English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

CowperKettle

7:00 PM

Word of the midnight: chronotropic incompetence

tchrist

@CowperKettle People who can't see where the tides of time are taking us?

Oh, maybe that's chronotropic incontinence.

No, that's when they can't hold back the crap.

@Cerberus Is there any hope of the Benelux stemming their exponential growth in numbers of new cases per day? Isn't Belgium running out of hospital beds already?

Cerberus

@tchrist Well, in Holland the growth is lot slower than in March/April.

tchrist

Cerberus

And the number of people walking around infected is estimated to be 200,000 now versus 300,000 then.

Yeah, but those tests are only a small part of the story.

New, strict measures have been in force for a week or so.

In one or two weeks, we should see whether those are enough.

tchrist

Just started a week ago then?

Cerberus

7:11 PM

Not started.

tchrist

Oh. It takes a week or two after starting.

Cerberus

We have had escalating measures for quite a while now.

tchrist

I swear you sneaked a message up there in between somehow. :)

Cerberus

If results of the latest escalation disappoint, even stricter measures will be announced.

I'm part snake.

tchrist

I know I didn't read "strict measures have been in force for a week or so" until after I typed.

Cerberus

7:13 PM

Oh.

tchrist

Probably just too impetuous.

Cerberus

Chat is weird like that.

How are things in Colorado?

tchrist

Why do you think you had 50% more people walking around infected in March/April than you have now?

Cerberus

I mean hospitalisations and IC.

tchrist

Ah.

Yes, you have to look at those numbers.

Cerberus

7:14 PM

@tchrist I don't know, the institute calculates an estimate.

tchrist

Digging up our data.

Cerberus

@tchrist Haha, no "ah": I was expanding on my question there, not answering yours!

tchrist

Cerberus

coronadashboard.rijksoverheid.nl/landelijk/besmettelijke-mensen

Hmm I was wrong. They must have revised those figures later.

It seems we are approaching March levels again, of people infected.

tchrist

Our data are from covid19.colorado.gov/data

Our positivity rate is now up to 6% and change. That's not good.

We have plenty of hospital beds, but that's a lagging indicator.

Cerberus

7:20 PM

Are those hospitalisations absolute numbers?

tchrist

No.

Well, it depends which figures.

Cerberus

81 and 71.

tchrist

Those ones are.

No, those are deltas.

Cerberus

Yeah I consider those absolutes.

tchrist

We have 8,598 currently hospitalized.

Cerberus

7:22 PM

As opposed to per 100,000 inhabitants.

tchrist

Oh I see.

Cerberus

> 8,598

Is that cumulative over time, or people in hospital right now?

I praesume the former?

tchrist

@Cerberus Cumulative over time.

That's immediate.

Cerberus

Doesn't look too bad?

tchrist

No, but it's a lagging indicator.

Cerberus

7:24 PM

Of course.

<Googles> So your population is a third of ours.

tchrist

@Cerberus We have 52 people per square mile. You have 1,349 people per square mile.

Covid likes dense populations.

Cerberus

Are you sure?

It is true that, in the second wave, larger cities seem to be affected worse.

Perhaps because people there mingle more.

tchrist

@Cerberus Yes, think of NYC.

Cerberus

During the first wave, however, it was not the big cities that were affected most here.

But it is al a complex of factors, only one of which is urbanity.

Another is population density.

Yet another is the dates of holidays.

tchrist

Yours were fed by rich people doing ski trips?

Cerberus

7:34 PM

Etc.

tchrist

"seeded" maybe, not fed.

Cerberus

Not rich: people in all social strata go skiing.

But yes.

The south of the country's spring vacation was one week later.

tchrist

@Cerberus Not true. Poor people don't ski.

Cerberus

So they visited Ischl etc. one week later.

tchrist

Skiing is expensive.

Cerberus

7:35 PM

Well, even the lower middle classes are used to vacations abroad here.

tchrist

Here they go camping by car because they can afford neither planes nor hotels.

Cerberus

Skiing is not extremely expensive. More expensive than camping, to be sure, but not so much so that the average Dutchman cannot afford it if he really wants to.

People save up.

tchrist

The working poor never take plane trips on a lark, nor buy hotel rooms.

