to a to a professional. Yeah, because tion or even

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Speaker 1: if you are absolutely certain that's dry, here's the thing.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes those contaminants and water can actually adhere to parts

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Speaker 1: of the circuitry, which means that if it could permanently

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Speaker 1: change the electrical flow inside the device, which could get

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Speaker 1: really sparky, really exactly, so you don't want to mess

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Speaker 1: around with that. But if it's battery operated, you know,

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Speaker 1: you probably have heard that it's good to put it

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Speaker 1: in some sort of material sand or something, some some

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Speaker 1: sort of desiccate that will pull out water. Rice is

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Speaker 1: probably the most commonly suggested one, But at any rate,

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Speaker 1: you want to give it several days, if not a week,

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Speaker 1: to let it dry. Once it's dry, then you can

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Speaker 1: reconnect the battery to the device and test it out.

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Speaker 1: And if the anything in the water has dried on

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Speaker 1: the circuit try that's wind the device might be permanently yeah,

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Speaker 1: whether you know, it could be perfectly dry that point

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Speaker 1: it's just never gonna work again, or it might work fine.

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Speaker 1: It kind of depends upon what the purity of the

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Speaker 1: water was and how much how long it was submerged,

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Speaker 1: um whether or not there were other things in there.

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Speaker 1: And once you once you get it to that point,

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Speaker 1: you have the actual moment of truth. It'll either work

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Speaker 1: or it won't work. And if it doesn't work, you

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Speaker 1: probably are gonna have to buy a new one because

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Speaker 1: most warranties do not cover water damage specifically because it's

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Speaker 1: such a common problem and it's hard to fix. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: I you know, I think it's usually considered, um, what

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Speaker 1: what's the is negligent? Yes? I think of it as

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Speaker 1: an act of claude c l O d's the clumsy fool.

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Speaker 1: Most of most problems that relate to me can be

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Speaker 1: described like that. So Henry specifically asked about ingress protection. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and this is a rating system. Yes, that tells us

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Speaker 1: exactly how safe it is to use various electronics around

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Speaker 1: water sources. Right, and also physical things like like physical

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Speaker 1: like hands or tools. So yeah, ingress. If you're wondering

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Speaker 1: what the heck does ingress mean, especially if you play

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Speaker 1: the Google game Ingress, it's not the Google game. We

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Speaker 1: did a full episode about Ingress the Google game way

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Speaker 1: way back. But ingress is an entrance into something. It's

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Speaker 1: a way of getting into some sort of enclosure. Ingress

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Speaker 1: Protection is created the International Electro Technical Commission, which lots

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Speaker 1: of countries belong to, including the United States, and as

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Speaker 1: a rating system. And if you look at the rating system,

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Speaker 1: you will know how well that particular component is rated

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Speaker 1: against intrusion, either by physical stuff or or fluid fluid

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Speaker 1: we should say, but yes, water, physical particles versus liquid

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Speaker 1: particles exactly, So it's an actual standard. It's not that

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Speaker 1: water isn't physical. That's yeah, well, yeah, I know what

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Speaker 1: you mean. You mean like like mad like solid matter

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Speaker 1: as opposed to liquid. Yeah, you know, we're we're casual

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Speaker 1: with the states of matter here at tech stuff stuff

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Speaker 1: to blow your mind. Probably a little more of a

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Speaker 1: stickler for it, uh I e C. The the International

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Speaker 1: Electrotechnical Commission designates this standard as six zero five to nine,

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Speaker 1: so you can look it up if you want to.

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Speaker 1: They have the charts and stuff that explain it, but

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Speaker 1: we'll go through it, and defines the standard as a

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Speaker 1: part providing protection of equipment against certain external influences and

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Speaker 1: in any direction, protection against direct contact. So the reason

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Speaker 1: why this would be important is multiple reasons. It's one

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Speaker 1: to tell you about how robust that particular component is

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Speaker 1: to any given type of intrusion, and partly to warn

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Speaker 1: you a potential user as to the kind of operating

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Speaker 1: conditions this device works under and whether or not. It's

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Speaker 1: a good idea for you to reach your big old

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Speaker 1: grubby myths in there. Sure. It however, does not cover

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Speaker 1: other issues that you could encounter with various devices, such

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Speaker 1: as corrosion resistance or the effects of ice exactly. So

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Speaker 1: there are other things that can muck up a device

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Speaker 1: that don't get covered by this. There are other standards

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Speaker 1: that that involves. But English protection really just has two digits.

