Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tex Stuff from Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to Tech Stuff. I'm Jonathan Sickland and joining
Speaker 1: me in the studio, a true celebrity man among men.
Speaker 1: Josh Clark stuff, you should know. I want to apologize
Speaker 1: in advance. I'm not feeling very charming today. It's okay, Josh,
Speaker 1: It's all right. I mean because Josh at A three
Speaker 1: is like normal human, like an eight point oh go on.
Speaker 1: That was nice. I gave Josh, of course, the opportunity
Speaker 1: to pick a topic for, you know, something that we
Speaker 1: could cover here on tech Stuff, and we were just
Speaker 1: kind of bandying about ideas and you actually keep up
Speaker 1: with one of the most basic pieces of technology that
Speaker 1: we're all familiar with, we've all used, but I have
Speaker 1: somehow never covered it in the near seven hundred episodes
Speaker 1: of Tech Stuff. I'll bet you've covered them before. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: just not on the show. Uh six episodes. This is
Speaker 1: episode I feel very honored to be on this one.
Speaker 1: So yeah, congratulations, thank you, thank you. Yeah. So we
Speaker 1: are talking a mount toilets today. Yeah, it's gonna be uh,
Speaker 1: this episode is going to be flush with puns. Man,
Speaker 1: I can't take this alright, and I know it's bad already, right,
Speaker 1: so before I really get into that, you know, there
Speaker 1: will obviously be some levity in this, but this is
Speaker 1: actually a very serious topic. And to kind of illustrate that,
Speaker 1: I wanted to mention something else. Now this is this
Speaker 1: is half a year away from us, but November nineteen
Speaker 1: is World Toilet Day, which at first sounds kind of comedic, right,
Speaker 1: I think it's hilarious. It sounds funny. It's it's an
Speaker 1: event hosted by the World Toilet Organization. Still sounds at
Speaker 1: first when you think about it, because I mean, toilet
Speaker 1: humor has become like a real it's a real industry
Speaker 1: into itself. But this is not about humor. It's actually
Speaker 1: the purpose of the day, and the purpose of the
Speaker 1: organization is to help provide support for getting proper sanitation
Speaker 1: to the world's population. According to that organization, of the
Speaker 1: world's population still practices open defecation. That's a billion people.
Speaker 1: I mean, I knew a lot of people, did I
Speaker 1: didn't realize it was that high a percentage. Now I
Speaker 1: saw a figure back in I think two thousand nine
Speaker 1: that was two point five billion people. So clearly we've
Speaker 1: made some great strides in in raising sanitation levels, but
Speaker 1: there's still so much work to be done. And I
Speaker 1: mean this is obviously something that we have to be
Speaker 1: concerned with because it can lead to you know, pandemics
Speaker 1: or at least a really bad outbreak of disease, not
Speaker 1: to mention just unpleasant living condition. Well, you know what's
Speaker 1: funny is um. I think part of it also is
Speaker 1: not just that people practice open defecation, but that the
Speaker 1: a lot of them don't have access to sanitary drinking
Speaker 1: water as a result of their of their waste disposal. UM.
Speaker 1: But I have there are places, especially in um parts
Speaker 1: of rural India, where open defecation is practiced where the
Speaker 1: people are like you can put toilets in here all
Speaker 1: day long, we're not going to use them because we
Speaker 1: find open defecation as part of like wholesome country living
Speaker 1: is the way that I've seen it put like it's
Speaker 1: just part and parcel with being outside and you know,
Speaker 1: watching a squirrel run past you while you're pooping, that
Speaker 1: kind of thing, and like really taken in the whole scene.
Speaker 1: It's a cultural thing at that point. Yeah, where it
Speaker 1: goes beyond, it goes beyond, like it's it's not necessarily
Speaker 1: just the lack of facilities. This has become a way
Speaker 1: of life. I could understand that. I mean, I know
Speaker 1: there was even some reluctance in Japan to go from
Speaker 1: the UH the more trough like toilets that they used to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's much smaller percentage of the toilets in Japan
Speaker 1: are those, but they still do exist. But there was
Speaker 1: a large UH hesitate to use the word, movement trend
Speaker 1: to going toward more Western style toilets over the last
Speaker 1: couple of years. I know, I'm sorry, it's gonna happen.
Speaker 1: Chris Palette is only here in spirit, but he is here.
Speaker 1: You're channeling him pretty hard. Yeah, so let's go with
Speaker 1: a little history lesson before we get into how toilets
Speaker 1: actually work. Now, if you're looking for the earliest evidence
Speaker 1: of organized waste management systems, you look at Mesopotamia, which
Speaker 1: makes sense because that's where the original civilizations were. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's also a great Bifo song, But this would be
Speaker 1: back at the c E around approximately around that era,
Speaker 1: when you would see these organized systems for waste management.
Speaker 1: One thing I thought was really interesting was I watched
Speaker 1: a documentary about a Neolithic village that was on the
Speaker 1: Orkney Islands, uh in Scotland. Um, we call it scare Bray.
Speaker 1: That's the name we've given it. Because any actual records
Speaker 1: of this village haven't existed for more than a couple
Speaker 1: of thousand years. This village was forgotten. No one knew
Speaker 1: it was even there until there was a major storm
Speaker 1: that washed away some of the land that had grown
Speaker 1: up built up around on top of the village. Is amazing.
Speaker 1: Right when it was discovered, you immediately had a and uh,
Speaker 1: there was an expedition, let's say, to uncover the village,
Speaker 1: but it was not led by anyone who's ever been
Speaker 1: actually identified. In other words, it was treasure hunters. I
Speaker 1: didn't probably didn't find anything really of value there. There
Speaker 1: was certainly no you know, hordes of gold and diamonds
Speaker 1: and jewels there. Uh. And it wouldn't be until the
Speaker 1: nineteen thirties that a more or an eye archaeological dig
Speaker 1: would take place. And after that there was another storm
Speaker 1: and they had to actually shore up the area to
Speaker 1: protect it as an archaeological site. And what they found
Speaker 1: was that this tiny village, which dates to around three
Speaker 1: thousand BC, in Scotland had these homes that were very sophisticated.
Speaker 1: You would walk in there'd be a large bed on
Speaker 1: the right hand side, a smaller bed on the left,
Speaker 1: which mirrors regular practices of the time where the husband
Speaker 1: and wife. The husband would have the larger of two beds.
