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Finally! A toilet worthy of Apple fanboys. Meet the iPoo Toilet, which sadly only exists as a conceptual design.
Designer Milos Paripovic said:
Unlike some Apple products, this toilet fully supports Flush. This toilet has exactly the same function as any other toilet and costs only twice as much for the same performance; but you will agree it is all about style and taste, and you will look a lot cooler in your friends' eyes when you say you use the iPoo Toilet ...
Thank goodness for that! Link - via digsdigs
The Aviarios del Caribe sloth sanctuary in Costa Rica is an orphanage that cares for abandoned and injured sloths with the goal of releasing them back into the wild. But the youngsters have to be taught how wild sloths do sloth things. -via Arbroath
The airline industry will have to put together a new set of procedures to cover the event of a pilot getting stuck in the toilet. A Delta Airlines flight from Asheville, North Caroline to New York City was the scene of a security alert yesterday. While the pilot was in the lavatory, the door latch became stuck. Unable to alert a flight attendant, the pilot asked a passenger to go to the cockpit and use a secret code to alert the co-pilot. The co-pilot did not believe what he heard and called ground control.
“The captain has disappeared in the back and, uh, I have someone with a thick foreign accent trying to access the cockpit right now…,” the co-pilot reported.
“What I’m being told is he’s stuck in the lav,” the co-pilot continued. “Someone with a thick foreign accent is giving me a password to access the cockpit, and I’m not about to let him in.”
Not willing to take any chances themselves, air controllers on the ground ordered the plane, operated by regional carrier Chautauqua Airlines, to make an emergency landing.
Before the co-pilot was forced to make that emergency landing, however, the pilot was able to open the bathroom door, and calm his anxious colleagues.
The plane landed safely and no one was charged in the incident. Link -via The Daily What
I've found the secret to John Farrier's blogging prowess: it's all in where he writes his Neatorama blog posts.
Actually, no. John's still Master of the Blogosphere but the Steampunk workstation above, called the Steampunk Time Machine Antique Master Bathroom Computer Workstation, is designed by Bruce Rosenbaum and Walter Parker.
Hugh Hart of Wired's Underwire blog has more pics of steampunk neatness: Link
See also: 3D Steampunk Robot Magnets over at the NeatoShop
For more than fifty years after the formation of the Indian Railways in 1857, there was one crucial element that was missing on the nation's trains: toilets.
Passengers had to wait till till the stations to answer the call of nature, and it was not until a passenger named Okhil Chandra Sen wrote this angry yet amusing letter in 1909 that toilets were installed on Indian trains.
So if you're in India, and you have to go to the bathroom aboard one of their trains, you have Mr. Sen to thank:
Image: Richard Fellowes
From the notable Letters of Note
A toilet in the General Services Administration (GSA) Building in Washington, DC, exploded and an unnamed woman was taken to a local hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries. A memo was sent to explain the danger to other employees.
“DO NOT flush toilets or use any domestic water. Due to a mechanical failure, there is high air pressure in the domestic water system that resulted in damage to toilets. The engineering staff is working to correct the issue,” the memo said. “There has been damage to flushed toilets that has resulted in injuries. We will announce when the issue is resolved.”
(Unrelated image credit: Flickr user Kevin Trotman)
Toilet Monster – $16.95
Are you a prankster who loves potty humor? You need the Toilet Monster from the NeatoShop. Simply attach this hilarious green monster to the toilet and wait for someone you know to lift the lid.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more hilarious Gag Gifts & Pranks.
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Public Toilet Survival Kit – $4.95
Do scary public restrooms keep you from seeking adventure and fun? You need the Public Toilet Survival Kit from the NeatoShop. This fantastic little tin includes:
Now get out there and pee with abandon. A whole new world of restrooms awaits you.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop more hilarious Personal Care items.
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Simply the best bathroom wall graffiti EVAR! Via Accordion Guy
Toilet Shot Glasses – $9.95
Toilet Shot Glasses from the NeatoShop are the perfect gift for a drinker who spends a lot of time :
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more inappropriate Gag Gifts & Pranks.
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The following article is from the book Uncle John’s Heavy Duty Bathroom Reader.
More than 30 years after his death, the Who’s drummer, Keith Moon, is still remembered as one of the best in rock history. And as more than one hotel chain learned to their regret, that wasn’t all he was known for.
