Should You Flush With Toilet Lid Up Or Down? Study Says It Doesn't Matter (arstechnica.com) 132
doc1623 shares a report from Ars Technica: Scientists at the University of Arizona decided to investigate whether closing the toilet lid before flushing reduces cross-contamination of bathroom surfaces by airborne bacterial and viral particles via "toilet plumes." The bad news is that putting a lid on it doesn't result in any substantial reduction in contamination, according to their recent paper published in the American Journal of Infection Control. The good news: Adding a disinfectant to the toilet bowl before flushing and using disinfectant dispensers in the tank significantly reduce cross-contamination. [...]
The scientists conducted their experiment with E. coli (as a host bacteria) and coliphage MS2; the latter is not a human or animal pathogen but serves as a useful model. The public toilet used in the experiment was located in a stall in the restroom of an office building. That toilet was tankless, relying on water-line pressure for flushing, with no lid and a U-shaped seat with a gap in the front. The home toilet was a standard siphonic toilet with a tank and lid in a private residence; there was no gap on the center of the seat. Toilet bowls were seeded with MS2 and flushed. After one minute, samples were taken from various restroom surfaces: the top and bottom of toilet seats, the bowl rim, three locations on the floor, and the right and left walls. The team also conducted a similar experiment involving cleaning the bowls with toilet brushes, both with and without Lysol toilet bowl cleaner. All those samples were then tested for MS2 contamination.
The results: both the tops and bottoms of the lidless public toilet seats had more contamination compared to household seats, but otherwise, there was no statistical significance in the degree of contamination between lidless public toilets and household toilets with lids. And the surface contamination did indeed persist even after repeated flushes. The toilet seat was the worst offender with the greatest degree of contamination, which the authors suggest "reflects the airflow that occurs during toilet flushing, i.e., largely around the top and bottom of the toilet seat." That same airflow is likely a factor in spreading the contamination to restroom floors and walls. Perhaps the least surprising finding is that rigorous cleaning with a toilet bowl brush and Lysol reduced the contamination by 99.99 percent compared to cleaning with just a brush. Therefore, "The most effective strategy for reducing restroom cross-contamination associated with toilet flushing include the addition of a disinfectant to the toilet bowl before flushing and the use of disinfectant/detergent dispensers in the toilet tank," the authors concluded. They also recommend regularly disinfecting all restroom surfaces after flushing or cleaning with a toilet brush in health care facilities -- which often have a lot of immunocompromised people -- and if someone in your house has an active infection like norovirus. The findings have been published in the journal American Journal of Infection Control.
Slashdot reader doc1623 writes: "This headline brought me joy today, so I thought I would share (I could honestly care less about reading the article but joy is joy, I take it where I can find it.)"
The scientists conducted their experiment with E. coli (as a host bacteria) and coliphage MS2; the latter is not a human or animal pathogen but serves as a useful model. The public toilet used in the experiment was located in a stall in the restroom of an office building. That toilet was tankless, relying on water-line pressure for flushing, with no lid and a U-shaped seat with a gap in the front. The home toilet was a standard siphonic toilet with a tank and lid in a private residence; there was no gap on the center of the seat. Toilet bowls were seeded with MS2 and flushed. After one minute, samples were taken from various restroom surfaces: the top and bottom of toilet seats, the bowl rim, three locations on the floor, and the right and left walls. The team also conducted a similar experiment involving cleaning the bowls with toilet brushes, both with and without Lysol toilet bowl cleaner. All those samples were then tested for MS2 contamination.
