The world's rubbish bins are filling up with discarded cellular telephones, many of which appear to be Nokia models if their fate, as opposed to that of Apple, is any guide.
Therefore, UBCo have been rooting about in the rubbish bins of the world, gathering up used units and scavenging a few parts of them, as below:
Wire up the camera to the memory module, to record a video message for the fossils... err, grandparents.
Hook up the earpiece to play back the soundtrack, and the screen, to play back the video component, add the battery then hook up a switch that activates the playback, upon opening the card, before gluing it all into a fancy Christmas card, with a foam layer to add enough bulk to house all of the gadgetry.
Record; post; enjoy the accolades. May be recharged for continued enjoyment, or wiped and re-recorded by thrifty recipients.
Should attract a hefty premium over the value of the disused 'phone.-- UnaBubba, May 03 2012 So, a Christmas card with a video in it? Card manufacturers already do these, but they work a bit differently: You send someone a card which looks like a normal card except that it has a picture of your choice on the front. The receipient puts the card on their table and points the camera of their smartphone at it. On the screen of their smartphone they see the card sitting on their table, but instead of the picture on the front of the card, there is a video playing, looking as if it were playing on a screen on the front of the card. The video is something either made by you or chosen by you and stored on the card company's website (which probably has some sort of porn filter).-- hippo, May 03 2012 More like a Xmas card with a recycled mobile 'phone in it. I don't really care that it's done somehow... I care that mobile 'phones are toxic waste and not being recycled.-- UnaBubba, May 03 2012 Yes, in general I'd like to see more specialist recycling. As a result of some rewiring I did at the weekend I now have several kilograms of nichrome wire which I'm now not sure what to do with.-- hippo, May 03 2012 Make yourself a spectacularly shiny soldered sculpture?-- UnaBubba, May 03 2012 // What else would you do with recycled mobile 'phone components. //
At the risk of offending [MikeD], I'll point out that a very popular use for them can oft be found sitting on the roadside in various Asian warzones, and probably also in [8th]'s shower room.
// I now have several kilograms of nichrome ... not sure what to do with //
You can always get a sizable chunk of pocket change for it from your local scrap dealer. NiChrome is highly prized stuff.-- Alterother, May 03 2012 That's a quite bunnable idea in itself [Ao].-- FlyingToaster, May 03 2012 Which one?-- Alterother, May 03 2012 I think [FT] meant using a mobile 'phone to wire together some of the stuff in [8th]'s shower room. After all, he's a Brit, so it's unlikely the shower will be used any time soon.-- UnaBubba, May 03 2012 //he's a Brit, so it's unlikely the shower will be used any time soon.//
Quite right. Showers are for sportsmen and foreigners. A man who can't be bothered to ask his staff to draw him a bath is fit for nothing apart from running a sheep station.-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 03 2012 // At the risk of offending [MikeD] //
<Rudyard Kipling>
"You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din !"
</Rudyard Kipling>-- 8th of 7, May 03 2012 Oddly, [bigsleep], quite a bit. The average time a manufacture (including packaging and product) now takes to enter the wastestream is down to fewer than 120 days. That's average, mind you.
Holding it out for another year is more than three times the average time taken for most manufactured goods to be junked.-- UnaBubba, May 03 2012 If it amuses some idiot for a while, and forestalls their purchase of some other useless concatenation of precious resources then that's about all we can do.
There are times I'd like to be able to forcibly remove half of the people from the planet, just to give it a bit of a break from our relentless consumption of its bounty.-- UnaBubba, May 03 2012 random, halfbakery