
Garfield phones beach mystery finally solved - fpoling
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47732553
======
reaperducer
_Climbing down the slippery rocks to the cave, the team spotted remnants of a
destroyed shipping container - and soon, between the rocks, Garfield phones -
in a more complete condition than any found before them._

This sounds like a Nancy Drew book in real life.

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justinsaccount
> The media attention on the new campaign, however, drew the eye of a local
> farmer who remembered the first téléphone Garfield appearing after a storm
> in the early 1980s, when he was a young man.

> He also knew the location of the container - in a secluded sea cave
> accessible only at low tide.

So they've been dealing with this mystery for almost 40 years and this guy
knew where the problem was coming from the entire time?

~~~
jschwartzi
It's been my experience that a lot of seeming mysteries are solved only by the
person with the mystery talking to the right person. And the right person
could be anyone with an observation.

It happens in Engineering all the time too, where you talk to the one user in
ten-thousand who happens to have a keen eye for the exact sequence of events
on the display, and their careful recitation of the sequence of frames on the
display is enough for you to piece together the system state at the time of a
failure.

It's rare that engineers talk to users, and it's probably equally rare for
environmentalists to talk to individual farmers looking for information.

~~~
mfoy_
It's not even "one in ten thousand", I think more often it's just that the
people who _don 't know_ assume that _no one else_ knows either and don't
bother properly asking around.

~~~
hanniabu
Or the people that know think the reason is obvious and will probably get
fixed soon so don't brother reporting the issue and what they believe is
causing it

~~~
Pxtl
Or every time we ask users we get "just fix it" and "I click the thing and it
breaks" style answers.

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massivecali
Suprised there was no mention of the Lego spill: "Nearly 4.8 million Lego toy
parts fell overboard from the Tokio Express container ship in a storm off
Land's End on 13 February 1997."
[https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28582621](https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28582621)

~~~
bduerst
For Lego aficionados, that's about $499,207.34 worth of pieces.

~~~
core-questions
So $100 raw plastic cost then

~~~
crooked-v
Manufacturing cost for Lego pieces is relatively high, though, given the
effort they put into keeping precise amounts of 'clutch power' for every
brick.

~~~
vlunkr
This becomes clear when you use any of the cheaper alternatives.

~~~
sequoia
Yeah I tried it once, buying off-brand legos from Ebay. It's truly night and
day in terms of quality.

~~~
grepballsoffire
Actually they're getting much better. I bought some off-brand Lego from
aliexpress a couple of years ago, and apart from the lack of branding I can't
tell the difference, even after two years of use.

~~~
aiCeivi9
Yeah, the reviews say offbrand tires are absolute crap but that is only
element that has noticeable quality issues. Not so sure about
electronic/pneumatic.

------
lsferreira42
We have something like that in Brazil, but with cans of weed floating at the
beach through the whole summer.

[http://www.bemsaopaulo.com/summer-of-the-
cans/](http://www.bemsaopaulo.com/summer-of-the-cans/)

~~~
coryfklein
> cans of weed

By which, the OP means "marijuana".

~~~
ada1981
> "marijuana"

By which, the OP means "WEED".

------
abhinai
This post just makes me sad. It is a sad reminder of just how long lived the
plastic in our oceans is. And as a species we are still not doing enough to
stop this.

~~~
nvarsj
Is it far fetched to think that plastic is one of the most damaging inventions
of the 20th century? I imagine it will be affecting us for hundreds of years.
Banning single use plastics seems like a no brainer to me at this point.

~~~
random878
I think plastic is a true miracle invention. Aviation, medicine, technology,
there probably isn't an area where we haven't benefited from this great
material. Used properly, it's not a problem.

What is damaging is the brute ugliness of modern materialism. We don't just
use plastic to manufacture surgical tools, we use it to make plastic toy that
we ship halfway round the world to give away with an equally repugnant 'happy
meal' from McDonalds. Then we throw it away (hopefully into a bin) along with
all its plastic wrapping.

That's not to say I don't agree with you - I massively support a ban on throw
away plastic too (and more). I just think we need to be careful about
demonising plastic as a material.

~~~
Joakal
Alternatively, ban non recyclable/biodegradable garbage. Make the suppliers
take back refuse as condition for selling, no longer can suppliers think of
the waste as externalised cost.

Quickly, distributor countries would solve garbage problem as every country
returns plastic, metal, tires, etc that is not biodegradable/recycable. As we
saw, some countries absolutely does not want to deal with the garbage from
other countries that goods are shipped to. They know it costs so much to deal
with that it's better for other countries to internalise the cost.

You would still have your plastic benefits and without worrying about the
impact on environment.

