This wall pees back!
March 9, 2015 8:35 AM   Subscribe

In Hamburg, some walls are now treated with a special hydrophobic paint that discourages public urination.

Bonus hydrophobic coating: the self-washing car.

(previously)
posted by Blue Jello Elf (65 comments total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
This is awesome. But won't they just either learn to stand farther back or piss onto the middle of the sidewalk instead of up against something?
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 8:39 AM on March 9, 2015


Or pee at a glancing angle. So to speak.
posted by overhauser at 8:40 AM on March 9, 2015


But won't they just either learn to stand farther back or piss onto the middle of the sidewalk instead of up against something?

Yeah, I saw this a few days ago. There's just going to be a significant uptick in locals getting their cars painted in hydrophobic paint now.

Never underestimate the desperation, or creativity, of the inebriated urban pisser.
posted by furnace.heart at 8:42 AM on March 9, 2015


Less aggressive than the pissing tanker in India (previously).
posted by filthy light thief at 8:43 AM on March 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Serious question: Do men have smaller bladders or is this about a sense of entitlement or what? How is that women seem to be able to hold it but it's almost always men who are going in public? Yeah, I get that the logistics of peeing in public are easier for men, but if this really is about "I have to go and there's nowhere else to go" then presumably that would happen to women, too, logistical difficulties or not, right? So why is it only men who can't hold it until they reach a washroom?
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 8:49 AM on March 9, 2015 [14 favorites]


In Soviet Russia...
posted by dudemanlives at 8:57 AM on March 9, 2015 [5 favorites]


Ain't clear if this'll impact the peeing on playgrounds she seems worried about since they presumably aren't peeing on the playground equipment.
posted by jeffburdges at 8:59 AM on March 9, 2015


I get that the logistics of peeing in public are easier for men...

I'm sure there are deep social and gender issues here, related to male entitlement or something, but really I think you've got about 98% of it, right there.
posted by gurple at 8:59 AM on March 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


So why is it only men who can't hold it until they reach a washroom?

I think it's more about the lower threshold of resistance than it is about a greater urgency to piss. That is, it's both mechanically easier (typically) for a guy to pee in the street and there's both stronger social disapproval for women and a higher sense of exposure/vulnerability/shame.

But it's not as if you never see women squatting down between parked cars or what have you.
posted by yoink at 9:00 AM on March 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


So why is it only men who can't hold it until they reach a washroom?

Women have generally higher pain thresholds than men.

Also, this is conjecture on my part, but women tend to be better at focusing on several things at once and are therefore better able to focus on something else besides peeing. Men turn into a Leopold Bloom with OCD.

woman: "I have to pee so bad. When I get home I am going to pee and then I'm going to read my book. Wow, I have to pee. Let's think about what's going on in my book..."

man: "Goddamn it, I have to pee. I really need a piss. When can I piss? Piss, pee, piss. I will make a lemonyellow torrent that sounds like a pizzicato orchestra. Pizz, piss, whizz, whiizzzzz, wee, peepeepeepeepeepeepeepee."

And, of course, there's the aforementioned lower barrier to public urination that makes remedying the situation immediately all the more tempting.
posted by Mayor Curley at 9:08 AM on March 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


While it's a great idea, this seems like a passive-aggressive approach to the problem.

A much better solution, IMHO, is what they do in Amsterdam. I've used them, and they are a great convenience. In typical Dutch fashion, city hall realized that public urination was going to happen regardless of what they did, so they provided centralized places where men could publicly urinate without irritating nearby building owners.
posted by oozy rat in a sanitary zoo at 9:22 AM on March 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


A longer term solution might be putting in some UriLifts - magical disappearing urinals and toilets from the Netherlands. They appear at night to accommodate your hordes of drunken louts, and vanish at sunrise.

Single
Triple

There's also the UriGenic/UriLady, but sadly, Youtube doesn't have a deployment video.
posted by zamboni at 9:23 AM on March 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


Serious question: Do men have smaller bladders or is this about a sense of entitlement or what?

Aren't men also more prone to drinking too much as well? Most likely alcohol. I don't know if there's some macho water guzzlers out there.
posted by FJT at 9:27 AM on March 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Men drink more.

Is it really true that women have higher pain thresholds than men? I did a quick search and the first study I found indicated otherwise. Of course, there are different kinds of pain and there could be different thresholds, but I wouldn't just take every bit of pop psychology to be true.