Speaker 1: They had a fire pit hearth, but they also had
Speaker 1: a essentially a toilet. They had a stone cabinet with
Speaker 1: a hole cut so that you could sit down on it,
Speaker 1: with channels that lead out to the ocean, and ocean
Speaker 1: water with the tides would actually flush this. So these
Speaker 1: were flushing toilets. They weren't manual flush title flush, so
Speaker 1: you had to wait, hey it's still flushed. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the important point in this took the waste away, right Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so all the way back to three thousand BC. Uh,
Speaker 1: the actual the whole area of scare breaks fascinating, So
Speaker 1: definitely look into that a get a chance. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've seen him before. I've seen just the settlement pictures
Speaker 1: of the settlement. It is pretty advanced. You don't think
Speaker 1: of the Orkney Islands and three thousand b C. Is
Speaker 1: you know, the seed of civilization technology. But yeah, they
Speaker 1: had something going on. It's pretty surprising, yeah, because I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, when I think of of society civilization in
Speaker 1: the British Islands, I'm thinking closer to the Roman times.
Speaker 1: But it's pretty amazing how sophisticated was even back then. Uh.
Speaker 1: Ancient Greeks also they used sewage systems to channel waste
Speaker 1: away from living quarters. The Romans went even further. They
Speaker 1: would have these, especially if you were a very wealthy
Speaker 1: or powerful Roman, you might have a pretty styling you know, bathroom,
Speaker 1: heated seats, heated marble seats, um. And it maybe private
Speaker 1: from what I understood, but for the most part, public
Speaker 1: bathrooms really took the public thing to the nth degree,
Speaker 1: where it was just like basically a long bench with
Speaker 1: different cutouts, you know, space not very far apart frankly, um,
Speaker 1: and you'd have maybe eight or ten, maybe fifteen. I
Speaker 1: saw there was a public restroom in Syria UM that
Speaker 1: I think was contemporaneous to to Greece UM that sat
Speaker 1: like eighty and there's no partitions, there's no nothing, And
Speaker 1: it seemed to be um kind of a social endeavor
Speaker 1: where like you just sit there and chat with somebody
Speaker 1: while you're pooping. Yeah, it's kind of funny to think
Speaker 1: about how it was this communal social activity, or at
Speaker 1: least it wasn't separated from any of the communal and
Speaker 1: social activities, whereas today we have all these unspoken rules
Speaker 1: of of you know, no talking in the bathroom, you
Speaker 1: keep your dirty behavior to yourself. Yeah, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you've ever seen it. There's actually if I'm a
Speaker 1: Shinama cartoon using them. I think it's the sims where
Speaker 1: it's to illustrate the rules in the men's restroom, and
Speaker 1: rule number one is if there's a line of urinals,
Speaker 1: you take one on either end. It doesn't matter which end,
Speaker 1: just it has to be on the end the next
Speaker 1: person and has to take the one on the furthest end.
Speaker 1: And then as long as there's at least one empty
Speaker 1: one separating you and the next person, you can take one.
Speaker 1: But if there isn't, you gotta leave. Like like there's
Speaker 1: it was this crazy series of but it was a
Speaker 1: series of rules where and then the comedy came from
Speaker 1: the fact that you're like, this is kind of how
Speaker 1: guys behave in the bathroom. For me, it's the cardinal
Speaker 1: rule is if there's two two stalls, um and the
Speaker 1: doors shut on one then both are occupied by by default.
Speaker 1: That must make it difficult here in this office because
Speaker 1: the bathrooms go uh floor to ceiling with the doors
Speaker 1: and they're shut all the time. So that's that's different
Speaker 1: like that these bathrooms are prime real estate in my opinion.
Speaker 1: But if you remember in the last place where House
Speaker 1: the First was headquartered, it was you know, just a
Speaker 1: partition and you can see feet and everything. And it's
Speaker 1: that's just to me, like we we really have advanced
Speaker 1: to the point where you know, it is a private
Speaker 1: act and um, it's not to be shared. It's not public.
Speaker 1: We're not in ancient Greece any longer. Um. And so
Speaker 1: if somebody's in install, you don't sit down next to him.
Speaker 1: I just I really feel strongly about that. I can understand.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because when we get into advanced toilets
Speaker 1: like the Japanese toilets, they take that to the next
Speaker 1: level to create another another uh level of privacy for that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty neat. Like you swipe your hand in front
Speaker 1: of a sensor and it takes you to the seventh dimension,
Speaker 1: completely out of reach of anybody. Here, it's you and
Speaker 1: Buckeru Banza and that's it. Yeah, I think he is,
Speaker 1: or the tenth. It's one of those. Yeah. So one
Speaker 1: of the other things we can talk about before we
Speaker 1: move into the earliest flush toilet is that when you're
Speaker 1: looking at say Europe in the Middle Ages, all the
Speaker 1: way up into the Renaissance. Uh, you're talking about especially like,
Speaker 1: you know, think about castles frequently. I do, I really
Speaker 1: do frequently think about castles. Um. Their facilities were pretty primitive.
Speaker 1: It was essentially a hole cut into the you know,
Speaker 1: like a like a stone seat sometimes with a wooden
Speaker 1: panel on top of it. Uh. That then had a
Speaker 1: channel that that slanted away from the wall, and you're
Speaker 1: waste would drop down either into a cesspit, a moat, moat,
Speaker 1: sometimes just the ground. On the invading armies, that is
Speaker 1: also a possibility. And these were called garter robes. And
Speaker 1: they were also closets. They weren't just bathrooms, they were closets.
Speaker 1: He would hang your clothing. Why because the ammonia from
Speaker 1: your urine would kill fleas. Oh wow, that is very
Speaker 1: surprisingly clever. It's not scar a break clever, but it's
Speaker 1: up there. So if you're wondering when the first flush
Speaker 1: toilet comes along. It's actually a lot earlier than I
Speaker 1: had anticipated. It's weird. I don't know how I never
Speaker 1: came across this fact before. And it's one that, by
Speaker 1: the way, a lot of people in our office. No,
Speaker 1: it comes from fift nineties six John Harrington. Yes, he
Speaker 1: was a cousin. I think of um Elizabeth the first Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was her godson. Okay, that's what it was. And
Speaker 1: he designed this flushing toilet or prototype of a flushing
Speaker 1: toilet for her. Yeah, and she probably didn't use it
Speaker 1: very much. She didn't admit to it. She was a
Speaker 1: queen and technically, when you're queen you can pretty much
Speaker 1: poop wherever you like. Someone's going to take care of it.
Speaker 1: But he called it the ajax. No, here's the thing.
Speaker 1: John Harrington was a rake. Yeah, he was like, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of like he was known for passing around lewd
Speaker 1: poetry to the ladies of the court. He loved too.
Speaker 1: He was very clever and he loved being clever and
Speaker 1: so lewd poetry. Flushing toilets, well, he called it the
Speaker 1: ajax as a pun. It's a pun on the term
Speaker 1: Jake's which is a euphemism for toilet. It's like the John.