The results: both the tops and bottoms of the lidless public toilet seats had more contamination compared to household seats, but otherwise, there was no statistical significance in the degree of contamination between lidless public toilets and household toilets with lids. And the surface contamination did indeed persist even after repeated flushes. The toilet seat was the worst offender with the greatest degree of contamination, which the authors suggest "reflects the airflow that occurs during toilet flushing, i.e., largely around the top and bottom of the toilet seat." That same airflow is likely a factor in spreading the contamination to restroom floors and walls. Perhaps the least surprising finding is that rigorous cleaning with a toilet bowl brush and Lysol reduced the contamination by 99.99 percent compared to cleaning with just a brush. Therefore, "The most effective strategy for reducing restroom cross-contamination associated with toilet flushing include the addition of a disinfectant to the toilet bowl before flushing and the use of disinfectant/detergent dispensers in the toilet tank," the authors concluded. They also recommend regularly disinfecting all restroom surfaces after flushing or cleaning with a toilet brush in health care facilities -- which often have a lot of immunocompromised people -- and if someone in your house has an active infection like norovirus. The findings have been published in the journal American Journal of Infection Control.
Slashdot reader doc1623 writes: "This headline brought me joy today, so I thought I would share (I could honestly care less about reading the article but joy is joy, I take it where I can find it.)"
Arizona has that kind of water to waste? (Score:4, Interesting)
Arizona has that kind of water to waste?
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The problem is more the aquifer and its unregulated use.
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And California is demanding a bigger share of the Colorado river because they don't know how to manage their water supply worth a shit. LA has a naturally very large aquifer that they don't even use, because instead of maintaining storm basins to replenish (like Arizona does, literally by the thousands in Phoenix alone) they channel 90% of it directly into the ocean. Last time I mentioned this some progressive derp was all "hurrdurr you can't drink water out of the dirt!" because apparently they've never he
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Re: Arizona has that kind of water to waste? (Score:5, Funny)
The city will sink into the ocean if LA pulls water from the aquifer.
You say that like it's a bad thing
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Has Texas seceded yet? https://www.newsweek.com/texas... [newsweek.com]
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California has over 5x the population of Arizona so yes, I would expect California to use more water. Is there something surprising about that? LA's storm basin's were never designed to capture drinking water so it's currently a massive engineering project. https://www.nbclosangeles.com/... [nbclosangeles.com]
Re: Arizona has that kind of water to waste? (Score:2)
I'm speaking in terms of efficiently using water, idiot.
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California needs more water because it's naturally a desert, and it's got a huge population. It's also a prime area for agriculture.
Move the population to other states, and the requirement for water would drastically shrink.
Basically, all over the country people are extracting more water than the yearly rainfall. You normally hear of this as "The water table is getting lower" or "You need to dig your well deeper". In places with more people, and less rain/snow, this becomes obvious more quickly. But it'
Re: Arizona has that kind of water to waste? (Score:2)
California needs more water because it's naturally a desert, and it's got a huge population. It's also a prime area for agriculture.
No it's not, only a small portion of it is. Nor does desert mean "needs more water", actually the opposite is true because desert native flora use much less of it. If you need more water in a desert, you're doing it wrong. California does a lot wrong though, which is news to nobody.
Move the population to other states, and the requirement for water would drastically shrink.
Meanwhile, California's population has actually decreased while its neighbors have increased, yet California thinks it has a right to more water, simply because it's California.
Basically, all over the country people are extracting more water than the yearly rainfall. You normally hear of this as "The water table is getting lower" or "You need to dig your well deeper". In places with more people, and less rain/snow, this becomes obvious more quickly. But it's not very localized. IIUC the problem even exists in Florida and Louisiana.
That's nice, though Phoenix, which is entirely deser
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3 reasons to use the lid (Score:5, Insightful)
Keeps countertop stuff from falling in.
Treats everyone the same: lift, use, close.
Aerosolization of the toiletâ(TM)s contend, but I guess the article contradicts me here.
2 out of 3, still worth closing the lid.
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The lid creates underpressure and thus reducing suction when flushing, so the number of times you get stray-floaters after flushing goes up
(those are mostly only discovered by the next person who lifts the lid because the flusher never checked).
