Slashdot Mirror
Workstations 'Dirtier Than Toilets'
hettb writes "How often do you clean your keyboard and surrounding work area? A recent study (also discussed here) found that computer workstations harbour 400 times more health threatening bacteria than the average toilet seat. If you're anything like me, spending most of both professional and personal time in front of your computer, this is sobering news. "
Deal? ;)
Every 6 months I disassemble my machine. Everything that can be washed on the kitchen sink is washed there; everything else is dusted and/or cleaned with q-tips and alcohol. A bit overkill but the keyboard keys never get stuck.
A new anti-porn bill is working its way through congress...
main(i){(10-putchar(((25208>>3*(i+=3))&7)+(i ?i-4?100:65:10)))?main(i-4):i;}
Man, if workstations are that dirty, imagine how dirty PCs must be.
-- Never hit a man with glasses. Hit him with a baseball bat.
I believe in constant exposure to bacteria
viruses and the like. Keeps your body tough
and your immune system strong...
all that antibacterial soap shit gonna
kill you one day...
not really kidding in case you are wondering
my computer just gave me the clap!
Exposure to bacteria is normal. We did not evolve with bleach and lavatories. Our bodies expect to encounter bacteria and to some expect we have to to keep out immune systems primed.
Why get paranoid about bacteria that naturally crawls over pretty much everything in our environment. Have you got ill off your keyboard? No, I didn't think so.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
For some reason I have that scene from gattaca in front of my eyes. Where the main character is vacuum cleaning his keyboard at the end of the training day. The interesting bit is that noone is really bothered or amused by this... It seems a bit overboard, but still within reasonable limits...
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Is it just me or is all of this really quite moot. Between what we are exposed to outside naturally or what we subject ourselves to daily what is on our workstation is hardly going to really make a difference one way or another.
.. ...
Lets see some things that are probalw worse.
1) Any food/drink ordered from think geek
2) Coke
3) Paint fumes/dust and metal dust from people Modding their case.
4) Sitting in from of this damm irradating device for 12hrs/day
5)
6)
203331) some extra bactera on your desk
Think of it - cleaner environment - no more wasted trips, the possibilities...
I doubt many people catch that many diseases from toilets. I know it's common for people to become paranoid about using a public toilet for health reasons, but it's absurd. Just don't sit in anything wet or lick your hands afterwards and you'll be fine. That goes for using both a computer and a toilet.
I am a sys admin for a large company. I see people in the restroom all the time that don't wash their hands... Normally this wouldn't bother me, but then I think of how I'll be at that same users pc in 20 minutes. It makes me want to wear latex gloves like the doctor's office uses.
My workstation IS my toilet...
The study, funded by The Clorox Co.
Hmmm. Imagine that. A company that makes cleaning/germicidal products finds that a common workplace/home device is direly in need of disinfecting. I wonder if we'll be seeing Clorox Key-Wipes any time in the very very very near future?
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
At school I remember some old ADM keyboards that had slippery keys, with much blackness just aside from the contact points. Shudder!
Those were public terminals, though.
I've noticed that keyboard cleanliness really depends on the person. Not whether they dump coffee and cheetos on them, but whether their hands are particularly heavy sources of oil.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I was browsing Slashdot, fighting the urge to lick my desk, when I saw this article. Good thing too....
I am so happy to know that. I can't believe that for years I've been touching a dirty computer and then touching my clean penis. I could be transferring germs from my computer to my penis without even knowing it.
I always thought I was just doing it because I needed to goof off that last half hour of the week but I guess I wasn't goofing off after all!
The absolute worst offender has to be phones though. If your phone gets used by anyone but you, you're well advised to disinfect the mouthpiece, especially during the cold/flu season.
Who could have guessed what the conclusions would have been?
Let's see- after using our new "Desk Wipes" product for just two days you too can rid your desk of 99.9% of those nasty microbes.
Hmmm.....
I know my kbd is cleaner than my toilet, cause I clean it more often!
A toilet seat is clean compared to some stuff some of us have to go through every day of their lives..
Un-Hygienic Data on the London Underground
During Autumn of 2000, a team of scientists at the Department of Forensics at University College London removed a row of passenger seats from a Central Line tube carriage for analysis into cleanliness. Despite London Underground's claim that the interior of their trains are cleaned on a regular basis, the scientists made some alarming discoveries:
This is what was found on the surface of the seats:
* 4 types of hair sample (human, mouse, rat, dog)
* 7 types of insect (mostly fleas, mostly alive)
* vomit originating from at least 9 separate people
* human urine originating from at least 4 separate people
* human excrement
* rodent excrement
* human semen
When the seats were taken apart, they found:
* the remains of 6 mice
* the remains of 2 large rats
* 1 previously unheard of fungus
It is estimated that by holding one of the armrests, you are transferring to your body the natural oils and sweat from as many as 400 different people. It is estimated that it is generally healthier to smoke five cigarettes a day than to travel for one hour a day on the London Underground. It is far more hygienic to wipe your hand on the inside of a recently flushed toilet bowl before eating, than to wipe your hand on a London Underground seat before eating. It is estimated that within London, more work sick-days are taken because of bugs picked up whilst traveling on the London Underground than for any other reason (including alcohol).