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Speaker 1: The basic i P code has two digits in the

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Speaker 1: first digit indicates the protection level against solids like dust.

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Speaker 1: That would be the finest of the solids, the least frocks. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they actually do. If you're talking about zero, there's no

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Speaker 1: protection against a solid substance. A one is I think,

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Speaker 1: I think you have to get up to a two

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Speaker 1: before you're getting to the point of human fingers. Like

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Speaker 1: a one is bigger than essentially the back of the hand.

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Speaker 1: If it has an i P of one, it means

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Speaker 1: that the back of an average person's hand could come

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Speaker 1: into contact with whatever component that is well, possibly with

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Speaker 1: getting harmed. Actually, yeah, anything larger than that would not

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Speaker 1: be able to come into contact. So yeah, it's all

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Speaker 1: about it's all about the covering. If you think of

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Speaker 1: it as like a cover. So yeah, the solid numbers

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Speaker 1: range from zero, which is no protection at all, so

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Speaker 1: you just got a big old open fan. Essentially, the

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Speaker 1: Death Star had a lot of I P zero tech.

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Speaker 1: You know, they had like all these these walkways with

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Speaker 1: no railings. You could fall right into the core. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Then if you want to go to the opposite side,

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Speaker 1: that would be a six, which is totally protected against

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Speaker 1: also known as dust tight, just as water would be

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Speaker 1: water tight or air tight. You know that kind of thing.

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Speaker 1: Duct tight is a thing. Yeah. Yeah. The second digit

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Speaker 1: is um liquid protection, and that ranges from zero, which

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Speaker 1: is no protection at all, to an eight, which means

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Speaker 1: that that object would be protected against continuous immersion. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and in fact, there are older versions of ingress protections

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Speaker 1: that go up to a nine for water. But in

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Speaker 1: that case it means that it is perfectly safe from

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Speaker 1: water jets at high power from multiple directions simultaneously. So

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Speaker 1: essentially a dishwasher, if you were to put it in

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Speaker 1: the dishwasher, water would not get into this thing. Um.

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Speaker 1: But really, the all those sources I was looking at

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Speaker 1: was specifically talking about zero to eight for liquids. So

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Speaker 1: if you had something that was rated i P five seven.

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Speaker 1: It would mean that that particular device would be dust

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Speaker 1: protected but not dust tight, meaning that if you were

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Speaker 1: really determined, you could get some dust in there, and

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Speaker 1: that it would be protected against temporary immersion and fluid,

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Speaker 1: so you could drop it into like like let's say

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Speaker 1: that it's a watch and you're washing dishes. You wouldn't

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Speaker 1: have to worry about the watch getting too much water

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Speaker 1: in it because it's protected against that, but you wouldn't

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Speaker 1: at the same time want to go skin diving with

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Speaker 1: the watch. So with these i P ratings, we're not

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Speaker 1: just talking about how well a particular component is protected,

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Speaker 1: but also how well the device protects us against being clods.

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Speaker 1: Getting back into that, so if you have an i

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Speaker 1: P component that has low numbers, then you know there

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Speaker 1: are components here that you could easily come into contact

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Speaker 1: with if you yourself were not careful. So using that

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Speaker 1: death Star example, we would see that the rating is

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Speaker 1: very low, and we would know this is not a

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Speaker 1: safe place for me to be, uh, you know, unobservant.

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Speaker 1: I would need to watch my toes wear a hard

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Speaker 1: hat and a jet pack. Yeah, and uh, and also

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Speaker 1: don't do anything wrong because management on the Death Star

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Speaker 1: as a no tolerance policy for mistakes. However, you're of

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Speaker 1: chances of rapidly ascending the ranks. They're really high. I

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Speaker 1: never thought about it that way. Yeah, if you've ever

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Speaker 1: wanted to be an admiral, just wait around a week

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Speaker 1: in the Imperial Navy and you'll get there. You might

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Speaker 1: not last very long, but you know, advancement is certainly

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Speaker 1: an opportunity. So anyway, if your big old machine of

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Speaker 1: awesomeness has a huge fan moving at high velocity inside it,

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Speaker 1: you probably want to protect against something accidentally being able

