81–90 of 288 posts
Journalists can't grasp that saying a rotavirus is a cell is like stretching a wrench to be a SUV? What kind of twisted education system can get somebody to become so proficient with words and so noob in basic science?
Has anyone tried to make an SV startup-style company sell Japanese-type toilets in America? I think a lot of people would like them
I think google is indirectly in that business; It used to be that only my foreign friends would be likely to have a washlet, and then usually a less fancy one. But in the last decade, more and more of my American born techie friends have bought toto toilets or washlets, I assume after experiencing that luxury at google or one of the other tech companies that provide that sort of thing.
I have several fully automatic Totos (which have to abide by California/US water usage rules).. and while the bidets, seat heating, and automisting (it sprays water every 15-30 seconds to try to keep the bowl clean) features are nice the water limits and bowl design make it a pain to clean and maintain if you get what I mean. It's also basically useless if theres no electricity, I believe you can manually flush once if the power goes out with a pull-cord. For western/developed countries I think there is still a big market for a better toilet.
In developing countries obviously infrastructure is an issue, but for sewage would a composting toilet not be a viable option? Maybe solar powered for some higher power exhaust and ventilation along with water treatment/sanitation. It's kind of the low tech version of how Star Trek would turn matter into energy.
My guess is that those $200 will end up with a reinvention of the outhouse, but with a computer that will automatically open and close the seat. Seriously though, if you live in your own house and have a fairly big garden, and aint afraid to do some shitty work, then the waste can be used as fertilizer. I mean why does it have to be so complicated !?
“The use of unprocessed human feces as fertilizer is a risky practice as it may contain disease-causing pathogens. Nevertheless, in some developing nations it is still widespread. Common parasitic worm infections, such as ascariasis, in these countries are linked to night soil use in agriculture, because the helminth eggs are in feces and can thus be transmitted from one infected person to another person (fecal-oral transmission of disease).
These risks are reduced by proper fecal sludge management, e.g. via composting. The safe reduction of human excreta into compost is possible. Some municipalities create compost from the sewage sludge, but then recommend that it only be used on flower beds, not vegetable gardens. Some claims have been made that this is dangerous or inappropriate without the expensive removal of heavy metals.”
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a couple of Toto toilets in my house. They have washlets that fit most of their products. I have one. I don't mean to overstate this, but it is life-changing. I can't imagine going back to a time when I used only paper and considered that sufficient.
I agree 100% about the life changing part. But for a cheap solution, go with a hose attached to the toilet. I'd say I prefer them over the Japanese versions. More versatile and the only thing you really lose is the .. heating?
(and the heating is not to be underestimated)
Gates does wonderful things with his philanthropy. I notice that he doesn't invest in any social issues or in politics, even when the politics is directly related (e.g., does he lobby the politicians or try to move the public regarding education funding?). Why not? Is it a policy? Prior generations of philanthropists invested heavily in peace and justice, for example, including the Ford Foundation and the Carnegie En…
I would argue that he do invest a lot in social issues and politics, but that he invest in fixing the cause not the symptom. Improving education and reducing poverty is, in my opinion at least, one of the best ways to improve the causes leading to a lack of peace and justice. Putting more money in the pockets of corrupt politicians, aka lobbying, is at best putting a patch on the symptom.
Since I recently read The Expanse, I keep thinking, more than usual, about the basic life supporting technologies we'd need to be able to live anywhere else in the solar system. In The Expanse all biological waste goes into the recycler , which, evidently, feeds a bioreactor to general clean water and new food. It sounds like what Gates is keen to see deployed: Human waste > fertiliser > new food and hydrogen > fuel…
Side question: are the books sufficiently different to the TV series to warrant a reading?
IMHO they are probably better than the series but they start getting not so good at some point - I cannot remember if i have read them all but i do remember it getting a bit boring / dragged out towards the end.
it is ultimately in that class of media where the goal is not so much about saying something to telling a story as it is about making an ongoing revenue stream.
I generally stick away from this stuff but sci-fi books seem to all be going this way these days :(
Gandhi would be proud. https://blogs.wsj.com/briefly/2015/10/01/5-things-mahatma-ga... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swachh_Bharat_mission
I've always believed that one of the signs that humanity is headed towards a post-scarcity world is when every human has access to a working toilet with a sanitized plumbing system. Glad to see Gates putting so many resources into solving this issue. Perhaps we need to start having a conversation about which 'version' of Gates has had a bigger impact on society(not that it matters, but an interesting intellectual pur…
UN still doesn’t recognize International Men’s Day, which is on Nov 19 too and celebrated since 2003 [1]. It’s a bit of a humiliation that they put Toilet Day instead.