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Keeps countertop stuff from falling in.
some people have tiny cramped toilets so i might concede this one
Treats everyone the same: lift, use, close.
how is that a reason lol
Aerosolization of the toiletâ(TM)s content
if you spend your time worrying about microscopic particles of shit, you have OCD. 100%. Its Howard Hughes type shit
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Obviously you're male and single, and likely never had a date that mattered.
Because the female population generally get very persnickety if you should leave the toilet seat *up*, especially at night, and take great offence if you would even dare suggest that they can put the seat down before going.
Arguments about toilet set up or down have raged on since it was invented, and it's often the men who are obligated to lift the seat up, do their
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Keeps countertop stuff from falling in.
Treats everyone the same: lift, use, close.
Aerosolization of the toiletâ(TM)s contend, but I guess the article contradicts me here.
2 out of 3, still worth closing the lid.
(4) It's not a decorative water feature
(5) It keep the dog from drinking out of it
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Agreed - just good social etiquette. An easy rule for the neuro diverse slashdot crowd to remember too.
The kids sometimes make a stink and don't use the brush - I'm sure the lid reduces the amount of pong released (even though there are some gaps around it). I guess that depends on how many draughts you have though.
I wonder about their methodology though - waiting just 1 minute after the flush doesn't seem very long. If there's a real "plume" then it could spread around the whole room, but take many minutes
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Agreed - just good social etiquette. An easy rule for the neuro diverse slashdot crowd to remember too.
The kids sometimes make a stink and don't use the brush - I'm sure the lid reduces the amount of pong released (even though there are some gaps around it). I guess that depends on how many draughts you have though.
I wonder about their methodology though - waiting just 1 minute after the flush doesn't seem very long. If there's a real "plume" then it could spread around the whole room, but take many minutes to actually land on surfaces. I'm sure they thought of this and have a reason for doing it the way they do, but it's not the same as how a real toilet gets used.
Next up, an investigation of farts - which are obviously shit adjacent. I know, I know! Trump was on to something when he suggested UV lights up the old Hershey Highway. UV lights to sanitize farts! A new age of cleanliness awaits.
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I'm genuinely impressed you let a random person on the internet get to you like this. rsilvergun and I rarely agree on anything, but kudos to him.
Rsilvergun is a quality poster. (Score:2)
Rsilvergun’s trolls can’t even make funny posts! Oh he needs something pointy to sit on, oh he has a tie-down lid with no hole (what?) not even funny!
The real comedy is how little he reacts to these guys except for the occasional bewilderment when they yet again fail to dox him. His trolls are embarrassing as fuck to the point I’ve repeatedly dropped hints about how to at least start trying to properly dox him despite being firmly on rsilverguns side. Literally there are whole professio
Re: Rsilvergun is a quality poster. (Score:2)
oh he has a tie-down lid with no hole (what?) not even funny!
That's because you missed the joke completely. Not my fault you're slow.
The real comedy is how little he reacts to these guys
There's no intention of getting a reaction on my part.
except for the occasional bewilderment when they yet again fail to dox him.
I don't make any kind of effort towards doxxing anybody. Never have. I don't have anything to gain from it.
Yeah (Score:2)
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That's mostly just Phoenix, which is in a valley, which is why it gets a lot of heat. UofA is in Tucson. Two hours north of Phoenix is Flagstaff where there's a LOT more humidity (and snow.)
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That's mostly just Phoenix, which is in a valley, which is why it gets a lot of heat. UofA is in Tucson. Two hours north of Phoenix is Flagstaff where there's a LOT more humidity (and snow.)
Yes. Flagstaff's weather is a lot like Pennsylvania weather.
Now do those Dyson Airblade hand driers (Score:1)
Re: Now do those Dyson Airblade hand driers (Score:2)
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You do realize that people usually wash their hands before using them, right?
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The best thing about (Score:5, Informative)
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The best thing about living alone is not being told how to leave the toilet seat on the assumption that only their opinion counts and they are right because of ... 'stuff'.