Speaker 1: It's Jake's, So a Jax is a pun on Jake's.
Speaker 1: And it had a pan into which one would do
Speaker 1: one's business and assist turn that you could pump water
Speaker 1: up into, and then a handle and when you pulled
Speaker 1: the handle, it opened up a valve that allowed the
Speaker 1: water from the cistern to come down and wash away
Speaker 1: what was in the pan down through a channel that
Speaker 1: would go out to assess pool onto an invading army
Speaker 1: or onto an invading army, as the case may be.
Speaker 1: As far as I know, he only built two. I
Speaker 1: think he built one for the queen and one for himself.
Speaker 1: Uh So it was an interesting idea, did not catch
Speaker 1: on at the time. Uh it really just showed his
Speaker 1: inventiveness to to look at the next approach to the
Speaker 1: flushing toilet. You have to go ahead by almost two
Speaker 1: years Alexander Cummings exactly, and he he invented something that
Speaker 1: ended up being very important for the flushing toilet, the
Speaker 1: s trap. Yeah, so much so that it's still basically
Speaker 1: the design of toilets today. Yeah. Now, this is the
Speaker 1: pipes that you see that lead out from your toilet,
Speaker 1: and it's called an S trap because it's in that
Speaker 1: S shape, right, yeah, or some people consider it an
Speaker 1: upside down you or something like that. It all depends
Speaker 1: on one how much of it you can see and
Speaker 1: to exactly what implementation it is. But yeah, the U
Speaker 1: trap is another way of looking at an upside on you.
Speaker 1: Uh So the important thing about this was that it
Speaker 1: would allow uh it would well trap water once it
Speaker 1: had gone down the pipe from coming back up, and
Speaker 1: it would also thus trap the smell, yes, which is
Speaker 1: very important with sewers, because if you're taking a piece
Speaker 1: of technology and connecting it to an open sewer, yeah,
Speaker 1: the smell is gonna be something. Yeah, it's gonna be
Speaker 1: how to take care of that? And he did with
Speaker 1: the S trap, Yeah, And it was really a brilliant ideas,
Speaker 1: so much so strickling that like three two years later,
Speaker 1: two fifty years later, Um, we're still using this guy's designing.
Speaker 1: It is not been improved upon in two d and
Speaker 1: fifty years right there. There are a couple of other
Speaker 1: variations on it, but it has the basic design is
Speaker 1: still what we rely upon because it works, has no
Speaker 1: moving parts for just that that pipe, so it can't
Speaker 1: break down in that sense I could still get clogged.
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll talk a bit about clogs later. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you know you gotta talk about it. I didn't. I
Speaker 1: did not know we were going to talk about clogs. Well,
Speaker 1: I apologize. If you want, you can check out for
Speaker 1: that part of the ill go to my happy place.
Speaker 1: That's good. Yeah, we'll just watch you kind of stare
Speaker 1: space um. But it also he also invented a sliding
Speaker 1: valve between the bowl and the trap, which allowed some
Speaker 1: water to stay in the bowl after you flushed, so
Speaker 1: that it could hold on to the waist for the
Speaker 1: next time. And so you didn't just have just an
Speaker 1: empty bowl of waste and then put water into it.
Speaker 1: It was you know, it actually improved the warm It's
Speaker 1: quite a bit. And you had a lot of other
Speaker 1: inventors who followed, like Samuel Prosser, Joseph Brama, Thomas Twyford.
Speaker 1: They all made improvements to the basic design of the toilet,
Speaker 1: but not a Mr. Crapper. You know, I was gonna
Speaker 1: save that. But yeah, let's talk about Thomas Crapper here
Speaker 1: for a second. But before we get into that, let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break to thank our sponsor. Okay, so
Speaker 1: you may have heard the somewhat apocryphal tale that the
Speaker 1: toilet was invented by a man named Thomas Crapper. Enough, yeah,
Speaker 1: one of those ha ha, Isn't it ironic? Don't you
Speaker 1: think Alanis morrisse at moments? You know it might be.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like rain on your wedding day. It's
Speaker 1: like Thomas Crapper making a toilet, and I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: that's the way it goes. Um. Thomas Crapper, as far
Speaker 1: as we can tell, was actually a person. There are
Speaker 1: records of a Thomas Crapper Whold who held patents in
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century and their plumbing patents, and some of
Speaker 1: them fact involved improvements to the water closet or toilet.
Speaker 1: But he didn't invent it um, and he may not
Speaker 1: have had that big of an impact overall on the
Speaker 1: toilet evolution. It's just one of those facts that kind
Speaker 1: of got passed around, as you know, or one of
Speaker 1: those those tidbits agains passed around. The total truth. Plus
Speaker 1: he pronounced his name, it's crepe Um. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It's one of those things where I actually looked into
Speaker 1: it too, because I was like, well, I've always heard
Speaker 1: that as well. And I'm curious where that came out. Well,
Speaker 1: yeah it is. It's got it has traction because it's
Speaker 1: just so delightful. Yeah yeah. Uh. Going back to mid
Speaker 1: eighty eight in the UK, that's when they passed the
Speaker 1: Public Health Act, which stated that all new houses in
Speaker 1: the UK had to be built with a toilet. Very smart. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a great way of preserving your your various towns
Speaker 1: and ease from becoming overrun with filth. Right. But and
Speaker 1: this is still um in play today. There's a certain
Speaker 1: psychology around defecation, urination, expelling waste, right, and it can
Speaker 1: swing wildly from era to era. But at that time,
Speaker 1: in the mid nineteenth century, forcing the public to install
Speaker 1: indoor plumbing wasn't like the public was saying, yes, thank
Speaker 1: you government, we've been waiting to have to do this.
Speaker 1: It was more like, um, wait, you want us to
Speaker 1: put a toilet where next to the kitchen? What is
Speaker 1: wrong with you? No, that's disgusting. We want to put
Speaker 1: this over in the back garden where you know, chimberpot.
Speaker 1: It's mobile that we can put wherever and get rid
Speaker 1: of immediately, Like this is gross, Like you want us
Speaker 1: to hook it up to the sewer. What's wrong with you?
