A French Uri Geller
A French Uri Geller
July 16, 2009
You may remember that Israeli guy who made the headlines by encouraging viewers to go and get their old watches, which he would then restart from a distance. I wasn't a witness.
I remember, by the way, my first digital watch, which I bought in Aix. I had to bring it back to the seller for the third time, as the screen had once again gone blank. So the seller said to me, in the most serious tone possible:
- "Sir, I'm changing this watch for you for the third time, okay, but I'm honestly asking you: do you want this watch to work, or not?"
It's like the "green thumb" for plants. I remember the computer manager at the Marseille observatory, who, when he saw me coming from afar, would say to me, "Wait, I'm turning everything off. Otherwise you'll mess something up again!"
I can testify to an experience that happened twenty-four hours ago. The DVD player remote control, from the brand AEG, bought two years ago at the nearby Hyper U, no longer worked. Well... some buttons worked, others didn't. So I went to the after-sales service, where they sold a "universal remote control," programmable.
I read the instructions. You do this... that, and then the remote is supposed to identify the device in front of it and configure itself to make it work.
Nuts! (French translation: what a mess)..
I went to the brand's website (supposedly universal) and searched for AEG players that can be controlled by this tool. There are some, but I couldn't find mine, which isn't even two years old. This shows that some objects are less universal than they claim to be.
Finally, Hyper U refunded me for this not-so-universal player and suggested I throw my AEG player into the nearest trash bin (and buy another set from them).
Downcast, I returned home. At that moment, my friend and neighbor Peter Pittiani showed up and said to me, "I know how to fix computer and connectivity problems. I've done it many times when I was called as an expert in Africa."
It's true that Africa is the land of all magics. I thought, "Okay. Peter must have powers I didn't know about," and I handed him my faulty remote control.
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"Jean-Pierre, do you have a knife or a screwdriver?"
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"Yes, why? Do you need it for your magical incantation?"
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"No, to open this thing. There are no screws, it's glued."
I thought, "At this point..." and handed him the tool.
Peter worked for a few minutes and, crack, the remote control gave in.
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"Do you also have an eraser, a soft, gentle one?"
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"An eraser? Why?"
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"To erase connectivity problems."
I brought him the eraser and he methodically started erasing the part of the board in contact with the keys. The mechanism is simple. All these keys are part of a single rubber plate. At rest, their lower parts are one millimeter away from the device's connectors. They have a conductive layer of electricity. When you press the key, it establishes a contact between two pins located just below, provided they are not oxidized. With a soft eraser, you can remove the thin oxide layer that prevents the contact.
Peter carefully erases, then reassembles the remote control, and everything works again. I call my old friend Jacques Legalland, a real Mac Gyver of electronics for over thirty years, and he, who has more than one trick up his sleeve, exclaims:
- "Damn, I didn't know about this one!" ---