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Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

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Re: Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

#251

Post by doodaddy »

I think there is too much associating taste with quality. We can see it in many of these comments and in the post as well:

> And what I mean by taste here is simply the honed ability to distinguish mediocrity from excellence.

And I say, maybe. But more than quality I think taste is a way to discern what’s unique and novel. In my mind it doesn’t necessarily mean that it has to be “excellent” because, as the post mentions, everyone’s “excellent” may be different.

Why do I think this distinction is important? Because if taste is about seeing the nuances that make something interesting instead of what makes it “good” then getting to good taste promotes open minded exploration (healthy exploration) over status seeking.

Re: Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

#252

Post by bfkwlfkjf »

I think the author has a point, but his examples are bad. He talks about mouse sensitivity, windows manager, keyboard switches, and vscode. All those things were made to be tweaked. He's not so much exploring as he is playing with a toy the way it was intended. The stickiest learning comes from getting things wrong, and that happens when you're using things the way you're not supposed to. For example disassembling a microwave. Not the keyboard switches.

The world has become so comfy that even tweaking has been packaged and monetized by some company. That's right, I'm gatekeeping tweaking, sue me.

Re: Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

#253

Post by dbalatero »

al_borland wrote: post #86
melagonster wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. But taste is a skill that should be learned. People who have better taste can select better stuff by their skill.

I feel this is kind of missing the point that was being made. “Better” is subjective. If taste is being learned, who is the teacher? Are you learning about your own tastes or adopting the tastes of the teacher? Who has better taste, the user of spaces or tabs? There is no right answer, just those who agree with you and those who don’t.

I just want to work with someone who can clearly articulate why they chose tabs or spaces (in this example), not someone who gives a blank stare. E.g I want someone with their own tastes.

Re: Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

#254

Post by ants_everywhere »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #209
ehnto wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you from the US by chance? I only ask because specifically for chocolate and coffee, I would consider the US baseline to be exceedingly average, even terrible. Even "okay" chocolate and coffee from other countries better known for food will blow it out of the water. The US does do excellent coffee, and excellent chocolate, but you have to seek it out. In a country like Italy or Australia the default, okay stuff i…

Yep. nailed it. I agree that at least to my limited vacation experiences, it's not true in say Italy that 99% of chocolate products are garbage.

Some of the American chocolate for high volume candy bars is very waxy and not very chocolatey.

For example, compare the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups to Trader Joe's peanut butter cups [0]. It may be that the Reese's ones used to use better chocolate or it may be that my tastes changed as I grew up. But I used to love them as kids and now they taste off. Similarly for Twix etc.

[0] I'm sure other stores sell peanut butter cups too. There's nothing special about the Trader Joe's ones other than they are mass produced and use better chocolate that Reese's.

EDIT: Flavor change may be due to cost-saving measures like replacing cocoa butter with vegetable oil https://www.today.com/food/chocoholics-sour-new-hersheys-for...

Re: Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

#255

Post by Foobar8568 »

ehnto wrote: post #203
Brian_K_White wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never enjoyed shitty coffee. I never enjoyed shitty chocolate or chocolate flavored things like cakes. Until I was 30-something I thought I just didn't like coffee or chocolate. Then one day I had actually proper coffee, and I discovered that good coffee isn't just some imperceptably theoretically better version of regular coffee that snobs are basically just faking being sophisticated for show. They are two entire…

Are you from the US by chance? I only ask because specifically for chocolate and coffee, I would consider the US baseline to be exceedingly average, even terrible. Even "okay" chocolate and coffee from other countries better known for food will blow it out of the water. The US does do excellent coffee, and excellent chocolate, but you have to seek it out. In a country like Italy or Australia the default, okay stuff i…

Coffee in Europe is still a majority of cheap, overoasted blends.

Nespresso is barely any better.

Same for a majority of local roasters.

And people expect this type of taste:(

Re: Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

#256

Post by Foobar8568 »

tb8424 wrote: post #229
Brian_K_White wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never enjoyed shitty coffee. I never enjoyed shitty chocolate or chocolate flavored things like cakes. Until I was 30-something I thought I just didn't like coffee or chocolate. Then one day I had actually proper coffee, and I discovered that good coffee isn't just some imperceptably theoretically better version of regular coffee that snobs are basically just faking being sophisticated for show. They are two entire…

+1 on this. There's a big difference for some between the 15 dollar whiskey and the 35 dollar whiskey, probably another jump between 35 and 80 dollar whiskey, and then after that it starts getting into crazy marginal gains. If you drink 15 dollar whiskey you'd get 90% of your gains from just bumping it up to 35 versus going straight for the 300 dollar bottle. Same it was with me for coffee, I enjoy single origin vs s…

Don't go into the difference between varietals, washing process or fermentation ones. Better, I don't know but there are large differences between producers.