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Speaker 1: to touch the van. So you would want to make

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Speaker 1: sure that that i P rating would be such that

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Speaker 1: only specific tools would be able to move through there. Right,

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Speaker 1: You wouldn't want anything too large to be able to

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Speaker 1: pass through and make contact with the fan. That would

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Speaker 1: be dangerous. At the same time, you wouldn't want to

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Speaker 1: be dust tight because it would be air tight. Uh,

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Speaker 1: And having a huge rotating fan and airtight chamber probably

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Speaker 1: wouldn't really help you out. No. Imagine having a computer

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Speaker 1: where you have a computer fan that's supposed to help

294
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Speaker 1: spurs heat, but you have no vent. Well, that heat

295
00:16:03,720 --> 00:16:06,240
Speaker 1: is just gonna continue to sec it's just gonna be

296
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Speaker 1: right there in your laptop or a computer. It's not

297
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Speaker 1: going to move. And then eventually got a fried machine,

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Speaker 1: as anyone who has worked with me would realize, as

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Speaker 1: I somehow managed to get my machine clogged every time

300
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Speaker 1: within a couple of years. It's really just my way

301
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Speaker 1: of getting a new laptop every couple of years. So

302
00:16:23,600 --> 00:16:26,520
Speaker 1: now we go on to the next part of Henry's question.

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Speaker 1: I think we've covered ingress protection pretty thoroughly. So what

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Speaker 1: does x feet up to x minutes resistance mean? Well,

305
00:16:34,920 --> 00:16:38,479
Speaker 1: I P ratings indicate there's a spectrum of resistance to intrusion,

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00:16:38,640 --> 00:16:41,760
Speaker 1: right that you you can have uh devices that have

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Speaker 1: different levels of resistance. So some devices have no protection

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Speaker 1: at all, and some have an incredible design that keeps

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Speaker 1: everything clear of any kind of particle or fluid. But

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Speaker 1: most fall somewhere in between exactly. So if you're looking

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Speaker 1: at x feet up to x minutes, that's kind of

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Speaker 1: describing that in between phase. The depth or feet part

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Speaker 1: of this is all about water pressure, right, because water

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Speaker 1: water has weight, So the deeper you go in a

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Speaker 1: body of water, the more weight or a really pressure

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Speaker 1: you're going to be subjected to yep, and so your

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Speaker 1: device is going to be under that same amount of pressure.

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Speaker 1: So if I have a device that's you know, not

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Speaker 1: totally water tight, it's very resistant to it, but I

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Speaker 1: start adding more and more pressure to it, that might

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Speaker 1: mean that it puts puts enough pressure on the device

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Speaker 1: to allow water to start to get in, to start

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Speaker 1: to seep in. Right. That's why watches, for example, we'll

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Speaker 1: have those those depth ratings exactly exactly. They'll say that, well,

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Speaker 1: you know, we've tested this to this amount of pressure

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Speaker 1: and it is able to be resistant to water at

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Speaker 1: that pressure, but beyond that, we cannot promise that you

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Speaker 1: won't have a failure of this device. So I gadget

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Speaker 1: with a design that resists water intrusion. It may only

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00:17:52,000 --> 00:17:54,200
Speaker 1: work at surface pressures, meaning that you could be able

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00:17:54,200 --> 00:17:57,920
Speaker 1: to operate in the rainstorm but not necessarily submerge it

332
00:17:58,000 --> 00:18:00,639
Speaker 1: in water um or you might be able to do

333
00:18:00,680 --> 00:18:04,920
Speaker 1: some snorkeling but not scuba diving with it, or something

334
00:18:05,000 --> 00:18:07,080
Speaker 1: might be splash proof, you know, like like you could

335
00:18:07,119 --> 00:18:08,800
Speaker 1: wash your hands, but you wouldn't want to take a

336
00:18:08,840 --> 00:18:12,679
Speaker 1: shower exactly. Yeah, I always want to take a shower.