My SO and I had that discussion early on in marriage. I told her that If I had to raise and lower the seat, we were going to keep the lid down at all times other than for using the toilet. Works like a charm, and one less thing to worry about with children and pets.
Some of her friends think it is sooo unfair though. The same friends that get pissed off that she makes me coffee in the morning. Come to think of it, those ones are all single and wondering where all the good men are. 8^P
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Re:The best thing about (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait until you have a 60 year old bladder that demands regular and immediate attention, then you will care.
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"Or you could just close the lid" This! This is exactly what I am talking about! You are making my point perfectly by telling what I should do and why I should do it. It is my house, I have no one else here I need to appease so why would I waste my time closing a lid that I am just going to have to open in an hour or less just because you think it is a good idea for some random reason? "I mean then everyone needs to open it" Who is this 'everyone', did you miss the 'living alone' part?
Wait until you have a 60 year old bladder that demands regular and immediate attention, then you will care.
Relax homie! Anyhow, we get it - You didn't marry for Bladder or worse... heyo!
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This is exactly what I am talking about! You are making my point perfectly by telling what I should do and why I should do it.
I'm not telling you to do anything. I'm telling you I find you have picked an incredibly weird hill to die on. You clearly have too much free time and not enough worries on your life to be so incredibly obsessed with this topic.
Wait until you have a 60 year old bladder that demands regular and immediate attention, then you will care.
If your bladder demands regular (adjective: constant repeating pattern) attention and you will be defeated by opening the toilet lid then you have really poor ability to plan ahead in your life. Suddenly the desperate need to live alone is making a lot more sense.
A piss poor science experiment (Score:5, Insightful)
They only measure right by the toilet and on the toilet. That's not what I care about. I care about my toothbrush that's 8 feet away. A lid down toilet will still spread close by, but it is less likely to spread far. An open potty is open season. This shitty study doesn't actually answer the question.
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They only measure right by the toilet and on the toilet. That's not what I care about. I care about my toothbrush that's 8 feet away. A lid down toilet will still spread close by, but it is less likely to spread far. An open potty is open season. This shitty study doesn't actually answer the question.
Bingo.
With the lid down most of the airflow is reflected off the lid and directed down towards the floor where it's much less likely to spread higher up to counter level where a toothbrush is typically placed. It's also likely that there less contaminated air overall that escapes the bowl since the lid is an obvious barrier.
With the lid up, though, it's free to swirl everywhere; as you said, "open season". No surface is safe, but at least with the lid down it seems like the spread would have to be more conf
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When I got an electric toothbrush I realized there was no reason for it to be in the bathroom, since it didn't fit in the toothbrush holder, needed to be plugged in to recharge, and I don't need a sink for the first part of brushing. That's another 2 minutes I can spend shitposting on Slashdot!
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Ditto. We keep ours in the kitchen, since there's a sink and outlet there too. I want to wet the brush since that makes it start so much better.
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When I got an electric toothbrush I realized there was no reason for it to be in the bathroom, since it didn't fit in the toothbrush holder, needed to be plugged in to recharge, and I don't need a sink for the first part of brushing. That's another 2 minutes I can spend shitposting on Slashdot!
A number of wives keep their electric toothbrush in a drawer by the bed.
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Only then can you be sure of your assertions
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Maybe the smaller gap increases the velocity of the air flow giving more range over a narrow band, straight to your toothbrush?
Like I said, "...but at least with the lid down it seems like the spread would have to be more confined unless there are some very peculiar physics at work."
Feel free to lick all the floors you want to confirm this theory.
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They only measure right by the toilet and on the toilet. That's not what I care about. I care about my toothbrush that's 8 feet away. A lid down toilet will still spread close by, but it is less likely to spread far. An open potty is open season. This shitty study doesn't actually answer the question.
Bingo.
With the lid down most of the airflow is reflected off the lid and directed down towards the floor where it's much less likely to spread higher up to counter level where a toothbrush is typically placed. It's also likely that there less contaminated air overall that escapes the bowl since the lid is an obvious barrier.
