• HonkyTonkWoman@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      “What’s your mutation? Teleportation? Laser Eyes? Weaponized Tornadoes?”

      “…I… I can smell ants… how about yours?”

      “Oh… well… my mutation is that cilantro tastes like chalk to me.”

      • Dasus@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        I was born with 2.5 kidneys, an extra ureter and 4 of my permanent teeth never showed up. Also mild colour vision deficiency.

        I was talking about it with our first lieutenant in the army and he went “Corporal, you’re a mutant!”. “Yes, sir, I am sir.”

      • BlanketsWithSmallpox@lemmy.world
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        God soap cilantro just sucks. I really wish people knew it tastes like gross to like 3-21% of the world population.

        I just wish it wasn’t automatically in anything Mexican. I just want to taste what other people taste. :(

        • FoxyFerengi@lemm.ee
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          1 month ago

          The weirdest thing happened when I was recovering from covid. I couldn’t really taste much, but cilantro suddenly had a perfume-like scent. It eventually went back to normal after I recovered, but I definitely have a healthy level of sympathy for people who taste soapy cilantro now

        • inefficient_electron@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Exposure therapy works for this. You can still detect the chemical that made it taste that way, but the brain can rewire to perceive it as pleasant. If you’re serious about fixing the problem, start by adding small amounts to dishes and work your way up as your tolerance changes.

            • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              Right, but I legitimately love the taste of coffee now. Am I wrong? I know I didn’t like it as a kid, but does that mean I was correct to not like it then or correct to like it now?

              I don’t know, but my instinct is that being able to enjoy the flavor of coffee is a real benefit. For instance, I can taste the nuance of coffee flavor in tiramisu. Without gaining an appreciation for coffee flavor, many foods that use that flavor would just taste bad.

            • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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              1 month ago

              Those are more like your eyes adjusting to brightness/darkness. You’re not tricking yourself into thinking the alcohol taste or coffee bitterness are good, you’re desensitizing yourself to them, which lets you sense other flavors.

              Sometimes there’s no other strong flavors so you get “Huh, this cold brew concentrate tastes like water, I didn’t even add ice, try it” “wtf that is so bitter!!”

            • inefficient_electron@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              There are no inherently good or bad flavours, it’s all just how our brains are wired to perceive them. Sometimes the wiring gets it wrong and warns us about a food that is harmless. I see no reason not to try fixing that.

              • BlanketsWithSmallpox@lemmy.world
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                1 month ago

                There are no inherently good or bad flavours

                X is in the eye of the beholders are the worst.

                You can fool yourself into thinking shit tastes like sugar all you want but subjective reality and the reality your brain perceives should not be conflated lol.

                • inefficient_electron@lemmy.world
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                  1 month ago

                  Shit should taste bad though, given that it is bad for you to eat. This is not the case for cilantro, so why not retrain your brain to like it?

                  All I was offering is a strategy that has worked for me, and many other people. I used to hate cilantro and despised its omnipresence in certain cuisines. I can now enjoy these things and you possibly can as well, if you choose to do the work. If you’d prefer to whine instead of attempting to solve the problem you said you have, that’s on you.

    • aeronmelon@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      The mortality ratio of that school gives me pause.

      Also, so many old white guys hanging on the wall.

  • Humana@lemmy.world
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    I have a friend who can smell cockroaches no joke. We always take her restaurant suggestions very seriously.

    • MehBlah@lemmy.world
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      I can smell ants and cockroaches. I can also smell when someone has been in my house hours after they leave. Its annoying as hell to have this sense of smell since its considered rude to point out that someone stinks. To me its like they are screaming in a small room.

      • Lurker@lemmy.zip
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        I recently had to close my store for an hour, because I was the only one working and couldn’t breath due to one customers bad hygiene. People treat me like I’m overly sensitive or making up my discomfort, but to me it feels like being suffocated.

        Also I can totally smell roaches, they smell worse than any other thing in existence. Never smelled an ant though. Did not know that was possible.

        • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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          I recently had to close my store for an hour, because I was the only one working and couldn’t breath due to one customers bad hygiene.

          I don’t even have the greastest sense of smell, I might even consider it impaired, but personal experience begs me to suggest never applying at your local public library then.

          • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            Libraries are havens for unhoused people. They don’t have to pay to sit in the air conditioning and read a book.

            If we were a society about helping people we would have just installed showers at the libraries ages ago.