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
I completely believe this. I have a coworker that has a 3 year-old cup of coffee that he keeps on his desk. It's mighty furry. He jokes that it will cure cancer one day. :)
"The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved." -- John Ashcroft
I'll bet your mouth has even more germs than your keyboard.
But really, isn't this what we have immune systems for? If we spent all our time chasing every last germ, we'd end up like Howard Huges or Mr Burns.
This is obviously the basis for a marketing campaign by the Clorox company.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
I've used some campus computing sites where there is a brown slimy coating on everything. Probably a result of human oils produced during the many all-nighters around exam time.
Amazing magic tricks
the poop stains will prompt even the most lazy cleaning lady to do something
Yeah, like quit her job!
How much time do you spend on or at the toilet on any given day? 5-10 minutes tops? Some people take a really long time in the rest room, but it still does not even begin to stack up against the amount of time we spend at our computers.
:)
Human beings are inherently dirty creatures. We can go through the whole day, doing almost no physical activity, and all the while, we're pumping out grease and perspiration. Meanwhile, we're going around touching door handles, money, and all sorts of other unsanitary surfaces. We then proceed to touch our keyboards and mice with these filthy hands. On top of that, many of us eat at our workstations, providing an ongoing food supply to whatever may be living on our input devices.
Now, think about the toilet. We spend very little time there. We never touch the seat. When we urinate, we're dispending a liquid that contains amonia and is actually steril. When we deficate, we're not very likely to get the contents on any surface except inside the bowl, where it is promply removed by about 5 liters per second of water.
Again, it comes as no surprise that computers are just outright dirty.
Why bother.
Looking into the ol' Happy Hacking Lite, I see a couple years' worth of dust kitties and random pieces of lint. Even if it were on top of the keys were I might actually touch it, and not well-hidden beneath the keys themselves, this would not disgust me.
On the other hand, no matter how yummy the burrito was, I'll be damned if I'd leave a single drop of its corpse sitting on the seat of my toilet. I mean, really, how often do you leave *ahem* "dirt particles" where they land? Roughly never, particularly if 1) you ever have or intend to have a female over to visit or 2) ever expect to use that particular toilet again.
So, tell me again why I should be surpised?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
One of the things that everyone seems to miss when people make this kind of comparison is that toilet seats are actually remarkably clean. They're engineered to be a very bad place for bacteria to grow, and people routinely clean them with strong antiseptic solutions. In fact, a typical toilet seat has fewer bacteria than a typical kitchen counter. Your toilet seat may very well be the cleanest place in your house.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
from now on, onsite pc support should put on disposable latex gloves before typing or touching the mouse. For a real gas, put on surgical garb and scrub up before opening the case.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Well . I suppose that really depends on EXACTLY how much of it you eat.
..
I don't know about you . but 'watermelon blast' anti-bacterial hand satatizer(tm) smells good enough to eat
you just have to have a BIG glass of water handy.
[nothing like cleaning the pipes]
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
I clean my "workstation" (I usually call it a "computer" but whatever) when either 1) keys don't come up again when pressed or 2) the trackball no longer rotates.
Other than that, I let the ol' immune system take care of it.
Just now I looked at my keyboard, and found a small hair between the Z and X keys.
I plucked it out, and thought it was pretty weird. I have shoulder length hair, and here i find a short and curley, rough textured looking hair about 1 or 2 inches long.
I need to get out more.
As more people become semi-educated in science in our society, people are shifting their traditional taboos to equally superstitious, but scientifically inspired ones. Dirt and bacteria is a prime example of this. Previous generations believed that certain types of animals, places, and people were inherently dirty. Usually these were things that did not fit into the culture's prevailing worldview. Dirt was "things out of place." Now, people are starting to get away from that sort of thinking, but instead are latching onto bits of misunderstood science. Bacteria is a good example. People sit in their high school biology classes and learn all about little "germs" that live all over everything, just waiting to make you sick. This is reinforced by television commercials for anti-bacterial dish soap and aerosol disinfectants. In fact, such ambient bacteria are really only dangerous to those with severely weakened immune systems. For healthy people, this bacteria is harmless and potentially helpful since the immune system is strengthened by regularly fighting off this kind of bacteria. Still, culture is a powerful thing. Think about how you would feel eating a french fry you had dropped on the edge of a toilet seat. According to this study, it's cleaner than your desk, but most people still wouldn't eat it.
Shockwave Flash movies are the greatest thing to happen to non-sequitur humor since Japan.
