Categories
10 Things Gadgets How To

How to test a toilet using the Bristol Stool Scale

With all of today’s technology, one common household feature can also be one of the most frustrating.

Yes, we’re talking about the toilet. More specifically, your toilet’s flushing ability.

(Did you know that there are seven different types of poop?   We’ll get back to this in a moment…)

One thing that Web Watch always makes note of when we’re staying at hotels across the country is whether the hotel’s engineering staff “get it” in terms of providing adequate flushing power for their guests.  We were so impressed at the flushing prowess at one hotel that we went so far as to take a look in the tank to see what magic flushing mechanism was inside (in that case, it was a professional pressurized unit – all the more likely to not break by curious guests like ourselves).

Worse is when we have to report to the hotel’s front desk about the poor toilet situation in our room.  We often wonder is it an isolated situation in our room, or is it something that’s more common across the whole floor or entire hotel.  Sadly, we never do get the chance to get the answer to this.

Categories
food How To Science

Dogs understand people more than you think

How well do you know your dog?

More importantly, how well does your dog know you?

Have you ever noticed that your dog does really well with sensory clues around them to react to?  Web Watch remembers a former pet we had that would sleep in the corner all night long… but the one time that we knowingly get up to go to the refrigerator for a snack, they would wake right up and follow us to the kitchen.

Every.  Single.  Time.

It’s like they knew something, sensed something about what we were doing – and acted upon it.

Turns out, our observation isn’t that far from the truth discovered by scientists.

Categories
food Science

There are 4 different cinnamons, 3 of them are fake, and tasters can’t tell the difference

A few years ago, Web Watch wrote about how ARTIFICIAL VANILLA CONTAINS COAL TAR.

It ends up that there are many different artificial food products that contain ingredients that we may or may not know about.

Take, for example, the simple cinnamon stick.

Did you know that there really are three different products that are commonly sold as “cinnamon sticks”?

Did you know that only one of them is actually really considered “cinnamon”?

Categories
10 Things Science Travel

How dirty is your hotel room?

A few years ago, Web Watch was visiting Las Vegas with some friends.  As is the case when traveling with a large group of people – especially in Vegas – we all found ourselves staying in different hotels.

And as is the case with different Las Vegas hotels, cleanliness standards can be a bit different from hotel to hotel, company to company.

So while Web Watch was enjoying our crisp, clean sheets, one member of our brigade found herself being transferred from one dirty hotel room to another until she ultimately asked to be checked into a different hotel across the way.

Apparently, maid service doesn’t always check to clear the room of used.. (ahem) … from underneath the bed.

Categories
food Gadgets

Most people can’t tell the difference between a $5 and $50 bottle of wine

Web Watch learned the hard way how to appreciate wine.

For years, we avoided wine like the plague – preferring vodka, beer, or other alcoholic alternatives to all types of wine.  We just didn’t enjoy it as much as we were told we should.

Then one day, we received a $125 bottle of wine as a gift.

That is when our opinion on wine changed dramatically.

Categories
Gadgets Internet Science

Men like to check out other men’s junk. Women don’t.

In advertising and when designing websites, lots of research goes into determining exactly how to place specific items onto the page, photo, advertisement in order to determine the best layout.

Stores do this physically, by putting high-demand items (such as milk or perishables) towards the back of the store.  Walt Disney did this when he decided that his new theme park needed a “weenie” in the center of the park to act as a magnet, ultimately drawing visitors towards the Castle that’s become a centerpiece of each of the Disney parks to date.

So while it’s easy to determine traffic patterns when people are walking around, how to businesses determine what makes a good print or online layout?

Categories
Science

Didn’t see this coming: Psychic ability doesn’t really exist

Some people are naturally really really good at guessing.

Some are so good at this type of analysis, that their “guesses” can come across as an emphatic psychic power.

Web Watch recalls an experiment that we did once, where we had to read the mind of someone across the room and determine what figure had been drawn on piece of paper.

The first one was easy:  a circle.  Anybody would have a 50-50 chance at coming up with that one. 

The next one was also easy (although we forget whether it was a square, triangle, or other geometric shape), and we got that one correct as well.

It was the third one that cemented in our minds that there can be such a talent as being a mind-reader:

Categories
How To Science Websites

How big is the universe?

Do you remember a few years ago when Web Watch showed you a REAL-WORLD COMPARISON OF GERM SIZES?

You were able to zoom in from the size of a sheet of paper down to the size of a carbon atom.  Along the way, you could see and compare the sizes of different germs when compared to common, everyday objects.

Yeah, not too shabby, and kinda cool.

But what if we wanted to take the same concept, and compare the sizes of pretty much everything in the entire universe to, well, the entire universe?