Slashdot Mirror
Lifting The Lid On Computer Filth
IainMH writes "There's a story over at BBC News about how work stations contain nearly 400 times as many microbes than lavatories. Gross. 'A desk is capable of supporting 10 million bacteria and the average office contains 20,961 germs per square inch, according to research. ... By contrast, the average toilet seat contains 49 germs per square inch, the survey showed.'"
Old news? Workstations 'Dirtier Than Toilets' /. article Mon May 13, '02 02:43 PM.
;-)
Same story at CNN
At least... if you're working at your workstation its 'your' bacterias and not some others ass/shit/piss?
I guess we shouldn't be surprised. Most of us sneeze on our hands, not our asses.
Every windows user is a sadomasochist.
Would a tubgirl link be appropriate here?
I have been pwned because my
The study found that where office workers who were told to clean their desks with disinfecting wipes, bacterial levels were reduced by 99%.
Johnson and Johnson sponsored this study, didn't they!
Why does this article or similar articles keep showing up? Every year something like this surfaces, they have yet to say anythign new, and we all know.
Sigh, but alas this is how the meida keeps it self running, run old stories again.
snowulf.com
We are surrounded and inhabited by living beings. It is good for you ...
Hey, at least it's a good reason to not let people borrow my computer whenever I'm not using it at a gaming party!
And the muscular cyborg German dudes dance with sexy French Canadians
Does this mean I have to stop using the top of my computer as a food tray? It was so convinient to be able to place a plate and glass on top of the case while I'm working.
"Oh dear, she's stuck in an infinite loop and he's an idiot" -Prof. Farnsworth (Futurama)
Of course they're filthier! Toilets just have people sitting on them. There's no end to the fetishes explored on personal workstations across the globe!
I guarantee you, if you cleaned your toilet as often as you clean your computer, it would (a) be utterly filthy, and (b) reek like nothing you've ever experienced before.
You could clone a human with what grows on my keyboard.
the "lick test"
lick a public toilet seat you'll probably get real sick
lick your desk and your work mates will just think you're a freak.
Here's to finally giving Bush his exit strategy in November
...telephone sanitisers.
Un-news
Not only is this old news (I remember hearing about how keyboards are more germy than toilets years and years ago), but its also not even that surprising if you stop to think about it, as the average toilet is disinfected quite regularly while the average workstation/keyboard is almost never even subjected to a basic dusting or wash, let alone a disinfectant.
God made dirt, and dirt don't hurt.
Yeah, it's gross, but not at all surprising... I work in a cube farm where it's pretty much common knowledge that touching any of the equipment is going to be worse bacteria-wise than doing pushups on the mensroom floor (one of the stranger things I've seen in my cube farm days). And when you consider that equipment is shared between people on different shifts, and how strongly people are discouraged from calling in sick when they're sick, you start to get a very good picture of the kind of biological warfare taking place in the cracks between the keys. You can pick up more germs in this office by typing "WMD" than you would pick up from being attacked with one.
And don't even get me started on the transmission of scabies in shared upholstered swiveling office chairs...
[Z?]
so that's what keeps eating programmers' late-night pizzas
That's not the only low lifeforms they support.
/.
I'm fairly certain the computers at my school have some kind of fester troll problem. Especially considering our school's IP has been banned from
CONSIDERING I had already seen this on Yahoo news...and decided to log onto slashdot in the middle of my break in class at the college....right when I thought about the OTHER article and I start to eat my candy....without washing my hands....
:-P
This was just such a great reminder.
Ewww, bleh!!!
average office contains 20,961 germs per square inch
telephones, 25,127 germs per square inch,
keyboards 3,295
computer mice 1,676.
If those really have 4-5 significant digits, then they must have analyzed over a billion desks (8-10 digits) and compute the average, which is hard to believe.
Besides, what's up with the BBC using square inches instead of cm^2?
Yeah, but the germs on my desk come from my hands and nose, not other people's asses.
Seriously. All manner of filth just accumulates just below the keys.
I'd like to know why no one has come up with a decent, washable keyboard. Most of the ones on the market are way too expensive are just too impratical. Are there some engineering problems with the design? Outside of the whole water-and-electricity-don't-mix thing I mean.
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
...to actually get up from my desk and go to the lavatory to relieve myself.
Everything is dirtier than a toilet! It's really that simple. Everyone should start making things out of toilets.
1) Find everything to be dirtier than toilets
2) Make things out of toilets
3) Profit!
There's no missing step! Well, except that these things will not actually be toilets, and thus will be found dirtier than toilets. But why? Because people know that toilets are "dirty", and thus clean them! So many things are assumed to be clean because they are not specifically used in a way that would seem to make them dirty, and so they don't get cleaned. No story here, move along.
I discovered this in high school... we were growing cultures on petri dishes and were given 2 dishes each, we had to open them for 1 minute in a location of our choosing... I exposed 1 in our toilet and 1 in the middle of the cricket oval. The petri dish exposed in the toilet didn't grow a single bloody thing, the one from the oval looked like a terrarium after 2 days. Our teacher told us that because toilets are cleaned regularly with hardcore chemicals not much grows in them. But I've stopped licking the phone after reading the article, and I don't spit-clean my mouse ball anymore.
Putting syrup in coffee is some form of blasphemy.
One thought that occurred to me was to get an air purifier... one that circulates air with a HEPA filter. Does anyone use one of these in their computer rooms and does it actually make a difference as far as dust goes? They also have ones with UV lightbulbs, maybe this would cut down on the microbe populations? I'm more concerned with the constant accumulation of dust than anything else.
I live in a bubble you insensitive clod....
Yes! I listen to NYC Speedcore and do math at 3AM. I suggest you try it too.
Pinkeye (3 times)
Ringworm (once)
two sinus infections (suspected)
and
the herp...
Well, not from the keyboard, from the skank I was emailing, but I'd like to think it counts....
Wait till you see how dirty my toilet is. I haven't cleaned my bathroom in a number of months...
wait... whats this sticky stuff on my des... hey... who put this box of tissues her... ewwwwwwwwww
Don't worry - its just stigmata. Pass me a napkin and don't you dare tell my mother.
Every month or so I take my keyboard, turn it upside down, and shake it out. A month's worth of lunch crumbs come out and I start the process over again. What else can I do?
Regular Meta Moderators are not more likely to get mod points.
In other news, at the local beach today a vicious fight broke out between geeks about where to draw a line. Sand was kicked, noses have been blooded, we have some unconfirmed reports of a wedgie. We will have more on this breaking news as it comes in.
This explains why the XP technique of using Code Smells is so effective. "This code smells like crap!"
I opened the case one day, and this guy popped out!
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
Don't forget the traces of "one handed web browsing" on the monitor screen.
I sometimes use my wireless laptop while I'm IN the lavatory. I think this means I'll probably die earlier than most of you.
What the article doesn't report is that according to the same study, the average toilet seat contains 47% more urine per square inch than the average workstation.
Really, when you think of your computer area, you don't think of bacteria as you would when you think about a bathroom, so you're less inclined to clean it to the extent you would a bathroom. But either way, pretty much everything else is as equally as bacteria ridden. It's like the test they did on Myth Busters where they tested to see if a tooth brush left by the toilet would really pick up fecal matter, and they found out that tooth brushes all over the building had the same amount of fecal matter on them after a month of use.
Buckethead
Get yourself seven cheap keyboards and one expensive one. Throw them in the wash bucket when you go to bed. In the morning, plug in a fresh keyboard from the drying closet. Think of it like underwear.
My next sig will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush
You obviously don't own an Atari 400 :P
Everytime I change jobs or cubes, I always take my own keyboard and mouse with me. A LOT of people I know eat lunch at their desks. Imagine getting a keyboard or mouse after someone who has been eating ribs or hot wings, licking their fingers and continue typing. Nasty!
