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   Christine Lemmer-Webber (cwebber@social.coop)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Aug-2026 05:14:00 JST Christine Lemmer-Webber

   the human mouth can handle 5 essential tastes. if we represent each of the presence or absence of this taste as a single bit, we can clearly observe that there are 32 possible flavors, including the "void" flavor

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     Christine Lemmer-Webber (cwebber@social.coop)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Aug-2026 05:16:42 JST Christine Lemmer-Webber

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     Textures, however, are infinite, because textures are shapes. You are only constrained in texture by geometry, which has no constraints. Each shape is its own flavor, and I personally recommend eating foods with the texture of "Jessen's Icosahedron"

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     Christine Lemmer-Webber (cwebber@social.coop)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Aug-2026 05:17:35 JST Christine Lemmer-Webber

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     It's time for me to do a sequel to Christine's Kitchen

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     серафими многоꙮчитїи (djm62@beige.party)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Aug-2026 05:17:56 JST серафими многоꙮчитїи

     in reply to

     @cwebber the flavour spectrum from "doughnut hole" to "everything bagel"

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     Christine Lemmer-Webber (cwebber@social.coop)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Aug-2026 05:29:09 JST Christine Lemmer-Webber

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     • Emily 🏳️‍⚧️ (Recovery Era)

     @EmilyGB2023 I'm an all or nothing girl

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     Emily 🏳️‍⚧️ (Recovery Era) (emilygb2023@chaosfem.tw)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Aug-2026 05:29:11 JST Emily 🏳️‍⚧️ (Recovery Era)

     in reply to

     @cwebber

     Wouldn't each taste combination then break into individual vectors for intensity?

     Because sweetness that is setting off every sweet receptor like it's on fire is definitely a different taste than one that is setting off only enough to meet the threshold for your brain to go "oh, i taste sweet".

     If combo 2 is, say, "sour + salt" -- the actual taste range for Combo 2 would be the whole range from "barely enough sour to taste" to "your mouth cannot process any more sour than this" coupled with the same for salty.

     So really, what you need is a simple data structure with a vector for each of the 5 tastes, ranging from (undetectable) to "every receptor that can recognize this taste is currently screaming at your brain at maximum volume". Like a 0 to 100 scale would work.

     So you'd have 31 possible combinations of flavors, but each combination would have a *very* wide range of expression based on the relative intensities.

     And you'd have one (void) which wouldn't need intensity, as everything would have to be at zero.

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     Ben Zanin (gnomon@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Aug-2026 21:35:27 JST Ben Zanin

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     @cwebber "these noodles taste like NURBS"

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     mcc (mcc@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 19-Aug-2026 21:41:14 JST mcc

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     @cwebber I think an unusual qualia is a slippery taste I describe as "antisalt", when you ingest something, like distilled water, which is less salty than your own saliva