
Fountain Drinks - janvdberg
http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/fountain-drinks/
======
matthewaveryusa
Finally I get to dispense this random piece of information I researched when I
wondered why there were so many water fountains in US buildings but not in
european buildings!

The law requires at least 1 fountain per 1000 capacity (usually 1-100), with
no more than 50% substituted by bottled water. I wonder how UCF got around
this for their stadium.

If you ever wonder why water fountains aren't in bathrooms, I found this gem:

410.2 Prohibited location. Drinking fountains, water coolers and bottled water
dispensers shall not be installed in public restrooms.

~~~
Turbo_hedgehog
[http://i.imgur.com/WDgxl7H.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/WDgxl7H.jpg) looks really
suspicious -- wonder what country it's located in

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ryandamm
This is a really fantastic show, if you're just finding it. Started out as a
five-minute slot on NPR, but now often runs 30-40 minutes as a podcast. I just
finished listening to the back catalog yesterday, and I heartily recommend it.

(It's crazy how interesting it is to listen to a radio show about design,
oftentimes _visual_ design... and not feel like you're missing out on
something. A real testament to the sound design, I think.)

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p1mrx
While visiting London today, I stopped by the location of the pump from Snow's
Cholera map:

[https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5133626,-0.1366315,3a,75y,...](https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5133626,-0.1366315,3a,75y,189.49h,75.97t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sYuG6zRfL8xHbyVSwH3Q_8g!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1)

There's a pub there named after John Snow, but the area seems otherwise
unremarkable.

His contributions are discussed in the first episode of How We Got to Now,
which is a pretty good documentary available on Netflix:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_We_Got_to_Now](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_We_Got_to_Now)

~~~
davnicwil
> but the area seems otherwise unremarkable

You should have continued to look around, you were in soho. There are so many
great pubs, restaurants, coffee places within a few streets of the John Snow -
it's one of my favourite areas of London to wander around in and try new
places.

If you're talking unremarkable in terms of history, I'll defer to your
judgement on that because I'm no expert! Certainly it's no modern glass-and-
concrete jungle in soho though - the architecture's very interesting,
Victorian in places, and I know for sure there's at least plenty of post-war
historical sites of interest around those streets.

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riffraff
As someone who grew up in italy, I was always puzzled that the simple
"nasone"[0] design is not used more commonly abroad, at least in open areas.

I.e. water goes down instead of up and the sink is level to the ground, so
it's easy to fill a bottle or bucket with it. The pipe has a hole on top if
you want to drink from it more easily, as by obstructing the bottom the water
sprinkles up as in the US drinking fountains. They do not prevent the
"kissing" of the pipe though.

I guess it might be related to the availability of water, which Rome and most
of Italy have plenty of.

[0]
[https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasone#/media/File:Nasona_a_vi...](https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasone#/media/File:Nasona_a_via_annia_faustina_1.JPG)
[1]
[https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasone](https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasone)
italian, sorry

~~~
louhike
I've seen several of this kind of fountains in France and Spain, so maybe it
spreaded at least in Europa.

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DrScump
the simple B&W photo of drinking fountains in the Jim Crow South is
particularly striking.

~~~
cpayne
I had the same reaction to the South photo.

I often wonder how much of what I see today as "normal" will be perceived as
horrible / offensive / wrong in 50 years time.

Gay marriage is an obvious one, (Australian) treatment of refugees, anything
else?

~~~
WildUtah
"Gay marriage is an obvious one, (Australian) treatment of refugees, anything
else?"

I'm pretty sure gay marriage will be seen as just as normal and wholesome in
50 years as it is today or even more so. Though there will be fewer gay people
if the theory that homosexuality is genetic proves out unless we have a boom
in surrogacy.

The German and EU treatment of supposed refugees will be seen as a tragic
moment, probably. Australia's current policy will be the one that any rich
liberal nations that persist in being rich and liberal in fifty years will
have chosen. Look at the UN population projections. It's clear that
indiscriminate migration will overwhelm nations with lower than sustainable
birth rates. Those that import many millions of people from backwards nations
with extra high birth rates will see their founding populations reduced to
tiny minorities and their countries newly backwards.

Prohibition is the obvious choice.

~~~
dctoedt
> _Though there will be fewer gay people if the theory that homosexuality is
> genetic proves out unless we have a boom in surrogacy._

Or unless homosexuality correlates with some combination of genetic traits
carried by heterosexuals --- if that turned out to be the case, then we'd
expect gay people to continue to be born from time to time, due purely to the
mix-and-match reproduction of heterosexuals, even if no gay person ever had
children.

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Pxtl
Here in Hamilton Ontario we had a distinct variation on the "hygenic
fountain", the Shorty Green (named after a local NHL player 100 years ago).

It was a cup-sized continuously-overflowing cauldron that would flow into a
surrounding catch-basin. I assume it was quite inefficient since it was always
flowing, and didn't seem hygenic. They were still around when I was a kid in
the '80s, and I remember loving how freezing cold and voluminously-flowing the
water was.

~~~
Implicated
There's something similar here in Portland -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benson_Bubbler](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benson_Bubbler)

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WildUtah
The first water fountain I've seen anywhere here in Mexico was just installed
last year. It's in Chapultepec Park on the walk up to the Castle. The water
comes out very cold. Outside that one, even airports and public offices don't
have any.

It's quite a contrast to the USA. Bottled water, on the other hand, is very
cheap in Mexico compared to El Norte.

So some modern nations have never adopted the water fountain fad. It's too bad
-- they're pretty nice.

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Stratoscope
The greatest water fountain in the US has to be the Lithia Water fountains in
Ashland, Oregon.

It's an experience you will never forget!

[https://www.google.com/search?q=lithia+water+fountain+ashlan...](https://www.google.com/search?q=lithia+water+fountain+ashland&tbm=isch)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithia_water](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithia_water)

------
jhallenworld
The city of Saratoga New York has old-style fountains:
[http://www.saratoga.com/waters-of-saratoga/](http://www.saratoga.com/waters-
of-saratoga/)

Notice in the map of cholera deaths that there is a brewery, but with no
deaths. Supposedly this is because the workers were free to drink the product.

~~~
garrettgrimsley
A simpler explanation for that is that people with cholera do not go to work.
I looked up the event and the Wikipedia article on it [0] made mention of a
monastery in addition to the brewery that went untouched by the outbreak.
Unfortunately I could not find it on the outbreak map [1], nor do I have
access to the source material. This is similar to how children outside of the
Broad Street area who attended school near Broad Street were not recorded as
having died at the school but instead in their homes.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1854_Broad_Street_cholera_outb...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1854_Broad_Street_cholera_outbreak#John_Snow_investigation)

[1] [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Snow-
cho...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Snow-cholera-
map-1.jpg)

------
gPphX
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_D._Cogswell#Philanthropy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_D._Cogswell#Philanthropy)

------
nsxwolf
Herpes dispensers. That's all I see.

~~~
firebones
I was going to down-vote you, then I saw the wonderful caption: "A so-called
Sanitary Drinking Fountain" with the kid's face right in the mix.

So I'm assuming your comment is circa 1950.