MY GENERATION
In the summer of 1967, the British rock group the Who embarked on their first concert tour of the United States. They were the opening act for Herman’s Hermits, best known for their hit single, “Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter.” The Who had played dates in the U.S. before, including their breakthrough appearance at the Monterrey International Pop Festival just a few weeks earlier in June. But this was the band’s first cross-country tour, and there was still much about America that was new and unfamiliar to them. (Image credit: Wikipedia user MachoCarioca)
Take American fireworks, for example: In many Southern states, giant firecrackers much more powerful than the “penny bangers” sold in England were perfectly legal. They could be bought cheaply and in large quantities all over the South. The Hermits had discovered them on their first American tour in 1965, and now, on a swing through Alabama, they introduced Keith Moon, the Who’s 20-year-old drummer, to his first bag of American fireworks -cherry bombs.
Cherry bombs are still sold today, but in the 1960s they contained as much as 20 times the explosive power they do now -more than enough to maim or blind anyone who was holding them when they went off, or who happened to be standing too close. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission banned original-strength cherry bombs in 1966m but judging from the reign of terror on which Keith Moon was about to embark, they must have still been available.
more …
Since the dawn of time, people have found nifty ways to clean up after the bathroom act. The most common solution was simply to grab what was at hand: coconuts, shells, snow, moss, hay, leaves, grass, corncobs, sheep’s wool—and, later, thanks to the printing press—newspapers, magazines, and pages of books. The ancient Greeks used clay and stone. The Romans, sponges and salt water. But the idea of a commercial product designed solely to wipe one’s bum? That started about 150 years ago, right here in the U.S.A. In less than a century, Uncle Sam’s marketing genius turned something disposable into something indispensable.
How Toilet Paper Got on a Roll
The first products designed specifically to wipe one’s nethers were aloe-infused sheets of manila hemp dispensed from Kleenex-like boxes. They were invented in 1857 by a New York entrepreneur named Joseph Gayetty, who claimed his sheets prevented hemorrhoids. Gayetty was so proud of his therapeutic bathroom paper that he had his name printed on each sheet. But his success was limited. Americans soon grew accustomed to wiping with the Sears Roebuck catalog, and they saw no need to spend money on something that came in the mail for free.
Toilet paper took its next leap forward in 1890, when two brothers named Clarence and E. Irvin Scott popularized the concept of toilet paper on a roll. The Scotts’ brand became more successful than Gayetty’s medicated wipes, in part because they built a steady trade selling toilet paper to hotels and drugstores. But it was still an uphill battle to get the public to openly buy the product, largely because Americans remained embarrassed by bodily functions. In fact, the Scott brothers were so ashamed of the nature of their work that they didn’t take proper credit for their innovation until 1902.
“No one wanted to ask for it by name,” says Dave Praeger, author of Poop Culture: How America Is Shaped by Its Grossest National Product. “It was so taboo that you couldn’t even talk about the product.” By 1930, the German paper company Hakle began using the tag line, “Ask for a roll of Hakle and you won’t have to say toilet paper!”
As time passed, toilet tissues slowly became an American staple. But widespread acceptance of the product didn’t officially occur until a new technology demanded it. At the end of the 19th century, more and more homes were being built with sit-down flush toilets tied to indoor plumbing systems. And because people required a product that could be flushed away with minimal damage to the pipes, corncobs and moss no longer cut it. In no time, toilet paper ads boasted that the product was recommended by both doctors and plumbers.
The Strength of Going Soft
In the early 1900s, toilet paper was still being marketed as a medicinal item. But in 1928, the Hoberg Paper Company tried a different tack. On the advice of its ad men, the company introduced a brand called Charmin and fitted the product with a feminine logo that depicted a beautiful woman. The genius of the campaign was that by evincing softness and femininity, the company could avoid talking about toilet paper’s actual purpose. Charmin was enormously successful, and the tactic helped the brand survive the Great Depression. (It also helped that, in 1932, Charmin began marketing economy-size packs of four rolls.) Decades later, the dainty ladies were replaced with babies and bear cubs—advertising vehicles that still stock the aisles today.
By the 1970s, America could no longer conceive of life without toilet paper. Case in point: In December 1973, Tonight Show host Johnny Carson joked about a toilet paper shortage during his opening monologue. But America didn’t laugh. Instead, TV watchers across the country ran out to their local grocery stores and bought up as much of the stuff as they could. In 1978, a TV Guide poll named Mr. Whipple—the affable grocer who implored customers, “Please don’t squeeze the Charmin”—the third best-known man in America, behind former President Richard Nixon and the Rev. Billy Graham.