--
Real-time deal updates from the major deal sites
I never have understood this obsession of counting the number of small living creatures around us. Now, count what behaviors/locations are more likely to make us actually sick, and you've got my interest, but it's pretty rare I see a study that actually says something along the lines of "cleaning with anti-bacterials will reduce the likelyhood of you getting sick" (in fact, I've only seen ones that show no difference).
The human body has evolved to be pretty capable of protecting against the things around us people now call "gross", and the rarer diseases that we come in contact with generally aren't stopped by staying "clean" anyhow.
But I thot I covered up all the germs with boogers to seal them under.
Table-ized A.I.
Why don't we go back to the tried-and-true membrane keyboard? Oh yeah, because they suck.
... 16K RAM and black and white only ... those were the days.
Maybe keyboards should be like toasters: there should be a hatch on the bottom so that you can open them and shake out all the crud and debris that accumulate.
ps. Speaking of membrane keyboards, did anyone out there own a Timex Sinclair 1000? My first computer
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Im sure that microsoft counted every peice of gpl'ed code on the hard drive as a virus
User: My keyboard doesn't work.
Me: Ok I'll go check it out.
Me (later): Ok, keyboard keys are sticky... and there is no software problem... and there are a lot of porn sites in the browser cache........
Me resigns.
Back when the P266 were just hitting the market I sprung and bought a dual MB all the stuff to build a system a whopping 256 meg of ram an adaptec 3940uw, all the hot harware of the day I just finished putting it all together and loaded it when I knocked my BIGGIE Coke from wendys onto the floor, well the case was off, and it all shot inside the system, I reached for the plug pulled it and went and sat down on the couch thinking about the 2k I had just blown. Well I decided to see what was salvagable so I took it all apart and rinsed it in the bathtub (seriously) and let it dry for about 5 days just to make sure. I put it all together and VOILA It worked fine. About 6 months later it started acting real odd, I assumed it was contacts had corrodd after the coke then water bath, I took the case of , it was unreal, EVERY cat and dog hair in the house had stuck to everything , and it smelled, I cant even imagine how many germs were in there, who the hell needs an Ionic Breeze I got a coke covered P266
... the Toilet Seat Keyboard.
Now that's ergonomics!
. . . fingers eaten up bbyy flesshgg eeatyinngg miivcrobbb bbb
Um, I think the workstation the tested came from some guy named 'Goatse'...? Not sure what he had to do with it... ;-}
The amount of cheeto dust is exactly the same.....
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
This is true. I lived in Asia for a few years, ate some of the most discusting things on the planet out of street stalls (usually I was really drunk), now, nothing bothers my iron gut, as I have quite the worldly bacteria living in there, takes care of just about everything.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
What we REALLY want to see is them test it against the septic tank of a slaughterhouse...
The dirtiest part of the computer is really windows. That's where millions of virus exist.
My father-in-law recently told me a great story about this. His current customer wanted the onsite tech to swap out some 100 keyboards because they were in disgusting shape. Instead of putting the company through all the harassment of replacing the keyboards for free, he decided to try having the cafeteria steam clean the keyboards.
He tasked a couple of box monkeys with splitting the keyboards open and pulling the keyboard assemblies out, separating them from the electronics. The cafeteria ran them through the high pressure steam cleaning dishwasher system, and they came out looking and working like new! Strange but true.
Intelligent Life on Earth
/flame Suit on
;)
On the other hand is able to support over 1,000,000 germs per square inch.
Even more if you have an MS product installed.
It's gotten a little better now that goatse is down.
Oh, you meant physical filth. Never mind.
SAILING MISHAP
Or not. I'm not scared to use a public computer, nor am I that arsed about sitting on a clean looking toilet seat.
I've got two kids - I'm constantly exposed to a myriad of germs. It's the solid materials IN the keyboard that get to me :p
The other day, I noticed that the spaces between my keys were getting a little dark, so I wedged a sheet of paper in between two rows to scrape out some of the grunge (computer room's in the basement, with the laundry room on the other side of the wall - too much lint dust for my tastes). I had to dig out the screwdrivers and pop off the key covers, because the paper started getting stuck trying to dig out the grunge. I had to strip off most of the keys to get the job done, because some of the grungeballs got wedged under the keys and made typing really spongey.
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
It seemed like a good idea at first, but then I found that it wasn't the "percieved" germs on toilet seats that offended me. It was the piss and shit.
All the cleaning power of corn cobs, but with a hi-tech twist!
I just really felt bad for the temps.
Go here for some fun tips.
If there's electricity in the water when you clean it, then you forgot to unplug it, and your computer is too close to water anyway.
I guess this is only in hyper-hygienic Japan, but you can get latex keyboard covers. They're flexible, washable, molded to the keyboard layout, and quite usable.
Nothing can stop me now -- except microscopic germs. But we won't let that happen, will we, Smithers?
And how many of those germs are pathogenic? Isn't that what matters? Sorry for not RTFA, but it seems people have become obsessed with germs lately. And articles like this while interesting and true, manage to create paranoia with ignorant people. Also, the kinds of germs that live on toilet seats are a little different than the kinds that live on or in your keyboard, unless strange people regularly pull their pants down and sit on your keyboard.
My brother spilled water on his keyboard and naturally the thing was completly borked. He refused to believe it at the time however.
In his wisdom he unscrewed the keybaord, opened it up and hair dried the circuits in vain. Obviously he ended up buying a new keyboard.
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
So taking your PowerBook to the crapper to download pr0n...I mean errr...do work...would be a bad idea. I wouldn't wan to contaminate my tidy little toilet with all those germs.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
so filthy I that I don't want to touch them without a radiation suit and tongs..
Really though, the FIRST thing that any computer I service gets is CLEANED.
The keyboard is the most disgusting thing of all, people eating, drinking, picking their noses, scratching their privates, you name it. The keyboard is a petri dish.
I mix 50/50 antiseptic mouthwash and 91% rubbing alcohol in a spray bottle and mist the keyboard, then scrub it with a nylon scrub brush. I have an air compressor with an aardvark nozzle that I blow the keyboard out with. The keyboard looks 100% new (unless it turned yellow from a SMOKER) and it 100 times cleaner that it came in as.
I open the PC and blow all the crap out, including the drives and fans. If the owner is a SMOKER, then the job is extra nasty and takes more aggressive cleaning. Cleanest computers come from elderly, upper class people, filthiest computers come from poor people who usually have lower hygiene standards and more likely to SMOKE than the upper class folks.
Also, computers on the floor in a carpeted room get clogged up with carpet dust no matter how clean the habits are of the owner, carpet disintegrates as it wears out and the fibers that break off (as dust) get sucked into the running PC fans..
People are also surprised to find out that men's washrooms are, as a rule, cleaner than women's.
Urine kills bacteria. That's why. The sloppier the guys get, the cleaner their bathrooms will get. Well, sort of. It'll be free of bacteria, anyway.
Well, what do you expect with all the half eaten food people leave and spill all over them? I was moved to a different desk temporarily a while ago, and one of the speakers was glued down by cheap coffee.
Maybe we all better work in the toilet.
that people [tend to] wash their ass more than their hands. This is but hilarious empirical evidence of the idea.
How much more resilient the natural systems are. We're not dead yet. I hope some AV vendors and AI people are reading this thread.
