The optimism is almost impressive. Green board, crusty ports, and he thought a fresh battery would fix it. That's like trying to revive a car that's been at the bottom of a lake by just putting air in the tires. Some people see a tech problem and their brain just picks the cheapest possible part to blame.

Ugh, I keep a sealed backup tub for exactly this reason (learned the hard way).

Honestly the best skill I picked up was learning to search error messages verbatim. Last week I spent an hour trying to fix a weird import issue before I just pasted the whole red text into a search. Found a two year old forum post where someone had the exact same problem, down to the line number. Five minute fix after that.

Had a property owner in Tempe try that last month. I just started taking photos of the violation with my phone and asking where to email the report.

But what about when the paper gets soaked in the rain? I had a map turn to mush in a downpour once. My phone in a zip-lock bag showed the trail just fine. Old maps don't run out of battery, but tech doesn't rip or blow away in the wind. Each one can fail in its own way.