Comments on: Tinkeln nicht Sprinkeln

By: Scylla the Cat

Scylla the Cat — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 01:45:43 +0000

By: Henry

Henry — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 19:35:21 +0000

“trembling hand” is a means (proposed by Reinhard Selten if me memory is correct) of eliminating certain irrational Nash equilibria by making a game into a perturbed game in which there is a tiny chance that a player will make the wrong move, and seeing which equilibria still work.

By: Bear

Bear — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 18:49:34 +0000

This analysis ignores the significant cost of having the seat down when an unconsiderate friend Ralph is over. In that case, one can assume that the unpleasantness of being the first to sit following Ralph might outweigh the cost of changing the position of the lid. If Ralph is over sufficiently often, it may even tip the balance to a policy of always leaving the seat up. (For anybody doing the math, make sure you include the higher probability of Ralph standing, since he is a drunk after all.)

Of course, if this is a men’s bathroom, the unfortunately high frequency of “Ralphs” in the population ought to encourage an all up strategy, at least among non-Ralphs. I actually have a business plan in mind related to this case.

By: CJColucci

CJColucci — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 17:57:58 +0000

OK, I can more or less intuitively follow the math, but I’m not up on the jargon. What is this “trembling hand” business?

By: astrongmaybe

astrongmaybe — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 17:38:13 +0000

I knew someone (in Germany, natch) who, after years of arguments with his wife, solved this problem by finding a urinal in a dumpster and building it into the bathroom of his new house. Everyone was happy.

When I first went there (Germany), I thought it was all some kind of cutesy joke, all those stickers in the toilets (in English) saying “Stand Up for Your Rights, Sit Down for your Piss”. But they really mean it.

By: marcel

marcel — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 17:05:51 +0000

Apropos toilet aerosols:

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a990416.html

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 16:39:09 +0000

Didn’t you notice, eric? Poverty was beaten late last night. It was too late to get in the morning papers, I guess.

By: Eric

Eric — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 15:56:09 +0000

I’m glad that now that the problem of poverty has been solved we can turn our attention to more critical issues of concern to certain men.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 14:17:14 +0000

That approach wouldn’t work at my place, Michael M., since I’ve trained my cat to use the human toilet. He likes the seat down but the lid, obviously, needs to be up. (He can’t flush yet, unfortunately. He does, however, pea a bit like a German, it seems.)

By: Michael Mouse

Michael Mouse — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 11:19:17 +0000

The analysis is deficient in modelling my household, at least. As well as one adult female and one adult male, it contains one infant and one cat.

The adults have reached a stable agreement to leave both seat and lid down after every use, since any other solution would impose undesirable externalities on the other household members (risk of them gaining access to the bowl), and the adults are committed to giving such externalities full consideration.

(And since the phrase “toilet aerosols” was drawn to my attention I have vastly preferred to have the lid down before flushing anyway.)

By: ben wolfson

ben wolfson — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 07:26:02 +0000

And to think you subverted my work to make your shoddy point.

By: ben wolfson

ben wolfson — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 07:24:55 +0000

Clever readers might detect in the post title an allusion to the Teutonic way of pissing, ogged.

By: ogged

ogged — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 06:55:40 +0000

I thought the Germans had already solved this problem.

By: Ars Mathematica » Blog Archive » Finally, Some Real Applications

Ars Mathematica » Blog Archive » Finally, Some Real Applications — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 06:25:57 +0000

[...] I’m glad to see that finally someone is putting mathematics to some good use. I present to you The social norm of leaving the toilet seat down: A game theoretic analysis. (Via Crooked Timber.) [...]

By: Elliot Reed

Elliot Reed — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 05:55:28 +0000

Interesting discussion, but the analysis doesn’t account for the costs to women who get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and wind up in the water because the toilet seat is up and it’s hard to remember to check in the middle of the night.