C|N>K
Water won't damage most keyboards. My wife spilled sweetened tea into my desktop keyboard. I disconnected it and rinsed it off in the shower. I towel dried it, then left a fan blowing on it overnight. In the morning (and ever since, about two years), it has worked perfectly. The "trick" is not to operate the keyboard with water in it (plug it out as quickly as possible), and let it dry completely before plugging it back in.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
The real answer as I learned from another sysadmin who has to do occasional deskside work is to carry a 125mL bottle of Purell. Use it religiously and you will reduce your chance of getting sick by a ton.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Toilet seats are flat and non-porous. They're easy to clean and there's nowhere for bits of food to go. The reputation for toilet seats being "dirty" is rather unfounded unless someone shits or pisses all over them. And while urine is disgusting and I don't want to sit in it, it's actually almost always sterile.
Bacteria usually need food to multiply on. People don't tend to eat in bathrooms, but they do eat at a desk. Keyboards are filled with places for dust, food, moisture, etc to collect. Great places for bacteria to multiply. Keyboards are also very hard to clean, and almost impossible to clean well because of all the spaces inside them.
What upsets me most though is the comparison to toilet seats that winds up in every "thing X has this many germs/inch article". In understanding anything context and perspective is king. The implications is that if something is dirtier than a toilet seat, it just MUST be dirty as hell. It's a rare article that points out that maybe the premise (toilet seats are really dirty) is at fault. I'd be more interested in comparisons to things that ARE dirty, like a cutting board after having cut raw meat on it. Unfortunately articles like these always end up as the "interesting little tidbit" articles in newspapers where they have to grab your attention and don't have time for things like giving out real information.
AccountKiller
I imagine the people saying that your toilet seat is cleaner than your desk are also the same people saying that dogs mouths are cleaner than humans.
I'll believe both when my dog stops licking his own butt.
I've seen these for sale but have seen very few people using them.
I've seen keyboards in cafe's (in London) with heavy duty clingfilm over the keyboard. Very practical since you just throw it away once it gets too mucky.
Thats my one gripe with LCDs, a not well covered sneeze and you cant just wipe it down with windex like you can a nice glass CRT, a thin piece of anti-glare coated glass would be nice for LCDs, easier to clean and protective from "ooo, look at the pretty swirls when i poke it".
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
And it is not only the Germs I am worried about. Since I started coming to Slashdot, my Desktop contains 20,343 trolls per square inch.
A recent survey indicated a**hole per Oval office in the Whitehouse.
The list goes on.
Indefinitely Detained US Citizen
You'll have to remember that primarely, computers are used by one person and one person alone--same with the immediate workspace around them.
If they are your own bacteria you're used to, they're no more harmful than.....anything else, because you've got a natural immunity to them from *living with them.*
An interesting finding definately, but not a dangerous one at all.
If the germs doesn't kill you (or make you sick), what's the big deal?
To quote one of my fav standup comedians, George Carlin:
"What we how now is a neurotic population obsessed with security, safety, crime, drugs, clenlyness, hygiene and germs. There's another thing. Germs. Where did this sudden fear of germs come from in this country? Have you noticed this? The media constantly running stories about all the latest infections; salmonella, ecolay, hanta virus, bird flu. And Americans panic easily, so now everyone's running around, scrubbing this and spraying that, overcooking their food, and repetivly washing their hands trying to avoid all contact with germs. It's ridicilous, and it goes to ridicilous lengths. In prison, before they give you a lethal injection, they swab your arm with alcohol!"
The people who did this research obviously haven't seen my bathroom...........
As long as you power it down AFAP (yank from wall if necessary) water is not that damamging to electronics. If not cleaned up it can delaminate PCBs and destroy caps, but if left off and dried well it'll work fine. Other things, esp sticky thinks (soda, get your minds outa the gutter...) can be cleaned up by rinsing with water and then drying. Not a fix 100% of the time, but usually works out pretty well.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
I'll lick the spacebar if you lick the rim.
Shamelessly stolen from the previous article awhile back.
http://www.iscdfw.com/onlinecatalog/Keyboards/keyb oard_PC.htm
There you go. A washable keyboard.
I found lots of tadpole like creatures swimming around on the keyboard.
Don't use your hands on washroom doorhandles, seriously. I can't remember the source, but I did read an article a few years ago that stated when tested, 90% of bathroom door handles in public buildings had feces on them.
Makes you wonder how it gets there in the first place.
It's better to burn out than to fade away
Perhaps me and my nose picking colleagues are to blame. Next time i promise not to bleed so much.
Yeah, the anti-bacterial craze kind of worries me. If it kills 99% of bacteria, what about that 1% thats disinfectant resistant? Were always told about using antibiotics properly, what about everything else. Also, whats with products claiming to eliminate cold germs. Can you 'kill' a virus any better than exposure would? I think people would be a bit healthier, or at least hardier if our socioty weren't so sterilized, like e-coli, people should not die from that, but they do because their food is always so spotless they have absolutly no imunity to it. Not saying you should feed your kids raw meat, but we get minor sicknesses to teach our body to fight what could be a really nasty one. Also, last point, "antibacterial" soap kills no more germs with a proper hand washing than regular non-antibacterial soap. Wow, that got all rambling...
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
You're lucky to be able to read the keys through all the years of dirt and grime and god knows what built up on them..
Office equipment should be regularly disinfected to prevent the spread of bacteria responsible for colds and flu.
I can see it now. There will be more calls to harrassed tech support people from clueless morons who have read the article, and then "disinfected" their computers by washing them off in buckets of disinfectant.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
I worked on a roll-out of POS systems to Burger Kings and we used something similar on the PC in the manager's office. All the airborne grease vapors from the deep fryers eventually coated everything in the store with grease. They covers we used weren't laytex, but they did a good job of keeping grease out of the keyboard. It was actually cool to take the cover off of a three year old keyboard and have it look brand new.
Still, with a plan, you only get the best you can imagine. I'd always hoped for something better than that. -CP
yeah, I had a college roommate come home all wasted like and puke on his keyboard.
in a brilliant logic that I will never posess in such a drunken state, he fills the bathtub up, and drops the keyboard in. It sinks to the bottom in a predictable David Letterman "Will It Float" style.
the next morning, our other roommates' parents who were in town for the weekend look at a full bathtub with a keyboard at the bottom and laugh like hell.
after a day in the sun, the keyboard was good as new. And clean, too.
Here's to finally giving Bush his exit strategy in November
this raises the issue of quality vs quantity, what kind of microbes are we talking about in the toilet and what kind on the desktop. Im sure the human body is crawling with microbes. that does not necessarily make it a bad thing.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Provided you have a room where other entrances are reasonably blocked or dealt with and you keep the air flowing. Heck, at work the clean room is a room with lots of HEPA filters. Basically you have an outer room, with all the doors qith at least one other door before the outside, and good seals. All the air is filtered comming in here, not sure how well. There are also stick pads to get dirt off your shoes.
The inner room, the actual clean room, then just maintains itself through positive air flow. There are a couple layers of filters that take out basically all particles. The bottom of the walls are open so that the air can continually flow out.
Well this works REALLY well (well enough to work on micro processors in there). There's basically no dust in the outer room, never mind the clean room.
So if you want to use it in your home, you'll need to make sure that your doors/windows are reasonably well sealed and stay closed. It'll do you no good if a big entrance for dust is open all the time. You also need to keep the air flowing, since some dust WILL get in and it's only getting out via the airflow. Just having it run with your AC probably won't do a ton. You'll probably need continous airflow.
But ya, they work great if you give them an environment to work in. You won't get cleanroom conditions in your house, of course, but you can pretty effectivly eliminate dust, at least in a single room.
a) scream and run out of the restaurant.
b) pick the bug off and continue eating.
c) calmly point out the problem to the waitperson and ask for another salad.
d) get all in a huff and sue the restaurant, the waiter, and the food vender.
This situation has happened to me twice. The first time, my answer was "b". The second time (years later) my answer was "c" (I think the bug was uglier than the little inch-worm thingy).