337
00:18:12,720 --> 00:18:17,520
Speaker 1: Just went nip that rumor in the bud. Um. So, yeah,

338
00:18:17,840 --> 00:18:20,959
Speaker 1: you want to make sure that you follow those those

339
00:18:21,080 --> 00:18:24,520
Speaker 1: uh those warnings on there. It's only good at X

340
00:18:24,640 --> 00:18:26,959
Speaker 1: number of feet. As for the minutes, again, that kind

341
00:18:26,960 --> 00:18:30,360
Speaker 1: of tells you that a gadget may be able to

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Speaker 1: withstand a temporary immersion, like we said in the ingress

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00:18:34,080 --> 00:18:37,040
Speaker 1: protection uh that you know, if you if it's underwater

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00:18:37,160 --> 00:18:39,560
Speaker 1: for maybe a minute or two, there's no big deal

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00:18:39,680 --> 00:18:43,440
Speaker 1: that there's there's probably no uh no opening that water

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00:18:43,480 --> 00:18:46,560
Speaker 1: could get into easily. But the longer that it's down there,

347
00:18:46,600 --> 00:18:49,159
Speaker 1: the more likely you're going to have a failure of

348
00:18:49,200 --> 00:18:52,679
Speaker 1: one of the protective surfaces. Yeah. So it could just

349
00:18:52,760 --> 00:18:56,359
Speaker 1: be the company really just kind of covering its bases saying, well,

350
00:18:56,480 --> 00:18:59,800
Speaker 1: we know this thing is technically supposed to be water tight,

351
00:19:00,080 --> 00:19:02,560
Speaker 1: but uh, we don't really want to make a claim

352
00:19:02,640 --> 00:19:06,080
Speaker 1: that customer could come back and say, hey, you said

353
00:19:06,119 --> 00:19:08,840
Speaker 1: it was waterproof, I wore it when I went swimming

354
00:19:08,840 --> 00:19:11,359
Speaker 1: and now it doesn't work. It's you could look at

355
00:19:11,359 --> 00:19:14,119
Speaker 1: it a source of some wiggle room as well. Um,

356
00:19:14,160 --> 00:19:17,520
Speaker 1: not necessarily stating that the companies that say this are

357
00:19:17,560 --> 00:19:21,000
Speaker 1: trying to be uh you know, to edge around it.

358
00:19:21,000 --> 00:19:24,240
Speaker 1: It's just that's another possible legally speaking, it's important to

359
00:19:24,320 --> 00:19:29,600
Speaker 1: protect themselves. Absolutely understand that. So, um that those both

360
00:19:29,680 --> 00:19:33,240
Speaker 1: of those elements obviously are really important to determine. Uh,

361
00:19:33,280 --> 00:19:36,960
Speaker 1: whether or not a gadget is going to be capable

362
00:19:37,119 --> 00:19:39,760
Speaker 1: of going into the water and then coming back out

363
00:19:39,840 --> 00:19:45,480
Speaker 1: still working. So how can electronics manufacturers make a gadget waterproof?

364
00:19:45,520 --> 00:19:47,760
Speaker 1: What do they have to look at in order to

365
00:19:47,800 --> 00:19:50,320
Speaker 1: make sure that their device will continue working even if

366
00:19:50,320 --> 00:19:53,600
Speaker 1: it has been exposed to water. Uh, First of all,

367
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Speaker 1: you gotta make sure your materials are waterproof. So that's

368
00:19:58,000 --> 00:19:59,800
Speaker 1: a big first step. Yeah, if you have a smart

369
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Speaker 1: phone and made out of paper towels, probably not going

370
00:20:03,160 --> 00:20:06,439
Speaker 1: to be very waterproof. I don't that would be a

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00:20:06,520 --> 00:20:08,920
Speaker 1: really I don't want that smartphone. I'm going to pass

372
00:20:08,960 --> 00:20:11,879
Speaker 1: on the paper towel so strong and thoroughly absorbent, but

373
00:20:12,040 --> 00:20:15,639
Speaker 1: not particularly useful for a communication. Yeah, you have to

374
00:20:15,640 --> 00:20:19,280
Speaker 1: make sure that those materials will be able to repel

375
00:20:19,359 --> 00:20:23,360
Speaker 1: water or at least not least not absorb it exactly. Yeah. Um,

376
00:20:23,600 --> 00:20:27,760
Speaker 1: you also don't want materials that would dramatically expand or

377
00:20:27,800 --> 00:20:30,600
Speaker 1: contract in heat or cold. Yes, because as we know,

378
00:20:30,680 --> 00:20:34,720
Speaker 1: water is not always the same as room temperature, so