Rolling the World
Currently, the United States spends more than $6 billion a year on toilet tissue—more than any other nation in the world. Americans, on average, use 57 squares a day and 50 lbs. a year. Even still, the toilet paper market in the United States has largely plateaued. The real growth in the industry is happening in developing countries. There, it’s booming. Toilet paper revenues in Brazil alone have more than doubled since 2004. The radical upswing in sales is believed to be driven by a combination of changing demographics, social expectations, and disposable income.
“The spread of globalization can kind of be measured by the spread of Western bathroom practices,” says Praeger. When average citizens in a country start buying toilet paper, wealth and consumerism have arrived. It signifies that people not only have extra cash to spend, but they’ve also come under the influence of Western marketing.
America Without Toilet Paper
Even as the markets boom in developing nations, toilet paper manufacturers find themselves needing to charge more per roll to make a profit. That’s because production costs are rising. During the past few years, pulp has become more expensive, energy costs are rising, and even water is becoming scarce. Toilet paper companies may need to keep hiking up their prices. The question is, if toilet paper becomes a luxury item, can Americans live without it?
The truth is that we did live without it, for a very long time. And even now, a lot of people do. In Japan, the Washlet—a toilet that comes equipped with a bidet and an air-blower—is growing increasingly popular. And all over the world, water remains one of the most common methods of self-cleaning. Many places in India, the Middle East, and Asia, for instance, still depend on a bucket and a spigot. But as our economy continues to circle the drain, will Americans part with their beloved toilet paper in order to adopt more money-saving measures? Or will we keep flushing our cash away? Praeger, for one, believes a toilet-paper apocalypse is hardly likely. After all, the American marketing machine is a powerful thing.
_______________________
The article above, written by Linda Rodriguez, is reprinted with permission from the Jul/Aug 2009 issue of mental_floss magazine.
Be sure to visit mental_floss‘ website and blog for more fun stuff!
The following is an article from the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research.
(Image credit: Flickr user Eric Rice)
A Physician’s Reasons Why Men Should Stand
by John Gamel
Professor of Ophthalmology
University of Louisville
Louisville, Kentucky, USA
Western Europe is abuzz with the latest flare-up in the war between the sexes, and for the moment, the women seem to be winning. If outrage continues to mount, it will soon be not just uncool and politically incorrect for a man to urinate while standing up, but out and out ILLEGAL. Yes, the liberated women of France and Germany and Holland have vowed to put their men down—on the toilet. They carry placards showing a huge red X scrawled across a man standing to urinate. They shout: “Laissez tomber votre
pantalon, et asseyez vous! (Drop your trousers and sit)!” “Behalte deine Tropfen fuer dich (Keep your drips to yourself)!” “Toch niet weer een vieze plas op MIJN badkamer vloer (Not another filthy puddle on MY bathroom floor)!”
Their motives, or so they insist, have nothing to do with penis envy and everything to do with hygiene. On the face of it, their argument seems to hold water. No one enjoys stepping in a puddle of urine. Given the distance between the toilet bowl and the penis of an upright man (approximately 24 inches, depending on anatomic variations), and
factoring in the width of the bowl itself (approximately 12 inches), it becomes clear that only the sharpest aim can hit the target every time. In such a precarious setting, even a moment’s loss of focus will scatter errant drops on the floor. On the other hand, if every man sits to urinate, the bathroom floors of Europe will remain pristine. Or so goes the logic of the women.
The author's toilet
Forgive me, ladies, but I beg to differ. Before joining the fray, let me establish my credentials: during my life, I have urinated approximately 118,000 times (five times a day for 65 years) and on countless occasions have watched other males urinate in public restrooms. (I am not a voyeur, of course; all of these glimpses were caught from corner of my eye, with no intention to invade the privacy of others.) Furthermore, during medical school, I spent four years studying the human body. Combining my knowledge from these sources, I must warn the mothers and wives and cohabitées of Europe that their efforts to sustain the purity of their bathroom floors will surely come to naught, defeated by the anatomy and physiology of the male genitourinary tract.