I suppose you could offer "e) ignore the worm and eat the salad. The worm can look out for itself." But that's just a little bit too far for me.
There is stuff everywhere. Get over it.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
That's what happens when you're that close to France. I say let the Muslims take over Europe. The ungrateful Europeans deserve it. We've pulled their fat asses out of the fire one too many times.
Fucking socialists.
When Microsoft ports its OS to your toilet, the numbers are sure to even out again.
now all lysol corp has to do is come out with a freon based non corrosive antibactrial spray
either that or Nortons will start comming in a bottle.
Thats why i always made it a point to scratch my balls before logging off any shared computer at work..
no, do i actually have to say the words "im not serious" ?
not go outside anymore? wtf???
perl -e '$_="\007/4`\cp%2,".chr(127);s/./"\"\\c$&\""/gees
Cowboy Neal's computer after months of viewing his p*rn collection.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
have they tested a public restroom or a school restroom? trust me, those are NOT CLEANER THAN A WORKSTATION.
considering there's urine.. spit, vomit, standing water, mold, feces, pubes, etc everywhere in the common highschool bathroom in america.
sad aint it?
now, try to tell me that's not as bad as a computer station.
also, we have germs everywhere.. most dont affect us however because of our immune system.. only a few types affect us out of the millions out there.
now that i finally got my moded window case and green light kit, you're gonna tell me theres stuff living in there? at a toasty 46 degrees no less??
now im gonna have trapper keeper nightmares
there seems to be a subliminal message here. SMOKE. i don't know what it is though. SMOKE.
I hope you don't use sweetened mouthwash.
In any case, your recipe sounds like a formula for Lysol.
...
Best not to stick the keyboard in your colon either.
I'm sorry, but cleaning the keyboards on computers that you service is incredibly anal.
Just hook up your own keyboard to the thing while you're working on it.
Bill Gates can kiss my keyboard.
I bought a Sinclair ZX81 just last week for old times sake. Now I'm trying to find the circuit and details on how to route around the RF modulator and get direct video out. Been years since I did that mod and I don't remember what it was and can't find it online anywhere.
---
I didn't know you worked with CmdrTaco.
.
.
.
Hey, is that you CowboyNeil?
With my tongue. Is that bad?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Hey there, my friends and I have come to the same result in our biology class when we grew bacteria that we have swiped from different surfaces. Things like keyboards and mice were nightmares compared to toilet lids. However, this is not the ned and here is what you can do.
First of all get anti-bacterial gel to wipe your hands after you use a bathroom. Secondly, buy some anti-bacterial wipes and wipe your keyboard every morning. These items are small enough to store in your office and cheap enough to buy on a regular basis. Also, I have noticed that a lot of my friends liked to sneeze and then go straight for the keyboard. It did not really bother me until they started doing it while using my box; that's when I put a box of wipes right next to my monitor. Most of my friends still sneeze, but instead of wiping their hands on my keyboard, they do it on a wipe. Putting a box of wipes on your table is a polite way of saying "please use that if you sneeze."
I have to admit that my gf's brother still has zero understanding when it comes to personal hygine (or lack thereof). When it comes to his case, I tell him to "wipe his fucking hands off!" Works like a charm.
Damn microsoft natural keyboard
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Here's what I use to keep my computers clean:
1) Shop Vac -- $20 from WalMart for a 1x1 (1HP x 1Gallon) container.
2) Isopropyl alcohol -- 50c or so for a pint
3) Baby Wipes -- about $4.00 for a box - unscented
4) Glass cleaner -- $1 at the Dollar Store
5) Scouring Powder -- 50c at WalMart
The ShopVac is perfect for the dust bunnies and stuff inside the system unit. Be careful around fans as the suction can spin them much faster than the typical case fans are rated for. Some of these vacs are reversible to blow air.
Isopropyl alcohol is great for cleaning mice. I tend to just throw away the keyboards since they're so cheap and so tedious to clean. If you do need to clean them I recommend actually removing the keys and dumping them into some soapy water. Rinse. Then set them to dry on a towel. A hair dryer can help dry up residual moisture. Alcohol is also good for some types of sticky residue from stickers and tape.
Baby wipes are convenient in a lot of places. I use them for the system unit and general wipedown. They work just as well as the Computer Wipes but are about 1/10 the cost. They are damp so don't use them inside the case.
Glass cleaner is good for body grime. Make sure it has ammonia (most do). Be careful when using it near Scouring Powder that contains chlorine bleach.
Scouring powder is a last resort for marker stains on plastic housings. It will scratch a little, but can help get out tougher permanent marker.
Other useful things include a toothbrush, eraser pencil, air can, Qtips, and cotton buds.
This just means that people that have computer jobs will live healthier lives (because of the induced microbe resistance from being constantly exposed) than people who drink from toilet boils.
Seriously, what the hell does this proove? If 1 of those bacterias is deadly in the toilet and the 20,000 ones in my comp aren't, is that important? Probably not, because you'd be too occupied being impressed by numbers. You can make numbers say what you like. Kind of like making gigantic gapped bars for little insignificant things like
49 germs
20,000 germs
Oh my, that bar is long! Must be bad!
Trolls dont like to be Flamebait, because they burn so well. Protect our Troll heritage!
Yeah, and our mouths contain more bacteria than our genitals.
Germs shmerms.
I keep myself clean with mild soap and water and I don't worry so much about the world around me. I never use antibacterial anything (including antibiotics if possible). My immune system is strong and I very rarely get sick.
And no, I'm not a stinky Baja wearing hippy. I always smell good and look tidy. As does my workplace.
There seems to be a movement in the media to make everyone obsessive-compulsive over germs and everything else too. Our immune systems are the best at handling that job. Include some basic hygene and you're golden. Any more effort by us to intervene and things usually go downhill.
Cheers.
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
Simple as that, as long as your don't pick your asshole and THEN use the keyboard, you should be fine. ...and people wonder why I carry a bottle of Purell while on-site to fix Joe Sixpacks computer.
Life is not for the lazy.
So, your cells still constitute the majority of your body's biomass.
Is that the last thing you do too?
- - - Wow, a computer cleaning maid!!!
my blog
I just despise filthy things. And it's a sin to have a filthy computer/keyboard.
Some of them are so disgusting that they *have to be cleaned* because they are having sticking keys and "no contact" keys.
The Discovery Channel show Mythbusters did a segment on the myth that keeping your wet toothbrush near your toilet would infect it with fecal bacteria floating in the air. The Mythbusters set up a buch of toothbrushes in a bathroom at various distances from the toilet, and brushed their teeth with them for a month. They used distilled water rather than regular tap water. They also kept a control toothbrush in an office in a glass jar.
At the end of the test, ALL the toothbrushes tested positive for fecal coliform bacteria, including the control toothbrush in the office.
So my friends, the world really is full of shit!
SMOKE... SMOKE... SMOKE...
Are you SMOKING yet?
(Not now, Jerry!)
I can vouch for this. It's true. In fact, one time I worked on a smokers Dell. It was one of those cases where you had to take the front cover off in order to gain access to the two screws that mounted the vertical hard drive. Anyways, when I removed that pannel, a lent-rag (like what you find in a cloths dryer) can rolling off the metal case. It was nasty yellow cause of the tar which helped bind both dust and pet hair. I sware, I almost lost my lunch because of it.
Because of heavy chain smoking my clients take part it, I often wonder if they are even still alive. Just too creepy!
Life is not for the lazy.
1) I have never had a worm or virus crash my toilet
2) The do not make any of that blue junk that I can install in my computer
3) microsoft doesn't make bathroom fixtures
4) I let people go in my bathroom. Noone is allowed to drive my PC
5) Visitors understand how to use everything in my lavatory.
