Meanwhile in...

[sexobon]

The toilet, as a technology, has been steadily improving. Indoor plumbing is far superior to chamber pots and outhouses, and automatic-flush sensors beat pulling a grimy handle manually. But a design concept that rapidly attained online notoriety this week brazenly suggested that the way to make toilets better is to make them worse.

The concept, called the StandardToilet, has a seat that’s set at an incline and lightly strains users’ legs, making it unpleasant to sit on for longer than five minutes or so. The discomfort is intentional: The toilet gets people, especially workers, out of the bathroom (and off their phones) and back to whatever it is they’re supposed to be doing. To this end, according to the StandardToilet website, “the optimum angle of the gradient shall be between 11-13 degrees.” Its patent, though, covers everything from a gentle 5 degrees to a perilous 35, which would be like perching on a playground slide.

The makers of the StandardToilet declined a request for a phone interview, but explained to me over email that the toilet’s angled seat accomplishes two goals: On top of getting employees back to work in a timely manner, its design, the makers claim, reduces the risk of hemorrhoids. “We see it as a win/win situation for both employers and employees,” said a representative handling press inquiries.

theatlantic.com

standardtoilet.net

btaloos.co.uk

[xoxoxoBruce]

They grossly underestimate the ability of the bear to shit in the woods.

[Griff]

That must be the crapper Orange Lad is whining about.

[Carruthers]

From the letters column of this morning's edition of The Times...

SPIKED SEAT

Sir, Reading about the mechanical process that discourages lounging on the lavatory (report, Dec 18, and letter, Dec 19) brought back the painful memory of the steel spike that jutted from the wall behind the place of blessed repose in the Appelby Frodingham steelworks in Scunthorpe.

Leaning back to savour a moment’s blessed respite from the blast furnaces brought you up sharply and with considerable pain.
I immediately joined the union but the spike of Scunthorpe steel, which had been put there by management, remained in place until the 1970s.

Steve Pound

MP for Ealing North 1997-2019; London W7

[xoxoxoBruce]

At Westinghouse Steam Turbine they took all the doors off the stalls.