With the lid up, though, it's free to swirl everywhere; as you said, "open season". No surface is safe, but at least with the lid down it seems like the spread would have to be more confined unless there are some very peculiar physics at work.
You have to admit, for people who used to live among their shit, that now we are worried about the contamination when we flush it, I guess thats progress.
It does raise the important question - Does fecal matter?
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It does raise the important question - Does fecal matter?
Only if urine the way when it splatters. lol
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It does raise the important question - Does fecal matter?
Only if urine the way when it splatters. lol
Well played sir, well played indeed - you get a cymbal crash!
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Re:A piss poor science experiment (Score:5, Informative)
Wall contamination was minimal, regardless of lid position, and there was no significant difference in contamination level between the surfaces assessed,
It's not the tooth brush position but it probably means your toothbrush is safe. Granted you don't breath your shit with a closed lid. They do have a toothbrush with a laser in their setup as seen in the video (you can see some particles flying near it in the open lid experiment) but I didn't see any mention in the paper unfortunately.
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Wall contamination was minimal, regardless of lid position, and there was no significant difference in contamination level between the surfaces assessed,
It's not the tooth brush position but it probably means your toothbrush is safe. Granted you don't breath your shit with a closed lid. They do have a toothbrush with a laser in their setup as seen in the video (you can see some particles flying near it in the open lid experiment) but I didn't see any mention in the paper unfortunately.
I dunno about others, but my toothbrush gets washed before I use it. Maybe they can do a test on bounceback of the rinsewater from a washed toothbrush.
Oh hell, I'm just shitposting at this point.
Re: A piss poor science experiment (Score:2)
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No surprise there:
Conflicts of interest: Drs. Julie McKinney and M. Khalid Ijaz are engaged in R&D at Reckitt Benckiser LLC. The other authors declare no competing interests.
Funding/support: This study was funded by a grant to the University of Arizona from Reckitt Benckiser.
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I was more concerned of the lack of first disinfecting the surrounding surfaces. How do they know when the contamination occurred there? Maybe a bad write-up.
Also the result of the home test, with cistern, has no info on the result. Maybe the pressure of the water has a bearing on the result? I don't want to be that guy (or do I?) but did the people doing this experiment have a vested interested in the results they present, I could bet a dollar or two on that they were male.
But on the other hand if the resu
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Come on, have you not heard of gender equality? I for one defend the rights of women everywhere to pee with the toilet set up just like a man, should they so wish!
I learned very quickly in marriage that if she gets up in the middle of the night, and sits down right on the porcelain, she will come into contact with the water in the toilet, and you will hear about it for weeks. Can't say I blame them.
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Absolutely.
Now I assumed this article was of the lid, and furthermore just assume that everyone has the lid up when doing their toilet business. I may be wrong on both counts since I didn't bother to click on to the original article. But that doesn't make this article less unhelpful. (double negations, sweet double negations.)
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Why do so many countries combine the toilet, shower/bath, and wash basin into one room?
In some places, like Japan, it's normal to have them in separate rooms. It doesn't take up much more space, you only need a thin wall and an extra door.
Then again, our toilets are extremely primitive, basically unchanged since Victorian times, save for dual flush. Rimless models are starting to make some headway, but we still rely mostly on paper for cleaning ourselves. It's not like we don't know there is a better way, w
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It's not like we don't know there is a better way, washlets exist and many people have seen them, you can even buy primitive versions on Amazon...
After the great toilet paper shortage of 2020 I bought one of those add on bidets from Amazon. It takes some getting used to at first, but now I find using paper only to be kind of sketchy and would never go back.
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Women: put the seat down!
Men: put the lid down!
Women: we did a study that proves that lids are the same as air!
That's all that needs to be said.
How embarrassing for the scientific method.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
tl;dr - "Fecal coliforms were indeed found on all the test brushes, including the control ones, but none at a level high enough to be dangerous."
