What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper? • Hacker News Board

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#231

Post by labster » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:14 AM UTC

lemiffe wrote: post #164

f1notformula1 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replace with: (1) I am from $region_X and I went to $region_Y (2) $region_Y'ers do things in a way I find unusual and/or distressing (3) The cause must be a character flaw shared by all $region_Y'ers ( ). and your statement is still valid about this formula. I think we tend to preferentially notice them when we're in one of the two regions involved, but in general the world (and so the internet) is full of this sort…

PHP dev? ;)

I thought Perl was the only language that has ' as a valid character in variable names along with the $. Ada allows the quote, too.

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#232

Post by rconti » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:15 AM UTC

tyingq wrote: post #193

bambax wrote: post #54

> To ancient Romans, the practice of sitting on a shared toilet in an open room full of people was entirely ordinary. That's a funny thing to say for an American, because, to Europeans, American toilets are much too public: doors don't go to the floor or ceiling, and even "walls" are thin sheets of wood/plastic loosely joined together with huge spaces between them. It seems, Americans don't trust one another to sit a…

Perhaps NSFW, but being frank so it's clear what I'm saying. There's cultural differences the other direction. German toilets catch feces on what we called a "shit shelf" instead letting it fall and submerge in water. Which, of course, made for a pretty bad odor situation. And in Turkey, the "toilet" was a hole in the ground. Even in the Hilton, it was a fancy carved marble and gold leaf "4 inch diameter hole in the…

I've always found the shit shelf so bizarre, but they seem to be on their way out. On recent trips to Germany it was quite uncommon to see one-- in fact, I don't think I saw one last time at all; I think the last time I saw one was in Vienna.

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#233

Post by u801e » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:17 AM UTC

TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #197

johnhenry wrote: post #49

The author mentions the tersorium, but I'm surprised that he doesn't bring up family wipes (also know as "family cloth") https://inhabitat.com/family-cloths-gross-or-great/ . It seems like the idea never truly died out.

Just do the Indian technique. Its so much cleaner and more environmentally friendly. You basically have a small pot and you wash your butt after every poop, and then wash your hands.

Do you use soap along with the water? The variation I'm aware of is using a watering can, your hand, and lots of soap to wash the area and dry it off with toilet paper.

A lot of public toilets in the Middle East will have something similar to a kitchen sink spray attachment mounted on the wall next to the toilet along with a liquid soap dispenser. You can use them in a similar way to the pot you mention.

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#234

Post by tyingq » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:19 AM UTC

rconti wrote: post #232

tyingq wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps NSFW, but being frank so it's clear what I'm saying. There's cultural differences the other direction. German toilets catch feces on what we called a "shit shelf" instead letting it fall and submerge in water. Which, of course, made for a pretty bad odor situation. And in Turkey, the "toilet" was a hole in the ground. Even in the Hilton, it was a fancy carved marble and gold leaf "4 inch diameter hole in the…

I've always found the shit shelf so bizarre, but they seem to be on their way out. On recent trips to Germany it was quite uncommon to see one-- in fact, I don't think I saw one last time at all; I think the last time I saw one was in Vienna.

Was it maybe a water conservation thing? That was always my best guess. Did seem bizarre. Happy to hear perhaps they've been phased out.

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#235

Post by url00 » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:22 AM UTC

Unrelated to article content:

When I try to browse to the site from Lynx, I get 403 forbidden'ed. Can anyone else confirm? Works fine from Firefox Nightly for me. Any thought on why this would be? Are they intentionally blocking non-js enabled web browsers?

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#236

Post by ajmurmann » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:22 AM UTC

macrael wrote: post #190

bambax wrote: post #54

> To ancient Romans, the practice of sitting on a shared toilet in an open room full of people was entirely ordinary. That's a funny thing to say for an American, because, to Europeans, American toilets are much too public: doors don't go to the floor or ceiling, and even "walls" are thin sheets of wood/plastic loosely joined together with huge spaces between them. It seems, Americans don't trust one another to sit a…

I've heard (but not confirmed) that it is expense related. If you wholly enclose the toilet in a room, now that little room needs its own fire extinguisher nozzle (and maybe other regs?) but if it's mostly open, you only have to make the overall room safe.

Not ask European toilets are enclosed to the same degree either. Many walls don't go all the way to the ceiling for example. This should enable sharing a fire extinguisher nozzle. Almost all of them have properly closing doors though.

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#237

Post by loeg » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:26 AM UTC

bambax wrote: post #54

> To ancient Romans, the practice of sitting on a shared toilet in an open room full of people was entirely ordinary. That's a funny thing to say for an American, because, to Europeans, American toilets are much too public: doors don't go to the floor or ceiling, and even "walls" are thin sheets of wood/plastic loosely joined together with huge spaces between them. It seems, Americans don't trust one another to sit a…

> puritanical reasons (make sure people aren't having sex?)

Puritanical, yes, but more likely to make sure people aren't using drugs.

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#238

Post by stiGGG » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:30 AM UTC

tyingq wrote: post #193

bambax wrote: post #54

> To ancient Romans, the practice of sitting on a shared toilet in an open room full of people was entirely ordinary. That's a funny thing to say for an American, because, to Europeans, American toilets are much too public: doors don't go to the floor or ceiling, and even "walls" are thin sheets of wood/plastic loosely joined together with huge spaces between them. It seems, Americans don't trust one another to sit a…

Perhaps NSFW, but being frank so it's clear what I'm saying. There's cultural differences the other direction. German toilets catch feces on what we called a "shit shelf" instead letting it fall and submerge in water. Which, of course, made for a pretty bad odor situation. And in Turkey, the "toilet" was a hole in the ground. Even in the Hilton, it was a fancy carved marble and gold leaf "4 inch diameter hole in the…

Only premium toilets have this shit shelf here in Germany. The advantage is to prevent a big splash making your butt wet ;)

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#239

Post by ajmurmann » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:31 AM UTC

Cyph0n wrote: post #133

skookumchuck wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my high school, the stall doors were removed because kids were smoking in them.

The "open" design makes sense in schools in my opinion, but not really in, e.g., a professional environment.

At least in a professional environment nobody would mock you. School is already full of social awkwardness. Do we need to make that even worse to the point where you can't even go to the bathroom in piece? If a kid wants to smoke they'll find a way anyways and they won't die from it either. I find removal of bathroom doors inhumane.

Re: What Did Ancient Romans Do Without Toilet Paper?

#240

Post by mmagin » Thu, Apr 05, 2018, 1:33 AM UTC

tombrossman wrote: post #50

mmagin wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you dry?

Toilet paper!

Well, I have one of the simple unheated hose sprayer-type bidet things which I installed during a period of let's just say discomfort at some point in the past, and that's what I do, but I assumed the hardcore bidet users had some superior solution, like mentioned below.