The Slashdot version notwithstanding, I saw nothing in either article indicating that the study identified health-threatening bacteria. Just plain bacteria. The study is funded by Clorox. Think there's an agenda?
Gotta love the media's constant portrayal of "bacteria" as something to be feared and destroyed at all costs. Bacteria are the basis from which all life (based on the cell theory definition) on Earth evolved. Not only that, but without them, we could not exist. Bacteria fix nitrogen to the roots of the plants we eat (or the plants which our cattle and pigs and chicken eat); bacteria (specifically, cyanobacteria, not "algae" and not "plants") created the oxygen-rich atmosphere billions of years ago and continue to contribute to it. Bacteria line our intestines and create vitamin K, which the body is unable to produce. Bacteria teem over every square inch of our bodies and can thrive in the most extreme of conditions. Any efforts to senselessly control or kill them will always be met with stronger resistance. Bacteria have been effectively "communicating" by swapping DNA plasmids for billions of years; collectively they form what could be seen as a neural network with far more evolutionary power than the entire human race. Making them out to be the enemy only creates a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Yes, there are quite a few nasty bacteria out there, but the world is for the most part an equilibrium where these few strains are kept in check by the sheer volume of other harmless or beneficial bacteria.
I say, the more, the merrier! Did you know that salmonella used to die at freezing temperatures, until scientists attempts to create a concoction of various strains of bacteria with which to innoculate chickens? The salmonella evolved and resisted so well that it thrives better than ever before. Let that be a lesson to the fools out there who want to kill every "bacteria" in their presence.
I figure my cigarette ashes kill all the germs when they accidently fall in my keyboard
Man, and I thought that white powdery substance in my keyboard was sugar!
Any of you noticed (on yourself or other information workers) a kind of scaley infection on the elbows. I've noticed on quite a few IT people and myself. It's this weird calous type thingie but ends up cracking and hurting after a while. I suspect it's either a type of fungus (like athlete's foot) or a bacteria that roughs up the skin (mild flesh eater maybe?). No idea, but I'm convinced it's related to body oils and human contamination.
Anyway, I've been cleaning regularly with bleach and have found that the problem goes away.
FYI
Toddlers are the stormtroopers of the Lord of Entropy.
Another commonly hanled object also carries around a lot of bacteria.
Cold Hard Cash! Yup, it's a fact. That's why many places require food service staff to wear platic gloves if they also handle cash.
It's a lost cause to try to avoid bacteria completely and, as the other posts here point out, you don't really need nor should you want to.
P.S. - I know guy who are plumbers who will stick their bare hands into stuff you don't even want to know about. After a good gon of hand cleaner they'll go and grab a sandwich. A few of them are almost as old as dirt too.
needless to say, it's in their best interest to jack up bacteria paranoia levels whenever possible.
nowhere does it say that the bacteria levels on the desktop are unhealthy, just higher.
I'd never really seen anybody with warts until my first job. A company of under 30 people had at least 5 people with several warts on their hands. I had 12 warts on both hands with 2-3 years of starting at that place. I've always blamed the keyboards and mice for spreading the virus.
How the heck do you clean your average keyboard?
Take all the keycaps off and put them in soapy water?
If so, it's no wonder nobody does it.
no more licking my mouse when i spill soup on it. what a waste of soup.
go get it
I don't even want to talk about where I thought you were talking about putting that stylus, except to wonder whether it would then interfere with the wipe.
Virg
I read an article (I wish I had a link to it) where they studied the cleanliness of many things in the house, and it turns out that the toilet seat is one of the cleanest things in the house. It's so smooth that it's hard for anything to stick to it. The Average cutting board has orders of magnitude more bacteria than a toilet seat...
Most of the bacteria in the oil and sweat on your fingertips are perfectly benign; other people are covered in bacteria, but they are not septic. You can touch them. Even if they are all sweaty....
The bacteria in someone's other excretions - especially saliva, feces and the delightful sexual juices - are potentially infectious. Blood is more likely to contain viruses (since blood borne bacteria generally kill you stone dead). Unless the other person has a staph infection on their fingertips, the bacteria on their keyboard are not. Even the infectious stuff in snot, which often ends up on people's fingertips, is also (usually) viral and, in any case, generally killed by being dried out.
The fact is - most of the organisms that remain infectious after being dried out live in your scat.
Whatever the bacteria count on a desk, I'd recommend eating off of one over eating off a toilet, which is likely to harbor some small number of bacteria (or other parasites) that favor the human digestive tract.
This is not to say that staph infections are not a real problem; especially in hospitals, which (generally) do use disinfectant soap. I am saying that alarm over the bacteria on your desk is premature.
Researchers also separated office workers into two groups: one group used disinfectant wipes to clean their desks, phones and computers; the other group did not.
Reee-lly! What an interesting project. I wonder who funded it? I have some other observations about people who clean their desks with sanitizing wipes, but I'll leave the psychoanalysis to the professionals.