Speaker 1: So there was like a certain um amount of resistance
Speaker 1: to adopting this, whereas now, um, you know, it's yeah,
Speaker 1: you want that, you want indoor plumbing, and it's based
Speaker 1: on the cultural attitudes towards expelling waste that that vary
Speaker 1: from time to time. Yeah, it's it's it's hard. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's very easy for us to start looking at everything
Speaker 1: from our current perspective, right, It's very difficult to take
Speaker 1: ourselves out of that. But you do have to do
Speaker 1: that when you start talking about subjects like this, because
Speaker 1: it was a different world. I mean, people thought differently
Speaker 1: and for for reasons that you can kind of understand
Speaker 1: when you think about it. And you know, if you think, well,
Speaker 1: now I've got a thing that dumps waste into a sewer,
Speaker 1: but I don't want any of that smell or nastiness
Speaker 1: or anything to get into my home. When before I
Speaker 1: had a portable thing, I could actually take it outside
Speaker 1: and dump it in a cess pool or whatever. It
Speaker 1: wasn't there wasn't a big change. Plus plus, it's like
Speaker 1: that's my poop. Yeah it's poop, but it's I know
Speaker 1: where that poop came from. Whereas with the sewer, everybody
Speaker 1: else's poop has the opportunity come into your house. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which you don't know, you didn't want. Another interesting point
Speaker 1: is I've been talking exclusively about people inventors and engineers
Speaker 1: in the UK. Now, when settlers came over to America,
Speaker 1: they did not come over with plans for toilets, and
Speaker 1: so the toilet actually had a parallel evolution in the
Speaker 1: UK and in the United States in isolation basically a
Speaker 1: little bit, yes, with with a little bit. I mean,
Speaker 1: they obviously had some common history there, but it was
Speaker 1: largely engineers in the US who created very similar style toilets.
Speaker 1: In some cases, they were toilets that were lagging behind
Speaker 1: the technology by about twenty years compared to the UK.
Speaker 1: But you had folks like James T. Henry and William
Speaker 1: Campbell who were awarded a U S patent for a
Speaker 1: water closet toilet um. And that's where we really see
Speaker 1: it moving forward from that point on and to the
Speaker 1: point where the essentially merged like the the You know
Speaker 1: that we saw the United States adopt things like the
Speaker 1: s trap, making the toilets more useful. Do you know
Speaker 1: when toilet paper was invented. Toilet paper was invented in
Speaker 1: ninety eight. I predate ninety and I distinctly remember toilet paper.
Speaker 1: You were off by almost a hundred years when toilet
Speaker 1: paper was invented, didn't They used to use a series
Speaker 1: robot catalog corn Cob. There's actually some poetry that I've
Speaker 1: read where there's a discussion a giant. I forget what
Speaker 1: poem it is, but there's a giant talking about all
Speaker 1: the different things he has used to clean himself after
Speaker 1: after evacuation, including I think he determined that the most
Speaker 1: comfortable was the neck of a goose. Yeah, I can
Speaker 1: tell you not not for the goose, but yeah, uh so. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The toilet paper was in but not marketed heavily until
Speaker 1: nineteen two, so for more than a decade. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: just kind of I was like, well, I mean, why
Speaker 1: we got the series robot catalog Cobs? How do you
Speaker 1: look around your house and say, oh, yeah, corn Cobs,
Speaker 1: that's that's a good idea idea. Yeah, sure it's got traction,
Speaker 1: but pay a price for that track. Yeah, I I
Speaker 1: hesitate to hazard a guess. To be honest, I go idea,
Speaker 1: I'll try to have some geese at home. All right, okay, well,
Speaker 1: i'd like to apologize on behalf of Josh's I'd like
Speaker 1: to send to you my apologies for giving him the idea.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about how a toilet actually works. Okay, alright,
Speaker 1: So you got your basic parts of the toilet. You've
Speaker 1: got the tank, You've got the bowl in which you
Speaker 1: do your business, and then you have the lifen the
Speaker 1: s trap area that where the waist goes once you flush,
Speaker 1: which is technically part of the bowl. Yeah. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just it's easier to talk about it as separate parts.
Speaker 1: But yes, you aren't correct. So inside the tank you
Speaker 1: have the flush valve. This is the valve that allows
Speaker 1: water to flow out of the tank and into the bowl. Yes.
Speaker 1: So when you press down the handle, yeah, there's that
Speaker 1: handle is connected by chain to that flush valve. That's
Speaker 1: the thing that lifts up and lets the water from
Speaker 1: the tank into the bowl. Yeah. And once the water
Speaker 1: is flowing down, like for most toilets, you no longer
Speaker 1: have to hold the handle down because just the water itself.
Speaker 1: Once the valve is an open position, it will remain
Speaker 1: open until the water level is low enough for it
Speaker 1: to close. Again. Yeah, they make it so it's light
Speaker 1: enough to float. Yeah, right, because it's overcome suction things
Speaker 1: to the handle um and it's floating there, and then
Speaker 1: as the water drains out, its ability to float stop,
Speaker 1: so it falls back into place ideally ideally. Yeah. There
Speaker 1: are times obviously, if you have issues where maybe there's
Speaker 1: a hinge that's a little too tight, or there's something
Speaker 1: off with the seila of on the the valve, that
Speaker 1: you may have to have that replaced, because otherwise water
Speaker 1: just continuously flows into the bowl and it never accumulates
Speaker 1: in the tank. I found that most of the time
Speaker 1: it's because there's a little bit of extra chain that's
Speaker 1: keeping the flush valve from sitting in suction from from uh.
Speaker 1: You you also have a second valve inside the tank,
Speaker 1: the filler valve. The filler valve is what allows water
Speaker 1: to go into the tank as well as into the
Speaker 1: bowl after a flush, so uh, it needs to it
Speaker 1: refills the tank after you flushed it. So you flushed
Speaker 1: the tank, the water from the filler valve will start
Speaker 1: to pour into the tank to refill it. Once that
Speaker 1: that flush valve has shut uh, some of that water
Speaker 1: also will go into the bowl. To bring the level
Speaker 1: back up to the proper height, and then you've got
Speaker 1: a filler float. This is a pretty us. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is a brilliant idea. The idea is that the filler
Speaker 1: float will rise to a certain level within the tank,
Speaker 1: and once it's at the proper level, it will activate
Speaker 1: a switch then turns off the filler valve. So so
Speaker 1: that way you no longer have water running in your tank.
Speaker 1: If you ever hear water continuously running in your tank,
Speaker 1: it means that float is not activating the switch properly,
Speaker 1: and you may need to take the lid off and
Speaker 1: see what's going on with that float. Maybe it's stuck
Speaker 1: on something, or it's you know, it's it's the switch
Speaker 1: might be burnt out, in which case you would need
Speaker 1: to have that switch replaced. But that's what's causing that
Speaker 1: or this Again, the flush valve could be not seated
Speaker 1: popular in waters just rushing out. So that's true. Filler
Speaker 1: valve balloon isn't getting to that level where it's supposed
Speaker 1: to where it can trip the filler valve from turning
Speaker 1: off again, right exactly. Yeah, that could be another another
Speaker 1: cause for it. But you don't have to fear because
Speaker 1: even if the water is running, You're toilet will very
Speaker 1: likely not overflow because it's been designed so that as
Speaker 1: the tank fills, even if it keeps filling and filling
Speaker 1: and filling, it's going to the overflow um tube, I guess,
Speaker 1: is going to direct that into the bowl. Right, So
Speaker 1: any water that comes above the height of the overflow
Speaker 1: tube will just flow down the tube. The tube leads
Speaker 1: to the bowl, and water will flow into the bowl.