6) Thankfully, there is no 'undelete' function in the can
7) Seat at workstation is more comfortable. I try to perform as many biofunctions there as I can.
Cleanest computers come from elderly, upper class people, filthiest computers come from poor people who usually have lower hygiene standards and more likely to SMOKE than the upper class folks.
It's because neither the elderly nor the rich use their computers you dolt.
Denial of service attack is unlikely
Spamfilter is more efficient
If you forget to clean it out, eventually enough crud will build up that it will ignite during the toasting process one morning. it's pretty amusing, even if it does cause your smoke detector to go off and ruins the current slice of bread. }:)
-Z
Another reason to have your office in the bathroom.
I once "made-out" with a young woman for 4 hours straight. She had terrible cold or flu. I was so angry from another woman, I didn't care about her sickness and made-out anyway. I DIDN'T get sick! This after 4 hours of make-out, I was healthy and have never had a cold or flu since. Lesson: Do not believe everything you know about germs.
Do you suggest that if we eat our lunches in the bathroom we will be healthier?
I have noticed a lot of crun accumulating in my keyboard. Maybe it wasn't a good idea after all for apple to use all that clear plastic.
For many years I have been in the habit of washing my hands after using public arcade games and pinball machines. We all know how unconcerned kids are with hygiene...and god knows what else they do with their palms!
Recently I traveled abroad and had the same reaction to public Internet terminals. Do not touch hands to face! Wash hands afterwards!
Most bacteria are harmless. In fact, you, and everything around you, Is covered in bacteria. Many do good things and most do nothing at all. All this worry about bacteria is just bull. Also, antibacterial soaps and such are bac becasue that means the only pathogenic bacteria you will catch are already resistant to something.
An even bigger issue is the amount of antibiotics given to healthy livestoc, but i won't go there.
That's not always easy. I use to work in a repair facility (not computers) and the computers were raerely opened and cleaned. Like most computers they were mounted near a concrete floor. The dust was unbelievable.
It was a mix of several household cleaners and a dose of eucalyptus oil which was so good it crinckled the plastic on computer monitors and removed the labels on keyboards when overused.
He never got sick though
You will be assimilated...
....no comes Norton Antibacterial!
That should read "Now comes Norton Antibacterial!"
(Sorry, there's lichen growing in my keyboard.)
Some years ago before I became a geek and thus unappealing to women, I was seeing an otherwise lovely girl who had a wart on her thumb. She had a cough and a few other ailments that happen when you're a poor student and stressed out too. Anyway, I was going though an "alternative" phase, and suggested she try colliodial silver. And strangely enough it worked. The wart was gone in a couple of weeks. Being much more cynical and practical now, I look back and think WTF? But if anyone's got warts that need killin' and they don't want N2 scars, I'd say it's worth a try.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Move your computer equipment into the bathroom.
The CPU seems to fit snugly under the sink here,
and I've already managed to balance my 21 inch CRT on the top of the toilet and...
oh god no
"Now, turn around in your seat and look at the person next to you, and think about just what you are looking at...""
Osmosis Jones.
From the article:
Office equipment should be regularly disinfected to prevent the spread of bacteria responsible for colds and flu.
Unless there's some new-fangled colds and flus going around, these are both caused by viruses. It's articles like this that lead to people asking for anibiotics for anything that's bothering them.
I have several circa 1986 IBM model M's. I have been using these keyboards exclusively since I was knee-high to a cockroach.
I just toss em in the sink and clean them with hot soapy water and a scrub brush. Then I just let them sit upside down for a few days to dry out. Since I always have a few spares, every month or so I just grab a clean one off the shelf and wash the previous one.
Wash these keyboards more often then I do laundry (hey, I'm a geek)...Never had a problem. Ever. The one I'm typing on right now has probably been washed at least 20 times.
How many people just went and cleaned their computers extra well. I know I did! But how many are gonna stop cleaning their bathroom as much? I know I will!
I'm relieved to know that my ass is cleaner than my hands....
For disinfecting your desk (or hands) in a safe manner nothing really beats vodka or other high proof, food grade alcohol, but the moralists and politicians have made that an over pricey proposition.
"Oh don't give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit/ No, don't you give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit/ For my head will fly, my tongue will lie, my eyes will fry and I may die/ Won't you pour me one more of that sinful Old Janx Spirit"
455fe10422ca29c4933f95052b792ab2
I used to service PC's in a hospital, and they were a mess. Systems in the sterile areas, the compromised immunity area especially, you had to bag and remove before you could open them up. Dust carries some dangerous stuff, and in the compromised immunity wing you couldn't even move a ceiling tile or change a light fixture without removing the patent. The first time a nurse saw the inside of a PC from that ward, she remarked "That pretty much could have killed the patient who shared the room with the computer".
At a different hospital I was at for a short time, no such policies for removing systems exist. Scary.
-G "We love to buy books, because we are buying the belief we have time to read them" - Warren Zevon
The first day I started work I got a cube from another employee who had left a week before. After a couple of days my fingertips started to wrinkle severly. They looked like I had taken a 30 minute bath, but ALL THE TIME. My palms cracked as well. It took months for my hands to get back to normal. Anyone know what this is? A fungus?
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
I've read about the same thing regarding overprotective/sanitary parents.
The kids who go to day care (and are exposed to every germ and virus within a 30 mile radius, every day) DO get mild illnesses more often while they're little... but as they grow up their immune systems are super-fortified against just about everything, and they are much healthier overall then the kids whose parents disinfected everything and kept them away from any other kid with a sniffle.
Obviously this does NOT mean you should encourage your kid to eat dirt and so on, because a really concentrated source of bacteria (e.g. dog turd) could make them seriously ill, and it's a good habit to wash their hands before meals. It's just an interesting case of more of a good thing (cleanliness) NOT being better.
There are only 10 types of people: those who understand decimal, those who don't, and, uh, 8 other types I forget.
...not the next crappy research that comes by and shows it's ugly head.
:)
If you are not frequently ill, and work on your desktop-pc at your office, what is the worry ?
It's not that you are going to eat the stuff out of your keyboard, or are you one of those guys who needs to eat his Mars-bar uptil the last chocolate-piece, even if that's inside your keyboard. If so, flip it over, eat it, but don't go complaining afterwards
Apart from that, if your body 'knows' the bacteria - it excreted them itself you know - it shouldn't be that harmful.
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
I do not think about or react to the actions of Darl McBride while on my toilet... I only make miniature copies of him
...for the slashdot reader not to leave their computer chair...even for a restroom break.
Nooooo! Without bacteria to practise on, your immune system will be weak, and you'll fall down and die as soon as you get up to go to the toilet!
Hypochondriacs do get sick more often for a reason, they invite it.
A day in the life of the crapper: Twenty people used it, of which seven sprayed it down with Lysol. Six of them used the free paper "cowboy hats." Then the janitor came in and sprayed it down with industrial strength disinfectant.
Day in the life of a workstation desktop: You sneeze all over it. You coworker comes by and sneezes on it too. You spill some beans on it from you burrito and create a bacterial growth medium. Then you take your shoes off and rest your stinky feet on it. If you're lucky, a janitor wipes off the desk with plain wet rag he wiped all the other desks with.
In summary, toilets get disinfected regularly, while desks rarely do.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
...when the mods consider "don't pick your asshole and THEN use the keyboard" to be informative. Is slashdot hygiene really this awful?
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
I'd like to know why no one has come up with a decent, washable keyboard.
Actually, they have.
I have two of these installed on some Canon ImageRunner eCopy stations for the employees to use, as they are nice and small and more or less "indestructable" as the name suggests.