379
00:20:35,080 --> 00:20:37,480
Speaker 1: it could be that the device is exposed to a

380
00:20:37,520 --> 00:20:40,439
Speaker 1: fairly dramatic change in temperature. I mean, you know, if

381
00:20:40,480 --> 00:20:42,919
Speaker 1: you were to jump into, say, a mountain lake, might

382
00:20:42,960 --> 00:20:45,680
Speaker 1: be very brisk. Sure even just you know, like if

383
00:20:45,720 --> 00:20:48,000
Speaker 1: if you are hanging out in a mountain lake region

384
00:20:48,240 --> 00:20:52,840
Speaker 1: and it's chilly outside and your your device is contracted

385
00:20:52,880 --> 00:20:56,760
Speaker 1: in ways that that open up a crack somewhere, bad time.

386
00:20:56,880 --> 00:20:58,680
Speaker 1: So that's that's one thing you have to keep in mind.

387
00:20:58,920 --> 00:21:04,359
Speaker 1: Um More more traditional hydrophobic coatings. Hydrophobic of course, just

388
00:21:04,520 --> 00:21:08,399
Speaker 1: meaning water resistant, a repellent, water repellent, I suppose, right,

389
00:21:08,680 --> 00:21:12,560
Speaker 1: um More traditional hydrophobic coatings like Teflon, which is the

390
00:21:12,600 --> 00:21:17,399
Speaker 1: most popular brand name for the material poly tetra floro ethylene,

391
00:21:18,480 --> 00:21:21,200
Speaker 1: Which makes me understand why people usually just say teflon.

392
00:21:21,359 --> 00:21:24,120
Speaker 1: By the way, uh, in case you're curious, she got

393
00:21:24,160 --> 00:21:27,560
Speaker 1: that on the first try. I would not have been

394
00:21:27,600 --> 00:21:29,800
Speaker 1: able to do that. I did. I did have to

395
00:21:29,960 --> 00:21:33,159
Speaker 1: cough before I said it, because I was aware that

396
00:21:33,160 --> 00:21:34,520
Speaker 1: I wasn't gonna be able to take a breath for

397
00:21:34,600 --> 00:21:37,320
Speaker 1: you know, seven or eight minutes, or at least what

398
00:21:37,400 --> 00:21:39,639
Speaker 1: feels like it in the role of that word. Um,

399
00:21:39,680 --> 00:21:42,239
Speaker 1: those can come in very much handy in terms of

400
00:21:42,240 --> 00:21:46,560
Speaker 1: this waterproofing material outer casing kind of stuff. Um, But

401
00:21:46,640 --> 00:21:49,760
Speaker 1: the inner materials do matter too. For example, a weather

402
00:21:49,840 --> 00:21:53,480
Speaker 1: proof speaker might use my lar diaphragms in place of

403
00:21:53,520 --> 00:21:57,560
Speaker 1: the paper ones that are commonly used in indoor speakers, right,

404
00:21:57,680 --> 00:22:02,000
Speaker 1: and those are the part the membrane. Yeah, And of

405
00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:07,440
Speaker 1: course sound is a physical phenomenon. It involves stuff vibrating,

406
00:22:07,480 --> 00:22:10,280
Speaker 1: which then makes air molecules vibrates. So obviously you need

407
00:22:10,400 --> 00:22:12,760
Speaker 1: something that's going to be able to withstand lots of

408
00:22:12,840 --> 00:22:16,119
Speaker 1: vibration and also not absorb a lot of water. If

409
00:22:16,119 --> 00:22:18,359
Speaker 1: it were the paper ones, one that would affect the

410
00:22:18,400 --> 00:22:21,480
Speaker 1: sound and two would weaken the membrane right. Right. So

411
00:22:21,800 --> 00:22:23,600
Speaker 1: as a side note here, because I mentioned the word

412
00:22:23,680 --> 00:22:27,520
Speaker 1: weather proof, a weather proof is another industry term that

413
00:22:27,800 --> 00:22:30,840
Speaker 1: usually it's a little bit separate from the technology sector,

414
00:22:30,920 --> 00:22:38,880
Speaker 1: but it usually indicates a combination of dust and water overall. Yeah. Now,

415
00:22:38,920 --> 00:22:41,280
Speaker 1: you would also want to eliminate any openings in the

416
00:22:41,359 --> 00:22:45,320
Speaker 1: outer surface, very important for chargeable devices. This is a

417
00:22:45,400 --> 00:22:48,919
Speaker 1: tricky because, yeah, because usually you have a port that

418
00:22:49,000 --> 00:22:53,399
Speaker 1: you plug your charging cable into port is an opening, yeah,

419
00:22:53,440 --> 00:22:57,160
Speaker 1: and you could get water inside of a device that way.