Dr. Gerba has also done work on how anti-bacterial kitchen supplies reduce of risk for disease (html courtesy of google.) Search the document for "Gerba".
Hell, take a look at his press coverage overall.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Plus shouldn't that electromagnetic radiation from the CRT monitors the Swedes are always warning us about be killing these buggers?
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
The same could be said about most system admins too.
Someone you trust is one of us.
I usually take some windex or fantastic and spray and clean everything every few weeks. With the keyboard I take the same cleaner and spray it in between the keys and shake it upside down. Most keyboards survive, but it did destroy a Microsoft natural a few weeks ago. I guess Redmond HW is that tough. My mother once dripped Honey all over the keyboard of her HP Vectra. I figure it was toast, I literally put the thing in the sink and ran hot water and soap over it until it was clean. Dried it by shaking, and it still works 2 years later.
Don't ask me for help with body fluids though.
Sure the bacteria isn't all coming from that big smelly hairy guy in the next cube who has the Princess Amidala screensaver?
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
I like a clean toilet because I don't want to get some other persons waste products on me. It's not out of desire to stay away from poisonous microbes it's because that stuff is icky and smells bad and makes your clothes all nasty.
I wonder if this study came from the same group of people who tell us all the useful bit of information that dog's mouths have less bacteria than our own. Yeah, that's great. I still aint gonna kiss a dog on the lips.
Being clean and being free of bacteria have nothing to do with each other. Clean has everything to do with visual and tactile sensation. If I look at a counter top and it's got gravy and greese all over it, that's not a dirty counter. However, if I wipe off that stuff with a sponge, it's clean.
Eat it Proctor and Gamble.
Sweat
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
I have to agree with most other posts here -- I don't think we should be too particularly worried, seeing as there is not an epidemic of "computer disease" going around....
However, one of the things that mosts disgusts me is telephones. Picture this -- I do telecommunications (end-user) support for a living. Often when people leave, I'm in charge of picking up their phone, cleaning, and readying it for re-deploy.
Some of the older phones (they're all Rolm) have buttons that are prone to getting downright cruddy. I physically have to scrape the number pad off with a screwdriver to get all the dirt off, and then I use the specified cleaner for the phone.
And don't get me started about the women (men too?) that wear a lot of makeup, and then it seamlessly transfers itself to the handset and microphone portion... ewwwww.
Some of the stuff is downright nasty, and I can assure you, might possibly cause disease. If you licked it.
Karnal
dang... gravy and "grease" and it is a dirty counter. Cod sarnit, sassa-frassin'...
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
This is why I use a Keyboard Condom.
While many readers poo-poo the study because it was funded by Clorox, I wonder who else they expect to conduct such studies? Clorox makes cleaning products... it makes sense for them to find out what things need cleaning, no?
I wouldn't expect the average person to go around collecting samples from all of the surfaces in their house to grow in dishes and find problematic places.
The results don't surprise me at all. Anyone who's taken a high-school level biology course has probably done exactly that in class and found that commonly handled items have lots of bacteria. I believe door knobs and phones were the worst surfaces tested by my class. (which reminds me of a particular chapter of the hitchhikers guide...)
STOP.
While a UV-C (aka shortwave UV, 280-100nm, germicidal) lamp might be safe and effective for things that fit in an enclosed sterilizing chamber, the unit on the web site clearly isn't designed for that. In order to use it on a keyboard, you'd have to defeat the safety interlock and hold it over the keyboard. This does not sound like a good idea.
While your hands are designed to withstand some UV-C exposure before getting hellaciously sunburned, your eyeballs certainly aren't. Exposure to UV-C is a great way to get cataracts, corneal, or retinal burns.
If you were to use this unit as depicted (pointing an unshielded UV-C source at household items), the reflected UV-C (which you can't see, because it's outside the visible spectrum) from these items could eventually cause serious, permanent damage to your eyes.
Furthermore, the type of person to worry about "germs" on their combs, door handles, and phones to the extent of spending $180 for a UVC lamp for regular sterilizations thereof (I'm trying not to say "hypochondriac" :-) is precisely the kind of person likely to overuse such a device and overexpose their eyes to it.
Furthermore, most of the gunk-retaining surfaces in a keyboard are hidden from light. So if you're worried about germs from gunk in your keyboard, a UV light isn't gonna kill everything anyways. Disassemble the keyboard, wash it with good ol' soap and water, dry thoroughly, and reassemble.
And finally, if you still want to fuck with UVC, $130 for a hand-held 4W UVC source is pretty pricy compared to $40 for a comparably-sized EPROM eraser.
Awright, public service mode off. Now for the fun gadget on the page -- looks like a 4W battery-operated blacklight. (You can get a 15W 18" wall-mountable blacklight from Home Despot for the same price, though, which is way more fun, 'cuz it "lights up" the whole room.)
Another funny note about the site linked to by the parent post - the "personal inspection light" the tout is just a blacklight (UV-A) tube.
