How Things Work

[varjohaltia]

So, Vince bugged me about how those automatic flush things at neat new public restrooms work, and I knew the answer: batteries. But then we decided to dig further, and found out that they actually come in three varieties: batteries, AC and water turbine/accumulator operated.

But that isn't the point of this post. No, the point of this post is that nobody's bathroom is complete without a Toto Neorest. Unless your toilet greets you by automatically assuming the position, warming and massaging your butt and finishing with a refreshing aerated water wash, you're just roughing it. And what toilet is complete without a remote control with an LCD display? What, you actually have to manually flush yours? Barbaric!

This thing looks suspiciously like a Japanese import. And here we thought that the rest of the world was squatting over holes...

Comments

[obsidiangryphon.livejournal.com]

Not toilet related, but amusing:

http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~kovar/hall.html

[varjohaltia.livejournal.com]

Heh. Reminds me of our attempt to measure the Constant of Gravity (G, not g) in one of our undergrad labs and getting a result, bracketed well within the carefully calculated error limits, of it being squarely on the negative side (that is, gravity being a repulsive force.)

(The gravitational acceleration on Earth, g, we measured correctly and were very proud of the outcome--until we realized that due to the error limits and rounding rules, we had to present it as 0 m/s^2.)

Ah, those were the days.

[hyanan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I saw a lot of these in Japan, especially in our hotels. The butt warmer is nice. ;)