420
00:22:57,200 --> 00:23:01,439
Speaker 1: If you had some waterproof port where it had a

421
00:23:01,560 --> 00:23:06,200
Speaker 1: very specific contact point for your your charging cable, then

422
00:23:06,280 --> 00:23:09,880
Speaker 1: maybe you could you could minimize water intrusion that way,

423
00:23:09,920 --> 00:23:13,080
Speaker 1: but you would also run the risk of anything drying

424
00:23:13,200 --> 00:23:16,400
Speaker 1: inside of it that could interfere. But there are some

425
00:23:16,480 --> 00:23:21,560
Speaker 1: devices that use contact charging points, like my Pebble smart watch,

426
00:23:21,680 --> 00:23:24,760
Speaker 1: not not not just mine, actually all of them. The

427
00:23:24,760 --> 00:23:27,840
Speaker 1: Pebble smart watch has a has a contact charging point.

428
00:23:27,880 --> 00:23:31,280
Speaker 1: It's got a magnetic point and the USB cable that

429
00:23:31,359 --> 00:23:34,399
Speaker 1: comes with it. Uh, it the the part that plugs

430
00:23:34,440 --> 00:23:36,840
Speaker 1: onto the watch also has magnets on it, so it

431
00:23:37,080 --> 00:23:40,880
Speaker 1: connects magnetically and that makes the contact points line up properly,

432
00:23:41,400 --> 00:23:44,480
Speaker 1: and it charges that way, so you can just pull

433
00:23:44,560 --> 00:23:47,800
Speaker 1: them apart and it disconnects. There's nothing plugged into anything.

434
00:23:48,119 --> 00:23:49,960
Speaker 1: But that means that they didn't have to make a port,

435
00:23:50,119 --> 00:23:52,800
Speaker 1: so you can actually wear your your Pebble watch in

436
00:23:52,840 --> 00:23:57,320
Speaker 1: the shower or in the pool or the ocean. I've

437
00:23:57,359 --> 00:23:59,920
Speaker 1: done all of those things, so it works just fine.

438
00:24:00,320 --> 00:24:02,439
Speaker 1: But that it does it's an engineering challenge. You have

439
00:24:02,480 --> 00:24:04,480
Speaker 1: to figure out how to do that and of course,

440
00:24:04,520 --> 00:24:09,040
Speaker 1: it also means that you're charging cable ends up becoming proprietary.

441
00:24:09,119 --> 00:24:13,520
Speaker 1: So let's say you are a claude like me, and

442
00:24:13,560 --> 00:24:16,760
Speaker 1: you and you realize, hey, my pebble smart watches run

443
00:24:16,800 --> 00:24:18,919
Speaker 1: out of juice. I need to uh, I need to

444
00:24:18,960 --> 00:24:22,920
Speaker 1: recharge it. Where the heck is that one USB cable

445
00:24:23,359 --> 00:24:28,000
Speaker 1: that's different from every other USB cable I own? And uh? Yeah,

446
00:24:28,080 --> 00:24:30,640
Speaker 1: you'd think I would have put aside a specific place

447
00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:33,359
Speaker 1: for it because that would save me sanity, but I

448
00:24:33,400 --> 00:24:36,560
Speaker 1: have not at any rate. It is an engineering challenge.

449
00:24:36,840 --> 00:24:40,880
Speaker 1: And another is to create those hydrophobic coatings like teflon

450
00:24:41,040 --> 00:24:44,000
Speaker 1: or or nanocoadings even um. And again this means that

451
00:24:44,040 --> 00:24:47,439
Speaker 1: water molecules themselves are upheld by the substance. So you

452
00:24:47,520 --> 00:24:51,680
Speaker 1: probably heard hydrophobic or oleophobic. Oleophobic would be oil repellent.