Cerberus

It's very important to them, just like expensive clothes or phones.

tchrist

I had not one of those things as a child.

Cerberus

7:37 PM

@tchrist But a plane trip to a holiday resort is like €50.

tchrist

Not ever.

Cerberus

I do not care for any of those things either.

But they are too cheap, alas.

tchrist

You can't pay for $750 for each of mom and dad and three kids to sit on an airplane.

Cerberus

Especially flying and shipping stuff around the world by ship should be properly taxed, but they aren't.

@tchrist I don't know about America, but here flying is cheap.

tchrist

But you can pay for gas for your car to go a few hundred miles to a campground.

Cerberus

7:39 PM

I remember I paid €40 to fly to Rome and back, and that isn't even a holiday town.

@tchrist Travelling by car is often more expensive here than flying!

I remember aeroplane tickets to London were €0 (they made money on extras).

tchrist

Start in Milwaukee or Chicago. Price out tickets to New York City, Washington DC, San Francisco, Miami, or Hawaii. Now multiply that by 5.

Cerberus

Which is of course an abomination.

tchrist

Those will be 600 - 1200 dollars per person.

No, the lower middle class does not do this. It cannot.

The only tickets as cheap as you are talking about would be one between Milwaukee and Chicago. For that, we drive an hour.

Or start in Kansas City instead. Where would you go from there?

Those same five cities wouldn't be any cheaper from there.

Cerberus

I had no idea your plane tickets were so expensive!

tchrist

Gas is $2/gallon, and you can figure 20 miles per gallon, so it's a buck per ten miles' car travel even with five people in the car.

Cerberus

7:45 PM

This is of course cheaper than normal, what with the epidemic.

But it could be €40 or €60 on a normal day.

And that is for a return flight Amsterdam–Málaga.

You cannot get there by car for €40.

Not even if you travel with four people.

It's 2290 km.

If your car can drive 14 km on 1 litre (the average), you'll need 164 litres.

1 litre costs ca. € 1.70, so it would cost you €278 on petrol alone.

tchrist

Cerberus

Then you'll need to buy food along the way, and you need two nights in an hotel or at a camping ground.

tchrist

That's pricing out Denver to Miami to go with your Amsterdam to Málaga.

Cerberus

Far more expensive, indeed.

tchrist

Middle class families don't have that kind of money.

Cerberus

7:51 PM

Now, the €278 I mentioned is one way. So make that €556 for the return trip. Then add several hundreds of euros for staying at an hotel or camping ground along the way, including food etc.

tchrist

Most of them can't even come up with the money to pay for an unexpected bill of $250.

Cerberus

So you're looking at €500+ for a road trip to Málaga, whereas flying is tens of euros per person.

tchrist

Pre-pandemic, the median can't-come-up-with was $400.

It's dropped since then.

Cerberus

Poor people here can fly and stay for a few days, if they save up. But a road trip would be far more expensive for them.

tchrist

People aren't flying now.

Remember I just drove 2,000 miles.

Cerberus

7:53 PM

That would cost you a ton here!

tchrist

could > cost?

Cerberus

About 25% of households don't have cars here anyway.

tchrist

2,000 miles is $200.

Cerberus

@tchrist Oops, that was regressive assimilation.

@tchrist So 400 both ways.

A lot of money!

And it would cost far more here.

tchrist

No no.

2000 miles / 20 miles / gallon = 100 gallons = $200

That's not a lot of money.

Not compared with round trip fares in the four digits.

Cerberus

7:56 PM

I'm not sure what you mean.

In your country, driving is cheaper than flying.

tchrist

You can drive 2,000 miles for $200.

It's very hard to fly 2,000 miles for $200.

Cerberus

In Europe, flying is cheaper than driving; and flying here is much cheaper even than driving in America.

tchrist

And you don't have to try to get yourself and everybody you care about killed by a covid infection when you drive. Flying? Forget it.

Cerberus

So you can imagine why people fly a lot, even poor people.

In February, people weren't thinking of the virus much.

So they all flew to Ischl.

tchrist

They will be this year.

Cerberus

7:58 PM

Rich and poor alike.

And stood packed like sardines in an Après-Ski.