I agree that public urinals are a better solution, but I can see how that would be more costly.
posted by simen at 9:28 AM on March 9, 2015


In typical Dutch fashion, city hall realized that public urination was going to happen regardless of what they did, so they provided centralized places where men could publicly urinate without irritating nearby building owners.

Here's what happens when you ham-fistedly introduce them in a country where people that aren't quite as pragmatic about bodily functions as the Dutch.
posted by zamboni at 9:30 AM on March 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Also, this is conjecture on my part, but women tend to be better at focusing on several things at once and are therefore better able to focus on something else besides peeing. Men turn into a Leopold Bloom with OCD.

This has not been my experience, to put it mildly. When you really have to pee, you really have to pee--regardless of sex.

Seriously, have you never hung around a pregnant lady who had to pee right this second goddammit? Because I have, and wow, multitasking and thinking about other stuff was not something that she appeared to be doing.
posted by sciatrix at 9:31 AM on March 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


zamboni: "Here's what happens when you ham-fistedly introduce them in a country where people that aren't quite as pragmatic about bodily functions as the Dutch."

This seems ok? Open midnight to dawn with "shadecloths" (I'm assuming some kind of privacy barrier) around them. Although I might have reservations about shining forth a golden ray under the chastisement of a sign that warns "SAFETY CAMERAS OPERATE HERE TO CREATE A SAFER CITY"
posted by boo_radley at 9:39 AM on March 9, 2015


Seriously, have you never hung around a pregnant lady who had to pee right this second goddammit? Because I have, and wow, multitasking and thinking about other stuff was not something that she appeared to be doing.

Pregnant women are an outlier. If you've got an 8 pound homonculus and all his gear sitting right on your bladder, you're going to need to pee frequently and urgently.
posted by Mayor Curley at 9:45 AM on March 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


So I tried Googling to find out if men pee more or less frequently than women on average or if they do so at about the same rate, but completely struck out. It seems like something that somebody would have done a study of, but if so I can't find it. Anyone know?
posted by yoink at 9:55 AM on March 9, 2015


It's not about biology. It's about norms. There's a lot more exposure/shame when women do it. So we plan. We don't stay long and drink in places without a bathroom. We know where bathrooms are likely to be. We don't have super-powered bladders, any more than men have weak ones. We just don't want the mess and ogling that come from squatting on the sidewalk. We also have to deal with things like periods that can make such activities even more complicated.

All of which to say, I find public peeing disgusting and inconsiderate, and I manage without having to do it, so could men, if they cared to. But lots of men see their mess as other people's responsibility so they don't mind turning the sidewalk into a toilet. Acting like there's no way they could possibly avoid that situation is BS. There are lots of ways. They just choose not to.
posted by emjaybee at 10:04 AM on March 9, 2015 [24 favorites]


Every woman I know needs to pee less than I do. I catch enough shit about it as it is. We need more public toilets. And, frankly, my biological needs trump whatever other considerations there are.
posted by josher71 at 10:05 AM on March 9, 2015


Do men have smaller bladders or is this about a sense of entitlement or what?

No, its about a sense of really needing a wee. A human bladder will hold about half a litre of pee. A fairly typical evening might see a chap drink 2 litres of beer quite easily, more if so motivated. Once that starts to make it through the system then the bladder refills fairly rapidly creating some urgency. The lower social and physical barriers to going nearby probably also make it likelier a chap will whip it out than an equally volumetrically challenged woman. Social factors may also mean the chap drinks more beer as their preferred beverage so is more likely to need to deal with more pressing volume issues.
posted by biffa at 10:09 AM on March 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


We could develop a smartphone game called "street pee" where you score points for peeing on businesses that refuse to let non-customers use their toilets.
posted by jeffburdges at 10:15 AM on March 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


We could develop a smartphone game called "street pee" where you score points for peeing on businesses that refuse to let non-customers use their toilets.