Speaker 1: And then you think, wait, wait, wait that cause it
Speaker 1: the flush. Yes, surely somewhere this thing's got to flood.
Speaker 1: What's the deal? Why doesn't it all right? That's when
Speaker 1: we get into the siphon where my head pops. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is the siphon gets a little for those who
Speaker 1: those of us who are many years away from basic physics,
Speaker 1: the scipen gets confusing. So the siphon is designed so
Speaker 1: this is that that sort of upside down you or
Speaker 1: the s shaped pipe the top of that upside down
Speaker 1: you the peak there that's at the same level as
Speaker 1: what the toilet bowl, the level watering your toilet bowl
Speaker 1: will be. Now, if you were to pour more water
Speaker 1: into the toilet bowl, because there's there's just this open
Speaker 1: area between the siphon and the bowl. You know, putting
Speaker 1: more water in makes the water level rise on both sides, right,
Speaker 1: But if you're only putting in a little bit of water,
Speaker 1: that water will just rise up above the level of
Speaker 1: the bend and flow down the other side of the bend. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and I should I want to point out that, um,
Speaker 1: this is your explanation is spot on, but would be
Speaker 1: exponentially easier if somebody were looking at a cross section
Speaker 1: of a toilet flushing s valve right exactly. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it would really drive at home, Yeah, because it's it's
Speaker 1: this is me trying to paint a picture of a
Speaker 1: toilet flush in words, yea, with physics. Yeah, so you've
Speaker 1: got you've got this this level here, and as long
Speaker 1: as the water is just flowing gently so for in
Speaker 1: other words, like a steady stream from the overflow too,
Speaker 1: then it's just going to gradually rise up til it
Speaker 1: hits above that you bend, and then flow down the
Speaker 1: other side. And that's all that happens, because it's not
Speaker 1: it's not creating the siphon effect yet. Yes, So the
Speaker 1: water is in that in that s trap and in
Speaker 1: your toilet bowl and on the other side of the
Speaker 1: siphon in the tube that leads down to the sewer,
Speaker 1: that that air is imbalanced with the air that's in
Speaker 1: the toilet bowl. Right, So you basically have air pressure
Speaker 1: balancing your water and keeping it in place. Yep, yep.
Speaker 1: And it's only if you were to fill that siphon
Speaker 1: that s trap with water completely that that then things
Speaker 1: get out of balance. And here's where the siphon affect
Speaker 1: comes into play. So how does a siphon work? Alright?
Speaker 1: First of all, siphons a bent tube used to move
Speaker 1: a liquid from a high evolution elevation rather over an
Speaker 1: obstruction and to a lower elevation. Done and done right.
Speaker 1: You could do this very easily by taking two cups,
Speaker 1: filling one cup with water, putting a couple of books
Speaker 1: down on a table. So you put the cupful of
Speaker 1: water on top of one of the set of books.
Speaker 1: Get a tube, like a flexible tube of some sort,
Speaker 1: submerge it in the water so that the tube fills
Speaker 1: with water. Put your thumb over one end of it,
Speaker 1: move it over to the other cup, which is on
Speaker 1: the surface of the table. Yeah, make sure that the
Speaker 1: make sure that the end of the tube that you're
Speaker 1: holding ends up being lower than the level of water
Speaker 1: in the cup. Let go. Water will start to flow
Speaker 1: from the cup that's above to the cup that's blow
Speaker 1: even though the tube will arc so the water is
Speaker 1: technically flowing uphill. Yeah, which is pretty neat. Yeah. As
Speaker 1: long as the lower end of the tube going into
Speaker 1: the lower elevation glass um, as long as that is
Speaker 1: exposed to air, and as long as the end of
Speaker 1: the tube that's in the higher glass is under water,
Speaker 1: the air pressure in the tube is overcome and the
Speaker 1: suction effect takes place right well kind of except the
Speaker 1: other the tube in the lower elevation does not have
Speaker 1: to be above water can be. It can actually be
Speaker 1: completely submerged as well. As long what will happen is
Speaker 1: if the two water levels reach the same height, uh
Speaker 1: and I mean same height relative to the table, then
Speaker 1: pressure is equalized and everything will everything is an equilibrium
Speaker 1: and water will stop to float. It's but as long
Speaker 1: as the elevated cup has a higher water level, water
Speaker 1: will continue to flow through that siphon. And the reason
Speaker 1: there are two reasons really. One is that water inside
Speaker 1: a chamber like that acts like a chain. It pulls
Speaker 1: itself along The other reason is that you have I
Speaker 1: think of the tube as an arc. Well, the tube
Speaker 1: that leads down to the lower elevation is longer. That
Speaker 1: side is longer than the side that's in the higher elevation,
Speaker 1: So the water that's in that part is heavier, and
Speaker 1: that weight is what's pulling water are along inside the
Speaker 1: tube and it's until until you hit equilibrium. So for
Speaker 1: a toilet to get it back to to the toilet example,
Speaker 1: and why it's important when you flush that water from
Speaker 1: the tank rushes into the bowl and it does so
Speaker 1: fast enough to completely fill the pipe that s trap.
Speaker 1: This activates the siphon effect, and the water pulls the
Speaker 1: waist and also all the rest of the water along
Speaker 1: with it through that s trap until it gets to
Speaker 1: a point where it has exhausted the amount of water
Speaker 1: that the tank has put into the bowl. And then
Speaker 1: air is introduced. And once air is introduced, the siphon
Speaker 1: effect stops right. So with a siphon, not only is
Speaker 1: the water flowing out of the bowl because there's so
Speaker 1: much water, what about two or so gallons introduced to
Speaker 1: your toilet bowl in about three seconds that that siphon
Speaker 1: effect is produced in the s trap. Right, Not only
Speaker 1: is that water flowing, it produces a type of suction,
Speaker 1: so the water in the bowl is sucked out and
Speaker 1: down the siphon. And then, yes, like you said, once
Speaker 1: the air is introduced, because the water and everything sucked
Speaker 1: out of the toilet bowl, the suction effect is cut
Speaker 1: off and everything goes back to the way it was
Speaker 1: before you flush the top. Right, That's when the filler
Speaker 1: valve can start to refill the bowl because now that
Speaker 1: there's no longer any more suction going on, the bowl
Speaker 1: water level can return back to what it was as well.