I feel it's the same or similar than wine, chocolate etc

Re: Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

#257

Post by matt_daemon »

stavros wrote: post #74

Decades ago, an old friend told me "I became a coffee expert, I learned everything there is to learn about beans, the ways to prepare them, the chemistry that goes into it, and now I can only enjoy a cup of coffee prepared by the most expensive machines from the most expensive beans. The shit part is that I enjoy it just as much as I enjoyed my shitty supermarket coffee back when I didn't know anything about coffee."…

The logical fallacy here is that the most expensive thing is the best, which can be the case sometimes but not all that often in my experience.

Re: Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

#258

Post by voiper1 »

hansvm wrote: post #109
CharlieDigital wrote: post #95

> I have come to understand that there are two kinds of people, those who do things only if it helps them achieve a goal, and those who do things just because. I think in this age of vibe coding where anyone can code anything, the discriminating factor between two developers, at a technical level, just comes down to "good taste" (lots of other more important factors, too, like a good human to work with). And like the…

Mostly unrelated, but XKCD is relevant here I think [0]. Taste doesn't just require a broad perspective; a broad view of a category produces taste. [0] https://xkcd.com/915/

Never seen that one, thanks! Alt text: "Our brains have just one scale, and we resize our experiences to fit."

(And obligatory https://xkcd.com/1053/)

Re: Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

#259

Post by ants_everywhere »

tb8424 wrote: post #229
Brian_K_White wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never enjoyed shitty coffee. I never enjoyed shitty chocolate or chocolate flavored things like cakes. Until I was 30-something I thought I just didn't like coffee or chocolate. Then one day I had actually proper coffee, and I discovered that good coffee isn't just some imperceptably theoretically better version of regular coffee that snobs are basically just faking being sophisticated for show. They are two entire…

+1 on this. There's a big difference for some between the 15 dollar whiskey and the 35 dollar whiskey, probably another jump between 35 and 80 dollar whiskey, and then after that it starts getting into crazy marginal gains. If you drink 15 dollar whiskey you'd get 90% of your gains from just bumping it up to 35 versus going straight for the 300 dollar bottle. Same it was with me for coffee, I enjoy single origin vs s…

As in to OP's experience with chocolate, some of this may be down to people being more sensitive to flavors and textures associated with the less expensive manufacturing processes.

I, for one, don't like the bite of low quality alcohol. Whisky taken neat starts to be drinkable to me somewhere around $150-$200 a bottle. With ice or water, you can go cheaper than that because you're cutting the harshness of the impurities.

There used to be a theory that passing cheap rail alcohol through an activated charcoal filter several times would improve the taste. In my experience with rail vodka, it removes the worst part of the bite from impurities. But it obviously doesn't make it taste like high quality alcohol. I've only tried this with vodka. It may remove some desirable favors from other alcohols.

Re: Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

#260

Post by gilbetron »

p00dles wrote: post #241
stavros wrote: post #74

Decades ago, an old friend told me "I became a coffee expert, I learned everything there is to learn about beans, the ways to prepare them, the chemistry that goes into it, and now I can only enjoy a cup of coffee prepared by the most expensive machines from the most expensive beans. The shit part is that I enjoy it just as much as I enjoyed my shitty supermarket coffee back when I didn't know anything about coffee."…

novice -> informed -> asshole I strive to be at the informed part of the spectrum. Wine example: - Novice: "I'd like any red wine" -> waiter brings you something you don't like - Informed: "I'd like a red wine that is dry, not st" -> waiter brings you something you are quite likely to like - Asshole: "Do you have an Argentinian malbec from 1998-2000, from the so and so valley?" -> you spend a lot of money and like th…

novice -> informed -> asshole -> seasoned

Keep pushing through the asshole stage and you get to another where you learn to enjoy what you enjoy, whether it is a $10 chocolate chip cookie or Chips A'Hoy. A $200 bottle of wine or a $5 bottle.

It is possible to dig deep into subjects and emerge with a nuanced understanding rather than an asshole demeanor!

I've kept aquariums basically my whole life and have had all kinds of critters including a really expensive marine tank fully kitted out with fish worth hundreds each. My current favorites are some guppies I got for free because it wasn't worth charging for them!

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