I disassemblly my keyboard and washed it with water and a hard brush, it comes out like a new keyboard!
The first picture is after removing the keys,
the second is the plastic that cover the underlying circuits,
and the third is the keyboard after being heavily washed.
The guy left unopened yogurt containers on his desk for WEEKS before eating the contents. Claimed that it maximized the beneficial bacteria. Gross.
Of course, this guy suffered from horrible obvious gas. Coincidence?!
Thats my one gripe with LCDs, a not well covered sneeze and you cant just wipe it down with windex like you can a nice glass CRT, a thin piece of anti-glare coated glass would be nice for LCDs, easier to clean and protective from "ooo, look at the pretty swirls when i poke it".
Dammit! Now you forced me to do it!
oooo, pretty colors...
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
6) Thankfully, there is no 'undelete' function in the can Youve obviously never had a sceptic tank back up while the wash is draining...ewww :)
Is anyone else disappointed? I read the title and thought it was going to be an article about pr0n.
-Flakbait
Temporary Minister of Propoganda for the Assyrian Empire
Being a small bit of a clean freak myself, I'd like to point out another area that personally freaks me out. Restaraunt menus! Most are made of plastic and very seldom do they get cleaned, unless they are obviously very dirty. Man, I can't even count the number of times I've read a greasy menu with food on it. If you look in the light just right you can see other peoples greasy fingerprints on many of them. That has to be a serious petri dish. I guess I'm the only one whom this bothers.
That many germs? Hmm... I'll have to remember to request a toilet seat next time I get my desk chair replaced. Just think of the advantages...
This usaully appears on only the geeks' desks.
There is obviously an elevation issue at hand that causes this phenomenon.
Since the managers' desks usually are made of better wood instead of particle board and formica tops like most cubicles they also sit higher.
And managers' hygiene is usually really good.
But then again all that has nothing to do with anything.
It's because managers always shit on everyone.
oops... did I write that?
He works at the factory were Winnie the Poo is made.
your vision is on its way out too, i suspect.
And they say I'm suffering from OCD when I make it a point to take a shower before changing when I return home if I used a public pot during the day. Or when I clean my desktop *and* notebook almost every other day. Or wipe clean things which were ouched by others. Or wash hands too frequently, esp. when Mr. Dirty shook hands. Or ....
OK, maybe I do too much, but some amount of cleanliness can help. Beyond that, let your immune system take care.
I don't doubt that. I built my own clone (high voltage rectified from neon transformers, couple of thousand ionization points, air circulation with a fan, big positive collection plate for dust near the points) and when I crank it low enough that it doesn't produce crazy amounts of ozone, it doesn't collect noticeable amount dust during a day either. It does do something - the air somehow feels a lot fresher after running it. It's funny to watch the microamp-meter showing electricity flowing into thin air, too.
If you look at the industrial electrostatic air cleaners, they use tens of kilovolts to be effective. You can't use that much at home, the ozone production would make you sick.
--
If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, where does the road paved with evil intentions lead to?
At least with Trinitron tubes, if you use Windex to clean up and aren't very thorough with your drying, it will eat through the anti-glare coating (or whatever it is on there) and leave a nasty, permanent discoloring swirl pattern or streak on your monitor.
:(
In fact, any cleaning solution that contains ammonia will do the same thing. This is also why they strongly caution you against using Windex against aftermarket (sticky film) tinted windows (like in cars or living rooms).
The damage won't be instantaneous, but I've seen plenty of examples including several very expensive monitors that have been scarred for life.
Look it up on google...
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Only 20,961 germs per square inch? Slackers! I could beat that any day.
The reason is clear - a toilet seat is cleaned more often, and has a surface shape such that it is devoid of nooks and crannies, so it's easier to wipe it down. Picture the effort that it takes to clean a keyboard on a computer - about one hundred keys, each sourrounded by a trench. Trying to wipe that down is slow. This is made worse by the fact that the thing is full of electronics that you don't want turned on if they're wet - so you have to unplug it, wipe it good, then let it dry a long time, and THEN plug it back in.
Even so, I end up having to replace my keyboard once a year because it's so full of hair and skin flakes that the switches under the keys are sometimes failing to make contact. (It doesn't help that my skin grows fast (forgot the name of this condition, but basically the normal process of outer skin flaking off and being replaced with skin from underneath happens at an accellerated rate for me, meaning I have to wash my hair twice a day to avoid an itchy scalp (or use a special shampoo that I hate because it really stings a lot when it hits my eyes.).) So my keyboard gets really disgusting really fast.
I just bought a laptop and this is one thing that I'm worried about with it. If its keyboard gets gunked up I can't easily replace it by dropping $20 at a computer store.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
actually produces around 1 standard drink of alcohol a day.
Those kinda bacteria wouldn't survive well on a desk anyway. (Anerobic, in an aerobic environment.)
The first sentence:
"The vast majority of bactera on Earth are harmless."
Vonal Declosion
Wonderful.
I've stopped really caring to hear, every 1.5-2 years, about the shocking and revolutionary study that -gasp!- places that get daily use sans daily cleaning are actually dirtier than places that are - given their function - cleaned nightly.
However, there is a quote and its bretheren that never cease to amaze me:
The study found that where office workers who were told to clean their desks with disinfecting wipes, bacterial levels were reduced by 99%.
Hmm ... let's take a look at this ...
1. Disinfecting wipes can take out bacteria. Woohoo. We know this.
2. People are being encouraged to live in a germ-free world - and we'll suffer because of it.
I believe we're headed straight for another Black Plague, given our disposition towards feeling the need to scrub and kill every last germ off our surfaces. This is silly, and is in fact making us weaker as a whole, as we now have zero exposure to elements that, 50 years ago, we came into daily or near-daily contact with.
A few-point plan to save us from ourselves:
a. If you go to the bathroom, wash your damn hands after you're finished. And this does not just mean rinsing them under cool water - this means the full soap and warm-hot water treatement.
b. We're not Howard Hughes. Let a few germs go; they'll likely do us all a lot more good than bad. Yeah, they're all over your skin, clothes, and so on ... but to want to rid yourself of 'em is tantamount to saying that we ought to rip out our eyelashes - because there're symbiotic crawlies living in there, and that gives me the willies.
c. The only people that antibacterial soap ought to be dispensed to are nurses and the like. Antibacterial products are the result of an over-indulgent Western imagination rising up with our xenophobia with a desire to remain King or Queen of our Domain.
Anyway ... that's what I think. ;) Please wash your hands after going to the bathroom ... other people have to touch that door too, you know!
Is that where Regean and Bush I dumped them then?
but if you have a clue after milking you piss on your hands, then you don't get warts.
ooo-arrr
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
I use the old fashioned Ivory soap - normal, 100% pure. Incidientally, one case is only $2.99 if you buy from me now! Hurry and save...
Before being used as a flavoring, honey was used as a medicine. For burn victims, a salve made of honey often works as well (sometimes better) than modern medicine. The reasons are are follows:
1) The pH of raw honey is outside the range that many bacteria can live in.
2) Those bacteria that can live within that pH range find that the sugars in honey "suck out" the water in their cells... killing them.
3) A salve made from honey doesn't bond to the skin when it dries like most do. Wash it away with lukewarm water and much less scarification of the wound occurs that with most other options.
Is this social stereotype of lower class workers even accurate? I know of professors who smoke da ganja. I believe the Las Vegas pro-decriminalization ads tried to break this prejudice people had of smokers. Smoking is unhealthy, but that doesn't make smokers any less human.
In Douglas Adams book: The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy he describes a world that got rid of all it's telephone-cleaners and afterwards was killed by a bug on the phone :-)
Maybe we are entering that "area" now?
Lars Bo Wassini
I've got just the product for this.