Speaker 1: And keep in mind that part of the s trap
Speaker 1: that you know you can't see because it's a solid pipe,
Speaker 1: but that also ends up filling to that same height
Speaker 1: as the water that's in the bowl. And then you're
Speaker 1: ready to go again once the tank its bowl anyway,
Speaker 1: once you eat some kimchi. We talked about that before
Speaker 1: the podcast started. Um, but yeah, one other thing to
Speaker 1: keep in mind. You might say, well, why do we
Speaker 1: need a tank at all? Why not just have a
Speaker 1: water pipe going directly into the toilet and then when
Speaker 1: you flush, it just opens up a valve for a
Speaker 1: certain amount of time and it closes. And the reason
Speaker 1: is because unless you have insane water pressure in your house,
Speaker 1: you're not putting enough water in fast enough to fill
Speaker 1: that s trap completely to to activate the siphon effect.
Speaker 1: It's just going to trickle out like if your tank
Speaker 1: was overflowing exactly. So there's some buildings that I mean
Speaker 1: a lot of buildings that don't have UH tanks on
Speaker 1: their on their toilets. But that's because again, they are
Speaker 1: directly connected to a very powerful water system, and thus
Speaker 1: you don't need a tank because the water pressure that's
Speaker 1: coming in is great enough to start that effect all
Speaker 1: by itself. Yeah, or sometimes it's even more terrifying noise
Speaker 1: than that. So that's your basic toilet, how your basic
Speaker 1: toilet works. But so glad we're past the siphon effect. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's I feel like we just made it through the
Speaker 1: woods together. Now now we're going to go into the bright,
Speaker 1: gorgeous future of weird toilets. This is great. So let's
Speaker 1: talk Japanese toilets for a second. And I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about the ones, the tra off ones, which we established.
Speaker 1: There are still some in Japan, and trough is one
Speaker 1: way to put it. More like UH olyptical hole in
Speaker 1: the ground is another way you could describe it as well.
Speaker 1: On the floor. Yeah yeah, so yeah, you straddle and
Speaker 1: then squat and then evacuate and then and then evacuate,
Speaker 1: evacuate the area. Like I would just be like, I
Speaker 1: don't know if I did it right, and run went
Speaker 1: down the street. Um, like I can't read your language
Speaker 1: and I'm so sorry. Just just yeah, that's kind of
Speaker 1: how I normally react. I mean, I am I'm being
Speaker 1: honest here, but no, the Japanese toilets, the the more
Speaker 1: western style ones, have features. Many of them have features
Speaker 1: on them that put our western toilets to shame, like
Speaker 1: just phenomenal. So let's talk about some of the features.
Speaker 1: That's fine toilets. Sorry, do you want? Do you have
Speaker 1: a favorite out of all of them? The air dry
Speaker 1: air dry, that's pretty amazing. I I'm big on the
Speaker 1: sound masking. Yeah, they they they offer. Most Japanese toilets
Speaker 1: that have all the bells and whistles offer a sound
Speaker 1: masking feature. That's a flushing toilet. Yeah. Some of them
Speaker 1: now have also classical music, but which makes some white noise.
Speaker 1: I actually did a brain Stuff episode about what white
Speaker 1: noises and how it works. So you should check for superiods.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's the that those are so two of
Speaker 1: the very simple ones. But it also tends to have
Speaker 1: a couple of different options for washing your nether regions
Speaker 1: once you are finished. Yes, and depending on your gender, Um,
Speaker 1: you should, I should say, depending on your sex, you
Speaker 1: should be very careful what option you choose when you're
Speaker 1: in Japan. Yeah, but they would be aimed for you know, ladies,
Speaker 1: for the men folks. And then you have ear washing,
Speaker 1: which is for you know, everyone, depending upon what activities
Speaker 1: you got up to on that bathroom. Um, and uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: so there's usually there's a picture of like a icon
Speaker 1: that looks kind of like a butt with some sort
Speaker 1: of stream of something directed at it. That would be
Speaker 1: for washing your rear. The day usually has a icon
Speaker 1: of a lady somewhere on it involved, yeah, something like
Speaker 1: that to indicate what that was for. And uh, if
Speaker 1: you're wondering, like, well, wait a minute, I'm this sounds
Speaker 1: like this could be really unhygienic. The Japanese are very
Speaker 1: concerned with cleanling, and so these are nozzles that are
Speaker 1: usually hidden away from the inside of the toilet bowlts
Speaker 1: only when you press the button that they get. There's
Speaker 1: like essentially a door that opens in the novel can
Speaker 1: come out, and they have nozzle sterilization technology to clean
Speaker 1: them between uses. And so uh yeah, they usually have
Speaker 1: buttons where you also have to like a stop button,
Speaker 1: so if you press one of these, it essentially goes
Speaker 1: until you tell it to stop. Yeah. And the person
Speaker 1: who wrote this um this how to use a Japanese
Speaker 1: toilet post points out that before you choose either of
Speaker 1: these options, you want to press the stream power down
Speaker 1: as as low as it will go to start, and
Speaker 1: then you can adjust it upwards. Um. Here she says
Speaker 1: that at the normal setting is equivalent to about a
Speaker 1: water pick, which on your on your on your junk.
Speaker 1: That's not good, that's really, that's terrible. It might come
Speaker 1: as a big surprise for that to to hit certain
Speaker 1: sins of variation. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, it's setting it
Speaker 1: low and does some of them also have controls for
Speaker 1: the temperature of the water, not to mention the temperature
Speaker 1: of the seat. Uh. Some also, like you mentioned, have
Speaker 1: the air drying so that after you have had your
Speaker 1: rear washed, air dry it, which I mean like yes,
Speaker 1: that's cool. There's like the days and rear washing all
Speaker 1: that stuff, but you're not gonna stand up right afterwards
Speaker 1: and just be wet. You have to have the air dryer.
Speaker 1: That's why. I mean, that's the best part. I agree,
Speaker 1: I agree. I mean, if if you're going to have
Speaker 1: these other features, you really knew do need the air
Speaker 1: dryer or else you're just like, well, I guess I'll
Speaker 1: be sitting here for a couple more minutes before I
Speaker 1: dare move. Another interesting thing to me about the Japanese culture. Um,
Speaker 1: and it makes perfect sense, I totally understand it. But
Speaker 1: you know, in Japan, shoes are really considered to be
Speaker 1: quite dirty. That's one of the dirtiest pieces of clothing
Speaker 1: that people have. So it's customary, of course to take
Speaker 1: your shoes off and slip into house slippers before moving
Speaker 1: going into a house. Absolutely, bathrooms have their own sets
Speaker 1: of slippers, and it is quite a faux pod to
Speaker 1: mix the two together. Oh yeah, if you were to
Speaker 1: step out of the bathroom wearing bathroom slippers, you would
Speaker 1: shock people, especially if you did like a little dance
Speaker 1: like I'm American. Oh yeah, I don't do that. Come on,
Speaker 1: and you can You can usually tell the bathroom slip
Speaker 1: first um from they they have almost like a bit
Speaker 1: of a waterproof look to them. Usually they're a little
Speaker 1: shinier they're made of they're not like um cloth. Usually
Speaker 1: there you could tell just using your your noodle. Compared
Speaker 1: to house slippers, you'd be like, these are probably the
Speaker 1: bathroom slipper toilet slippers. Or they might be brightly colored
Speaker 1: and you think no one would ever wear these anywhere else.
