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[Raphael]

Hm, I generally only get a burning sensation from alcohol if it's pretty strong alcohol - usually distilled stuff, though I once got it from one particular beer that I was told was the strongest one of all the beers brewed in Germany.

[Pabappa]

I think Im going to test myself sometime next month when I get around to it .... i'll buy two bottles of grape soda, and into one of them I will pour a tiny amount of Zinfandel wine ... enough that i suspect I wont notice the difference in taste. Then I'll put the bottles somewhere such that I wont remember which is which, and then later that day I'll sip from one of them, and see if I can guess which one it was. I'll go by expiration date or something to verify it later. I would give myself a longer waiting period if not that I know wine has a tendency to oxidize whatever it's sealed in with, and it would likely taste more distinct the longer it stayed there.

Manischewitz is another option, i guess, since its the most grape-like of all wines Ive ever tasted.

Then maybe if I guess correct I'll try a second test, this time mixing a tiny amount of vodka in with something known to have a very strong taste, even if it's V8 or something I hate .... and see if I get the warm feeling Im familiar with ... either from drinking the mixed one, from drinking both of them (placebo effect), or from neither.

The wine I want is in a store that's difficult to get to right now, though, so Im not planning to do this anytime soon.

[Linguoboy]

Hm, I generally only get a burning sensation from alcohol if it's pretty strong alcohol - usually distilled stuff, though I once got it from one particular beer that I was told was the strongest one of all the beers brewed in Germany.

Yeah, I'm like "What kind of cheap hooch are y'all drinking that's burning your insides every time?"

[chris_notts]

I'm not sure it's a burning taste, but there's a distinct acidity to alcohol in drinks stronger than beer. I can always pick this up instantly once it goes past 6 - 7% - but that may be partly because I have a bit of acid reflux so I've learned to be quite sensitive to things that will give me heartburn in excess.

Even sweet alcoholic drinks have that acid taste in the background - similar to most fruits. An apple can be sweet, but you can still taste the malic acid.

[Ryusenshi]

I remember trying a "non-alcoholic cocktail" once. They had managed to make it as revolting as actual alcohol, without the alcohol. Needless to say, I didn't try a second time.

[Pabappa]

i wonder if Google has just rolled out a new feature .... i have been plugging in a few terms into google lately that get few or no hits, testing to see if it's indexing my website yet and if so which parts .... and since i never click what comes up, google is apparently registering these as failed searches ... and last night it put up a dialog box like "Ask your question" and said it would be shared with people who are interested in answering my question. Obviously I am not interested because I know what Im doing but it might be helpful to some people.

On the other hand, if this is just going to Quora, Im not that confident its going to help ... Ive never been impressed with Quora. Sure, they get it right some of the time, but so what? the premier site on the Internet should be able to do better than "some of the time" when there's also Reddit, stack exchange, Wikipedia etc that also get it right some of the time.

[MacAnDàil]

I remember trying a "non-alcoholic cocktail" once. They had managed to make it as revolting as actual alcohol, without the alcohol. Needless to say, I didn't try a second time.

To each their own. I have found some non-alcoholic cocktail that would be interesting. I stopped drinking alcohol a year ago but, when I did drink, the good stuff was tasty.

[Ryusenshi]

I think I already said somewhere else that I find the smell and taste of alcohol utterly disgusting. Anything that contains even a relatively small amount of ethanol (say, cider) tastes like denatured alcohol to me. The drink I was talking about was designed to taste similar to an alcoholic cocktail (I think it was curaçao), so, even without the actual ethanol, it wasn't exactly to my tastes.By comparison, some bars offer "non-alcoholic cocktails" that are mixtures of fruit juices and syrup, and I did like some of them.

[chris_notts]

I find it similarly puzzling why people like tea or (especially) coffee. Colleagues at work bought a coffee machine and stuck it in the corner near my desk. The grinding noises were bad enough, but that disgusting smell... it's like someone's burning peat. How can anyone drink the stuff?

[Linguoboy]

I find it similarly puzzling why people like tea or (especially) coffee. Colleagues at work bought a coffee machine and stuck it in the corner near my desk. The grinding noises were bad enough, but that disgusting smell... it's like someone's burning peat. How can anyone drink the stuff?

I'm not a coffee drinker, but that's in spite of the smell. My problem is that the taste of it never lives up to the aroma. It smells like roasted amazing, and then when you drink it all you get is some bitter bean juice.

[Pabappa]

I like the taste of coffee by itself and often drink it cold because of digestive issues .... The taste changes quite a lot ....... but I also like coffee when it's hot.

I used to work for a store where I could put fruit flavoring in my coffee, and I liked that, but I liked the plain coffee too.