I'm sure if previous toilet users performed a normal bowel motion with firm consistency and not too much splashing, things would be fine.
For some reason, many people who use public toilets seem to have some kind of intestinal complaint: they pebble-dash the bowl, often hitting the back of the seat; they produce huge amounts of farting, creating a mist of atomised faecal matter that rises past their foul arse cheeks onto the seat and into the air; they smear faecal matter onto the walls and toilet and door handle.
I've never seen anyone do that to their keyboard.
I agree wholeheartedly. Disinfecting things is a very short-term way to win the 'battle' but lose the 'war'. The more we disinfect things, the weaker our immune systems will be, and the stronger the bacteria will get.
See, I KNOW better; I really think the people purchasing all this anti-bacterial stuff are totally screwing the rest of us by arming the next generation of superbugs. I really think that you should have to have a prescription to buy any of it, or there should be a HUGE tax on non-medical supplies of the anti-bacterial agents.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Who sponsored this "research" anyways:
"Viruses are transferred by our hands, especially cold viruses."
She said it is impossible to turn our surroundings into sterile zones, but we can minimise the risk by washing our hands regularly and using alcoholic wipes on office furniture like phones and keyboards.
It sounds like turning our environment into sterile zone is a goal, alas impossible to meet. (We would not be breathing for sure..) I can bet you $5 that you're going to be more sick living in a sterile environment. Your immune system will become so weak, you'll catch anything, airborne or not.
The article also seems to claim that the less bacteria, the better. No mention on types of bacteria whatsoever. This is food for ultra-sensitive people with fear of dirt! They conclude that you need to buy alchoholic wipes to clean the surfaces, not mentioning that such wipes are bad to your skin and will dry it out.
Again, who sponsored this "research" and FUD?
Why should we listen to such drivel?
That is the method used in Belgium, the Netherlands, Russia etc. They have toilet ladies who charge you to use the facilities. Even in McDonalds!
Do you know what's even dirtier? Air conditioners.
It goes futher than symbiotic bacterial cells with their own genetic futures. Mitochondria may have originated as separate organisms that evolved to exist symbiotically inside a larger cell... mitochondrial DNA is separate from nuclear DNA. Mitochondria cannot be produced by cells de novo.
It would be foolish to say that only the parts of a cell which are created by genomic DNA are human. Our animal cells cannot function without mitochondria.
The bacteria are not the stonework or metalwork of our bodies' cities, though. A closer metaphor would be that a country is a body made up of humans as cells, and that the animals which support each person are the bacteria that outnumber the cells. America is a country made up of people, not cows.... but it survives by consuming dozens of cows per person every year. Rats eat our garbage.... that is, intestinal bacteria eat our digestive waste. Etc.
A body without bacteria is no more desirable than a country without non-human animals. It's beyond silly.
Indeed, just like spreading junk e-mail around has rendered e-mail useless for important communication, and spreading anti-spam agents around merely encourage spammers to develop killer spam to get around anything.
Now, is there perhaps a DNS-based blacklist meant to deal with Fellowes and other chemical spammers that are bent on sterilizing the entire terran biosphere for the benefit of killer bacteria? What's next; "Macroban" being launched to eliminate macro viruses (effectively killing macros altogether)?
Ahhh, finally a use for my Russian-style vodka enema. Ironic that something I stick in my ass can still be used to reduce the number of coliform bacteria I digest.
http://www.deskdemon.com/pages/uk/services/invisib le
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
Live in a sterile environment and you weaken your immune system, making you more susceptible to infection, not less.
Having a constant level of "background noise" to deal with keeps your immune system loaded with a good library of antibodies from which it can draw on to fight new infections.
Obviously we need to take care of our basic hygeine, but let's not go overboard. The person most likely using your workstation is you, so the germs on those surfaces most likely originated from you in the first place.
The nastiest bugs in the world (such as necrotising faciitis) are commonly found in the cleanest environments (hospitals) and got that tough because we bred them by weeding out the weaker strains with constant disinfecting of surfaces and lobbing too many antibiotics at simple infections in an effort to get worker units back in the office faster, rather than letting them beat it on their own.
Leave the bugs alone, they're aren't hurting anybody (note: tongue planted firmly in cheek here.)
Probably is the key word. Danger is directly proportional to the product of how likely something is to happen AND how bad it is for you when it does. AIDS is more dangerous than the vastly more common herpes. Contrariwise, being shot is so common that it is more dangerous than our sun going nova.
If you lick a desk, you may well get the flu, or the common cold. If you lick a toilet seat, you probably won't get anything, but you might get cholera or hepatitis. Cholera's particularly nasty here... when someone has fatal runs, it isn't just the ass cheeks that might cause contamination. There's a great deal of dribbling and spurting.
I'll stick to desks.
Go
Wash
Your
Hands.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
... Dr. Charles Gerba and the BBC science news staff eating their lunches off of toilet seats.
Number of germs and bacteria is not nearly as relevant as which ones. Of course you're going to get a bunch of rhinovirus on desks and keyboards. People breathe. But on toilet seats you're going to get E. coli. In the right place, inside your intestines, they're just dandy. Eat some, and you're in for a world of hurt.
Of course the germs were there. They've always been there. A reasonably healthy person carries just as many and spreads them around, and is not suddenly susceptible to something just because someone counted them.
The article was ridiculous, sensationalistic, half-science, and I blame BBC far more for that than Dr. Gerba. They've been leaning this way for years now. They making more factual errors, and not correcting them, but worse, they're writing it more like tabloids.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
I'm in Norway, and the old Tandberg and Norsk Data keyboards were rock-solid. They would regularily be put in the washing machine, and washed at a low temperature, and come out perfectly. I still use the keyboards, with an adapter circuit. They can't be beat. The Opera head programmer uses one, I hear.<BR><BR>-tsb
toresbe
Erhum--- I just made a little whoopsie there.
I'm in Norway, and the old Tandberg and Norsk Data keyboards were rock-solid. They would regularily be put in the washing machine, and washed at a low temperature, and come out perfectly. I still use the keyboards, with an adapter circuit. They can't be beat. The Opera head programmer uses one, I hear.
toresbe
Workstations 'Dirtier Than Toilets'
There's some naisty 'uns where I work. One guy never washes his hands after taking a crap. He just comes boundin' outta th' stall, right back to his office. I imagine a culture of his keyboard would be wigglin' with life in hours. Yessir.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
...unless it turned yellow from a SMOKER
Oh my GOD! You're kidding! You know, you really should report this.... Keyboards are NOT supposed to smoke.
Remove the computer workers from your office, you remove the germs.
A desk is capable of supporting 10 million bacteria and the average office contains 20,961 germs per square inch, according to research.
Do the math:
10*10^6 / 20961 = 477 square inches
So if the average desk has more surface area than 477 square inches, it is one of the cleaner places in your office! Can you put four sheets of paper on your desk?
The article disproves proves what it claims to prove. QED.
Raisinettes are my raison d'etre
Shocking isn't it. I guess we will all be eating our lunches not on our desks, rather on the much more sanitary toilet seats.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Pure water isn't a good conductor, but it is about the best solvent we know. In short if you dip your computer in pure water, the water will eat enough impurities from the computer to become a good conductor. For that matter take your pure water and expose it to air for just a few seconds and you now have impure water. (18 megaohms to 10 megaohms was the figure I heard from someone who did measure it)
My uncle's job is providing pure water for various drug and computer manufactures around here.
I thought that the dust in my PC case was just all those poor unfortunate bits that got shifted off the CPU registers..
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
I'm sure 50% of the people out there pick their noses/ears and then their keyboard.
People pick their keyboard? Eeeew!
