English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

MετάEd

00:10

@KitFox Brrr. Horrible.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus I haven't been following the story

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Apparently, Toronto was the hub of a child-porn network.

But I'm not holding you responsible, fear not.

I wonder how many children were actually imprisoned somewhere. Probably many fewer than those 386, but still.

The memory of Dutroux's cellar is still very much alive here.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Dutroux? "Of the hole"?

Cerberus

Uhh I guess? He kept poor An and Eefje in his cellar for years, in Belgium.

His wife knew.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Fitting name.

Cerberus

00:18

I suppose so!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I've been too busy watching the news about the mayor.

MετάEd

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 The goal is to put out the cat, right?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

And hitting "check for updates"on my phone

Cerberus

I heard the council has voted that he should remove himself from office, but he refuses?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

also I just got some orthodontic work done and I spent the afternoon in bed with a headache

Cerberus

00:22

Poor you!

Better now?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

yeah. There's no provision for ousting him unless he's convicted of a crime

somewhat better

Cerberus

I presume he will leave anyway, eventually?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

He's more stubborn than NS

Cerberus

Or maybe he is NS.

But still, I have never heard of a politician who stayed on for more than a month who had this little support.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

He's several times stated that he intends to run for reelection

Cerberus

00:24

> NEWSFLASH: MAYOR OF TORONTO TROLLS ENGLISH Q&A WEBSITE

They never give up immediately.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

That would explain a lot

Ns's behaviour makes perfect sense if he's really just rob ford. Drunk driving, drug buying, crack smoking, bullying, prostitute-loving pathologically lying mayor of Toronto.

Cerberus

See?

So maybe you could bribe NS to grant you a parking permit or something.

Avoid waiting lists, score lucrative jobs...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

00:40

►

live news conference video from this morning - nsfw

Mitch

@Cerberus Oh. You can do that?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

^^ (for those of you who haven't been following along: the big dude in the football jersey is the Mayor of Toronto, fresh out of a council meeting)

Mitch

@Robusto No matter how good you were during your short time there, they will blame everything that goes wrong afterwards on you.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Was this all a revelation to you all or did you know about it all along and this is just ow making international news because of the youtube thing?

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Very dignified.

Why is he wearing that?

Matt Эллен

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 is this about the crack he smoked?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

00:47

@Mitch was what a revelation, that the mayor is a douchebag? No. Just how bug a douchebag he is, though, is being increasingly revealed. Just when you think it can't get worse, it does.

Mitch

He's patriotic? It's probably a jersey for the toronto blue jays or whatever the hockey team is called.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@MattЭллен No.

Matt Эллен

oh! new scandal!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Mitch blue-jays = baseball. also it's a football jersey. For the Toronto Argonauts.

Mitch

Yay! I was getting bored.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 You're holding me to accuracy here?

Cerberus

00:49

What's wrong with, oh, a suit jacket? Or even a pullover?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

The mayor always wanted to be a football player. Or a coach. He used to skip council meetings to go coach high-school football. But the school where he coached fired him after he basically said the players were all disadvantaged minorities who couldn't stay in school and would be dead or in jail if it weren't for his football coaching.

Mitch

@Cerberus A jersey is like a sweater except not as think. or anywhere near the same material...or design.

Cerberus

Wow.

@Mitch There you go.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@MattЭллен Not directly. It's about a recently revealed police investigation into his activites.

Matt Эллен

I see

I am cold and tired. Good night! Happy writings

Cerberus

00:51

@MattЭллен Aww get warm!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

i wish I were writing tonight. instead I am going to be doing the work I should have done earlier.

Cerberus

I was rather thinking something like this, if he really couldn't wear a jacket.

Maybe a few sizes bigger.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 But you're sick!

You should be allowed to take some time off.

KitFox

@MattЭллен warms

Cerberus

@KitFox Nonsense.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus yeah but this deployment has to happen on wednesday no matter what. so I have to do this.