Shouting and singing to the booming music.

tchrist

If flying is cheaper than driving, then you aren't considering the carbon effects.

Cerberus

Indeed, I am not.

20 mins ago, by Cerberus

Especially flying and shipping stuff around the world by ship should be properly taxed, but they aren't.

tchrist

I mean, Europe isn't pricing that.

Yeah.

Cerberus

Nobody is.

It's some old treaty.

Which forbids it.

We do tax petrol heavily.

tchrist

But not jet fuel??

Cerberus

8:00 PM

Several hundreds percent.

No, jet fuel is untaxed because of the treaty.

tchrist

That's fucked.

Cerberus

It should be the same in your country.

Nor is bunker oil (?) taxed at all, the fuel ships use.

Which is worse than kerosene.

tchrist

If we taxed gas like that, trucking would halt. Interstate commerce would halt.

The interstates are just filled with back to back truckers hauling one, two, even three containers. I know this for certain because I just watched 2,000 miles of them.

Cerberus

This is how standard car fuels are priced here.

Green and turquoise are taxes.

@tchrist The atmosphaere would rejoice.

tchrist

Fuel taxes in the United States

The United States federal excise tax on gasoline is 18.4 cents per gallon and 24.4 cents per gallon for diesel fuel. The federal tax was last raised October 1, 1993 and is not indexed to inflation, which increased by a total of 77 percent from 1993 until 2020. On average, as of April 2019, state and local taxes and fees add 34.24 cents to gasoline and 35.89 cents to diesel, for a total US volume-weighted average fuel tax of 52.64 cents per gallon for gas and 60.29 cents per gallon for diesel. == State taxes == The first US state tax on fuel was introduced on February 25, 1919 in Oregon. It was...

Cerberus

8:05 PM

Hmm now to translate that into percentages...

Probably a small fraction of our taxes.

tchrist

It's about 50 cents out of 200.

Cerberus

So 25%.

tchrist

So the taxes are one third of the non taxes.

Yes.

Cerberus

Here, the taxes are 60% of the price.

200% of production cost.

tchrist

Such punitory taxes must be justified by some tremendously great good thing that helps everyone. What is that thing?

Visibility is down to around 100 yards. Sure glad I'm not trying to drive anywhere in the blizzard.

Not far from white-out now.

Robusto

8:10 PM

@tchrist Yes, it's not good news.

Cerberus

@tchrist Our planet's climate, and local cancer. And traffic.

tchrist

This is why I HAD to drive home when I did. Because after mid-October, you can be stranded by blizzards anywhere between here and there.

@Cerberus You have lower pollution levels than we do? I didn't know that.

Cerberus

We have lower pollution levels than we would have had without those taxes.

If you compare a city the same size in your country, I suspect Amsterdam will be quite a bit cleaner.

Robusto

@tchrist When my younger son and I drove my older son's car out to him in Las Vegas one March we were laid up in Grand Island, NE for two days because of snow.

Cerberus

But climate change is also a big reason, the environment on a planetary scale.

Transportation is a major cause of CO2 emissions and cancer alike.

tchrist

8:14 PM

@Cerberus We don't have many cities so gigantic as Amsterdam. The Milwaukee metro area is comparable to Amsterdam's, and that's the fourth largest in the entire Midwest.

Robusto

When the bottom fell out of the oil industry this spring I filled my tank for $1.20/gal.

Cerberus

@tchrist Good for you!

But I suspect Milwaukee is populated much less densely than Amsterdam.

tchrist

@Robusto Not the most exciting place, I promise you.

Robusto

@Cerberus Well, but Milwaukee sits atop the Chicago metro area, which is truly enormous.

Cerberus

So there may be less pollution despite much higher car use.

Robusto

8:17 PM

@tchrist We are well aware.

Cerberus

@Robusto Atop, even!

tchrist

@Cerberus Twice as dense.

Cerberus

But it stands to reason that two cities otherwise the same will have very different levels of pollution, if one taxes fuel and the other does not.

Robusto

@Cerberus There is not a lot of daylight between the two metro areas.

And the East Coast is worse.

tchrist

@Cerberus No it won't. People still drive in a city because they HAVE to. They aren't joyriding.

