Categories
In The News

Your Beverage Ice Is Dirtier Than Toilet Water

You may want to consider ordering your drink without ice next time you’re at a fast food restaurant (or any place):

“I found that 70-percent of the time, the ice from the fast food restaurant’s contain more bacteria than the fast food restaurant’s toilet water,” Roberts told local station 10 News in Tampa.

How did that happen?

The reason that the bacteria was more prevalent in the ice could be that while toilets are cleaned regularly, ice machines are not.

This really isn’t terribly surprising. In addition to regular cleaning, toilets are intentionally made of glazed porcelain because bacteria has trouble latching onto it. It’s worth noting bacteria is all around you and almost unquestionably that bacteria in question, while plentiful is not likely to cause any health issues.

It’s still an interesting observation.

Categories
In The News Tech (General)

More On Cell Phones vs. Toilets

India has 919 million [pdf] mobile phone users as of March 2012. That’s out of a 1.2 billion (per Wikipedia) population. That’s about 75% of the population. Less than 50% of homes have toilets in India. It’s even worse for women in India to the point of a Right to Pee campaign.

I’ve touched on this now multiple times. Humanity has put mobile phones as a higher priority than hygiene, sanitation, safety and human dignity.

It’s a depressing statistic.

Categories
In The News

Bill Gates Thinks Toilets

I’ve twice (once, twice) mentioned the lack of sanitation for many people in this world. We’re about at the point where more people have cell phones than access to toilets. Bill Gates is now making it a priority to fix this problem. Kudos. This could save many lives.

Categories
Comic

Comic: Men’s Room Zones

Men's Room unfasten pants zone

Categories
Around The Web In The News Tech (General)

More On Cell Phones And Toilets

Last month I briefly touched upon the correlation between cell phones and toilets. My influence was coincidentally reading a story on third-world water sanitation a day or so before stumbling upon the cell phone statistics.

Now the UN is reporting in India more people have access to cell phones than toilets.

To briefly recap:

  1. I called it.
  2. I still find it disturbing.
Categories
Funny Google

Google’s Toilet Preferences

Google Bathroom Gadgetry

I wonder if Google’s privacy policy applies to the settings on their bathroom gadgets. That said, I still don’t feel comfortable with any toilet that has an oscillating button.

[Photo Credit: Eszter]