Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by amelius | Hacker News Reader

Full thread

amelius

I would prefer to put "silly" patents on my wall instead, such as [1], [2], [3].

[1] http://www.google.nl/patents/US4320756

[2] http://www.google.com/patents/US4022227

[3] https://www.google.nl/patents/US1106495

View on HN

This is hilarious! The "toilet breathing tube" [1] actually had a prominent appearance in this year's movie "Kingsman - The Secret Service" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2802144/), where a group of trainees used shower tubes to breathe through the toilets when their dorm was flooded with water. I guess they were lucky that the patent on this has already expired, otherwise they would have drowned for certain...

I had a problem with that scene. That works for a fire. I would not expect it to work when the entire room, toilets included, are filled with water. Wouldn't the toilets just continuously "flush" due to the water pressure, the same way as they flush if you manually dump a bucket of water into a regular toilet?

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing :-)

If you could get the breathing tube to the vent pipe part of the plumbing there might be air in that part of the piping even while the toilet is draining the water from the flooded room. You would need to get the tube pushed past the toilet and into the main drain pipe though to have a chance at hitting the vent which would be difficult. I would be concerted about the gases that come out of a waste pipe though in either case I would think that can't be good for you.

yes, I had exactly the same thought! The water pressure should eject any air inside the U-tube and probably make it impossible to breathe through the toilet. But then again, not everything in a movie has to be 100 % accurate all the time ;)

How about US6145506 A: Decorative penile wrap

http://www.google.com/patents/US6145506

Can't forget the gerbil vest!

http://www.google.com/patents/US5901666

I agree. I also like Van Halen's: http://www.google.com/patents/US4656917 And many more: https://www.google.com/search?q=funny+patents&safe=active&so...

Here you go - How to be a Kingsman http://i.imgur.com/7IuXtbb.png :-D

Clearly the only way to make this work in the movie, where the entire room was flooded, would have been to rip the toilet off of its mooring bolts. Otherwise you'd never get the hose up into the vent pipe.

I can't believe someone patented a combover.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com