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Nintendo Switch game cartridges taste offensively bad (2017)

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

#231

Post by jessriedel »

avianlyric wrote: post #191
jessriedel wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's impossible for a human to tell the difference... You are arguing that the risk of accidental poisoning by methanol is in fact high. Thats an empirical question, and I explicitly agreed in my comment that if the risk is high then this is not a good method of disincentive. Importantly, your argument is not the one I was rebutting, that poisons are bad disincentives because they are inhumane punishments for tax e…

> You are arguing that the risk of accidental poisoning by methanol is in fact high. I’m arguing that no level of introduced “deterrent” fatality risk is an acceptable trade off for preventing a crime that itself isn’t punishable by death (and I believe that no crime should be punishable by death). The only situation I would consider deliberately introducing the risk of fatality as a deterrent, is when there’s extrem…

> I’m arguing that no level of introduced “deterrent” fatality risk is an acceptable trade off for preventing a crime that itself isn’t punishable by death

All deterrents have a non-zero chance of causing death. People die in prisons, catch fatal viruses in court, etc. Indeed, even bitterants can cause allergic reactions, and so definitely have a non-zero probability of causing death.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6571374/

Since you reject this idea, there is no point in us discussing further.

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

#232

Post by jessriedel »

noduerme wrote: post #189
jessriedel wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t really see the point of risking poisoning people as a way of dissuading tax dodging especially when alternatives exist. You're not disagreeing with what I wrote. > In the same way we don’t put solid barriers on roads unless people walking need to be protected Not true. We also put up barriers when people driving over the line would merely be a nuisance, e.g. in parking lots or to keep people from entering c…

Those nuisance barriers you mention are often intended to cause limited damage. For example, water barrels in a gore point or the gates of a parking garage which are made out of wood and intended to snap off. The problem with the first sentence of your initial post is that you seem willing to justify some degree of death if it serves as a deterrent, even though you later claim that if other options are equally good d…

> Those nuisance barriers you mention are often intended to cause limited damage. For example, water barrels in a gore point or the gates of a parking garage which are made out of wood and intended to snap off.

Some are, and they may indeed be preferable to ones that cause worse damage, but some are not. The correct choice depends on the risks involved and the costs of the various methods (e.g., concrete requires less maintenance than wood).

> This leaves open the possibility that if bittering agents don't deter as well, poison may be a reasonable choice. Yet the only thing we're talking about deterring is tax avoidance. In which case poison seems completely unreasonable.

This is a good line of inquiry, but your blanket conclusion is wrong. Again it depends on the details.

If bitterants are 90% effective but methanol is 99.9% effective, corresponding to $100M vs. $100k worth of alcohol in the black market, then this must be weighed against the statistical value of life, which is ~$8M in the US, and the number of people killed by the poisoning.

The poison isn't a punishment because it isn't being drunk by people who we intend to have drink it (which is no one). The poison is being accidentally drunk by people who don't know it's there, which is exactly the opposite of what's intended. That's what makes those poisonings accidental side effects, rather than penalties.

In contrast, "man traps" (booby traps intended to harm or capture trespassers) are generally illegal because their effect (bodily injury and/or, effectively, kidnapping) are illegal because they unjustly inflict consequences on their intended targets.

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

#235

Post by kragen »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #92
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.

Dose makes the poison. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8351798/ > The toxicity of denatonium benzoate is low with acute po LD50's in rats of 485-740 mg/kg. https://www.chemsrc.com/en/cas/3734-33-6_1028011.html TYPE OF TEST: LD50 - Lethal dose, 50 percent kill ROUTE OF EXPOSURE: Oral SPECIES OBSERVED: Rodent - rat DOSE/DURATION: 584 mg/kg DOSE/DURATION: 508 mg/kg Non-toxic definitely means that common exposure to the…

Apparently one of the "luster dusts" was 25% lead, and another was pure copper dust, which is also pretty toxic if ingested. Lead sulfide (galena) is 86% lead, shiny when in large crystals and probably low enough toxicity that you could label it as "nontoxic". https://www.mindat.org/mesg-361788.html says the oral LD50 of galena in guinea pigs is 10000 mg/kg, which is about three or four times less acutely toxic than table salt. But table salt doesn't accumulate in your bones and brain over time, so seasoning all your food with galena would still be worse for you, even if you didn't chip your teeth.

I thought lead metal was maybe also inert enough to prevent lead poisoning from metal ingestion—just as you can drink substantial quantities of metallic mercury with no ill effects—but that turns out to be wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead#Toxicity says, "Most ingested lead is absorbed into the bloodstream," and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_poisoning#Lead-containing... says, "Ingestion of metallic lead, such as small lead fishing lures, increases blood lead levels and can be fatal.[126][127][128][129]"

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

#236

Post by rasz »

323 wrote: post #113
cwkoss wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this bitterant leave a residue when the alcohol evaporates? That seems like one benefit of methanol vs bitterant: all of the alcohol can still evaporate without depositing bitterant as a side effect. Are there bitterants that evaporate similarly to alcohol but are not toxic?

The bitterent used is so powerful, the concentration is like 0.01 ppm. So unless you are in a clean room, there will be more dust from air which deposits. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatonium

Try cleaning glasses with it - leaves nasty stains.

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

#237

Post by brian-armstrong »

jakear wrote: post #146
ortusdux wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the most bitter compound know to humans, with a detectability down to 0.05 ppm, and average aversion dosing around 10ppm. Lab tests show that some animals require 100,000 times the dose before detection. This discrepancy is leveraged for another application - making rat poison repulsive to children without reducing its efficacy. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00319...

I take small pride in the idea there’s something I can taste better than my dog. All I ever hear is how their senses are orders more heightened than our own. Do you know if there are any smells that humans can detect better than dogs?

More likely is that dogs can taste it fine, but it doesn't bother them. It's a matter of perspective.

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

#238

Post by hansvm »

exmadscientist wrote: post #230
Shared404 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> exmadscientist Username checks out, any fun stories to share? I find most people who've worked in lab's have at least one.

Not as many as I'd like. Or maybe I just need to become a better storyteller.

Probably the latter. You might not even need to become better; just tell a few more stories and find yourself shocked at what we all find entertaining.

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

#240

Post by dcow »

naniwaduni wrote: post #223
xyzzyz wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Than ethanol (or denaturated ethanol).

"Even more toxic" is not usually the preferred phrasing for comparing with ethanol; it implies you're comparing with something that's already quite toxic, and ethanol, while indeed toxic, is not normally considered quite toxic enough that we don't need to go out of our way to stop people from drinking it.

I don’t know what you’re going off about. It made sense to me.
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