Pro tip: See a nice-ish restaurant with a line of people waiting for a table? Walk in and say "Table for 8." Take their little buzzer. Use the washroom "while you wait," then decide you'd rather not wait any longer and leave (leave the buzzer). I'm probably going to get former restaurant hosts telling me this causes some huge problem that I've never thought about, but you gotta do what you gotta do. And what you gotta do is not pee in public.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 10:24 AM on March 9, 2015 [5 favorites]


If only I had a penguin...
Yes, of course that works, because the "Our bathrooms are not for the public" policy isn't really about keeping out the sort of people who might afford to eat in a restaurant. They are about keeping out undesirables. I've definitely ducked into restaurants where I'm a semi-regular to use the bathrooms. Hotels with downstairs bathrooms off the lobby work for this as well. If you have the privilege of the proper appearance almost no one notices, and no one cares.

Of course, if you are roaring drunk, then you might well have descended into undesirable territory and all bets are off.
posted by meinvt at 10:31 AM on March 9, 2015


I thought it was because women can close their legs to hold it in, but men can't.
posted by Melismata at 10:41 AM on March 9, 2015


"Our bathrooms are not for the public" policy isn't really about keeping out the sort of people who might afford to eat in a restaurant. They are about keeping out undesirables.

Yes, the book Sidewalk by Mitch Duneier has a really interesting chapter on the problem of peeing while undesirable. If I recall, some places wouldn't even let these men use the washroom when they did buy something. This puts them in the terrible position of wanting to behave "respectably" but not being allowed/able to so, and then being looked down upon by many of the same people who won't let them urinate in an appropriate place.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 10:42 AM on March 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


It turns out that both sexes suffer equally from overactive bladder syndrome. Another study of 7-year-old Swedish children finds that boys are a bit more likely to be occasional bedwetters (although boys and girls are about even in the frequent-bedwetting camp). Boys were more likely to experience "urgency" (defined as 'realizing you need to pee IMMEDIATELY before it becomes an issue) at night, girls during the day. The delightfully named Canadian Urinary Bladder Survey found that adults of both sexes were about equally likely to experience urinary urgency.

I was not able to find studies on the urination habits of healthy adults, unfortunately. But I'm pretty confident in my previous statement that having to pee RIGHT THIS SECOND is not a particularly gendered phenomenon.
posted by sciatrix at 10:43 AM on March 9, 2015 [4 favorites]


I thought it was because women can close their legs to hold it in, but men can't.

When I was in HS a boy in one of my classes was always asking to go to the washroom and one day the teacher said no. And he said "But I can't hold it, Miss!" She handed him an elastic. So there are unique solutions available to men, too.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 10:44 AM on March 9, 2015


Every woman I know needs to pee less than I do. I catch enough shit about it as it is. We need more public toilets. And, frankly, my biological needs trump whatever other considerations there are.

Due to differences in morphology - both sexual dimorphism and bladder location - woman's bladders typically hold less than men. So it doesn't matter at all if guys drink more than woman do, what matters is what happens when the bladder is full. (Add to that having children can mess up a woman's urinary system, as well as her sense of "when" she needs to pee, and that bladder infections are the second most common infection among women.) Despite their "biological needs" of a smaller bladder, infections, the effects of childbirth, periods, how they pee, and medical conditions like overactive bladders, the majority of women somehow manage to figure out a way not to pee in public. (A popular and wise decision is to pee at the bar right before you leave. . .or, if you think you'll have trouble finding a bathroom, monitor how much you drink.)

There are lots and lots of guys out there who don't piss on the street either.

I'm seconding emjaybee on this. Guys who pee outside in the street are making a choice, and that choice is to not care because they assume someone else will take care of it. If women and most men can take responsibility for their bladders, street pissers can too. If you have biological needs, take fucking responsibility for them.

*Obviously I'm talking about the average guy going out to the bars or partying. The undesirable thing is an interesting tangent, though, especially about buying things, because that's such a common thing to do to gain access to a bathroom.
posted by barchan at 11:10 AM on March 9, 2015 [8 favorites]


It's peeback time...Worth it just for that catchphrase.
posted by Annika Cicada at 11:16 AM on March 9, 2015 [3 favorites]


This reminds me of the 'Pythagorus Piss', which is used when you're so loaded that in order to boost stability, you rest your forehead against the wall, while keeping your feet well out of the stream, your straightened body thereby forming the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle.
posted by colie at 11:17 AM on March 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


I am going to continue to pee on the street if that appears to be the only option available. I realize this is my choice, and I'm ok with it and I'm also ok with it if you think this makes me an asshole. Reasonable people can disagree.
posted by josher71 at 11:18 AM on March 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


It's not about biology. It's about norms. There's a lot more exposure/shame when women do it.