It works because many of the compounds in piss, puke, and shit, as well as some - but not all - molds, will fluoresce under UV-A. (You pr0n-hounds are safe, jizz doesn't glow under UVA)
If you shine a blacklight on someone's pants and notice big splotches of glowing stuff, it doesn't mean they've pissed themselves recently, it means they poured their laundry detergent onto the load of laundry before adding the water. Most laundry detergents make clothes "whiter" by adding a fluorescent dye. The clothes look drab under normal lighting, but if you go outside, the small amount of UVA in sunlight will make the clothes look "brighter".
Another fun trick to play with blacklights is to wave 'em around monitors and watch the phosphors glow. The old-school Sun 21" monochrome tubes really sing when hit with UVA.
Bottom line: UVA (blacklight) is fun to play with.
UVB and UVC, however, are not to be fscked with.
The above may have been an urban legend, however I do remember a legit Science News article about toilets and pathogenic materials, so I looked it up (link provided below). Bottom line: toilets may be disgusting, but they don't harbor pathogens. The dishrags and sponges you have in your kitchen are probably worse.
t m.
See http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arch/9_14_96/bob2.h
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
No comment.
Sheesh, it seems like everything is dirtier than toilets nowadays...
Your kitchen cutting board has 200 times more fecal matter than the average toilet seat. Thats why I've started preparing all my meals in the bathroom, using the toilet seat for a cutting board instead (hey, its 200 times cleaner, right?)
Well, this article has convinced me. I'm going to dip my telephone in the toilet once a week for a good cleaning. No more germs for me.
I Heart Sorting Networks
And they found germs? Oh, what a surprise. And I'll bet that if a computer industry association funded a study, they'd find that keyboards are perfectly healthy.
Unlike the Slashdot lead in, they did NOT say the bacteria were "health threatening." They did not say the "germs" were dangerous. They didn't say they had shown that they caused disease. They did not say they POTENTIALLY could cause disease. They did not say that the people using the antimicrobial wipes obtained any health benefits (fewer sicks days, etc).
All they said was, there were bacteria on your keyboard. Big deal. There are bacteria in cheese, in yogurt, in sauerkraut, in your own mouth right now, in your own gut right now, etc. There are not just bacteria but MITES in your eyelids.
Yes, it's true that colds in particular are spread more by hand contact than by droplets in the air. I'd bet that you are at far more risk when you shake hands then when you use someone else's keyboard.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
1. Pick up your keyboard with two hands.
2. Invert 180 degrees.
3. Shake vigorously.
4. Sweep detritus from desk.
5. Repeat as necessary.
(You should replace it when the keys fall out, or when it's too sticky for anything to fall out.)
This seems more like an advertisment to sell disinfectant wipes. Assuming you wash your hands before you eat and aren't licking your keyboard you have little to worry about. There are bacteria everywhere, it is NORMAL for them to be EVERYWHERE, if anything trying to kill all the bacteria in your envionment might be detrimental.. If you start swabbing and culturing everything you will jsut end up OCD and living in a bubble. I mean hell, ever seen what grows when you swab money?
I spend most of both my professional and personal time on the tolit. So I guess I will be ok.
Later
Got to go.
Once or twice I've taken my laptop with me into my bathroom to "handle business".... I guess I am doubly at risk.
Dear God! Our poor little babies being babysat by the computers are catching bacterial infections from our filthy, filthy electronics!
Support the Child Online Cleanliness Act (COCA) to mandate child-safe bacterial filters on all library computers!
Stop the scourge of scurvy being brought home by your children using the same computer as some scuzzy homeless person!
Lord knows I always keep a box of handy-wipes by the computer for, um, cleanliness' sake.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
I don't know about you, but I installed a workstation right in front of my throne, just so that certain annoying biological functions don't get in the way of Everquest or reading Slashdot. The keyboard rests comfortably in my lap while typing, although the splashback (cumulatively over time) has begun to make it kinda gross on the bottom. When I have particularly bad indigestion or food poisoning, the splashback factor is strong enough to reach even the computer screen.
Hmm, it'd appear that while typing this, my pointing device just slipped between my legs and landed in the water. Oh well, I'll just dry it off...
Anyway, for some strange reason, none of my friends come over for network parties anymore, and those who do always want to bring their own computers... The nerve! I always buy the best hardware money can buy, and they want to use their own. Hmmph! Some friends they are! Note: not all my workstations are located in my bathrooms - one of them is located in my bedroom and just happens to be surrounded by wads of crumpled kleenexes, but otherwise appears to be pretty clean.
"Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
You mean old and rich?
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
My question is this: how the heck to people make their keyboards so dirty? Mine stays pure and clean (at least in appearance) and I don't ever clean it or wash my hands before using it. On the other hand, new keyboards at work stay new looking for about three months. (Monitors get messed up even faster...I don't understand people who touch their monitors)
The best way to accelerate a windows box is at 9.8 meters per second square.
