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The New York Times published an article about toilet paper theft and the use of technology to prevent it:
The toilet paper thieves of the Temple of Heaven Park were an elusive bunch.
They looked like most park visitors, practicing tai chi, dancing in the courtyards and stopping to take in the scent of ancient cypress and juniper trees. But hidden in their oversize shopping bags and backpacks was a secret: sheet upon sheet of crumpled toilet paper, plucked surreptitiously from public restrooms.
Now the authorities in Beijing are fighting back, going so far as to install high-tech toilet paper dispensers equipped with facial recognition software in several restrooms.
Before entering restrooms in the park, visitors must now stare into a computer mounted on the wall for three seconds before a machine dispenses a sheet of toilet paper, precisely two feet in length. If visitors require more, they are out of luck. The machine will not dispense a second roll to the same person for nine minutes.
This seems to be too funny to be real, but the article has an animated GIF that demonstrates this device's operation.
(Score: 2) by mendax on Tuesday March 21 2017, @08:47PM (1 child)
Or even toilet paper from later dates. After all, Albert Speer wrote large amounts of his Spandau diary on toilet paper. And habeas corpus petitions from California prisons have been written on toilet paper for lack of anything better available. (Some of those petitions were successful BTW.)
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Tuesday March 21 2017, @09:09PM
Toilet paper is perfectly good as a communications medium. Even some president's faces have been printed on toilet paper, no doubt as an endorsement and statement of support.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.