It's both. Yeah, the guy peeing outside the (open) Post Office at noon this past Saturday in a fairly hip neighborhood of DC was pretty gross and obvious--but he was able to stand facing the building and just look like he was loitering, whereas any woman attempting the same activity would have had to get in an even more conspicuous position.
posted by psoas at 11:31 AM on March 9, 2015


I am going to continue to pee on the street if that appears to be the only option available.

I think everyone should pee in the street if it's the only option available. The only thing grosser than urine on the street is exploded kidney on the street.

Please, out of consideration for everyone else who also uses the street, however, make sure it is the only option available, and not just the most convenient option, or the only option available after you've knowingly taken actions that you could reasonable have guessed would leave you in this situation (like not peeing before you leave or having consumed more liquid than you could reasonbly be expected to hold for the length of whatever journey you were taking). If you do those things, you're essentially planning to pee in the street and let someone else clean up your urine. (Hey, there's a thought....if it ever is your only option go back tomorrow and clean up your own mess!).
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 11:32 AM on March 9, 2015 [6 favorites]


I am going to continue to pee on the street if that appears to be the only option available

Unless you're a homeless person or suffering from a urinary tract infection then, yeah, that makes you an asshole. And no, reasonable people won't disagree about that.
posted by yoink at 11:33 AM on March 9, 2015 [12 favorites]


But there is something soothing about peeing on the side of a tree when nobody is looking. It's like a small, comforting step back into our prehistoric bipedal ape behaviors for a moment.

Unless someone sees you, and then it has the potential to be a step towards a misdemeanor related to public indecency.

Why not women? I will make the argument - having known a woman that peed in public while wehwere together, more than once, that there is an environmental factor as well. While men have the potential to appear to be simply standing, having a moment of zen, women need to hide behind something to make it as socially invisible, and since we believe in flat concrete sidewalks without adequate shrubbery for cover... women are forced into domestication of their urinary habits.
posted by thebotanyofsouls at 11:36 AM on March 9, 2015


People walk along the street with dogs basically pissing on everything, every ten yards.
posted by colie at 11:38 AM on March 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


Dogs are trained to go outside. They've learned not to go inside a domicile, but to go outside; they've learned there is a proper place to go to the bathroom. They say that most dogs have about the intellectual capacity of a 2-3 year old. . . which is also about the age humans start to learn the proper place to go to the bathroom, otherwise known as toilet training.

The hydrophobic paint in question wasn't built to repel dogs.
posted by barchan at 12:09 PM on March 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


Related.
posted by josher71 at 12:19 PM on March 9, 2015


"We piss anywhere man."

- Brian Jones, 1965.
posted by colie at 12:41 PM on March 9, 2015


Walls can get rabies now?
posted by Legomancer at 12:49 PM on March 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


barchan: if I understand you, the problem isn't really with urine being sprayed on public walls or walkways or whatever, it's that this is a "proper" place for dog urine, but an improper place for human urine? This, according to a definition of propriety that is so unagreed-upon as to be the very subject under discussion in this thread?
posted by 7segment at 1:34 PM on March 9, 2015 [1 favorite]




We need more public toilets.

Could you possibly imagine urban environments designed with human needs in mind instead of cars? Especially the Average Joe or Jill?
posted by BlueHorse at 1:43 PM on March 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


It may well be a guy thing, but we can't overlook the role of beer here. It all has to go somewhere. As long as there are more men drinking more beer, men will predominate in free-range micturation.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 1:50 PM on March 9, 2015


Oh wow. You've never been to Mardi Gras...or out on a Friday/Saturday in a major metropolitan area...or even a college town.

I live in a night club district. I hear the thumping on weekend nights and walk my dog past hoards of drunks and women dressed like they don't know it's winter. (Actually, I used to walk my dog past them. Now I have a smaller dog who uses a potty, so I am innocent of the charges above). One time as my late dog and I walked past I heard someone in line for a night club say to someone else "Why would you bring you dog down here?" in a tone of perplexed disgust. (Umm...look around you...see all those houses and residential buildings? People (and their dogs) live there, dumbass).

