Things I learned this week 8 Oct

• An Australian company (CINTEP) has designed a shower that recycles 70% of the water going down the drain and it also heats the recycled water, making it very efficient.
• Amazon is giving Google fits because consumers don't need to search for stuff to buy at Google. Amazon is one stop search-shop-pay-ship.
• The Kingdom Tower, which started contruction in January 2012, will be over 1000m tall once finished, 173m taller than the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
• Thirty billion dollars worth of mobile phones were lost in the US alone last year.
• Major American firms pay more in CEO compensation than they do in federal taxes.
• The RIAA has a lobbying budget (per year) of $2.3 million. 
• About 31% of US homeowners – 14.9 million – are considered "underwater" on their mortgage. Underwater borrowers today owe an average of $72,235 more than the value of their home. In Las Vegas, 68.5% of mortgage owners had negative equity mortgages.
• Sometime this week someone will die, buried alive, mining for the tin that goes in a cellphone.
• The SPF rating on sunscreen means nothing in regards to protection against cancer-causing UVA. It only refers to the UVB sunburn protection.
• Actual Romney quote: "When you have a fire in an aircraft, there’s no place to go, exactly, there’s no — and you can’t find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don’t open. I don’t know why they don’t do that. It’s a real problem."
• New Zealand's spies illegally bugged Kim Dotcom, complicity may go all the way to the prime minister's office.
• It doesn't say so on their menu (at least not in Canada), but if all you want is chicken, KFC will sell just 2, 3, or 4 pieces to you in a box. No fries, no other sides. Just chicken.