Cerberus

00:53

Now this is gay. Except that it's Asian.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Do you feel you can do it?

Paracetamol?

KitFox

@Cerberus That's not gay. That's just stupid. Why would you wear a hoodie backwards?

Cerberus

Because it's Asian.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus yeah.

KitFox

Still. Not gay.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That's something, good.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

00:54

Except we call it Tylenol.

Cerberus

@KitFox It's gayish.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Does that contain paracetamol? Or is it different?

Robusto

@Mitch Kinda what I figured.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus It's the same thing

Cerberus

Ah OK.

KitFox

Tylenol is a brand of acetaminophen.

Acetaminophen is the same molecule as paracetamol.

Cerberus

00:56

Paracetamol sounds like a brand, but it is generic, at least here.

KitFox

!!wiki paracetamol.

KitSox

Paracetamol

Paracetamol INN ( or ), or acetaminophen USAN , chemically named N-acetyl-p-aminophenol, is a widely used over-the-counter analgesic (pain reliever) and antipyretic (fever reducer). Paracetamol is classified as a mild analgesic. It is commonly used for the relief of headaches and other minor aches and pains and is a major ingredient in numerous cold and flu remedies. In combination with opioid analgesics, paracetamol can also be used in the management of more severe pain such as post-surgical pain and providing palliative care in advanced cancer patients. Though paracetamol is used to ...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

and Paracetemol is the international name for acetaminophen.

KitFox

It is better as a fever reducer than as a pain killer.

Robusto

@Cerberus I can't make out the kanji in the dark, but it's [something] coat [of]

Cerberus

00:57

@Robusto Sounds accurate enough?

Robusto

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Bad for you.

Cerberus

How do you mean?

Paracetamol is pretty harmless...

KitFox

Causes liver damage.

And stomach bleeding.

Cerberus

Only if you eat excessive quantities.

No stomach bleeding.

Robusto

no at the end is a possessive. But I'd have to be able to read the kanji to get the front of the headline, and it's too dark on this monitor at least. Not enough separation from the black.

KitFox

00:59

I can see it, but I don't really recognize them. One has a hat, the other grass on top.

Robusto

@Cerberus The difference between the maximum dose and a lethal dose is very small.

Cerberus

Umm but what is the maximum dose?

I believe that is not something you can easily achieve.

Robusto

4 grams is the maximum daily dose — all other things being perfect — and a guaranteed lethal dose is 10 grams.

KitFox

> While generally safe for use at recommended doses (1,000 mg per single dose and up to 4,000 mg per day for adults),[5] even small overdoses can be fatal. The ratio between fatal doses and therapeutic doses (the therapeutic index) is much smaller than for other over-the-counter painkillers.

> According to the US Food and Drug Administration as little as 25 percent above the maximum daily dose can cause liver damage when taken over several days.

Robusto

If you drink, or have liver damage for other reasons, you can easily ruin your liver with acetominophen. And you need your liver to, well, live.

Cerberus

01:02

You're telling me I could die if I eat five pills at once?

Robusto

@Cerberus Depends on the size of the pills, but yeah.

Cerberus

Mine are standard and 500mg.

Robusto

When I had my knee surgery they had me on several painkillers, including acetominophen. And even though I was in a great deal of pain I wouldn't take more than 3,000 mg per day. And stopped that as soon as I could.

Cerberus

> Beschadiging van de lever kan optreden na de inname van een enkele dosis van 10 tot 15 gram paracetamol. In de lever bevinden zich metaboliserende enzymen die paracetamol omzetten in een toxische metaboliet. Een leververgiftiging kan zeer pijnlijk zijn en een aantal dagen duren. Inname van een enkele dosis van 20 tot 25 gram kan fataal zijn.[11]
Anderzijds zijn er ook gevallen bekend waarbij de inname van een enorme hoeveelheid paracetamol niet tot leverschade leidde.[12] Bij een eenmalige inname van meer dan 70 mg/kg (ongeveer 5 gram voor volwassenen) zijn de nadelige effecten al te verw…

This says that "negative effects" are expected if you take > 5 grams at once.