Anyway, I have not noticed any significant urine problem from the night clubs. There is a Tim Horton's and a McDs both open 24 hours, so there's no need for anyone to be peeing outside. There is a urine problem from our own residents. Apparently some people out barbecuing, picnicking, or using the pool think that going inside isn't worth the trouble. Don't piss where you eat, either, people!
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 1:58 PM on March 9, 2015


I feel like there's a really massive difference between peeing outside the post office in the middle of the day and ducking behind a tree at night.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:00 PM on March 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


7segment, ha, I knew I should have added "unless you're advocating for a completely piss-free street." I can see how you get that, but nah, I wasn't delving that deep - my point was mostly that dogs go where they've been trained is the proper place, which is outside, and using that to justify human behavior when we have access and the capability to plan access to where 3 years olds can learn how to go -the bathroom - is a poor argument. While dogs do piss on the street these people didn't have such a problem with it they had to develop a specific solution for it.

(And not saying some places don't have a problem with dogs- they do, with aha! solutions - but that's a different issue. I don't have strong opinions about dog piss, but I do regard people who don't pick up their dog's shit and people who piss on other people's buildings roughly equivalent on the asshole scale.)
posted by barchan at 2:25 PM on March 9, 2015


Some facts:

#1 - Public urination is very common here in Hamburg - I have in fact seen men whip it out near government buildings in the middle of the day next to busy streets. Every time a German lectures me about how Americans are prudish and scared of nudity, I think, thank god, at least American men have enough body shame to wait until it's dark and they can find a nice alley or bush, this is why the Puritans fought for our freedom of repression.

#2 - There are "pissoirs" (like the Amsterdam public urinals) available here also. They kinda look like bus stops, which is either very good or very bad for the confused drunk with the full bladder. They're the only free form of public bathroom - most bars/restaurants in Germany charge for use of their bathrooms. Since there aren't really any good bars or restaurants in Hamburg, my favorite places are the ones with free bathrooms, so when I go to use the bathroom I only have to cry about how I just paid 9 euros for a mediocre cocktail instead of crying about how I spent 9 for a cocktail and 50 cents to pee it out.

#3 - So, since only pissoirs are public, women have to pay-to-pee in bathrooms even if they're customers of the Burger King in St.Pauli/Reeperbahn (and you will end up at Burger King if you're partying in Hamburg, or else you've done it wrong). I won't go into details right now on why the area is so gross, I just want to assure everyone that women aren't left out of the piss game: close to Burger King there's a "closed" street with a sign stating that women are not allowed down the street, and if they go anyway, the prostitutes in the street window displays have the right to pour down buckets of piss on them. (This sign was translated for me, but by different people at different times, some attempting to defuse my "what are the LOGISTICS of saving a BUCKET OF PISS and how long do they save it for, I bet they're bluffing, let's see" arguments, so I'm pretty sure it's legit.)

#4 - I am very excited about moving back to America.
posted by susoka at 2:37 PM on March 9, 2015 [6 favorites]


I feel like there's a really massive difference between peeing outside the post office in the middle of the day and ducking behind a tree at night.

There isn't a single 24-hour public restroom in my entire quadrant of the city of Portland. There is a solution for this!
posted by aniola at 2:44 PM on March 9, 2015


Oh wow! I'm in St. Pauli right now. And I've been drinking in a bar and need to take a leak. But there is a toilet just down the stairs and I'd like to wear these jeans tomorrow, so, NO Metafilter, I'll will not test this for you.
posted by chillmost at 4:22 PM on March 9, 2015


close to Burger King there's a "closed" street with a sign stating that women are not allowed down the street, and if they go anyway, the prostitutes in the street window displays have the right to pour down buckets of piss on them

What.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 4:31 PM on March 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Like, I understand that areas of where women are engaging in sex work are de facto single-gender (aside from those working), but why does this need to be enforced with *buckets of piss*?

Also, "the right" to do this thing? If you do get a bucket of piss thrown on you there and try to complain to the authorities about it, do they say "Well, legally we can't do shit about it, sorry, you should have read the sign"?

Nothing about this makes sense to my puny american brain.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 4:36 PM on March 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


Also maybe a good way to discourage public urination would be mandating free restrooms for patrons in bars and restaurants? It sounds like that might be a contributing factor to how widespread the practice is in Germany, although obviously not a complete solution, see: the US.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 4:38 PM on March 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


I wonder if there's a correlation between people who don't wash their hands after using the toilet and those who pee against the dumpster at drunk o'clock...
posted by Chuffy at 4:45 PM on March 9, 2015 [1 favorite]


I recall that back in my college partying days, my female friends and I would actively try to roughly plan our nights according to where we could find bathrooms at which point. There was the whole "don't break the seal!" idea that you had to hold your pee as long as possible because once you peed once, you'd have to pee more the rest of the night, so we'd start at the club with the nastiest bathroom and try to end up at bar with a better bathroom or a nearby McDonald's... My impression was that my male friends never gave this kind of thought to pee planning, which is why they always ended up peeing against a wall somewhere.

