Show HN: Do you read on the toilet? This web app is for you. | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Do you read on the toilet? This web app is for you.

backlabel.gr

121 pointsfotism68 comments

I'm going to be a little serious here, and suggest that you should actively avoid engaging with anything that might keep you on the toilet longer than necessary to do your business. That position puts a lot of strain on the rectum and anal hemorrhoids, and can exacerbate health problems that tend to go hand-in-hand with desk jobs.

That said, this app is frickin' hilarious.

On the other hand, something can be said for 'rushing', pushing too much, generating the problems you mentioned.

Oh, absolutely. The upshot of my comment was "avoid things that put undue stress on your rectal muscles", which includes both straining and spending extended periods sitting on the can.

To take it further, I suggest that everyone use a squatting toilet. If you have to use a western sitting toilet, squat on the rim.

Absolutely do not stand on the seat. Beyond getting dirty shoes all over the toilet, the asymmetic force during initiation is a great way to break the toilet seat or overcompress the wax seal beneath the toilet (I had an ex-roommate damage my toilet this way). Putting your feet on the rim is a good way to slip and fall. If you want to simulate a squat toilet with a Western fixture, raise up your feet on a step stool. Sit down first then raise your feet. </rant>

And before anyone thinks about disrupting the step stool market, it's been done:

http://www.squattypotty.com/

Complete with puns.

Sometimes you are in a public place with nothing to use as a platform. Never use the seat, of course, since other people put their butts there, and as you say they can be fragile. I use the rim. I have never slipped or fallen. It is quite secure.

At home I have platforms.

awesome suggestion about raising your feet! I'll keep that in mind :D

I always joke with my friends when I tell them the girls in Asian countries always have more shapely asses than their Asian-American counterparts. That's because they work out their asses when they need to do their business.

How do you do that without getting "residue" on your feet or shoes?

Wipe off the rim before and after if there is anything there. It will also prevent you from slipping.

I actually thought it was going to be a feed reader with a built in timer than discouraged you from sitting around too long...

Maybe some RSS reader should adopt the name 'Strained Rectum'.

Rectum Straining Syndication?

OK, $10M Series A on $30M pre-money, 15% pool, standard preferred stock, offer expires Monday 5PM.

Too late, Yahoo has already agreed to pay $50M and integrate with Tumblr.

Shortly after acquiring, however, they shut down the product and cancel all plans of integration. All previous employees become assimilated.

OK, we'll buy it back, $1M, the seller can keep 20% for schmuck insurance.

Not there yet, but work in progress. http://esberi.com

My heart has just sank into the pit of my stomach.

I am coding a very similar app, right this second.

I'm going to stop and have a scotch.

I wouldn't worry about it being similar. Put a twist on it - make it generate fake versions of the terribly boring magazines that lie around bathrooms forever. Or something similar - it'll still be interesting.

Take it as a very good sign that you're not the only app trying to do this! That means there is a market & customer demand for the product you have under development. Move fast and make things!

> I am coding a very similar app, right this second.

In fairness, "right this second" you were actually browsing Hacker News :)

Oooops! :/

Begrudgingly; congratulations. It was my bit of fun app after a serious start-up. The scotch will have to do.

Thanks :)

Excellent, simple and funny.

Please can we not have any narky comments about this one, appreciate the joke move on with your life. It's typography is not important?

Thank you very much :)

I wondered how much productivity has been lost since the invention of the iPhone to extended bathroom breaks...

You're joking, but I'll attempt a serious point:

To call that "productivity [that has been] lost", means that there was productivity that should have happened and was somehow stolen.

Sure, there was "productivity potential" in those moments, but that's true for every moment. E.g when we're sleeping, making love or eating. We do we think we should be productive almost every second of our lives, or we "lost" something?

The comment mentioned extended bathroom breaks, as in, when someone stays on the toilet for longer than necessary due to having a smartphone.

Isn't this why a few groups are working on iphone coding apps? :p

I had a teacher in elementary who didn't like her students staring at the ceiling while she taught. Thinking that we were trying to escape from the lesson, she put several famous paintings (Mona Lisa, Sistine Chapel, etc) on the ceiling so we would at least be learning to appreciate art while in her classroom. There was nowhere in the room to look which wasn't educational.