Damage to the liver if you take more than 10 or 15 grams at once.

20-25g at once can be fatal.

10 grams would be 20 pills, still not nearly as many as I would have expected.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

All this is very good to know, but most drugs can cause overdoses and should be avoided if possible.

doesn't mean they don't also provide benefit in the right quantities.

Cerberus

01:10

Yeah.

Still, I'm surprised you could actually kill yourself with a couple of packages of paracetamol.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

It's well-known around here. it's one of the typical suicide methods used in TV shows.

Cerberus

Here it's sleeping pills.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

supposedly it's a horrible method to use. It doesn't always work. and it's extremely painful.

Cerberus

Yeah so I read.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

not everyone has sleeping pills on hand.

Cerberus

01:12

True.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

but practically everyone has painkillers of some kind.

Cerberus

But not enough to kill.

KitFox

I know of a woman who attempted suicide by taking an entire bottle of tylenol.

Cerberus

At least they sell paracetamol by the 16 or so here.

And never in bottles.

KitFox

I also know of a woman who attempted suicide by taking all her birth control pills.

Robusto

01:13

That weirdo Heaven's Gate cult used sleeping bills and bags over the head. Only way to be sure.

Cerberus

Did it work?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus in Canada, and I suspect in the US, it's very common for painkillers to come in packages large enough to OD on. I never buy anything but the largest bottles of painkillers I can find. They have a long shelf-life..

Cerberus

Hmm.

Bottles are not sold exactly for that reason.

Those thingies where you have to press them out take longer.

KitFox

Because they have long shelf lives?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

that's silly. if someone wants to kill themselves they can just buy more packs.

Cerberus

01:14

I don't think so, not at the same shop.

So you can do it if you prepare for it.

But not on impulse when you're at home.

Well, let's say the chance is lower.

Hmm they come in packets of 20x500mg here.

So that's 10g total.

According to Dutch wiki, that is about the threshold for liver damage if you weigh 70 kg and take them all at once.

> To reduce the incidence of paracetamol overdose, legislation was passed in the UK in 1998 to limit the number of tablets that could be bought in one purchase: 16 tablets at present (up to 32 tablets in pharmacies). Furthermore, paracetamol was supplied in blister packs making obtaining the actual tablets take longer.

Limiting pack size has reduced sizes of overdoses and numbers of deaths and liver transplantations in England and Wales, but not Scotland,[1]although some authors have disputed the decline.[2]

patient.co.uk/doctor/paracetamol-poisoning

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

It just seems like it would increase the cost of the pills substantially and provide hardly any benefit.

Cerberus

I don't know.

They're cheap anyway.

50 cents for 20 pills.

> Any alcohol taken (acute alcohol ingestion will inhibit liver enzymes and may reduce the production of the toxin NAPQI, whereas chronic alcoholism may increase it).

This is interesting.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus we pay around $0.60/20 pills if you buy the 500 pack size. Maybe less. That's before tax.

Cerberus

01:33

And for a small bottle/package?

By the way, serious question:

Why do you normally talk about prices before tax?

Is it because shops don't include tax? If so, why don't they?

Here everything is including VAT, except in shops that mainly serve companies.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus yes. In Canada and the US, advertised prices never include tax.

Cerberus

Any idea why not?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

To make the price seem lower, I suppose.

Cerberus

Can normal people do anything to not pay the tax?

(Companies can.)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Some can.

Cerberus

01:36

Many? How?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Natives who live on designated reserves don't need to pay tax. If they leave the reserve, they are supposed to be able to show a Band card which identifies them and lets them out of the tax.

That's the only exception I know of.

Cerberus

I see.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

It's dumb, I know

Cerberus

That would hardly seem to be the reason.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

There used to be two taxes, the Federal Sales Tax and the Provincial Sales Tax. The FST was baked into the prices and the PST was applied on top.

