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Bill Gates Names Reinvent the Toilet Challenge Winners
Scientific Computing ^ | 8/17/12

Posted on 08/18/2012 2:34:37 PM PDT by null and void

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One-up Al Gore?
1 posted on 08/18/2012 2:34:41 PM PDT by null and void
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To: null and void

What a Load of Crap


2 posted on 08/18/2012 2:36:43 PM PDT by Jeff Chandler (Whatever a homosexual union might be or represent, it is not physically marital. - F.Cardinal George)
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To: null and void

Talk about flushing good money down a drain.


3 posted on 08/18/2012 2:37:49 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.)
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To: null and void

It must be nice to have so much money you can afford to throw it down the toilet.


4 posted on 08/18/2012 2:39:00 PM PDT by Jeff Chandler (Whatever a homosexual union might be or represent, it is not physically marital. - F.Cardinal George)
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To: Jeff Chandler

Bill’s full o’shit.


5 posted on 08/18/2012 2:39:00 PM PDT by knarf (I say things that are true ... I have no proof ... but they're true)
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To: null and void
My entry.


6 posted on 08/18/2012 2:40:04 PM PDT by Revolting cat! (Bad things are wrong!)
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To: null and void
Bill Gates has announced the winners of the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge

This contest was over long ago - the co-winners were OS X and Linux.

7 posted on 08/18/2012 2:40:49 PM PDT by Talisker (One who commands, must obey.)
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To: null and void
design of a toilet user interface

Window 9 Beta program is now open.

8 posted on 08/18/2012 2:41:13 PM PDT by Izzy Dunne (Hello, I'm a TAGLINE virus. Please help me spread by copying me into YOUR tag line.)
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To: null and void

Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives

Coming from one of the richest men in the world, that concept is ludicrous. Seriously, his own corporation pays people vastly different amounts of salary based upon their worth to that corporation.

I have no problem with trying to find novel ways to improve the basic well-being of the developing world. But there typically is no magic bullet. What it takes is a market-driven economy to produce the wealth for what we in this country take for granted - clean running water, flush toilets, good roads and a reliable food supply. There are no shortcuts to that. You have to build a society with enough wealth to support such.

9 posted on 08/18/2012 2:41:35 PM PDT by dirtboy
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To: Jeff Chandler

Apparently we are now again up against The Klinton Toilet, Part No. Two !!!!!

oh crap!

The age of runaway stupid technology, coupled to dumbed-down common sense....blueprint for disaster...

Semper BS!
*****


10 posted on 08/18/2012 2:41:53 PM PDT by gunnyg ("A Constitution changed from Freedom, can never be restored; Liberty, once lost, is lost forever...)
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To: null and void

If you build it, they will...er...go...


11 posted on 08/18/2012 2:42:38 PM PDT by itzmygun (Elitism + hatred of mankind = LIBERALISM)
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To: null and void

This is what the bored rich think up while contemplating life sitting on their gold thrones in 1,000 sq foot bathrooms.


12 posted on 08/18/2012 2:42:46 PM PDT by Revolting cat! (Bad things are wrong!)
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To: dirtboy

Exactly.

All of these “winners” sound like they’re using tens of thousands of dollars of technology. How would that ever be available to all of the billions of human butts in the Third World (or should I say Turd World)?


13 posted on 08/18/2012 2:46:32 PM PDT by Alas Babylon!
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To: null and void

14 posted on 08/18/2012 2:48:08 PM PDT by Revolting cat! (Bad things are wrong!)
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To: null and void

This will be salvaged and dumped. No common sense.


15 posted on 08/18/2012 2:56:56 PM PDT by Domangart
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To: Revolting cat!

No mention what a toilet generating hydrogen and electricity costs ... $20,000 each? Just curious.

BTW with 3 or 4 billion I can make a toilet that will light a good-sized city but I wouldn’t let anyone crap in it. ;-)


16 posted on 08/18/2012 2:57:29 PM PDT by Tunehead54 (Nothing funny here ;-)
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To: null and void

Soylent Brown?


17 posted on 08/18/2012 3:00:47 PM PDT by Fresh Wind ('People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook.' Richard M. Nixon)
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To: null and void
University of Colorado Boulder: A nearly $780,000 grant .......produce biological charcoal (biochar) that can be used as a replacement for wood charcoal....


"Wanna Burger?"

18 posted on 08/18/2012 3:03:03 PM PDT by libertarian27 (Check my profile page for the FReeper Online Cookbook 2011)
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To: null and void; All
I love all the pie in the sky descriptions that don't tell actually how these miracle toilets really work without flush water. A couple of years ago a cousin of mine and I researched the possibility of her either using a composting toilet or combusting toilet at her cabin in the CA woods. Both alternatives were disgusting. A "composting toilet" is nothing but a gussied up outhouse where the user has to be constantly forking over the waste to make compost. Combusting toilets cost a bit north of $2,000 each, use gas or electricity, and tend to be both unsanitary and smelly.

Sounds like a "solar toilet" is a bit like a combusting toilet that depends on intermittent sun power to do its job. Like, DUH, I'm going to wait till the sun's out to take a dump. The others have wonderful, flowery descriptions that are notably unaccompanied by any drawings or specs showing how they actually operate vs. conventional flush toilets. The lack of real performance information says volumes about ineffective they probably are. The "reporter" was a dolt for not getting it and obviously lacked a good editor.

We need to see a lot more before we can call any of these devices better than conventional flush toilets. Methinks they're mostly greenie monstrosities.

19 posted on 08/18/2012 3:14:41 PM PDT by libstripper
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To: Tunehead54

I think it was at our church where there was a poster that had a little kid in Africa saying something like “You poop in clean water?!”

The areas where these folks live are on the margins of usefullness. (Was it that comdedian Sam Kinison yelling for them to move?). But, for whatever reason they don’t move. Any technology that folks can come up with would have to be cheap. And even then it is way more than they can afford.

I recall a thread on FR awhile ago on how some guy in India caught rats for a living - they smoke them out. With a $25 device he was able to catch twice as many rats and send his child to school so he won’t have to be a rat catcher.

But - he still only got the device through some grant program. He was able to pay it off over time. But to think that a $25 device could improve someone’s life so much is hard to believe.

It is the same with the new stoves (rocket stoves). Cheap ($50 or less), fuel efficient (fuel that used to go in a day now lasts a week), and healthier (way less smoke) - but still out of reach of most of the folks that need them.

I imagine the same with these toilets - even if they are at $50 a pop it would be too much.

But hey - at least it’s Bill’s money, and not coming from the government. Although I imagine there are similar programs that we pay for.


20 posted on 08/18/2012 3:17:25 PM PDT by 21twelve (So I [God] gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices. Psalm 81:12)
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