Speaker 1: Or maybe they have a poop emosey on them. It
Speaker 1: could be those are popular. Another feature you might find
Speaker 1: on the toilets as a deodo riser button. Yeah, also
Speaker 1: kind of interesting. So I found a toilet if I
Speaker 1: may give a plug, even though I should say I
Speaker 1: have no financial interest whatsoever in the Cohler company, but
Speaker 1: I have become a fan of their new me Uh toilet.
Speaker 1: I can't even begin to describe it. It's just so
Speaker 1: neat as far as the design goes. UM. Just go
Speaker 1: to just look for the new me toilet and U
Speaker 1: M I UM. But one of the things they have
Speaker 1: is a deodorizer. It's like, um, basically a little vent
Speaker 1: where the the the odor is sucked in and run
Speaker 1: through the charcoal filter nice. Yeah, yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: when I read about the Japanese toilets, obviously there's some
Speaker 1: some humor that comes in that just from the cultural
Speaker 1: differences things like that, which can seem very funny. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, I am incredibly envious. I would
Speaker 1: love to have a lot of these features built into
Speaker 1: American toilets. Uh. There there are some moves to improve
Speaker 1: toilet technology in various ways. Some of it is a
Speaker 1: conservation trying to find low flush toilets that'll still activate
Speaker 1: the siphoning uh technique, but not use as much water,
Speaker 1: and a go very important. Did you see the no
Speaker 1: mixed toilet I did. Yeah, the the one that has
Speaker 1: meant it has kind of like a ledge and and
Speaker 1: filter for urine and then behind that would be where Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's meant so that when you when you just
Speaker 1: have to urinate, you don't have to flush the toilet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it doesn't flush at all, and as a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: it collects the urine um. And one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why the company that originally started making no mixed toilet
Speaker 1: stop making them is because well, number one, they didn't
Speaker 1: catch on very well. There's a lot of hesitancy UM.
Speaker 1: But the another reason is they they didn't quite have
Speaker 1: the infrastructure to collect the urine separately and send it off.
Speaker 1: Although environmentally speaking, it makes a lot of sense to
Speaker 1: separate urine from feces, especially UH and not flush urine,
Speaker 1: because when you flush urine, you're introducing a lot of
Speaker 1: other stuff besides just the urine. Like if you are
Speaker 1: on UM pharmaceuticals, those a lot of that stuff is
Speaker 1: expelled and metabolized and expelled in your urine and it
Speaker 1: gets introduced into wetland areas and things like that, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden you have frogs they're like have
Speaker 1: roid rage or something you know, or that like a
Speaker 1: rubbing themselves against walls because you took too much ecstasy
Speaker 1: the night before. That's fair, yeah, I mean, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: anything you're taking into yours, anything you're gonna excrete spen
Speaker 1: filtered through your kidneys, you're going to have some some
Speaker 1: other elements in there too consumed. But so the the
Speaker 1: no mixed toilet collects this urine and sends it off
Speaker 1: for separate recycling. And then if you're really hardcore, you
Speaker 1: know granola or your city is, then maybe it gets
Speaker 1: recycled into water, and you drink that and pee it
Speaker 1: out again and again. It becomes a closed loop. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we've talked about that on Forward Thinking. We talked
Speaker 1: about that with systems aboard UM the International Space Station
Speaker 1: ways of water reclamation. So that I mean, obviously, if
Speaker 1: you are in an area where you get very little
Speaker 1: water or it's very difficult to ship water to you,
Speaker 1: you have to make the best use of all the
Speaker 1: resources you have. Uh, there's some other things we can
Speaker 1: talk about as far as toilet advances, smart toilets. So
Speaker 1: sensor technology has gotten to the point now where it's
Speaker 1: it's very inexpensive, it's it's versatile, waterproof. It's entirely possible
Speaker 1: to design sensors that could uh measure your waste and
Speaker 1: and come up with actual information that could be relevant
Speaker 1: to your health. So I saw some interesting examples like
Speaker 1: the idea of a sensor that could be an early
Speaker 1: pregnancy detection by detecting changing hormone levels. UM, it might
Speaker 1: analyze your waste detective bacterial infection, so it might tell you.
Speaker 1: It might even send you an indication saying you know,
Speaker 1: you need to take it easy for a little while,
Speaker 1: or maybe even you need to go see a doctor.
Speaker 1: With the right kind of software, you and this is
Speaker 1: not hard to do at all. You could even have
Speaker 1: one that could send a notification to your doctor, or
Speaker 1: even go further, have one that's linked to your doctor's
Speaker 1: calendar and your calendar and even create an appointment for you.
Speaker 1: So your toilet does all that for you. It's it's possible.
Speaker 1: It's not something that we're necessarily seeing everywhere, but it's possible.
Speaker 1: I could see some problems with this though. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, like, first of all, there's a real hesitancy
Speaker 1: by people too, especially put their medical records out there,
Speaker 1: their health data. UM. I feel like those as as
Speaker 1: the advantages or the benefits of allowing the Internet of
Speaker 1: things or that that level of tech into our lives,
Speaker 1: especially with health um, become obvious to more people. The
Speaker 1: more just relaxed everybody's going to become. I mean think
Speaker 1: about it, five ten years ago, say five, putting your
Speaker 1: credit card into a website to order something was still
Speaker 1: like really sketch you to a lot of people, and
Speaker 1: out enough people have done it that it's just it's
Speaker 1: just whatever, that's the norm. Yeah, right, And I think health,
Speaker 1: our health information is going to go that same way.
Speaker 1: I can see that. The only thing I see as
Speaker 1: uh possible, well not the only thing, but one of
Speaker 1: the things I see is an impediment to this is
Speaker 1: how do you identify the person who is using the
Speaker 1: toilet at any given situations. So, for example, Josh, let's
Speaker 1: say I have you over and you need to use
Speaker 1: my restroom, and unbeknownst to me, you are carrying around
Speaker 1: a really awful bacterial infection that's poised to wreak havoc
Speaker 1: in your system. And so as you use my restroom
Speaker 1: and you flushed the toilet, it analyzes it and suddenly
Speaker 1: thinks that Jonathan has gotten really sick. Next thing I know,
Speaker 1: my doctor is calling me. Now I know about your
Speaker 1: health condition. Yeah, that's that's a very good point. Um.