From the article: The average office desk harbors 400 times more bacteria than the average toilet seat, according to a new University of Arizona study.
From the slashdot article: computer workstations harbour 400 times more health threatening bacteria
Note that the article makes no mention that the bacteria they found were a health threat. News flash! There are ten times as many bacterial cells in your intestines as human cells in your whole body. Not all bacteria are a health hazard, in fact many species are quite helpful in digestion and competing against disease causing bacteria for food and residence. Your entire skin is crawling with the little buggers. I've never heard of computers being a significant reservoir of any type of disease causing agent, but any microbiologists out there feel free to enlighten me.
If workstations are this bad, imagine how poor PCs are; I'm sure everybody has munched some chips or tossed back a beverage while reading /. or playing Diablo. (The Archbishop Lazarus and his evil succubi once made me spill beer on my ten-year-old brick-like "invincible" IBM 286 keyboard. Unfortunately, Anheisuer Busch made it vincible.) It reminds me of playing Nintendo years ago at my buddy Kris' house; he would always eat dinner while playing Zelda or whatever, then give me the "dinner controller" when we'd play two-player RBI Baseball. Not only was the button response time gimpy from the constant Zelda-playing, but the directional-pad was all greasy with ghosts of dinners past. One day I moved the D-pad to the right and a piece of rancid corn came oozing out . From then on, I insisted on bringing over an extra controller from my house.
--All your stolen base are belong to Rickey Henderson
If you have a strong immune system, these bacteria aren't going to affect you. (*)
If you have a weak immune system, you are very likely to get sick no matter what - quite possibly very sick - with or without using "anti-bacterial" products - unless you isolate yourself in a bubble, like people with Severe Combined ImmunoDeficiency (SCID, a.k.a. bubble boy syndrome) have to.
(*) Same applies to many viruses. Some people in experiments had live cold virus put up their nose! Some of the people did not get sick. Why? Because their immune system was strong.
Not letting your immune system even fight normal battles makes it both ineffective - leading to more infections, not less, and overreactive - leading to more allergies, asthma and even auto-immune diseases (such as Lupus and MS).
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Men clean workstations, and women clean toilets...
My other sig is extremely clever...
I do not use an ass gasket most of the time, because it really does no good. Yes, some big fat guy probably pushed quite a bit of brown out 5 minutes prior, but I am not going to get sick from his brown. If you think it's gross, you have a lot to learn about the microbiological soup that we live in every day.
there are mites in your bed, on your pillow, in your eye lashes, on your skin, etc. Litle bugs and bateria are everywhere. Thankfully, most of them won't hurt us.
So if it makes you feel better to use an ass gasket, then go ahead an use one. But remember that it is more for your mind than to keep your ass germ free. i personally just use common sense, and hardly ever get sick. I am not one of those people who worry about getting sick from a toilet seat. Your ass is just as dirty as anyone else's.
If you use an ass gasket, then the terrorists have won.
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
I know you're kidding, but I used to install computer systems in junkyards.
We're talking people with "offices" made out of old railroad cars, and grease/oil/whatever on the lot so thick you'd swear it would catch fire when somebody tossed a cigarette butt. Keyboards with crust so thick, you couldn't read the keys.
One box came back with half an inch of dust INSIDE the computer. It still worked, but needed a HD upgrade.
And now Clorox's marketing types are trying to get me concerned about the keyboard/mouse at my current (fully indoor, with trash removal, and everything) office? Bwaahahah.
ceci n'est pas un sig.
This doesn't really come as a surprise... have you seen the people sitting in front of computers? Filthy!
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
The irony is that they toilet seat is almost certainly the least germ-infested part of the entire bathroom. People who use the ass-gasket and then turn around and use their hands to jiggle the toilet handle or even open the door to the stall in the first place are really straining at a gnat.
People are way too germophobic these days. Face it: Bacteria are everywhere. You can't avoid them. Just live with it.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
I've always looked at this way: my girlfriend is willing to put it in her mouth, so could it possibly be so dirty that handling it makes my hands disease ridden?
... carnal delights? :)
And I'm being pretty much serious here - or am I the only person who doesn't shower down before partaking in
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
I guess it won't be that long until these bacteria start making those utterly pointless "first post" posts to Slashdot. Hell, they're probably already more mentally developed that most of those lamers..
And somehow, we all manage to live through it.
...and the worst thing you can do is to start scrubbing down everything with antibacterial products. This will result in resistant strains of bacteria.
Not nearly as bad as idiots demanding antibiotics for colds (it's a virus, idiot, antibiotics won't help), but bad enough.
The problem is, it's getting more and more difficult to buy a non-antibacterial soap. There's always Ivory, though I don't like it much (dries my skin).