453
00:24:52,520 --> 00:24:55,760
Speaker 1: So lots of smartphone screens have oleophobic coating so that

454
00:24:55,800 --> 00:24:59,000
Speaker 1: you don't get smudges all over them since they're touch screens. Well,

455
00:24:59,080 --> 00:25:01,760
Speaker 1: hydrophobic just me that the water will kind of beat

456
00:25:01,840 --> 00:25:04,840
Speaker 1: up and roll off. If you've ever treated a windshield

457
00:25:04,880 --> 00:25:08,560
Speaker 1: with something like rainnecks, yeah, that's just a hydrophobic cutting. Yeah,

458
00:25:08,840 --> 00:25:11,560
Speaker 1: it looks like the T one thousand is split up

459
00:25:11,560 --> 00:25:13,879
Speaker 1: into a million little pieces and is rolling all over

460
00:25:13,880 --> 00:25:18,080
Speaker 1: your windshield. It is awesome. Uh. Companies like liquid Pel

461
00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:22,040
Speaker 1: have developed procedures to coat electronic components in a fine

462
00:25:22,119 --> 00:25:25,880
Speaker 1: layer of hydrophobic film to protect them from short circuits.

463
00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:29,120
Speaker 1: I mean I'm talking about even the inside of their devices,

464
00:25:29,160 --> 00:25:31,320
Speaker 1: not just the outside. So with this approach, you don't

465
00:25:31,359 --> 00:25:33,520
Speaker 1: have to worry so much about liquid getting into the

466
00:25:33,600 --> 00:25:38,280
Speaker 1: device because the device itself is repelling the water. Uh,

467
00:25:38,280 --> 00:25:42,560
Speaker 1: it's pretty cool. Yeah. The process involves putting your electronic device.

468
00:25:42,600 --> 00:25:44,760
Speaker 1: It's a mail in kind of thing. At this point,

469
00:25:44,800 --> 00:25:47,280
Speaker 1: I think you put they put your electronic device in

470
00:25:47,320 --> 00:25:51,920
Speaker 1: a vacuum chamber and then employ plasma like like ionized

471
00:25:52,800 --> 00:25:57,000
Speaker 1: yas um to spread this vapor of their proprietary chemical

472
00:25:57,400 --> 00:26:03,320
Speaker 1: in a nanometer thick film over and inside the device.

473
00:26:03,480 --> 00:26:06,120
Speaker 1: Yeah and there. I think they only have specific devices

474
00:26:06,119 --> 00:26:08,359
Speaker 1: they cover right now because they Yeah, yeah, because I

475
00:26:08,400 --> 00:26:11,439
Speaker 1: think the vacuum chamber they use is very you know,

476
00:26:11,560 --> 00:26:16,120
Speaker 1: attuned to particular devices. Yes, if they are not built correctly,

477
00:26:16,200 --> 00:26:18,960
Speaker 1: then that would break the thing. Yeah. I think I

478
00:26:18,960 --> 00:26:21,399
Speaker 1: think they cover the Nexus five and I use the

479
00:26:21,480 --> 00:26:24,520
Speaker 1: Nexus four all I have to do is drop that

480
00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:26,639
Speaker 1: nexus four in a puddle of water and next thing

481
00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:30,720
Speaker 1: you know, I get the nexus five. Yeah, don't tell

482
00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:34,439
Speaker 1: my wife I said that. Um, um, you can. You

483
00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:37,359
Speaker 1: can also, well, I mean you can't, but scientifically, we

484
00:26:37,480 --> 00:26:41,080
Speaker 1: as humans can texture the surface of an object to

485
00:26:41,160 --> 00:26:45,359
Speaker 1: repel water, thus kind of in a long, long about

486
00:26:45,400 --> 00:26:47,600
Speaker 1: sort of way, eliminating the need for having a separate

487
00:26:47,640 --> 00:26:50,600
Speaker 1: coating in there. Um. All kinds of research out of

488
00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:53,080
Speaker 1: like the Department of Energy and a whole bunch of

489
00:26:53,160 --> 00:26:59,000
Speaker 1: different facilities across the world have created nanoscale surfaces that

490
00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:04,119
Speaker 1: replicate the self cleaning properties of some plants, specifically lotus leaves,

491
00:27:04,280 --> 00:27:07,800
Speaker 1: and also like insect exoskeleton stuff like that. And and