Mostly, looking back I am astounded that my friends and I didn't contract more UTIs from this.
posted by TwoStride at 5:48 PM on March 9, 2015


My work is mostly outdoors so I usually have thousands and thousands of acres at my disposal for open-air peeing, which is a delightful luxury. When I'm in the city for meetings, though, which means going out in the evening for drinks and dinner, the bathroom logistics always get complicated at some point in the evening. There are never enough places to go to the bathroom, and that's if you are a man and you have the option of finding a discreet dark alley to pee in. If you are a woman or trans or for any other reason (IBS, say?) you want some privacy or (heaven forbid) modern sanitary conveniences, you are basically screwed.

I sympathize with the people who have to live in the neighborhoods in the video in the article, but the solution isn't to make it harder to find a place to pee -- it's to make things more humane and give people better options.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:32 PM on March 9, 2015


I sympathize with the people who have to live in the neighborhoods in the video in the article, but the solution isn't to make it harder to find a place to pee -- it's to make things more humane and give people better options.

I'm all for more places to pee. However, if women are less likely to pee on the streets than men, then there ARE sufficient indoor peeing options. That's where the women are peeing, see? That's why they're not peeing outdoors (which anyone would do if they really couldn't hold it longer than it takes to find a washroom). That women are using other options and men are peeing on the street shows that the men HAVE other options (the ones the women took) and are choosing not to use them. They're choosing to pee on the street when it isn't the only option. So now that I know they don't have teensy weensy bladders or something, I'm totally ok with them getting urine all over their shoes and pants*. In fact, I might even be ok with the prostitutes' bucket solution, if they evade the natural consequences by standing back or changing their angle.

* Except of course that they're going to get urine stink all over any cab they take.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 6:48 PM on March 9, 2015


However, if women are less likely to pee on the streets than men, then there ARE sufficient indoor peeing options.

Or they are waiting to the point of discomfort and risking UTIs, and/or are making careful choices about where to go and what to drink based on bathroom access? I would be hard pressed to find a woman I know who would say that there are adequate (and safe!) public bathrooms available.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:11 PM on March 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


barchan: "Guys who pee outside in the street are making a choice, and that choice is to not care because they assume someone else will take care of it."

I've peed on the street, but I've never assumed someone else would take care of it, unless you consider rain "someone else". But peeing on someone's house or workplace? That doesn't make sense to me.
posted by Bugbread at 7:21 PM on March 9, 2015 [2 favorites]


From the Urilift website:
LATEST NEWS

External gas cause of explosion of UriLift Amsterdam

Apeldoorn, 16 December 2014 - An investigation by the Labour Inspectorate into the cause of the explosion which took place on 29 November last, has shown there to be no malfunctioning and therefore no design fault in the UriLift.

Gas monitoring, conducted by KIWA Technologie BV, detected an increased concentration of gas. Further investigation by Net manager Liander indicated an external gas leak, in the direct vicinity of the UriLift.
OK, but surely that's the sort of thing they should be expecting?
posted by Joe in Australia at 11:19 PM on March 9, 2015


The King of Hobbies has a go. Here is a video of another man who has a peeing hobby, which I first saw on Metafilter. Apparently he has odious views on other matters as well.

I can honestly say I have never seen anyone pee into a coffee cup, but maybe that's because they were so skilled I didn't notice...
posted by asok at 6:50 AM on March 10, 2015




Anyone remember a story about an anglophone a limo in Italy who asks his Italian driver to find a toilet. His driver asks if he needs to pee or poop, to which he responds pee. The driver immediately stops, gets out, walks around the car to open the door as limo drivers do, and says "All is toilet".

I failed to find it with google, but found : Cabbies holding in their urine to a dangerous degree

Also : Homeless Woman Arrested and Charged with Theft for the “Crime” of Charging Her Cell Phone
posted by jeffburdges at 3:07 AM on March 13, 2015


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