You can't have any. And don't try licking my toilet either. I don't like sitting where its sticky.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
My keyboards are a dirty mess. I have an odd condition that begins with an "S", who's name I can't remember that essentially boils down to this: "I shed and replace my skin faster than most people". The process whereby the outer layers die and flake off, as new layers are built underneath happens about 2 or 3 times as fast with me as with most people. Most of the time I don't notice any detrimental effects from this. Most of the effects are mere quirks and not really disadvantages: When I get a sunburn, the burned skin all peals away in a matter of days and I'm back to my pasty-white self inside a week. When I wash my hair in the morning, I have dandruff again by the afternoon. And my keyboard "snows" flakes when I turn it upside down and shake it once every few days.
<P>
So in my case I can definately believe it that my keyboard has more germs living in it than a toilet seat.
<P>
But the point is, my keyboard is only used by *me*. I'm only being exposed to the germs that came out of my own body anyway. A toilet seat isn't like that. Toilet seats might be "cleaner", but they have more different people using them.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
A lot of people confuse marketing with advertising. Marketing isn't about creating demand, but about researching to find out what demands exist out there.
But *advertising*, which is probably what the poster had in mind, often is about making a demand, or at the very least trying to increase the magnitude of minor demand into a major one.
Marketers research the market. Advertisers then take that information and try to influence it. It's like the difference between weather prediction and weather control.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
...is actually usually the dishrags used in many people's kitchen sinks. This cloth is used to rub down food from dishes, picking up food into the fibres. The damp cloth, with miniscule bits of food in it is then set out for the next time--the readily available water and substrate make it a haven for log growth of aerobic bacteria. These high counts are then available for the next washing. Cell counts can end up being very high if the dishrags are not changed.
More biochemistry trivia: at a public bathroom at the mall, there is 2x the number of infectious bugs on the walls in the female bathroom, since small children more often go with their mother to the washroom, and small children touch their eyes/mouth and then the wall with a high frequency.
-----
Cast a Cold Eye
On Life, on Death
Horseman, pass by
--W.B. Yeats' gravestone
In fact, other tests show that toilets are more germ-free than kitchens. But no-one's rushing to eat of toilet seats.
I think it's more "shock value".
OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.
Quick question: How much damage to a PC would a good soaking with coffee do? Fry anything?
That would depend on if the PC is turned on at the time. If it's on, I'm sure the numerous short curcuits through the liquid would ruin whatever ciruit boards it touched. If it was off at the time, then you could save it if you dab everything dry before it cakes into place. After it dries, I'm not sure. What is the condictivity of a coffee stain?
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
At least two different times we were forced to get samples of stuff from public places and grow the samples. One was in high school and the other at 1st year university biology class. The results were quite interesting.
Toilets came out as one of the least active surfaces along with parionoid mother's kitchens.
The worst things were food trays in fast food places (their toilets were much cleaner), the water tap handles in fast food places, the door handles in fast food bathrooms.
We had done keyboards as well but I don't remember them as being any worse than most surfaces.
But *advertising*, which is probably what the poster had in mind, often is about making a demand, or at the very least trying to increase the magnitude of minor demand into a major one.
OK, wrong word.
Also see a child of the original post, where someone observes the word halitosis was created by Listerine.
Advertising does indeed mean to "create demand". "Amplification" is the easiest way to do that, since it's easier to amplify then start from scratch, but there's not a single advertiser who wouldn't shirk from trying to create a new demand from scratch, sometimes with success.
The "need for cool" shoes, shirts, skirts, whatever, is a function of the continuing success of advertisers creating demand for "Gap" clothing or "Nike" shoes where there was none before. The need for shoes is ancient; the need for "Nike" is new and totally created. (Whether something is creation or amplification may depend on your point of view.)
The RIAA and/or the MPAA is on the beginning of a marketing drive to create a "need" for DRM... look on the box covers of MP3 players next time you are in your local retailers and look what's advertised as a feature. SDMI complaint? Supports WMA? Both translate to "DRM-ready". Obviously, you don't pitch it as "Makes Sure You Can't Do Anything You Really Want To Do"... that's where advertisers (and marketers) come in.
Creating needs in an entire culture has not met with much success, with the possible exception of hygine products, but need-creation in sub-cultures happens all the time.
I feel your pain. I have friends that are just like that. I don't know what the hell it is. But like you said, it doesn;t dry off. It just kind of stays there untill you do something. Needless to say, those I know who leave slime trails don't get to use my toys.
When people first started living in cities there were many health problems. Isolated disease related deaths became epidemics. Huge amounts of sewage and other waste products caused disease. And inadequate food and water also caused problems. That is why the Black Plague was so awful.
Increased cleanliness has drastically improved our health and our quality of life. It has gotten to the point that we don't worry as much about more serious diseases and instead worry about allergies. I bet lots of people had allergies hundreds of years ago but with all the smallpox, malaria, dysentery, cholera and other horrible diseases they didn't bitch about it.
