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Nintendo Switch game cartridges taste offensively bad (2017)

polygon.com

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Re: Nintendo Switch game cartridges taste offensively bad (2017)

#201

Post by AlotOfReading »

martyvis wrote: post #184
AlotOfReading wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Labs aren't buying their stuff at Walmart, so I don't know why they'd by affected by any remotely reasonable law. The supply houses can keep selling methylated alcohol, but let's get the unnecessary poisons off store shelves and out of consumer cabinets.

Except 100% ethanol would be considered a poison too. 100ml (4 ounces) could likely kill a 5 year old child. https://www.alcohol.org.nz/alcohol-its-effects/health-effect...

And if you denature that, it's almost twice as toxic because methanol is so much nastier. Hopefully I don't need to point out why completely banning alcohols is a rather different conversation.

Re: Nintendo Switch game cartridges taste offensively bad (2017)

#202

Post by Scoundreller »

dont__panic wrote: post #81
arghwhat wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We use isopropyl alcohol, which is not denatured, whenever high purity is required.

Or in a pinch, 99% grain alcohol. Source: some friends make drinks with grain alcohol, and then don't want it any more after they make those drinks (gee, I wonder why?). Provides an essentially endless supply of alcohol for cleaning purposes for me.

You probably mean 95% grain alcohol if you’re making cost-effective non-toxic drinks with it.

Re: Nintendo Switch game cartridges taste offensively bad (2017)

#203

Post by [deleted] »

earthscienceman wrote: post #85
Alex3917 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that non-toxic does not mean edible, as the FDA recently clarified due to many people being severely poisoned from eating cakes decorated with luster dust meant for crafting. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7043a2.htm You would think that if something says non-toxic, licking it shouldn't kill you, but apparently not.

Wait. WTF does non-toxic mean then? Non-toxic to touch? I don't fathom what they're trying to communicate then..

[deleted]

Re: Nintendo Switch game cartridges taste offensively bad (2017)

#204

Post by exmadscientist »

martyvis wrote: post #184
AlotOfReading wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Labs aren't buying their stuff at Walmart, so I don't know why they'd by affected by any remotely reasonable law. The supply houses can keep selling methylated alcohol, but let's get the unnecessary poisons off store shelves and out of consumer cabinets.

Except 100% ethanol would be considered a poison too. 100ml (4 ounces) could likely kill a 5 year old child. https://www.alcohol.org.nz/alcohol-its-effects/health-effect...

Absolute alcohol (200 proof ethanol) has a number of ways to kill you. It's slightly poisonous on its own. It's a massively powerful dessicator, so it can turn tissue into leather. And, if you've got industrial quantities of the stuff, it's probably not quite pure: turns out you can't just distill it past 190 proof due to water and ethanol forming an azeotrope. To push past that limit requires azeotropic distillation using such fun substances as cyclohexane, benzene, and isooctane, and they definitely do exist in the final distillation output. Most of these are rather more poisonous than ethanol on their own, so you don't want to drink them.

So don't bloody well drink anything above 190 proof, ever, no exceptions! Though when you're going through 55-gallon drums of it to clean clean-room equipment, a lot of it tends to end up in the air... turns out you can get enough alcohol in the air to get noticeable effects on you.

Like I said, lots of ways to kill you.

Re: Nintendo Switch game cartridges taste offensively bad (2017)

#205

Post by robbedpeter »

dijonman2 wrote: post #188
wodenokoto wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You tax alcohol for consumption but not for cleaning products, like rubbing alcohol. Now you need to figure out a way to stop people from consuming cleaning products.

Or lower alcohol tax

Or don't do prohibition, or half ass prohibition with tax.

Re: Nintendo Switch game cartridges taste offensively bad (2017)

#206

Post by gilgoomesh »

lilyball wrote: post #135

I cannot taste "bitter" (it's a genetic thing), though bittering agents used in food/drinks do taste very unpleasant to me (I don't know what it is I'm tasting in those or why it's so unpleasant). I have not tried licking a Switch cartridge. Does anyone know if Denatonium Benzoate will still taste bad to me, or is the badness entirely contained in the "bitter" that I cannot taste? I could experiment myself but I've r…

I think your edit points out the reality: what we call "bitter" covers a wide range of different tastes and we have at least 25 different receptors that are considered "bitter".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taste_receptor

Re: Nintendo Switch game cartridges taste offensively bad (2017)

#208

Post by fomine3 »

kaladin-jasnah wrote: post #41
astrange wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sony is older than Apple and was one of Steve Jobs' main inspirations. He even wanted to make everyone wear uniforms (which Sony and Nintendo still did then) - that's where his same outfit every day habit came from. They weren't focused back then, but neither was Apple.

Didn't Jobs also offer Sony to make laptops that ran OS X? Also, random thing, but both Orbis (Playstation operating system) and OS X are based on FreeBSD.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBook_100 but System7

Re: Nintendo Switch game cartridges taste offensively bad (2017)

#209

Post by fomine3 »

Melatonic wrote: post #192
TylerE wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get the Sony:Apple comparison at all. If anything, Sony is Japan's Microsoft: Do a gazillion things, many of them poorly, to such a unfocused extent that some of your divisions actually end up competition with each other. Like in Sony's case, how they've had internal battles for decades between the device side (that wants to make devices that are useful) and the content side (that wants DRM out the ass on eve…

I would say Panasonic is actually the Apple of Japan but with more of a focus on business to business in addition to consumer. They make a gazillion things but generally they are all damn good. Sony is like a fancier Microsoft Who knows with Nintendo

Panasonic mainly makes boring good products (though some are nice). It's apparently not like Apple.

Re: Nintendo Switch game cartridges taste offensively bad (2017)

#210

Post by nfriedly »

vimacs2 wrote: post #195
martyvis wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except 100% ethanol would be considered a poison too. 100ml (4 ounces) could likely kill a 5 year old child. https://www.alcohol.org.nz/alcohol-its-effects/health-effect...

Who is giving 5 year olds 100% pure ethanol or ethanol at all for that matter?

Nobody gives it to them. 5-year-olds have sufficient intelligence and dexterity to get into all kinds of things, but don't necessarily know not to eat/drink/play with it, etc.
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