Speaker 1: I would guess then, if if toilets are analyzing us
Speaker 1: our health personally, then a toilet itself will become a
Speaker 1: much more personal thing. So maybe I have a dumb
Speaker 1: toilet as my guest toilet, and then my smart toilet
Speaker 1: is the only one that's in my master bathroom. Or
Speaker 1: here's another thing, Stop me if I sound crazy, stop
Speaker 1: You've got a biometric authentication system for your toilet where
Speaker 1: you have to scan like a thumb print or a
Speaker 1: retinal scan to identify you before using it. Thus you
Speaker 1: can't possibly confuse too people and you cannot flush until
Speaker 1: you have identified yourself. That's a good one, then, know
Speaker 1: that's a I mean, it makes sense. My my wife
Speaker 1: and I have um an aria uh scale Oh yeah right,
Speaker 1: it's like fitbit um and it can easily tell us apart.
Speaker 1: But because I mean it just determines like wait and
Speaker 1: all that stuff. Um, so it can it can easily
Speaker 1: tell us are But you know, maybe the seat does
Speaker 1: detect by weight or there is some other detail about
Speaker 1: you that just by sitting on the toilet, uh, it
Speaker 1: says this is Jonathan or this is not This is
Speaker 1: someone who's broken into Jonathan's house to use this toilet.
Speaker 1: Were using your bathroom? Should I lock the door? Yes?
Speaker 1: And turn on bathroom webcam? Right? Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1: And also the you know deoduriz, let's just go ahead
Speaker 1: and be safe. So there are other potential dangers, and
Speaker 1: one of those is hacking. So there's already a story
Speaker 1: about a smart toilet hacking uh situation, which happened back
Speaker 1: in two thousand thirteen, Ours Technica reported that, according to
Speaker 1: security firm trust Wave, the Enacts Status automatic toilet had
Speaker 1: a Bluetooth security vulnerability, and it was a doozy so
Speaker 1: to speak. So the you know, when you pair to
Speaker 1: bluetooth capable technologies together, you generally have some sort of
Speaker 1: code that you have to put in in order to
Speaker 1: pair them. Not always, but a lot of them do.
Speaker 1: And the problem was they had hardwired the same master
Speaker 1: code in all of these toilets, and it was just
Speaker 1: zero zero zero zero. So any app for this toilet
Speaker 1: compare with any toilet just from being in the same area. Right,
Speaker 1: So if you are within bluetooth distance, which is pretty decent,
Speaker 1: I mean, you don't it's not that far, but it's
Speaker 1: not you know, it's it's not like you could do
Speaker 1: it from two fifty feet away necessarily, But if you're
Speaker 1: close enough, like within the building or on the on
Speaker 1: the side of it or whatever, you can totally pair
Speaker 1: your phone with a toilet inside and essentially hijack someone's toilet,
Speaker 1: which you know, you might think, well, why could you do? Well,
Speaker 1: this thing had the ability to open and close via
Speaker 1: a command on your phone, so that way you didn't
Speaker 1: have to touch the toilet seat. It also allows you
Speaker 1: to control things like the bidet or the rear washing
Speaker 1: uh nozzles, so you could you could turn it on,
Speaker 1: like you could turn on one of those nozzles when
Speaker 1: no one's on the toilet and start flooding their bathroom.
Speaker 1: Or you could do it when you realize someone's just
Speaker 1: got into the bathroom and they haven't even really started yet.
Speaker 1: You could do it then and just laugh at the
Speaker 1: hilarious or close the toilet seat while they're mid you
Speaker 1: know activity. You know, you know it's ironic about using
Speaker 1: an app on your phone to open and close the
Speaker 1: toilet seat. Would it be that the phone surfaces the
Speaker 1: dirtiest surface to come in contact with toilet? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: thought that might be where you were going with that. Yeah, guys,
Speaker 1: if you didn't know, if you have smartphones, got touchscreen,
Speaker 1: hits filthy, it's about the dirtiest thing you probably come
Speaker 1: into contact within any day, including a toilet. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The one thing that might be uh you know, a
Speaker 1: good competitor with that would be a keyboard. If you
Speaker 1: use a keyboard on a daily basis, that's probably pretty
Speaker 1: gross too. Uh Yeah. So what's in the future for
Speaker 1: toilet's Probably we will see some more of these, uh,
Speaker 1: these things that are common now in Japanese toilets kind
Speaker 1: of filter their way through to other ones. I imagine
Speaker 1: we'll stay see more moves to conserve water. It may
Speaker 1: even mean that we end up moving away from the
Speaker 1: siphon model and find a different model to deal with
Speaker 1: waste so that it does it's not reliant upon creating
Speaker 1: enough water to create this section. We'll have to wait
Speaker 1: and see. Um, but we have to thank the brilliant
Speaker 1: men and women who came before us forging the path
Speaker 1: to make incredibly useful piece of technology, and also hope
Speaker 1: that we can continue to strive to get it to
Speaker 1: more people so that we can improve the quality of
Speaker 1: life for folks who who otherwise are in pretty rough
Speaker 1: you know, circumstances when the obviously when cultures are going
Speaker 1: to adopt it. So, Josh, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining me on the man, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: This was a joy. It was fun. It was fun.
Speaker 1: I'm glad we were able to talk about this in
Speaker 1: a mature way, with only a few terrible jokes on
Speaker 1: my end, relatively mature. We did pretty juvenile at times,
Speaker 1: but mostly maure uh. Of course listeners. You can find
Speaker 1: Josh at the Stuff You Should Know podcast, which is
Speaker 1: the granddaddy of all the stuff podcasts. Fantastic. I mean
Speaker 1: it's it's the oldest podcast that's still running from How
Speaker 1: Stuff Works and is uh fantastic. It's great. And you
Speaker 1: can also find Josh and lots and lots of video series.
Speaker 1: One of my favorites that Don't Be Dumb series remains
Speaker 1: way up there. I mean, it's like consistently informative and
Speaker 1: incredibly entertaining to me that it takes a lot of
Speaker 1: work to look that uncomfortable on camera. Well, it said
Speaker 1: it is. It doesn't take much of it. I'm just myself.
Speaker 1: I think that's just that's when I just stopped trying.
Speaker 1: Everything else is difficult. They're nice. Well, and guys, if
Speaker 1: you have any suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff,
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