Cerberus

01:37

Ugh.

Don't people want taxes to be included?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Then the government wanted to change it, so they made the General Sales Tax, or GST. The GST is on top of the base price but along side the PST.

Cerberus

The EU made a law saying that airline ticket prices had to include all costs.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

That seemed offensive to people, so the government promised that by removing the hidden tax, base prices would go down.

They didn't.

Cerberus

Heh.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

But certain goods only qualified for either the GST or PST.

Then the provincial government changed the PST and harmonized it with the GST. So now there's only one tax, the HST.

The HST is typically 13%, of which 7% goes to the province.

EXCEPT that most of the same goods that didn't have PST before still don't... so those get taxed at 5% HST. And booze sold in restaurants gets taxed higher.

tchrist

01:40

@Cerberus No. Because the tax rate varies by jurisdiction, sometimes and indeed often down to the municipal level. State, county, city taxes. Plus different things are taxed at different rates, like unprepared raw foodstuffs or periodicals. The combinations are incalculable. So you charge 9.99 and add the appropriate taxes.

MSRP = $9.99, but what you pay, who knows?

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 And you have to calculate all of that yourself? Even in restaurants?

tchrist

@Cerberus Certainly: they can go to jail.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus No, the business does it for you. They provide itemized receipts showing which items fall under which tax categories.

tchrist

@Cerberus The restaurant adds it into the bill, and indeed has to, since booze is differently taxed than food is.

You get separate line items.

Cerberus

@tchrist Yeah that sounds inconvenient. Are there any voices demanding that all taxes should be included?

@tchrist Yay!

tchrist

01:41

Can’t happen.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus I've never heard anyone complaining about it.

tchrist

Absolutely impossible.

These are national brands, even continental ones.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yes, but only when you get the bill, not when you're ordering/buying.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist of course it's not impossible. They do it in Europe.

@Cerberus right.

tchrist

All I’ve ever seen $9.99, or $10.99 in Canada.

No, it cannot.

Cerberus

01:42

@tchrist How do you mean can't happen?

tchrist

A national company cannot make a flyer advertising a price when that price is different in every city across the entire country.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Hmm I've just heard someone complain here in chat...

tchrist

That’s why it is impossible.

Cerberus

Then they just have to make different flyers, or print more than one price on the same flyer.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist National companies already make flyers individually tailored to small jurisdictions.

tchrist

01:43

What, thousands of versions?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Yes

Cerberus

They do that here, even in many different currencies.

tchrist

Impossible.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

They already do it

They advertise prices differently even in different cities. At least, they do it here in Canada.

tchrist

It is up to the point-of-sale to calculate all legal taxes, no one else.

Cerberus

01:44

@tchrist Why thousands?

tchrist

Because no one else knows where it is and what local laws obtain.

Cerberus

Do you have that many different VATs rates?

tchrist

I don’t know what that means.

We have no such thing.

We often have state sales tax, county sales tax, township or city sales tax, transportation district sales tax, school district sales tax, and that doesn’t even get into the varying rates of periodicals vs raw food vs prepared food vs booze vs ..........

It just isn’t possible.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist see, that's kinda insane. At least here we only have two taxes.

tchrist

You have a nationally advertised MSRP.

It never includes tax. It cannot.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Far be it from me to disagree.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

01:48

There is talk of the City of Toronto levying its own sales tax. That would be a national first and is widely seen as political suicide for whoever is in office should that occur.

tchrist

Then we have all these measures where people vote for a little tax to pay for specific thing for a certain amount of time.

There are like 7 of those.

Here.

Cerberus

> state sales tax, county sales tax, township or city sales tax

tchrist

Oh, I forgot some, I see.

> Sales taxes in the United States are levied not only by state governments but also by city, county, Native American, and special district governments. In many cases these local sales taxes can have a profound impact on the total rate that consumers see at the check-out register.