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I don’t know about you, but when I was in college we had way more fun things to do than flushing out socks down the toilet. Apparently though, the students at the University of Alaska apparently are so bored this is their only alternative.
Hundreds of socks have been flushed at the UAF Fine Arts Complex since December, creating havoc on the building’s sewer system. Maintenance Superintendent Bill Cox figures the stray socks have caused at least $15,000 in equipment damage and labor costs.
If you have money to flush down the drain, then surely you’re not going to sit your bum down on some plebeian toilet. Thankfully, Kohler has got you covered.
Behold the Numi Bidet Toilet. At a mere $6,400 it’s a steal:
The Numi does just about everything for you, aside from the stuff that, well, only you can do. Looking something akin to a fancy pop-top waste bin, Numi comes complete with a self-opening and closing lid so you never have to touch the toilet seat; a self-cleaning bidet with adjustable controls for temperature and water pressure; heating elements to keep your toes and tush toasty; an illuminated panel for nighttime rendezvous; a built-in speaker system that connects to a remote docking station to ensure only you know exactly what you’re doing in there; and a deodorizing element that sucks air from the bowl through a charcoal filter. Of course, no connected appliance would be complete without a touchscreen, and the Numi’s no exception; it has a touch panel remote that you can use to set to your specifications.
Engadget has the video clip: Link | Official site
Three-year-old Alannah Merleto of Baulkham Hills, New South Wales, Australia flushes a lot of things down the toilet, as some children do, but her two-day-old kitten was the worst thing she could flush.
Mum Ammie Croft called in the cavalry to her Baulkham Hills home after not being able to find the fourth kitten in a newly-born litter.
“”I asked Alannah if she knew where he was and she said ‘down the toilet’,” Ms Crofts said. “I didn’t believe it could be true. I thought, ‘she can’t have put the kitten down the toilet’.” A whimper from the pipes confirmed her fears.
Complete with rescue equipment used in the 1989 Newcastle earthquake disaster, the NSW Fire Brigade arrived and began their quest.
The rescue crew found the kitten by putting a camera down the pipe, and pushed the kitten to an access valve. The eight firefighters worked for five hours to free the kitten. The kitten was reunited with his mother Pusska and was renamed Cain after the firefighter who pulled him from the drain. Link -via Buzzfeed
(Image credit: Brad Hunter)
Marvin Maxwell once made a guitar from a toilet seat. Now he’s reversed that idea and made a toilet seat that looks like a guitar! Or how abut a “piano bench”, if that’s your taste? Several colors are available from Jammin’ Johns. Link
When you get up in the dark of the night, what is it that you really need to see? The toilet! LavNav lights up only the toilet, so you can see where you are “going”. It’s motion-triggered, which saves batteries, and glows red when the seat is up and green when the seat is down. What will they think of next? Link -via the Presurfer
The toilet is one of those things we take for granted, until it breaks down or we go somewhere without them. How did our modern comfort system come about? Toilet plumbing is older than you think!
Ancient cultures were surprisingly adept at moving water around in a way that kept people from having to walk through pools of their own feces. (That was really more of a Medieval European thing.) Cultures as far back as 3000 BC were flushing away their problems—so who you callin’ primitive? Members of the Harrappa civilization in what is now India had toilets in their homes that drained into subterranean clay chambers. The residents of Skara Brae, a 31st century BC settlement in what’s now Scotland, were even clever enough to use a draining system that exploited a nearby river to automatically sweep out their dirty business.
None of these systems were anything like the flush toilet -that came later. Read all about it at Gizmodo. Link
(Image credit: Sam Spratt)
Attention hypochondriacs! Thanks to Japan (who else?), you can soon forgo frequent visits to the doctors for health check ups. Instead, simply pee into the "Intelligent Toilet" :
Toto’s engineers developed a receptacle inside the basin to collect the urine for sugar content and temperature checks, and an armband to monitor blood pressure. The readout is displayed on a wall-mounted computer screen.
"With the current model, your data is sent automatically to your personal computer, and then you can email it to your doctor," said Suzuki.
"In the next generation model, the data will be sent automatically to family members or doctors via the Internet," she told AFP.The electronic marvel, called the "Intelligence Toilet", is capable of storing the data of up to five different people and retails for 350,000 to 500,000 yen (about 4,100 to 5,850 dollars) in Japan, she said.
Link | Nerve has a few more pics: Link – Thanks Ben!