------
k_sze
From practical and philosophical points of view, _if_ the container and its
cargo are stuck at the bottom of the sea forever, is it really a problem?

Of course, I'm aware that random man-made things polluting the oceans is a bad
thing in general, but in this specific case, _if_ the plastic is just stuck
there forever, is it still pollution in practical terms? The electronics
inside the phones probably won't pass modern environmental standards (e.g.
RoHS), so let's forget about the electronics for now and only focus on the
plastic.

On the one hand, does the plastic release toxic chemicals in high enough
concentration as it decomposes (slowly?)? On the other hand, does the
container and its cargo somehow become a new shelter/habitat for certain
species of marine life?

~~~
tengbretson
Should we consider sea snails leaving behind their shells when they die
litter?

~~~
jschwartzi
If one beach had a million sea snails leaving shells behind, and the beach
were cluttered with them, and it was choking out any other life on the beach,
then yeah we would consider that litter.

It's the same as when sea urchins devour whole kelp forests, rendering parts
of the sea floor totally barren. One or two urchins aren't a big deal but when
they breed without limits they can completely destroy an ocean ecosystem. And
so we kill them off when we need to to try to be good stewards of our planet.

~~~
tengbretson
> If one beach...

The very existence of beaches at all is the result of the overwhelming dead
remains of billions of diatoms and crushed shells. I have no doubt there would
be a totally different ecosystem if it weren't for their remains.

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I_am_tiberius
Garfields are one topic but another one is 500 meter pipes with a diameter of
2 meters.

[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4781126/Beachgoers-...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4781126/Beachgoers-
shocked-giant-pipes-UK-shores.html)

~~~
jeron
Yeah but the pipe is all in one piece and is removed all in one go while these
Garfield phones will keep showing up possibly forever

~~~
ChuckMcM
Well not any more, they go and recover the container and its remaining
contents, the ones between the container and the beach will arrive and then no
more phones.

~~~
freeflight
From the article:

> The container remains inaccessible and it is not known how much of its cargo
> is sealed within it.

> In the meantime, both Ar Viltansou and local officials say they will
> continue to harvest Garfields from the coastline.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Fair enough. It's an engineering problem though right? I read 'inaccessible'
as "it would cost too much to get to it" rather than "it's physically
impossible to get to it."

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megablast
>Since the 1980s, the Iroise coast in Brittany has received a supply of bright
orange landline novelty phones shaped like the famous cartoon cat.

>But now, the source of the problem has been found - a lost shipping
container.

Isn't that the most obvious?

~~~
mapmeld
They also found the location of the shipping container, which is impressive

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mratzloff
This is what the post-humanity planet looks like: broken, dirty novelty phones
piling up on a beach for a hundred years.

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paulie_a
It doesn't really seem like a mystery just the source was found.

The rubber ducky container is also interesting.

~~~
dmix
Indeed, it had to been obvious it was from a shipping container from day one.

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emmanueloga_
I'm surprised nobody seem to be curious who manufactured the phones. I was
waiting for some reveal: the designer was X, it was made by Y... not the main
point of the article, but I'm still curious about it. In some office somewhere
there's someone who shipped that container and it never arrived... who's that
person? Won't be able to sleep tonight :-p

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zelon88
I don't understand how something can be inaccessible in this day and age.
Helicopters? Boats? Submarines? Is it really impossible to retrieve the
wreckage or just economically impractical?

~~~
nkrisc
Yes it's physically possible to somehow retrieve and remove the container and
phones. It would also likely be absurdly expensive to do so for the gain.

It's likely cheaper, easier, and safer to simply keep picking them up off the
beach as they wash ashore.

~~~
magduf
Seems like they should be able to get a team of volunteers together to go to
the shipping container and remove the phones by hand so they don't keep going
out into the ocean. How hard can this possibly be?

~~~
nkrisc
Based on the description it sounds pretty dangerous for the limited value
gained from doing so. The reporter said they could see the container, but that
doesn't mean it's immediately accessible.

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croisillon
i'm originally from about 20km away of that place, I remember in the 80s there
used to be kid shoes and whatnot washing ashore from time to time

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just_steve_h
Contents of the article aside, this for me was the hardest to parse headline
I've read on HN in a long time!

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baxtr
_Since the 1980s, the Iroise coast in Brittany has received a supply of bright
orange landline novelty phones shaped like the famous cartoon cat._

...

 _Climbing down the slippery rocks to the cave, the team spotted remnants of a
destroyed shipping container - and soon, between the rocks, Garfield phones -
in a more complete condition than any found before them._

------
ejz
"Guys, I have a prank idea involving phones...hear me out..."