At work, before iPhone, I'd typically take to the bathroom a book that covered something I actually needed to know for work, so my time in the bathroom was actually productive time.

After iPhone, I read HN, Reddit, or Slashdot. So, at least in my case, there has definitely been a hit to productivity.

I imagine the hemorrhoid treatment business has seen an uptick.

If you don't want to read this stuff, I would highly recommend Pocket (aka ReadItLater). You use an addon in your browser to bookmark articles, papers, videos, or whatever and Pocket will download it to your phone. You can then read your bookmarks while on the can, even if you don't have a good connection.

Idea: A label of Dr. Bronner's Soap with text generated by Markov chains from usually overblown content, e.g. spammy e-books.

A @bronner_ebooks of sorts.

Good joke, beautifully executed. Well done!

Thank you!

The fact that this is the #2 link on Hacker News right now says a lot.

Mostly that it's Sunday evening.

Yes of course, everyone reads while on the toitey, that is a given. But I read the NY Times on my kindle, and occasionally, OK, you got me often, HackerNews (just a second while I flush) ok, where was I... ah yes, what is needed, in my view, is a nice little stand or holder for your tablet, ultrabook, kindle, etc., my arm gets tired, the old time newspaper was much lighter. LOL. I am sure someone has already patented something like that!

Am I the only one who thought from the description that this would condense users' social media feeds, making them look like they were product back labels?

Hm... Interesting...

Pretty cool idea, but I would love to see the actual back of the product I'm reading. It would be much more immersive, I think.

totally lost interest after the 2nd page refresh.

What would keep your interest?

> What would keep your interest?

I know why I lost interest after the 2nd page refresh: I am not sitting on the throne right now. :-D Leaving aside the kryptonite and smurfs, trying to figure out which of those ingredients were real was quite a challenge!

Maybe a series of aphorims would be better, say quotes from Meditations of Marcus Aurelius or Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack, etc.

Neat idea, though!

Your detergents have quotes from Benjamin Franklin on their back labels? Coooool! :D

We're exercising poetic license here.

Imagine a label for Poor Richard's Washing Powder and as part of the usage instructions it says "Early to bed, early to rise..." etc.

Actually I had a similar idea but I think we need a totally different site here, besides the labels.

Real product labels?

Some fodder may perhaps be found here:

http://www.dsld.nlm.nih.gov/dsld/index.jsp

In a future update ;)

Would you read product labels if they were randomly generated? If you couldn't possibly know them by heart? If you didn't learn something new about the world?

Randomly generated walls of text are no fun :-(

No. I mainly read HN and blogs in the toilet.

And before having Internet or a portable device I always bring a book with me. I always thought that the bookshelves must be in the bathroom: pure inspiration.

Saw this while sitting on the toilet reading my brand-new iPad mini.. My first Apple product.. Thought for a second, how did they track me in here!

hiarious! indeed. Me doing marketing, I'm also intrested in the front. Is is it much of efford getting the front of the packages aswell. I would love to compare the individual USP's of the product. With this change.. wow.. this could be a tool people might even pay for :) thanks for the great joke.. Since I'm through with my stuff on the toilet I went for WordBliz ;)

The label size should be variable. Not every item needs one of each category.

At nearly every company I've worked at or consulted for, the only peace to be had anywhere in the building was in the bathroom, on the toilet. That's a sad state of affairs in an information+ideas economy. So I won't be firing up any apps on the john, thanks very much.

maybe its just me but I don't understand what the joke is ? I read through a label and didn't find it humorous ? Is it possibly because i didn't read the right one ?

Cool, but hate the justified text. Makes it harder to read :/

Yeah I know... I'm trying to figure out a way to keep it justified without all the gaps due to random content and unusually large words.

http://www.mnn.ch/hyph/hyphenation2.html

Noted. Thanks!

you people are disgusting, who would spend more time on the toilet than is needed breathing in their own farts and smelling their own shit. And yet all over the net there are people who are proud of it.

Go to a doctor or change your diet. If your plumbing works taking a dump takes about the same time as picking your phone from your pocket and unlocking your screen - rendering the whole reading to keep yourself busy useless.

waited this for my entire life.

I was kind of disappointed it didn't have real products.

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