I work at a hospital. During employee orientation (*all* employees), they have this cool exercise. At the start of the day, they ask you to wash your hands with this special evaporating liquid soap. It feels slighltly oily, but since its alcohol-based, it evaporates after a minute or two of rubbing your hands together.
Then you listen to some corporate spiel about our history.
Then you're asked to wash your hands with regular soap and water.
Then you get some blood tests done (hepatitis and something else).
Then you wash your hands again (again, regular soap and water).
Then you get a spiel on the importance of cleanliness in the worksplace.
Wash your hands again.
Here's the interesting part. After your last batch of hand-washing, you're asked to put your hands under a UV light. The 'special' soap that was used in the beginning was actually a UV tagging liquid. Even the most compulsive of hand-washers wind up with tons of flourescent crap under their nails and in the cracks of their hands.
Gives the OCD people something else to keep them awake at night and makes Joe Schmoe think "Huh! Maybe I *should* wash my hands when I come out of the crapper!"
Other people's germs are just as cool as yours! In fact it's like Pokemon- you touch something someone else has touched and then your germs meet and do battle.
"E.coli 0157, I choose you!"
"Coli! Coli!"
graspee
If I drop a cookie on my desk do I still have five seconds to pick it up and eat it?
:)
If I drop a cookie in the toilet, I'll just consider that skipping the middleman and leave it there
Surprise! Your mouth is even dirtier than your keyboard probably, and demonstratably dirtier than the mouth of a dog or cat.
BUT, there is a large difference between the microorganisms occupying your skin and computer and those that MIGHT be in your toilet (or on it).
i.e. Giardia, E. Coli, Clostridia, Salmonella, Shigella are all GI tract infectious and will make you really sick (as a bonus it only takes about five shigella to infect a person), but your skin houses things like Proprionobacterium acnes which won't make you sick but will make your acne worse.
Skin also houses some staphylococcus species but they usually won't cause trouble unless the get inside you in some way.
HTH,
Keith
P.S. I knew studying for medical boards would come in handy someday!
Anyone remember certain HP2600-series terminals which had a key labeled AIDS? Brought up the setup menus or something...
These terminals were popular just in the early days when the news started to come in about this mysterious disease that was showing up in "gay men and Haitians."
We had a student assistant in our computer center and one day for a gag he came in wearing rubber gloves. He would wait for people to ask why he was wearing them and then he'd say "because I don' t want to contact any keyboard with AIDS," pointing to the HP key...
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
and that's "nature".
but let the neighbor's dog do it, and that's against the law.
people talk about germs and microbes like they're toxic waste...but let's face it your hands come in cantact with a lot more nasty stuff as the day goes by than your ass.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Yeah, but it's MY bacteria...
Agreed, except from what I understand (biologists back me up or shoot me down on this), mouths are a sterile environment. Fingers, however, probably have more germs than a space bar.
I also read something a while ago (in I think Scientific American) that kids who eat dirt once in a while (as kids are wont to do) wind up with better immune systems than those who don't. Kinda makes sense--why else would kids have the urge to eat dirt? Then again, kids also get the urge to eat a package of Oreos for breakfast. Stupid kids. Oh well, I'm hungry--time for a Guinness.
c-hack.com |
I have seen rats running around the rails, I have seen people pissing in the carriage so though this may be an urban legend it is not far from throuth. Otherwise it would have not been that popular.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
No, its actually to stop junkies. You cant see your veins under the lights they use in mcdonalds, and therefore it is very difficult to inject drugs.
Everything harbors more germs than a tiolet seat! Why do you think that is always the comparison? Guess what, urine is nice and sterile. There are 0 germs in urine and they don't grow to well in the stuff. One of the cleanest substances around, but we still find it disgusting. However germy work areas are, this comparison sucks.
I'm not a biologist, but I'm pretty sure that's incorrect. The mouth is a haven for all sorts of germs, which thrive in the warm, moist environment and live on the pletiful food residue.
Just for fun, here's a picture of what can happen if you get a bite wound and don't have it properly cleaned and treated:
http://www.eatonhand.com/img/IMG00082.htm
Nike didn't invent or amplify the "need" kids have to think they are wearing the latest "cool" or "in" clothing. What they did is try to get people to believe that their product fit this "need" in some way. (I don't understand how, but then again I'm too logical to follow trends that are based on nothing.) But kids thinking they need to be wearing the "right" clothing is not a new thing, not by a longshot.)
A better example of making a need from nothing is the Listerine / Halitosis thing mentioned elsewhere in this discussion. Instead of being satisfied with just fitting their product to the existing need, "not having stinky breath for social reasons", they invented a brand new made-up need, "better health through curing the "condition" of bad breath." - turning bad breath into something people would think of as a health problem, and not just a social faux-pas.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
I've never seen rats; lots of the cute little black mice, though. I particularly remember two that appeared to be dancing one evening, though they were probably really trying to kill each other.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"