Why did it take so long to invent the toiler flapper valve?

[Commander Kinsey]

Me too, but to make cash.

If you're just in it for the money, that doesn't matter.

My friend had one of those a long time ago. It actually never broke down. Not particularly fast though.

[Tim Streater]

Water that is piped to houses has to be collected in reservoirs and purified first. If you use less of it, Society can save resources.

Just because you drink water out of puddles, don't expect the rest of us to.

[Commander Kinsey]

You ought to pick where you buy your house more carefully. There should be nearby water, but not so close as you get flooded. Water is after all the most important thing to keep us alive. After air, but that's everywhere.

[Commander Kinsey]

They're a pest to operate, if you don't push the handle quite hard enough, it fails to get going, but slowly empties the cistern at a rate too slow to move the shit out.

They also take up a huge amount of space in the cistern.

[Commander Kinsey]

My water (including removal of sewage) rate is £20 a month for however much I want to use. Fuck all compared with everything else like mortgage, petrol, food, electricity, gas....

[Tim Streater]

You'll be on a meter one day - as everyone should be.

[charles]

but he's in Scotland where the water is still state owned

[Commander Kinsey]

Water is a renewable resource and therefore unlimited. I CAN go on a meter, but it costs more. It actually costs more for the standing charge on metered, even if I use no water at all, than if I stay on unmetered. That's because it costs more to maintain the meter than it does to just supply more water. We're on an island, not in a desert.

[Commander Kinsey]

Actually it's a private company accountable to the Scottish Government. If it was state owned we'd be paying three times as much. State owned means no competition and they charge whatever they like.

[Dean Hoffman]

Surface water? I grew up on a farm with a little creek running through it. Using it for drinking presents its own set of problems. Runoff from fields and cattle lots would make it undrinkable without treatment. Cattle on pasture walked through it. Pumping it from the creek to the house wouldn't be free. Cleaning it enough to use wouldn't be free. Water from underground is filtered by nature. It's much handier and won't freeze up during the winter like our little creek would sometimes. The Ogallala Aquifer is a gift for those in the Central U.S. It gives people a chance to make farms more productive, and water for towns. Not free, of course.

[Commander Kinsey]

You don't have to clean it yourself, that's why civilisation has things called water companies that clean it on mass much more cheaply.

[rbowman]

We had a creek too with most houses, including ours, dumping raw sewage into it. You learned to keep your mouth closed when swimming. We did pump it for irrigating the vegetables.

There was a dye works downstream. When they blew their whistle you got out of the water fast or you'd be a pleasant shade of orange or whatever other color was in the dye vat they were dumping.

[Commander Kinsey]

I do like that. Watch out we're about to pollute you!

Hang on, free suntan?

[Commander Kinsey]

Doesn't sound like something rocket science is required for.

[Commander Kinsey]

Well a PhD was done in tangle theory (as in why do things get into knots all by themselves).

[Dean Hoffman]

We live in different worlds. Those guys wouldn't work for free plus it would make farmers/ranchers less self sufficient. Both are bad things.

[Commander Kinsey]

So you bought a farm somewhere without a good water supply. Doh!