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You asked for it. Plumbing in Jerusalem

http://www.theplumber.com/toiletssatisfiedlowflowmay2000.html

If you mean neighborhoods with people willing or capable of paying more for energy might not choose a plan that include TOU (time-of-use), or appliance-control-- then you are correct and that is exactly what is happening right now regardless of a mandatory policy. Poor people will generally try to reduce their electric bill by any means possible. If that means TOU, or even appliance control, fine, they will do it. Does that mean it is bad? Well, it sucks to be poor but they can save some money by doing it. Would you opt for everyone to be forced to pay the same (higher) flat-rate for electricity regardless of your income level?

Maybe I am just worn out from all the extreme slippery slope arguments against damn near everything. I mean literally any new anything could be turned into your "mandatory" argument.

First, Socialists? Read my other posts. I'm the resident hippie communist. :-)

Second, low flush toilets were and still are a horrible idea. Look at the studies. People now, on average, flush their 1.6 gallon toilets two or three times. Because of the multiple flushes, we now use more water than the old 3.5 gpf toilets did. The tinfoil hat crowd notes that most of the political push for "low-flow" toilets came from the manufacturers who wanted to turn repair jobs into new sales.

Yes, I miss my old toilet. :-)

Third, I don't own any guns. Can't really imagine shooting anyone. Would much rather face Judgement Day as someone who got shot than someone who killed.

Finally, I learned my lesson about letting someone else control my thermostat in college. Rented an "all utilities paid" apartment once. The management company made a ton of money by setting the thermostat at 90 in the summer and 40 in the winter.

Let me put it this way. Do you really want to trust your thermostat to the same Enron crowd that caused rolling blackouts in California to line their own pockets? How long do you think it would be before "classes of service" came into being to keep rich neighborhoods cool at the expense of poor ones?

Yeah, some of us don't live in Japan

When planning your house for the future, you need to have one corner in one room of the house designed to have _no_ electronic hookups at all. If possible, you should also make it into a wireless dead-spot. That way, when your future child (heck, even those might be electronic gadgets by then) needs some discipline, you can send them to the corner for an experience of life in the 20th century (also known as "back when I was your age"). On second thought, you should have as many as you plan on having children...

On a serious note, though... have you given thought to having one room without any hookups other than electric outlets? I have one room at my house that is my "escape" room. I don't have anything other than the room lights and a desk light in the room. I don't carry my cell-phone into the room. It is where I go to think, read books, practice playing music, etc... all free from the distractions of my gaming consoles by the TV, the new mail indicator flashing on the computer, etc.

Your mileage may vary, of course... but when your mother-in-law/father-in-law/mother/father/etc come for a visit, you would also have a room that would be somewhat "safe" to put them in... "safe" meaning that your house doesn't burn down when they try to figure out how to turn down the radio.

Takuryu

PS: You could help out the economy here and buy one of our fine, high-tech toilets.

Knock Knock -

Bob: "Yes?"

"This is the DEA. We have evidence suggesting that you've been smoking marijuana again. Put your hands in the air."

"Wha? No...I...damn you robo-toilet!"

The patent system may be broken, but I don't really see how this would be an indication of it.

At least to me, this is not an obvious idea.

Unless of course, you have a Japanese sense of imagination. I'd trust the people who invented Domo-kun , Vending machines for 'used' underwear and heated, self-deodorizing toilets to come up with just about anything.

An American diplomat was at a dinner party in a Japanese home when he excused himself to go to the bathroom. He did his business, stood up and realized he didn't have a clue about how to flush the toilet.

The diplomat speaks Japanese, but he was still baffled by the colorful array of buttons on the complicated keypad on the toilet. So he just started pushing.

He hit the noisemaker button that makes a flushing sound to mask any noise you might be making in the john. He hit the button that starts the blow-dryer for your bottom. Then he hit the bidet button and watched helplessly as a little plastic arm, sort of a squirt gun shaped like a toothbrush, appeared from the back of the bowl and began shooting a stream of warm water across the room and onto the mirror.

During his service in the U.S. Congress, Al Gore did take the initiative in transforming a private network of military and scientific institutions into the commercial Internet. Even Vint Cerf has acknowledged the former Vice President's contribution.

"I invented the Internet" debunked

But one of Thomas Crapper's employees did invent an improved flush toilet.

Rather, it's the second-tier opportunist that takes the work and creativity of the innovator and reinvigorates it by repositioning it within the market or refining it in some way.

Like Thomas Crapper, whose name is now synonymous with toilet?

Maybe you mean the Egyptian port of Alexandria? With the big lighthouse and library?

Most of the evidence as I understand it comes from the ability of the Phoenicians and Egyptians to cross the Atlantic (based on ship construction). Maybe there is more evidence I am not aware of, buy Hyerdahl just proved it could be done, not that it was done.

Of course, the Internet can also be used to provide training and skills...