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Huh, do you really spend time thinking about this concern? While I'll admit the idea of a few fecal particles on my tooth brush is unappetizing there's little bits of shit on everything in this world.https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/is-there-really-poo-everywhere (and that article isn't even discussing insect and animal effects waste). Just give the toothbrush a little rinse under hot water before brushing and have at it. It's not as if there's ever been an epidemic of people getting sick from toilet ba
The important thing (Score:3)
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This particular study didn't seem to ask the question of whether or not the 'contamination' actually matters. Does it hurt or does it help? I for one like having an immune system and living in a bacteria free house is not going to help.
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This particular study didn't seem to ask the question of whether or not the 'contamination' actually matters. Does it hurt or does it help? I for one like having an immune system and living in a bacteria free house is not going to help.
Very good question!
I remember in the 70's and early 80's it was common practice to have carpets with a special cut-out shape to fit the toilet base and sometimes even synthetic fur on the outside of the lid. This was obviously a trap for bacteria and particles. Another time with other rules.
I feel no nostalgia for this overuse of carpeting in the wrong places, but fact is that we had no worse health, maybe even better health than nowadays. Possibly related to sane exposure to bacteria overall.
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All the carpeted toilet seat does is delay the time it takes for a guy to realize he's peeing on a shut toilet seat - Al Bundy
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We spent millions
No one spent millions on this. Budgets for these kinds of experiments range in the thousands. But really? Just after a pandemic where we discovered how poor our bacterial dispersion modelling is and how little understanding we have of it, you think researching such things is a waste of time?
I think we should do a study correlating the ignorance of Slashdot users with how high their UID is. You are an already damning datapoint.
Stay in school kid, when you do your BS thesis you may just find the value of doin
Re: The important thing (Score:2)
After you've had to use these.... (Score:2)
It doesn't really matter.
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I love these images, it's a good test case for your content-aware fill tool/inpainting method of choice.
Reduced bigger drops still? (Score:2)
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If you have "bigger drops" coming out when you flush, you should talk to your plumber. That is not supposed to happen at all.
Re:Reduced bigger drops still? (Score:4, Funny)
I always wonder the ceiling is wet after I flush.
No shit, Sherlock (Score:2)
hipsters say lid down (Score:2)
https://www.medicaldaily.com/y... [medicaldaily.com]
Finally an important study. Seriously. (Score:1)
Use the half-flush button* (Score:2)
* On cisterns that have this feature
Somebody is aiming for an Ig Nobel Prize. (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
What does make a difference (Score:3)
Measured by the smell that can linger afterwards it makes a big difference if you flush instantly after you dropped a big one and another time after sending all the paper after it, compared to only flushing once at the end.
Just looking at what actually makes a difference here. Putting a flamethrower on the whole room is such a drag.
That is surprising (Score:2)
Plume (Score:3)
Disinfectant dispenser? (Score:2)
No Shit Sherlock (Score:4, Funny)
I had to say it. Sorry, I'll see myself out.
How about vacuum toilets? (Score:2)
Change the design of the siphon to add only enough water, and make the flush handle activate a suction pump.
This way you are not having bowl full of water to splash and swirl.
say what???? (Score:2)
I wonder how much this study cost the taxpayers. More tax dollars flush down the drain.
Will no one think about the Toilet? (Score:2)
It maters to the Toilet, will no one think about the toilet? #ToiletsMatter
just flush (Score:2)
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Maybe just a metal grate to allow material to sluice through...
Re: time to work on a new solution I think (Score:2)
My ring that I swallowed! :-)
Re: time to work on a new solution I think (Score:3)
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Maybe they have a policy against posting stuff that has nothing to do with the topic?
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I live in a place where one may see one's fellow citizen armed with a firearm, just walking about. In my opinion, should it ever get so bad that I actually need a firearm on my person daily, well, then I will be moving somewhere safer.