Cerberus

8:18 PM

So I don't think I need to explain why taxing petrol helps limit pollution and hence cancer in cities.

tchrist

Gas tax cannot reduce trips to the grocery store, etc.

Cerberus

@tchrist Here, many people do have a choice.

Robusto

The aptly titled "Bos-Wash corridor" is solid metro areas from Washington, D.C. through Boston.

tchrist

But it doesn't.

You have to get to work. You have to get food. You have to drive Annie to her piano lesson.

Cerberus

Most people cycle to buy groceries. One reason is that going by car is more expensive.

tchrist

8:19 PM

Gas tax is punitive for those purposes.

Cerberus

Taxes help.

tchrist

Hahaha.

Cerberus

I am talking about the situation here, remember.

Not in your type of cities.

tchrist

You will never get a housewife to bicycle to fetch home a week's worth of groceries for a family of two parents, three children, a dog, and three cats. How could that ever happen?

Cerberus

In nine years' time, all cars with combustion engines will be banned from the city.

@tchrist Either the houseman or housewife goes every day, or he uses a bakfiets.

tchrist

8:21 PM

Does your mother bike to the grocery store on weekends to get their food?

Cerberus

An electric bakfiets if he is truly lazy, or if he lives outside the city.

@tchrist My mother does not live in the city.

But my father does cycle to buy groceries on most days, yes.

(Okay that was a bit of a shortcut: my mother is lazy, so she doesn't cycle anyway; besides, she never buys groceries.)

tchrist

I wouldn't bike five blocks one way to get to the nearest little corner grocery store today.

Cerberus

Why not?

My father turned eighty last month.

tchrist

BLIZZARD

Cerberus

Oh, today.

Well, anyway, here people do have a choice, and, in cities, most people cycle or walk to buy groceries.

tchrist

8:23 PM

Plus I never go back one or twice a month on the weekend during their opening hour for covid protection.

Cerberus

So taxes help to reduce car use and hence pollution and cancer.

Not to mention other diseases.

tchrist

You have no choice in a town. You don't have mass transit, and that sucks for groceries anyway.

Cerberus

But I think climate change has always been a major reason behind those taxes.

@tchrist We do have mass transit everywhere.

That is how many people buy groceries who are unable to cycle.

tchrist

Europe didn't think about climate change when they first decided to tax gas to death.

Cerberus

But most people can just walk anyway, in the city.

Robusto

8:25 PM

Our sky today. A brief flash of sunlight in the overcast. Unusual for this locale, but a storm is coming.

Cerberus

@tchrist Uhh why do you think that?

tchrist

@Cerberus I really don't understand that. It makes no sense to me that you would walk so far.

Cerberus

How do you know?

@tchrist How far away to you think a grocery shop is from the average house in Amsterdam?

tchrist

You taxes gas long before anybody talked about climate change, that's why.

Cerberus

And how long ago is that?

tchrist

8:26 PM

@Cerberus I don't know, you're stacked to the gills. It's unnatural.

Cerberus

Besides, I am not talking about long ago: I'm talking about the 21st century.

tchrist

My parents live miles from any grocery store. There is no bus, no train, no tram.

And they do not live in the country either.

Cerberus

But we were talking about taxes here, not there.

It is about 20 minutes on foot to the nearest bus stop from my parents' house.

tchrist

I'm sure a $20/gallon tax would change our habits. I'm sure it would change a lot of other things too. It's like with cigarettes.

Cerberus

But the grocery shop is about 10–15 minutes by bike.

Grocery shops in Amsterdam.

And this is just one chain.

tchrist

8:31 PM

Notice how that's got your km scale in the bottom right.

Robusto

@Cerberus I don't know anyone who calls them "grocery shops." Not even in the UK. Grocery store, market, supermarket, sure. Even grocer.

Cerberus

I think the average person would need to walk 4 minutes to the nearest grocery shop in Amsterdam. Perhaps a bit longer in the suburbs. By bike, that would be like 2 minutes.

Robusto

A shop is a different kind of enterprise.

tchrist

Nobody walks an hour to get to a grocery store.

Nor should they.

