[Theophylact]

This tale is from the May 15-21 issue of New Scientist. Unfortunately, the story is now in the archives, available only to subscribers (I think), so I've posted the full text:

Quote:

COMPUTERS and lavatories are very different things, and ne'er the twain should meet. One of the features of the ultra-modern London hotel One Aldwych is, we hear, aircraft-style vacuum-operated toilets. Executives from the US technology company PalmSource had to tell visitors meeting them there recently that the clever system had crashed or, er..., gone down the pan. For two days, whenever nature called they had to contact reception to be escorted to the facilities in the building next door.

According to the PalmSource people, the hotel's plumbing is run by a Windows-based computer system. The hotel had to get a technician flown down from Scotland to fix it and reboot the loos.