If you ever wondered exactly how much you poop every day, then this invention is for you: the human turd scale. Yes, you read that right: a scale that weighs your excrement.
United States patent 1493222 is for "A weighing device especially adapted for weighing feces as excreted." Simply put, the patent is for a toilet outfitted with a turd scale in the bowl. A person seats themselves on the toilet, does their "business," and just like stepping on a traditional scale, takes a deep breath and hopes the number that registers at the top of the toilet bowl does not betray the number they’ve been praying for.
InventorSpot has more: Link
Butt Station – $15.95
Neatoramanauts! Here’s the perfect gift for the elegant desk of your boss and co-workers. Behold, the Butt Station from the NeatoShop – a tape dispenser, memo/business card holder, pen holder and paperclip dispenser all rolled into one toilet-inspired unit: Link
See also: Fun Stuff for the Office
Comments Off YouTube user PvtGermanWagz and his friends emptied the contents of 32 glowsticks into a toilet’s reservoir and flushed it to see the results. The results are simultaneously asinine and cool. Warning: foul language.
via Geekologie
It’s time once again to cast your vote for America’s Best Restroom! Will it be the toilets at Bryant Park in New York City, the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City, or maybe the Santa Monica Pier in California? Ten finalists are going for the title. You can take a virtual tour of each convenience facility and rank your picks accordingly. Pictured is last year’s winner, the The Shoji Tabuchi Theater in Branson, Missouri. Link -via Metafilter
Hanako-san is a girl ghost who haunts school toilets. The urban legend goes back decades. No one knows for sure how the story got started, but artists and pop culture outlets are happy to feed the fear.
It is not uncommon for schools to have a toilet permanently occupied by the mysterious girl, who is known in Japanese as Toire no Hanako-san (lit. “Hanako of the toilet”). She is often found in the third stall in the restroom on the third floor — usually the girls’ room — but this can vary from school to school. Details about her physical appearance also vary, but she is usually described as having bobbed hair and wearing a red skirt.
Hanako-san’s behavior also varies according to location, but in most cases, she remains holed up in the bathroom until an adventurous student dares to provoke her. Hanako-san can be conjured up by knocking on the door to her stall (usually three times), calling her name, and asking a particular question. The most common question is simply “Are you there, Hanako-san?” If Hanako-san is indeed present, she says in a faint voice, “Yes, I’m here.” Some stories claim that anyone courageous enough to open the door at this point is greeted by a little girl in a red skirt and then pulled into the toilet.
See more possibly disturbing pictures of Hanako-san at Pink Tentacle. This story is part of a series on Japanese urban legends. Link
Sean Michael Ragan of Make magazine declares that with this video by inventor Patrick Brawley, steampunk has ‘jumped the shark’:
Introducing the Electro-Flush! Technically, TeslaPunk Urinal. Hand-made solid oak tank with battery powered flush pump, laser aiming assist (aim at the laser dot in the bowl at night), lights, antique gauges, flush capacitor, and cup holder. Bowl is a round 1949 Standard.
via Make
Barbara Heard, from Gretton Road, Winchcombe, said she failed to understand how the signs could have been sanctioned by Tewkesbury Borough Council.
She said: “Does anyone have any idea what these signs mean?
“My husband and I regard ourselves as fairly intelligent but we have no idea.
“What will our overseas visitors will make of these signs?
Chris Pike of the Tewkesbury Borough Council says “ambulant” restrooms are larger than standard, and are “intended for people who may be partially disabled but cannot access the full disabled unit.” Link -via Arbroath
When one of the two toilets on the International Space Station broke, io9 blogger Lauren Davis was inspired to write about the toilets (or utter lack thereof) in various science fiction movies, TV shows, and books. She rounds up the commodes from Star Trek, Lexx, Babylon 5, Galaxy Quest, Firefly, and others.
Apparently on the Enterprise-D, there was only one toilet, and the post includes a video of Jonathan Frakes pointing it out on a schematic of the ship.
image by flickr user Richard Freedman used under creative commons license
Georgia Max Coffee chose to redesign the toilets of a number of key ski resorts in Japan. The cubicles were fully wrapped on all sides, so that the person caught short would have a ski jumper’s view when they were sitting on the loo. The person could look down at their skis (simply printed on the floor of the cubicle) and see the steep ski jump slope ahead of them.
Link -via Boing Boing