[Moose-tache]

Cold-brew is less harsh in flavor than drip/pourover coffee, and percolated coffee is basically gasoline. If you really find the taste of coffee to be too bitter and gross, I would recommend trying a blonde roast cold brew. Also, never drink coffee that's been warming for a while, as it burns the coffee and makes it more bitter; this ruins a lot of perfectly good coffee at diners and restaurants. But coffee is naturally going to be a little bitter; that's why it's been paired with sugar for centuries. Coffee without sugar is called "mule coffee" in some parts of the Caribbean, so don't listen to the snobs who tell you that you have to drink your coffee black if you don't want to!

[Raphael]

I'm not a coffee drinker, but that's in spite of the smell. My problem is that the taste of it never lives up to the aroma. It smells like roasted amazing, and then when you drink it all you get is some bitter bean juice.

Same.

[linguistcat]

I'm a coffee drinker but I also enjoyed my vegetables as a child and wasn't too fond of sweets aside from chocolate. So I suppose I have more of a predisposition to enjoy things that are bitter than most people, or very definitely most Americans. I think it's interesting that while the foods we're brought up with affect what we enjoy later, or even what we can learn to enjoy, there are still just little inherent preferences everyone has.

[Raphael]

I'm weirdly agnostic about food - I don't mind eating fast food, but I don't mind eating organic arugula, either.

[Raphael]

I try not to make this a habit, but I just found something computer-work-related on Twitter that I just had to share here:

https://twitter.com/catherinedevlin/sta ... 5904870404

By @catherinedevlin:

Today my team coined the term "Lassie errors": when an error message is basically just "Arf! Arf!" and you're left asking, "What is it? What is it, girl?"

[Travis B.]

I try not to make this a habit, but I just found something computer-work-related on Twitter that I just had to share here:

https://twitter.com/catherinedevlin/sta ... 5904870404

By @catherinedevlin:

Today my team coined the term "Lassie errors": when an error message is basically just "Arf! Arf!" and you're left asking, "What is it? What is it, girl?"

I love errors that just say that something failed, without stating what or how or giving any meaning which might help resolve them.

[chris_notts]

I try not to make this a habit, but I just found something computer-work-related on Twitter that I just had to share here:

https://twitter.com/catherinedevlin/sta ... 5904870404

By @catherinedevlin:

Today my team coined the term "Lassie errors": when an error message is basically just "Arf! Arf!" and you're left asking, "What is it? What is it, girl?"

I love errors that just say that something failed, without stating what or how or giving any meaning which might help resolve them.

The other extreme of showing implementation details to non-technical users can be bad as well. I had a colleague once, let's call him Bob, whose approach to "fixing" bugs was often one of the following:

try
OFFENDING CODE
catch
end <-- silently swallow error and plough on regardless with fingers crossed

try
OFFENDING CODE
catch
PRINT ERROR OR DISPLAY TO USER
end <-- plough on regardless with fingers crossed after displaying traceback to non-technical user

Another colleague, a friend and frequent coworker of "Bob" who I'll call "Fred", was famous for adding the comment "WTF Bob!?!??" next to such code but not actually fixing it. The biggest application written by Bob and Fred was famous amongst its users for randomly crapping out with mile long tracebacks that were incomprehensible to them.

After they left the company, I was given responsibility for maintaining this application. In the end I completely rewrote it with such amazing features as input validation, helpful error messages, and the ability to recover from predicable problems and keep running.

[Curlyjimsam]

I quite like coffee with a lot of milk and sugar. I mostly have it if I am badly in need of waking up quickly, however: only occasionally do I want to drink it just for the enjoyment of it. I drink tea frequently - although again I enjoy it only with (a smaller amount of) milk.

[doctor shark]

Ooh, food sharing:

• I love the smell of coffee, but hate the taste. I can tolerate coffee flavoring in traditional tiramisù, though I normally actually make mine with orange (also in part because I rarely have coffee at home!).
• I love vegetables, very often more raw vegetables than cooked for some of them (I would take salads at the work canteen rather than the usual cooked/boiled vegetables). I also love kimchi in its many forms (I make my own), but I really don't like Sauerkraut/choucroute.
• I dislike most fermented alcoholic drinks: they often leave a bad taste in my mouth and sometimes make me sick. The only exceptions are kriek/framboise in certain brands (I've tried other brands, and they don't sit well with me) and maybe a glass of white wine or sparkling white wine as part of a toast. But I can probably quantify my drink consumption in "drinks per month", and it's very often single digits.

Also, in awkward random: It always feels a bit awkward when people comment on my surname and its close similarity to the surname of a former long-serving leader of the former GDR. I usually hear comments from Germans, but it sometimes comes out of nowhere from somewhere else, like from a Dutch person I was speaking to over the phone for setting up my internet in the Netherlands... yeah, just a bit awkward.