Cerberus

Now imagine if you could walk everywhere.

tchrist

8:33 PM

And that's walking 3 miles an hour.

Cerberus

And if you paid a lot more on fuel. Wouldn't you be incentivised to walk or cycle?

tchrist

You CAN walk anywhere. Go for it. You won't get there and back again in time to do anything.

And it's evil to ask the elderly to do that.

Robusto

@Cerberus When I lived in Chicago we always walked to the supermarket. Because parking was such a hassle, and the walk was only 2-3 blocks.

Cerberus

@tchrist Well, I don't think you really want to have this discussion. You seem to be ignoring the fact that we were talking about taxes here, not there.

@Robusto Right, that is yet another reason.

tchrist

People who live in densely populated concrete conurbations have very different situations from those that the rest of us experience.

Cerberus

8:35 PM

We don't use concrete.

And see above.

tchrist

Asphalt. Pavement. Whatever it is you use to kill the earth with.

Cerberus

Little asphalt.

But people in villages cycle just as well, especially to buy groceries.

A bit less than in the cities, of course.

But the large majority of people live in cities anyway.

Færd

An Iranian-American friend of mine says the nearest supermarket to their place (in a residential quarter in Chicago, I guess) was a half hour's drive away.

smoking_huge_doinks

mordekaiser es numero uno

Robusto

@Færd Chicago is a big place. And a "half hour's drive" might only be a couple of miles, given the traffic.

@smoking_huge_doinks Is that you, skully?

smoking_huge_doinks

8:44 PM

hue hue hue hue hue hue

stoopid Brazil

stop soloq

tchrist

Puppy thinks she needs a walk. I wonder how long before she changes her mind. :)

Robusto

Our cats poked their noses out for a few minutes and then retired to the couch.

Cerberus

Happy now?

Færd

@Robusto Maybe it wasn't Chicago. Anyway, he lamented the fact that the city was built for households that moved around by car.

Robusto

@Færd Probably a suburb then.

Cerberus

8:48 PM

Yeah, it will require more changes than almost anywhere else, to adhere to the Kyoto and Paris treaties.

Færd

Uh-huh. And didn't support self-sustaining neighborhoods.

Robusto

But in the highly congested areas of Chicago it might take a long time to get to the supermarket.

Færd

As highly congested areas go.

Robusto

In Newtown (a district in Chicago) we lived .4 miles (about 2/3 km) from the Treasure Island market.

tchrist

@Cerberus The blizzard won't put out the forest fires but it will stop them from growing. And it will have put out the grass fires.

Robusto

8:49 PM

Walking was snap.

tchrist

Meaning the blizzard.

Færd

@Robusto That's not tooo far.

Cerberus

@tchrist That's good.

Robusto

We're supposed to get 6" of snow here over the next couple of days.

@Færd No. It was easily walkable.

Færd

Oh is it getting cold again?

smoking_huge_doinks

8:50 PM

maybe you Brazil hoo?

tchrist

@Færd Depends whether you consider 7F cold. :)

Cerberus

Why We Won't Raise Our Kids in Suburbia (and moved to the Netherlands instead)

►

Now, this bloke is perhaps a bit too enthusiastic about the Netherlands.

But I do think he has a point about the structure of cities and transportation, and the environment of course.

tchrist

@Cerberus Suburbs are just the Outer City, not the Inner City. You don't want to raise your kids in cities.

Cerberus

He's Canadian.

Færd

@tchrist Just saw your pic. It should be good for suppressing the fires, no?

tchrist

8:51 PM

It isn't good for them.

@Færd Yes, and is doing so. We're getting heavy snow.

Cerberus

I can say most of my pupils are doing just fine.

Færd

@tchrist Glad to hear it.

Robusto

@tchrist Well, but Chicago has great places to raise your kids. So does Manhattan.

tchrist

@Robusto Hard for them to get in a healthy amount of mother nature.

Not wholly impossible. But certainly hard.

Robusto

@tchrist Lincoln Park, Grant Park, Central Park ...

tchrist

8:54 PM

That's what I meant.

Robusto

Yeah. City living can be lovely. I miss Chicago. Not the winters, mind, but the city in general.

Well, I'm quite happy where I am now. But I do miss the city.

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