The World's Most-High Tech Urinal

Mudzy writes "In an effort to handle its nighttime public urination problem, Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, is considering installing high-tech urinals that disappear below street level during the day. Then at night, an operator comes by with a remote and the Urilift hydraulically lifts to sidewalk level in about two minutes. Then the unit is ready to serve all the nighttime party animals who don't mind peeing in a very exposed public urinal. The $75,000 system has been installed across the Netherlands, and have spread to London and Belfast, but Victoria will be the first North American city to try them out."

High Tech Urinal?

They're taking the piss. Sorry.

Re:A traumatic experience waiting to happen

Nah, the next version is the pay toilet that locks you in UNTIL you pay the fee. After a certain amount of time with non-payment, the machine just happens to "leak" previous customers "deposits" all over you.

Re:But what about...

"Many places are lucky they're installed at all. Here in the US, it would cause a lot of pissed off Christians to get that program going."

I dunno...these things would be a Godsend for New Orleans during Mardi Gras!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Quite often there aren't enough port-a-potty's around for you to find one....and afterawhile of drinking on the streets, that stuff starts to run through ya pretty fast, and it isn't like you're too terribly embarrased as to where you have to 'whip it out' to take a leak.

On the other hand, I wonder how long it would take when these came out, that the city/state would be sued for discrimination against women who needed to go 'in public', or would be slapped with injunctions about them not being 'handicapped friendly'.

they're cool

the one in belfast is cool. it's just down the street from me and instead of using the one at my place i walk down there to do my stuff and meet girls who are there spectating (they're jealous because they can't stand up to do it).

Re:they're cool

A girlcanpee standing up. All you have to do is insert your middle and ring fingers between your fanny lips, to hold them apart and so keep a clear path for your stream; and press your index and little fingers either side to aim. It's easiest to find the correct position by squatting down just the very first time you try it, so as your "gates" open naturally, then standing up with your hand in place; but once you've found the correct position, you can do it every time and not even get your fingers wet.

Practice in the shower and use a mirror if you can't see how you're going wrong. It's well worth mastering the technique -- it can be handy for scaring away the wrong sort of guys!

Re:they're cool

In Britain, by the way, the waste plumbing is always on the outsideof the house.

That's for older houses up to the sixties - either they were so old they used to have external toilets, and the process of converting a room into an inside toilet is made easier by running the waste pipe externally, or they didn't think better of it.

Most (all?) modern houses have the waste pipe inside, in a corner of the house, although the vent still goes up through the roof.

I'm sure the bath/shower and toilets use the same waste pipe however.

Future houses may have to incorporate a grey-water storage tank underneath, which will use sink and bath outflows to reuse for toilet flushing and garden watering. Dunno how they'll deal with the soap issue for the latter...

God, why did I spend a few minutes writing a post about British waste pipe engineering?!

Re:they're cool

Can we have a "-1, Too Much Information" mod?

Re:they're cool

Let's just put it like this:

A girl can't pee while standing up and post with her real nickname :)

Re:they're cool

>..snip..girls who are ... jealous because they can't stand up to do it..

Don't be to shure of that. I live in the Netherlands and in 'my' city's center there are a few a these installed as well. A fair number of ladies now use a 'plastuit'. I don't know a english word for that gadget. Check out http://www.plastuit.nl/ [plastuit.nl] It takes a bit of getting used to, but it does work. And then there are those whom have mastered the art of doggy like lift-one-leg style of pee. I'll leave the details of that to your imagination. But it must be said that it does work.

Martin.

Re:they're cool

Also known as 'Freshette', sold as a medical device but often used by female mountain climbers. Take a look at the pic of my wife and her friends using one [gdargaud.net]... Yeah, who'd had thought that a group pissing pic could be relevant to a /. discussion...

Sad Day

:::sniff:::

I went to uni in Victoria. Call me nostalgic but, I'll really miss the urine soaked side walks downtown...It just won't be the same dammit!

Pointless

People who to drunk to care will do it wherever (or piss their pants if they're completely wasted).

People who are desperate because there's no open public toilets will continue to (attempt to) hide behind a tree, bus stop or anything else.

Why So Complex?

Here in Guatemala, we just have a spiral shaped wall, with a urinal in the centre. Way cheaper, and you can use it in the day.

Disappear during the day, and appear at night...

...just like Urinus appears every night in the starry skies.

And this is different than the pissoirs in Europe?

Other than the obvious "high tech" aspect to these pissoirs [google.com] and having them only available at night which just doesn't make sense to me, since I occasionally have to urinate during daylight hours.

I've also seen these in North African countries that I've visited like Tunisia and Morocco. I'm guessing the French brought the concept.

Isn't this the wrong approach?

I mean, if you to get to an indoor toilet before you wet yourself, then you shouldn't have drunk so much in the first place. But given how we've now got things like 'do not ram in eye' labels on knives etc, it's not surprising that we're catering to the lowest common denominator.

Re:Isn't this the wrong approach?

Interesting that it only caters to males, and not females... Is that an insult to males pee habits? or is it sexism against females because it is not inclusive?

--jeffk++

Don't be silly..

.. girls don't pee. They expel all waste products as a pine-smelling vapour emitted through their pores.

Here's real high tech for urination

First, there is the computational urinal from the MIT Media Lab, called You're In Control (Urine Control). More information at the project's web site [rafelandia.com]. The urinal has a screen above it, and you can play video games by appropriately directing your urine stream.

Then, less high tech, but still very useful is the p-mate [p-mate.com], which is a device that permits women to pee standing up. Now, if only there could be a device for men to get multiple orgasms [forwardedfunnies.com].

Re: The World's Most-High Tech Urinal

The bums still pee in the public parking elevators. That's about as high tech as it gets here for public peeing.

Re:I have a legitimate question

I'll grant you waiters and anyone handling my food. Other than that, why? I shower once daily and put my dick into a clean pair of boxers. My hands touch all sorts of dirty filthy crap during the course of the day. My johnson however (unless its a crazy day) stays tucked safely in said boxers until I take it out to pee. My johnson is probably thousands of times cleaner than my hands. If anything I should wash my hands BEFORE I touch it. But afterwards? I'm not catching anything from it, so unless I pissed all over my hands what's the point?

Jeez people, it's just skin.

Oh, and for the record, urine is generally sterile unless it picks up bacteria while exiting through the urethra. Well if you're dirty or diseased you should be washing anyway.

Re:I have a legitimate question

Why? Ask The Straight Dope [straightdope.com]. (Text on page is NSFW)