There are 9,600 different tax districts in the United States.

Cerberus

So how many different combinations of non-national taxes are there?

tchrist

taxfoundation.org/article/sales-tax-rates-major-us-cities

Cerberus

01:50

It's not like 9000 of those districts have the same rate?

tchrist

Over 9000.

9600 > 9000

Cerberus

You mean "no"?

Robusto

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 You mean the crack-smoking mayor might get bad publicity?

tchrist

I don’t know what you’re saying.

Cerberus

I mean, if the district tax is, say, 5 % in 9000 out of 9600 districts...

tchrist

01:51

Plus that table doesn’t include any of the special taxes.

Cerberus

Only non-national taxes are a problem; taxes specific to products are not.

tchrist

Just counting countries and cities, the numbers range from 0 to 10%.

However, there are many other kinds of taxing districts.

I know I have a separate tax for the Denver Area Regional Transportation District and for the Boulder Valley School District, plus several others.

Cerberus

So what you're saying is the forest of taxes is the problem, what prevents shops from displaying total prices?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Robusto oh, he'd never ever vote to raise that tax. It was the previous administration that mused about it. And the various economists who study the city's finances. The crack smoker is a "government is evil, tax money should never be collected for any purpose" kinda guy.

tchrist

Now, if you want to know how many real numbers there are between 0 and 10, that is something I am prepared to answer you.

Robusto

01:53

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Someone has to pay for his vices. And it sure isn't going to be him.

Cerberus

We have different taxes on different product groups, but there is ony one rate per product.

tchrist

@Cerberus It’s printed on the book.

Cerberus

So are people demanding that this be changed?

tchrist

Of course not.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist for books it is. But hardly any other product has the price printed on it.

Cerberus

01:54

Why not?

tchrist

Business lobbies would block it, guaranteed.

BECAUSE NOBODY SELLING ANYTHING EVER WANTS TO SCARE YOU AWAY BY ADVERTISING THE ACTUAL COST OF ANYTHING.

Cerberus

Why does nobody want it to change?

tchrist

See airline ticket prices.

Want?

Because business would fail.

Homeless would move in.

There’d be shooting galleries.

American civilization would end.

Cerberus

Nobody is in favour of a simplification?

Robusto

@Cerberus Don't you have a huge VAT? The whole VAT system taxes you vertically, not horizontally.

tchrist

01:56

You confuse people with businesses.

Cerberus

People were complaining a lot before the airline-ticket reform here.

@Robusto We pay 21 % on most things. Why?

tchrist

The is an oligarchy, not a republic let alone a democracy. I’m sure you know the difference.

Robusto

@tchrist "Corporations are people." — Mitt Romney

Cerberus

The?

tchrist

@Robusto No, Soylent Green is people.

Robusto

01:57

@Cerberus So don't even try to claim we're taxed more than you are.

Cerberus

@Robusto Excuse me? What are you talking about?

Robusto

@tchrist No. Soylent Green is a tasty alternative when Soylent Red is not available.

tchrist

Even our most abused citizens pay half your tax rate.

Robusto

@Cerberus I think it's pretty clear.

tchrist

And you’re missing half the equation.

> Of course, sales taxes are just one part of an overall tax structure and should be considered in context. For example, Washington State has high sales taxes but no income tax; Oregon has no sales tax but high income taxes.

Cerberus

01:58

@Robusto It's not. I don't know what you're trying to say, except that it sounds somehow hostile.

tchrist

So talking about sales tax is useless.

It cannot be considered in isolation.

And then there are property taxes. Do you know what those are?

Cerberus

As in, the whole system of taxation would have to be changed?

We have property taxes.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I don't think Cerb is claiming that the US pays too much sales tax. Rather, that it's confusing and annoying that the system is so complicated and even consumers are inconvenienced on a daily basis by not being sure what something costs.

tchrist

I’m not convinced that is true.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

This discussion is not about total tax load. It's about sales tax at point of sale.

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…