Flushed Pink iPod Clogs South Bay University Toilets
POSTED: 2:20 pm PDT June 13, 2006 UPDATED: 8:58 am PDT June 14, 2006
SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- The toilets at the Santa Clara University are flowing freely this graduation week, but that was not the case for the entire spring semester.
A pink iPod Mini, just four inches long, caused a huge headache for maintenance workers at the Santa Clara University for the last few months.
A female student accidentally dropped the iPod in the toilet.
This happened at the College of Arts and Sciences building.
It got stuck in a way that maintenance crews could not get it out. They told NBC11 News they first tried to break the iPod into pieces, but that failed. One maintenance worker called the device "indestructible".
An independent contractor was called in to deal with the problem. He was able to get the iPod to move 20 feet, but then it became stuck again underneath the office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences.
In order to get the iPod out from under that building, crews simultaneously flushed as many toilets as they could and they turned on every sink. That caused a water surge which pushed the iPod into a larger more accessible pipe.
Next, a water company was hired to blast water into the pipe in yet another attempt to get the iPod out of the pipe. That effort worked, but at the same time, the blast of water along with a build-up of air caused geysers to burst from the second floor toilets.
Crews were finally able to retrieve the iPod from a nearby sewage disposal point outside of the building by using a piece of rebar.
The student who originally dropped the iPod in the toilet has since come forward. She will not be punished or fined.
It cost the university $1,000 a week to fix this problem. It took months.
You've got to think that Apple could throw some money at the college, and then use this in a "takes a licking and keeps on ticking" kind of way....if it still manages to work that is.
It was a pink iPod mini, which means that it had a hard drive. There is such a small chance that it is working that I wouldn't even speculate as to the odds. Even if it had been air tight at first it probably had sewage weep into it eventually. Then there's the issue of the hard drive living through multiple blasts from high pressure waves of sewage.
(edited by Guru Zim on 23.6.06 0831) Ignorance is bliss for you, hell for me.
Then there's the issue of the hard drive living through multiple blasts from high pressure waves of sewage.
I do the same thing to my hard drive by way of my playlist, but yet my iPod's still alive.
But seriously, the thing has such a hard exterior that the only way to penetrate it would be through one of the ports, especially one that doesn't have a monitor on it, ala the mini.
(edited by JoshMann on 27.6.06 1132)
"I don't know if it's Biscayne Boulevard or where it is, but there is an image in my mind about the symbolic championship parade."
www.Urban-rivals.com I was really bored a few weeks ago and I was on here without logging in and I clicked on the banner for this game. It's like Yugioh and Pokemon.