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Jul. 22nd, 2013 10:08 amThe office building I work in has automated toilets. You sit down, you use them, you stand up, they flush. If they fail to flush automatically you press a button. Simple, probably timesaving, almost certainly more hygienic because you're not touching a handle that was last used by someone who'd just wiped. I'm good with that.
What bugs me is that if I wear white trousers into one of the stalls, the toilet flushes before I get the chance to drop trou and sit down. I can only assume the photosensor it uses goes 'oh, hey, large pale vertical mass, someone must have done their business and stood up'. It happens every time I wear white trousers, without fail. I've done it often enough to notice the pattern.
I'm not thrilled with this, partly because it's a waste of water and partly because it's startling, but it also has me wondering: does this mean they don't flush automatically if a black woman or an Indian or Pakistani woman uses the toilet? Does the photosensor assume it's being pointed at a pair of trousers if what it sees are a pair of brown legs instead of pale ones?
I suppose I should be glad the machine is that stupid, since total recognition of the difference between legs and trousers means that there's a camera involved rather than a photosensor, but still- that's just an uncomfortable implication there.
What bugs me is that if I wear white trousers into one of the stalls, the toilet flushes before I get the chance to drop trou and sit down. I can only assume the photosensor it uses goes 'oh, hey, large pale vertical mass, someone must have done their business and stood up'. It happens every time I wear white trousers, without fail. I've done it often enough to notice the pattern.
I'm not thrilled with this, partly because it's a waste of water and partly because it's startling, but it also has me wondering: does this mean they don't flush automatically if a black woman or an Indian or Pakistani woman uses the toilet? Does the photosensor assume it's being pointed at a pair of trousers if what it sees are a pair of brown legs instead of pale ones?
I suppose I should be glad the machine is that stupid, since total recognition of the difference between legs and trousers means that there's a camera involved rather than a photosensor, but still- that's just an uncomfortable implication there.