------ "Darn floor. Big bite." (Koko the gorilla's best attempt at explaining the experience of an earthquake.)
But this is the very reason why I guffaw at all the germophobes out there. It wasn't just a hunch of mine that the germophobes are patently unscientific, it was truth!
They have. It's called a dishwasher. Your keyboard does not contain any electical parts, you can wash them in the dishwasher, just make surey you dry them upside down, and dry them completely.
Not the puck, the cleaner, thick blue liquid, comes in a bottle with a weird neck. Its not quite mint, but whatever it is it smells really good. Anybody know what that exact scent is?
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Reminds me of the stories my father tells of eating monkey-on-a-stick while overseas in the Navy. Since the topic of discussion is microbiology, his stories of asian hookers would be appropriate too, but I digress...
Crushing my karma one post at a time.
I was in the mall the other day, and I had to use the facilities. Every toilet was completely disgusting. Most of them were clogged with paper towels and feces. One of them had shit on the seat and on the floor. The rest had all been peed on. I don't imagine it would be worse in a Juarez jail than that mall.
Now, I've never seen a computer keyboard that can compare to THAT. Apples to apples comparisons, PLEASE.
> Now that's ergonomics!
Maybe Assgonomics. That would be an interesting job -- I guess there's someone who has to design ass-imprinted seats. I wonder what it pays? Do they get ass models to make the mold? Are there any super-ass models? I know many supermodels have that feature... ("a super ass")
>Cleanest computers come from elderly,
>upper class people, filthiest computers
>come from poor people who usually have
>lower hygiene standards and more likely
>to SMOKE than the upper class folks.
i work on a lot of computers too and i have noticed smokers in *all* economic brackets.
additionally, i no longer work on the computers of smokers. i can't even take the computer off-site to a smoke-free environment to work on it because it emits irritating smoke particulates due to being run a smoke filled environment. i highly recommend choosing this to all consultants who dislike working on smokey computers.
Worst case is that they live in a house with a bit of dust and a whole lot of smoking.
Had an accountant for a place I worked bring me his PC, replaced the clogged with smoke residue/dust fan on his P2-350 cpu, sprayed, vaccumed the hell out of the inside. was sparkling clean.
Get a call 2 days later, the computer is spewing hot glue out the vents. WTF ??
Go in and look at it, one dust ball that had hidden in the computers power supply somehow slowed the PC fan, but it still moved fast enough to somehow suck the melting hot glue out of it before it stopped and the computer died.
Replaced the power supply, and it was fine. Not sure about the owner though. When I took the dead power supply apart it was totally polluted with nicotine and assorted crap. Always was amazed that the PC died, but the owner still lived.
Three pounds of pure bacteria. mmm..... makes a nice light snack!
I hate working on them because they STINK so badly.
Every once in a while I go to work on a neighbors computer and they all smoke over there. When I get home I leave my clothes in the garage and take a shower right away. Even if they refrain from smoking while I am there I still walk away from there smelling like an ashtray.
I have one friend that smokes and when he comes over I could puke from the smell of him.
And his computer is sickening, when you turn it on it is like lighting a cigarette in here.
I borrowed a ream of paper from my neighbor once, it had been sitting in his kitchen for a year or two with everyone smoking there. As I ran it through my laserjet it made the entire house stink. I was sick from it for a week.
Non smoker computers clean up with just compressed air. Smokers computers are caked up with nicotine and dust and it's damn hard to clean it out.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
2. Pets Boost Children's Health. BBC News. June 14, 2002. Available online at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/ 1/hi/health/2045704.stm.
I grew up on a farm, and besides slopping the hogs, cleaning out the chicken coop, and tending to the cows, horses, dogs, fish, ducks, rabbits, and even a Peacock, I used to turn over cow patties looking for bugs and later mushrooms. I'm pretty sure this made a difference when I went to places where a scratch made some of my teammates very sick.
I laugh whenever one of those advertisements come on Tv trying to sell 'air sanitizers' and people spraying Lysol on everything. "OMG, there are GERMS in the air?!?"
-cp-
Alaska Bugs Sweat Gold Nuggets
The rates are not extraordinarily high. On the order of a thousand cases in New York a year, similar in other large cities. Surprisingly low in Denver. People generally recover from Hep A... but it's much, much worse than the flu.
Don't lick a toilet.
Hepatitis B is spread through contact with bodily fluids. You can get it by sharing toothbrushes. Hep B carriers (1-12% of total cases) are contagious for life.
Women menstruate. Some people have hemmrhoids. People with herpes have open sores around the crotch... you won't catch herpes from a toilet seat, but open sores leave body fluids on the seat, which can transmit Hep B. Don't lick a toilet.
Don't kid yourself about hepatitis transmission... it's surprisingly contagious in certain situations.
"Cholera? Dear ghod - when did you last work in a doctor's office?"
During the mandatory Canadian Doctor's Office work program that all Canucks enter when they reach the age of majority.
I'm kidding. I've never worked in a doctor's office. I wasn't aware the majority of the population had.
More seriously...
"It's been wiped out in America to the point that there is no vaccine made anymore."
The vaccine is still made for travel purposes and of course, they still need it in Africa. It's true that cases are rare in the United States.
"It's not far off from influenza in fatality."
I expect that's true. According to this study, the current rate of influenza is in an environment of bad sanitary practices in offices. Our relatively good bathroom habits have reduced the level of cholera to almost nil. We don't lick toilets, after all.
If being careless about the flu and careful about cholera lead to the same rate of fatality, I'd suppose that cholera is more dangerous, and we should continue being careful about cholera. That's just me. So cholera is one of the many reasons I wouldn't lick a toilet.
All that said, clearly you shouldn't lick a desk either!
I once worked on someone's computer after the owner complained of it not powering on or something similar. She was a smoker and as I removed the cover, the insides were covered with a sticky yellow film that dust was adhering to. Turns out the plastic power button on the front cover was sticky due to the residue from smoking! I replaced the switch as directed, but simple wiping off the pushbutton is what really did it. Or so I think.
-- After all is said and done, more is said than done.
I suppose now there will be a big run of Keyboard Condoms and Lysol and bleach and protective anti-bacterial bunnysuits for people who think they can thwart colds and sickness by sanitizing everything in their lives. I was *just* reading in the paper tonight that a study showed that people who used anti-bacterial soaps didn't suffer any appreciably fewer colds than people who didn't, mostly because it's the viruses that make us sick, not the bacteria in our lives. The bacteria that everyone's so phobic about actually keeps us *healthy* to a certain degree by keeping our immune system on its toes. Parental mania for sanitizing everything in site for little Kayla and Brandon, along with an abuse of antibiotics to treat viruses (which don't work against viruses) has led to a rise in asthma among kids.
Pardon me, I'm going to go clean my keyboard...with my tongue!!!
They have:
http://www.inpace.com/flexi.html
http://www.iscdfw.com/onlinecatalog/Keyboards/key
http://www.2opinion.com/accessories/flexkey.htm
http://www.edgereview.com/ataglance.cfm?category=
http://www.chatability.co.uk/Washable%20Keyboard&
Although I remember a rollable, waterproof keyboard from a while back, I couldn't find the link to their website (that last link is to mine). The above results, however, were from a quick google of "washable keyboard". Geez, you'd think you people had never heard of Google.
Nathan's blog
That explains the occasional emerging fruitfly from the keyboard in last cubicle I was stationed at. One good strategy can be developed from this: According to Dr Gerba's study, bacteria levels peak after lunch. So early shifts may be our best bet.
-- Jimtown Kelly
I remember due to faulty electric suppy I was getting mild shock whenever I used the mice from one of the cafes. The pain in the right arm lasted for more than a day. I am now afraid of electric current than the bacteria!