Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Something New, #324

I learned how flush toilets work on airplanes and trains.

After hearing a story about how a man in France got his arm stuck in a toilet, after reaching in to retrieve his cell phone, I wondered out how it physically happened.

Turns out, those toilets have a super suction and that's what trapped his arm. I thought all the waste went into a fluid, then was frozen and dumped. Didn't know about the suction part.

Good cautionary tale though.

The article does give readers the tip of how to dry out a cell by putting it in a bowl of uncooked rice to absorb the moisture. This really does work, as I did the same when I accidentally washed my cell and tried it. It took about a day, but then it came back on. Right after I washed my phone, one of the nurses where I worked dropped her cell in the toilet (fortunately, not on a moving train) and it worked for her too.

Maybe some entrepreneur could come up with a business of retrieving those 850,000+ cell phones that are dropped into toilets each year. Not any crazier than the guy who came up with the idea of scuba diving for golf balls in water hazards.

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