March 16, 2004

• Hand Salsa I wonder how water fountains compare to toilets? Maybe pets have it right when the drink out of the toilet bowl.
• Who works in a company large enough to rotate equipment when people leave/ get hired? If you do, then you've probably received a keyboard grotty from someone else's hands and sloppy eating habits. After getting a keyboard that was stained black from some slovenly jerk, it accidentally got jammed in an overhead storage bin and broke. The replacement was only slightly less grotty. I broke, and wound up with a bottle of clorox wipes and an old toothbrush, scrubbing and cleaning just to get it as clean as it should have been to start with. So, yeah, filthy computer equipment really annoys me.
• So Douglas Adams was right about the telephone sanitisers...
• Microbiology is one of those areas where people's attitudes are at odds with reality. Kids aren't allowed to play in the natural dirt and every food prep person must use plastic gloves to foster an illusion of cleanliness. Meanwhile, people leave the toilet seats up when they flush, use the same kitchen dish cloths for months to wipe everything, and never clean the phone that mouths and sticky fingers slurp at all day. The past slips from our memories and forgotten dangers beaten back at the dawn of germ theory come back to haunt us. When next discussing the office budget, remember that simple cleaning services such as wiping down light switches, door knobs and phones helped put epidemics in check not so many decades ago.
• This reminds me - I really do need to clean my keyboard.
• I just finished reading this book. Completely obilerates the concept of a 'clean' environment. Well, maybe the space station, ERs and CDC research centers, i.e. any quarantined place.
• Nal : things in the kitchen kinda bug me too (dish cloths) -- my mother-in-law will use the same knife to prepare raw meat and to serve it.
• this study brought to you, as usual, by Clorox Disinfecting Wipes (many reporters don't use this guy as a source anymore. i assume he's on the clorox payroll; all of his studies are sponsored by that company.)
• My keyboard is clotted with spunk.
• Monkeyfilter: Clotted with spunk.
• SideDish : he does seem to be, uh, negotiable. On the other fist, he does have some seemingly heavyweight papers to his name ("A rapid method for processing soil samples for PCR amplification of specific gene sequences."). Maybe he's just another indie scientist that went mainstream?
• many academic types find it's much more lucrative to align themselves with various businesses. that's when journalist start taking them far less seriously. basically, they become shills for this or that product, which undercuts their scientific credibility -- but makes them a lot more money!
• And people wonder why I carry my bottle of Purell around when I have to work on employee computers.
• I do know somebody who boasted of keeping a computer in his water closet. For months thereafter, my wife and I wondered if any particular piece of mail he sent had come from atop the throne. Didn't even think about the sanitary implications for the keyboard. Worst thing about laptop computers: nondisposable keyboards. If I had a waterproof ruggedized laptop, I'd sluice it down regularly with dilute chlorine bleach spray, kitchen sanitization style. Regular keyboards are cheap enough to be consumables. Piano keyboards get pretty grungy, too, but a little isopropyl alcohol does wonders for keeping the ivories ivory. At least I don't eat lunch while pecking at the piano with one hand.
• i really don't like filthy keyboards. i've been known to take the damn things apart and scrub them. i do know you can buy custom-fitted plastic covers for them, i had one for years on my home system, then got a new keyboard. old one was still mint, but clunky. as for laptops, don't know. you can still wipe them down. i generally use mine plugged into a full monitor and external keyboard, so i don't get the laptop keys or touchpad too gunky. other than that how can you use it without getting it dirty? also, please note that instant hand sanitizers and overzealous cleaning have been blamed for multi-chemical-resistant bacteria and allergies. if we never let our immune system have anything to do, it seems to get bored and starts going after innocent things like pollen and pet hair. if you play in the dirt once in a while, wash your hands, and at least occasionally wipe down your workspace you ought to be OK. you really don't need the antibacterial disinfectant daily scrubdown unless you're already immunocompromised. a wee bit of soap will take care of most of your problems, without the risk of growing SuperGerms for the rest of us to deal with.
• and yes, i do mean to say you should actually go play in the dirt sometimes, not that you should only wash if you play in the dirt. dirt is good for you. kids who don't play in the dirt tend to have more allergies. read about it here and here.
• Purell's just isopropyl alcohol in a gel suspension. I don't think that either that or dilute sodium hypochlorite solution (as used in commercial kitchens) can breed
• Meh, Gerba sold out. I preferred his work when he was underground.
• Oh, I'm not a germ-phobe about most things, but keyboards I am. When I'm working in an office that doesn't have a washroom for me to wash my hands after working on the computer of the person who is complaining of the worst flu/cold/strep throat of their life, you bet I'll be using the hand sanitizers. That being said, want to go make some mud-pies? Spring has sprung (sort of) and there's a big mud puddle on the side of the building here. Back on topic, I agree about wishing for more disposable keyboards for laptops when they get grimy. I bought 50 keyboards at a ham fest last year for $50. Employees here love them and new employees get new keyboards. There was a story a while ago, too, that did this same sort of germ study on coffee cups and desks with similar results.
• Human skin contains as much as 100,000 microbes pers square centimeter. Ten percent of our dry body weight is microbes. Maybe it's not so much that keyboards and phones are dirty as toilet seats are clean. Using disinfectant wipes on keyboards is a good way to make sure the few fecal coliform bacteria left on your keyboard are good and hardy. Besides, it's nearly as easy and more thorough to just pop the keys off and soak them in a bucket of soap and (not too hot) water.
• I'm always greatly amused by the notion that you can make your kitchen/bathroom/whole house/entire skin surface sterile - sorry, not possible! The best defence against infection is a working immune system and lots of hand-washing. That's always protected me, and I handle stuff like typhoid, TB and HIV every day.
• An Aged Relative, who was raised in a small community around the turn of the 20th century, once confided to me that in her childhood she heard everyone had to eat a peck of dirt and seven flies every year. So, at a picnic, on seeing a fly in her salad, she proceeded to gulp the critter down, feeling great relief she had only six more to eat for that year. She's now in her 90s, and this rash deed apparently had no lasting ill effects.
• I don't care about germs, but I *must* have a keyboard that is sufficiently "clacky". I also have it on good authority that big black ants taste a little like sweet/tarts.
• I *must* have a keyboard that is sufficiently "clacky". Oh, man. I hate those sort of keyboards. I want a nice silent one (but can never seem to find any).
• bees: perhaps she'll die. well, probably someday.
• A wise man washes his hands after he pees. A wiser man doesn't pee on his hands.
• As to that, I dinna ken, SideDish. She was only 6 or 7 at the time. But probably not for a while yet. /link is pdf
• waitaminute waitaminute you guys . . . tabbycat! Don't leave me hanging with this sentence: ... I handle stuff like typhoid, TB and HIV every day. Please tell me you don't work in FOOD SERVICE!
• No, BlueHorse, I work in a clinical microbiology lab. Funny thing is that if we do get a case of typhoid or something of that ilk, you can practically lay bets that the patient is either a food-handler or helps out at a nursery school!
• Yeah, tabbycat's right, of course. Wash your hands, and don't be to paranoid about germs. You gotta show your immune system some bacteria to get it up to speed. Don't worry about the chip that fell on the floor. Wash it off and eat it. Unless it fell in some shit, or your house is like mine, where I have a pet chicken that wanders around and shits on the carpet.