492
00:27:07,840 --> 00:27:11,680
Speaker 1: by self cleaning, we just mean that they've got these

493
00:27:11,720 --> 00:27:16,879
Speaker 1: we little um nanoscopic cones or bristles that will trap

494
00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:20,640
Speaker 1: air molecules and use that as sort of a nanoscopic

495
00:27:20,680 --> 00:27:25,120
Speaker 1: air hockey table to repel water and and any other

496
00:27:25,240 --> 00:27:27,120
Speaker 1: bits of stuff that you don't want in a thing

497
00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:30,199
Speaker 1: away from a thing that's really cool. Yeah. Well, and

498
00:27:30,240 --> 00:27:32,720
Speaker 1: of course there are lots and lots of companies out

499
00:27:32,760 --> 00:27:36,720
Speaker 1: there that all they do is they make waterproof cases

500
00:27:36,840 --> 00:27:40,600
Speaker 1: for your electronics that basically just snapped together really good, right,

501
00:27:40,640 --> 00:27:43,919
Speaker 1: and they are designed to just be watertight, to just

502
00:27:44,040 --> 00:27:47,320
Speaker 1: keep the water out. So you know that those are

503
00:27:47,720 --> 00:27:51,119
Speaker 1: pretty simple in a way. They're they're simple technology and

504
00:27:51,160 --> 00:27:53,240
Speaker 1: that they're not a lot of components to it. But

505
00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:55,199
Speaker 1: it does mean that you have to engineer it just

506
00:27:55,320 --> 00:27:57,840
Speaker 1: right because water is a tricky thing. It finds a

507
00:27:57,920 --> 00:28:02,760
Speaker 1: way into some of the craziest places. Yes, like like life,

508
00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:06,440
Speaker 1: water finds a way. It's incredibly persistent and anyone who's

509
00:28:06,440 --> 00:28:08,320
Speaker 1: ever had to deal with any kind of water damage

510
00:28:08,359 --> 00:28:12,440
Speaker 1: to anything will agree with that. So, Henry, I hope

511
00:28:12,480 --> 00:28:14,919
Speaker 1: we answered your questions. We thought that this was a

512
00:28:14,920 --> 00:28:17,920
Speaker 1: fun one to tackle. Uh. You know, it's it's cool

513
00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:20,560
Speaker 1: to have a very specific kind of approach to something

514
00:28:20,600 --> 00:28:22,320
Speaker 1: because a lot of the stuff we cover is so general,

515
00:28:22,440 --> 00:28:25,880
Speaker 1: it's so wide open. That turns into just nesting layers

516
00:28:26,040 --> 00:28:29,000
Speaker 1: of all kinds of windows open until my I T

517
00:28:29,160 --> 00:28:31,920
Speaker 1: guy yells at me for breaking my computer. Right. Yeah,

518
00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:34,240
Speaker 1: we we have broken the Internet more than once. Here

519
00:28:34,280 --> 00:28:37,000
Speaker 1: at how stuff works. So we are glad that we

520
00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:39,640
Speaker 1: were able to have a very focused discussion on this.

521
00:28:40,080 --> 00:28:43,520
Speaker 1: If any of you have suggestions for future topics. Maybe

522
00:28:43,560 --> 00:28:46,920
Speaker 1: you have another just component of technology that you've always

523
00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:49,720
Speaker 1: wanted to know about, or perhaps there's that company you've

524
00:28:49,720 --> 00:28:52,200
Speaker 1: always been curious about, or that that person in tech

525
00:28:52,240 --> 00:28:54,920
Speaker 1: that you think deserves a full episode. You should let

526
00:28:54,960 --> 00:28:57,640
Speaker 1: us know. Send us a message. You can tell us

527
00:28:57,720 --> 00:29:02,040
Speaker 1: on email our addresses tech stuff, how stuff works dot com,

528
00:29:02,120 --> 00:29:05,360
Speaker 1: or drop us a line on Facebook, Twitter, or Tumbler

529
00:29:05,480 --> 00:29:08,280
Speaker 1: or handle at all. Three is text stuff h s

530
00:29:08,560 --> 00:29:11,480
Speaker 1: W and we will talk to you again really soon

531
00:29:15,240 --> 00:29:17,680
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Because

532
00:29:17,720 --> 00:29:28,640
Speaker 1: it has stuff works dot com