
Stanford scientists design a toilet with facial recognition for your butthole - Plecky
https://boingboing.net/2020/04/07/stanford-scientists-design-a-t.html
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ardy42
Parody becomes reality. This is literally Adult Swim's Smart Pipe:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ):

> Everything in our lives is connected to the internet, so why not our
> toilets? Take a tour of Smart Pipe, the hot new tech startup that turns your
> waste into valuable information and fun social connectivity.

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JGM_io
I see those phd's are being spent wisely to accelerate humanity's evolution.

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brodouevencode
To be fair the excretion analysis may be useful for determining health
problems before they become more pronounced: urine analysis for diabetics,
women seeking pregnancy tests, any other nephrotic issues; and fecal analysis
for cancers, parasitic and viral tests. Then you would need to pair that data
to the subject. While there's probably better and less-gross ways of doing
this, I like the spirit behind it (pun intended).

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JGM_io
I totally see the value of analysis, butt it is a clear sign of how our
society is clearly focused on too many shallow and superfluous endeavours...
Just like how our economy is threatened by people only buying what they really
need..

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JoeAltmaier
If you think public health is shallow...I'm not sure I get where this is
going?

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JGM_io
It's not about public health. My comment is about anal recognition technology
(my god..) being superfluous and yes : shallow thinking

Energy would be way better spent on the actual analysis of diseases vs
identifying someone. In my opinion of course

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JoeAltmaier
Every part of the problem bears scrutiny. Both can be done. There is no 'vs'.

So often arguments seems to assume some kind of scarcity of resources; some
poverty of intellect that must be rationed. That's a sad viewpoint, and
unworthy.

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JGM_io
Although I do agree with the general notion of your argument, I believe in
this case it is being applied too abstract.

Yes, both can be done. Yet it is not the scarcity of intellect I'm
criticising. It's the researchers time that is being spent (or wasted imho)
that is the focus of my criticism.

A single RFID, QR code could've worked. Would take about 5 minutes dev time.

I can't think of having to classify the images

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JoeAltmaier
Maybe we're overthinking this. Learning algorithms can be thrown together
pretty quickly (a set of only 21 samples in this case). And further, aren't we
talking graduate students? Everything they do is a dress rehearsal for real
research later in their career.

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JGM_io
Would those be stool samples?

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lmilcin
I want to point out that somebody somewhere will put that on their CV.

It also must be interesting to meet with friends and explain to them what you
are doing for work.

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collyw
Seems a bit pointless. Surely smell and consistency would be a big factor in
analyzing this sort of thing as well as visual information.

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def8cefe
Can't forget taste.

