Golden Showers

Golden Showers

I'm not even going to try to justify my title. Let's just say that you're pissing away more than just time reading this every day. You're literally pissing away gold!

Gold byproducts of aurtothiomalate urine separation : an analysis using a stochastic model for urine production

Abstract

This paper explores the stochastic properties of human urine production in order to assess the potential of harvesting gold byproducts of aurtothiomalate urine separation. The aim is to provide specific information about the dynamics of urine production at a microscopic level for the design and the control of the urine waste stream. Based on measured data a stochastic model is developed that is capable of providing stochastic information on the frequency, timing, and volume of urine releases into each single toilet in a catchment. It is then demonstrated in a virtual case study that the design of the human wastewater stream in terms of urine content can harness an average of 6.8e-4g of gold following a single dose of aurtothiomalate. The excreted gold was protein-bound in the high-molecular-weight (>> 150,000 dalton) and serum albumin fractions. Electrophoresis confirmed the presence of albumin, but showed that the other proteins present differ from those in normal or in vitro aurothiomalate-incubated human sera. The pattern of the proteins establishes that the proteinuria was of the glomerular type. The alterations in the previous gold distribution produced by incubation of the previous urine with the low-molecular-weight thiol penicillamine and with exogenously added aurothiomalate indicated the existence of a labile equilibrium of previous gold among protein binding sites in the previous urine. Incubation of rat and human sera and commercially prepared serum albumins with aurothiomalate increased the electrophoretic mobility of the gold ore. The significance of this change in electrophoretic mobility with respect to two models of previous gold binding by serum albumin is discussed.

While the article says you have to ingest gold to piss out gold and at that, you'll only get a very trace amount of precious metals that will be found in our urine, I've done a little math. Mainly because I'm bored and I write a lot, but this shows a little bit can add up to an incredible amount.

365 days/yr * 6 urinations/day * 6.8e-4 grams-gold/urination = approx 1.5g/year of gold per person Now, imagine a family of four, thats 6g/year per family - equivalent to about $180/year.

Now consider that gold is currently approx $30 per gram - source

I think that for an extra $180/year is enough to turn urine into a commodity for the lower-classes - that's a significant amount of supplementary income. Hell, here's a system that I just thought up from the top of my head (so I'm sure someone could do better): line up 7 coffee cans on a windowsill, pee in a subsequent one every day, and by the time you cycle around the air will have dried out last week's can. Anybody could do this! Even the poorest children can find coffee cans in the trash, and slightly wealthier (but still poverty-poor) families will amortize the purchase of 7 coffee cans with boosted gold production due to that extra coffee they'll drink!

This doesn't even mention all the money saved from lowered sewage and water bills!! The social impact of this study will be enormous. I'm started to get really excited. Picture this: Queensbridge's Marcy housing project with a row of drying urine cans on every window!

And if I'm not done going on mad ideas, Here's another little bit of math for you boot-strappers:

$45/person * 90% * 300,000,000 (population of America) = $12,150,000,000.

Let me repeat that: $12B in pure golden profit. For reference, Walmart's profit in 2008 was $13.4B (source) Within a generation we could have our currency backed by gold again, and America would be the richest country in the world. The poorest 90% could achieve greater social mobility and independence from government subsidy programs.

I think the first step is a publicity campaign, but I'm not exactly sure how it would happen. Not only would we need to squash the squeamish perception of the human body in a society still slaving under the weight of 19th century Victorian values, but make it "cool" as well. Does anyone have any ideas? Please e-mail me about this as this basically throws Ron Paul's whole idea of revertingback to the gold standard down the toilet!

While we're on the subject of making a buck off our bodies, how about selling skin? When I got my burn on my leg I was told that if I wanted to, they could take a chunk of skin off my ass to put on my leg to minimize scaring. I told them FUCK NO! I didn't want my ass to touch my burn. Not to mention I have a pretty decent ass. My leg, I could do without looking cool. My ass... shit, that stuff really comes into play in the bed room, you hear. So how about we sell burn victims some skin? It'll grow back and for those who don't care about your ass or have too much of it, it's perfect combination.

I know what you're thinking about the piss idea though. Wont everyone start cashing in on it? I'm sure you'll see a couple of ads on TV pop up for Cash-for-piss.com They'll offer you money in their pitch: "Send us your piss! we are buying your piss! call now and receive a free bag to piss in! postage paid! we send you a check!"

But then again, I can't picture that business model succeeding. It's only $.12 per day if you piss the max amount daily (Drink your water!) So unless you can ship a couple of liters around for less than $.12, it's not worth it to ship it. But then again, look at how my mind works at this wee hour in the morning. That's assuming you'd ship it in liquid form. It would be much more efficient, however, to ship the extract dried. Perhaps services that would process the raw dried urine would pop up where payday-loan and personal-cash-advance places are now? I can picture it working like Coin-Star, where you dump in a bucket full of dried stuff and it gives you 90% of the value in gold, taking 10% as a service charge. It seems reasonable.

I'm sure I'm going to get a ton of e-mails about this, so I'll just tackle it here. Yes, if the gold rush is nothing more than grizzly bearded miners pissing into a mining tray, then wouldn't the value of gold go down? HA! I say, it's a noble metal! It'll never go down. Did you know there's a gold toilet out there?!? See, if people are willing to flash the bling in every method possible, gold will always be the high standard!

Besides, even if the price of gold may goes down the pisser, cum pearl necklaces will always have in my heart. At least now I can make my own organic bootleg goldschläger. I do find it funny now. Think of all the rap stars with massive grills. Do you think that the status quo of having gold caps be the norm when we start making gold out of our piss? My dad used to say "If I ran GM, I wouldn't piss money down the drain like they do." Looks like he was completely wrong.

With all that said, aren't you glad I decided NOT to put pictures in this update?