            • MehBlah@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              I work at a library and they wouldn’t let us install them when we built a new building. We do though have a place nearby that lets people clean up but not stay there.

        • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
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          Did not know that was possible.

          Same, but I’m starting to think you need a pretty sizable infestation in a nearby wall for this to be a thing.

          • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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            1 month ago

            Best way to get rid of bedbugs is by turning your house into a temporary sauna. Ensuring everywhere reaches some 50º Celsius will kill all the little fuckers.

        • MehBlah@lemmy.world
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          In 95 I was staying at a hotel that had a D&D convention. I was with a group of union boilermakers and we got gripped at by the staff for refusing to allow some of those stinkers on the elevator with us.

        • Syn_Attck@lemmy.today
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          Yes it’s a fact that obese people smell worse than fit people, so if it was a marathon runners convention and everyone actually bathed daily, I’m sure going without deodorant wouldn’t be an issue. Too much fucking might be an issue if the majority of the women aren’t on hormonal birth control.

          But I think the issue with anime conventions isn’t lack of deodorant, it’s thinking a shower is something you take every 4-7 days, and ‘eww don’t touch your buttcrack to clean it, that’s nasty!’

          I may get flack from the twox crowd for this comment, but talking to my fiance was like talking to a guy when she got off hormonal birth control. Conversation is just… chill now.

          That’s probably the next big “oops, we fucked up bad the last 50 years, but men’s birth control is hard!”

        • Syn_Attck@lemmy.today
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          I take testosterone which makes my sense of pheromone smell increase like crazy (not just sweat, I can go into a truck stop late at night and tell if someone was in there somewhere and peed and how hydrated they were, or if someone just had sex in the shower in there… or just an orgasm.)

          Sometimes I’ll walk into our own house bathroom half an hour after my fiance left for work and get an overwhelming woah, she’s definitely on her period right now smell or conversely, “oh yeah, tonight could be a fun night.”

          Our oldest started showering in the mornings before school, and its become a subconscious game (I think, to him) of who can get in the shower first, because I do not want to smell his… shower… my entire shower.

          Humans are capable of absolutely incredible senses when they’re finely tuned. But our senses are so out of whack, literally, in so many different ways we barely have concepts or words for yet. We have known about, as one example, estrogen-raising chemicals being in plastics leeching directly into our bodies and soil and water and food supplies for over 30 years now (BPA), (when estrogen levels rise, testosterone levels lower, and vice versa. same is true for many core bodily systems). Then around 2010 they did a study that found some of these new lightly tested BPA-free alternative plastics released even more estrogen into the system than BPA did. How’s that for a chucklefuck

          Plastics, and then leaded gasoline, and then PFASs shortly after (or before) that… well, when a molecule or series of molecules is found that greatly benefits civilization in some way, people will die. People will sit under oath in front of the supreme court swearing they had no idea how harmful their products were.

          It’s very unfortunate, because the species are being modified in so many unforseen ways. Not just humans. Alex Jones got meme’d so hard for the chemicals are turning the fuckin’ frogs gay!

          I’m not sure what I’m ranting about now. I’m just sad for our species and those species affected by us and unable to do anything about it. It’s never as simple as it’s ALL profits and follow the money! because we’ve been able to make so much progress as humans through the use of breakthrough technologies like PFASs and plastic. But, at what cost? Our current methodology is to let the major corporations sell these new breakthrough molecules far and wide, and then in 5 years or 5 decades we start to see mainstream scientific acceptance that “okay, it’s really bad, we have to do something about this”…

          Sure, though, it did some good in the meantime.

          • Vincent Adultman@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            Thanks high testosterone bro. Your comment made me remember when I was 18ish and would not drink soda, barely eat sugar, wake up to do exercises on the bedroom floor… That was my prime and for a reason. I’ll try to go by next month reducing my sugar intake at least and do pushups when I wake up, start challenging myself again.

            • Syn_Attck@lemmy.today
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              Take it or leave it but my advice (sometimes I take it sometimes I’m a hypocrite) but tomorrow never comes. Fuck next month. There is no reason for you to wait to eat less sugar. If it’s a matter of finances, get a head of romaine lettuce and some carrots and much away for a few days. Feel the sugar withdrawal as your body freaks out wondering what has changed and starts realigning those neurons. After a few days of that, a generic slice of sandwich bread will taste like cake. Use that wasted $30 of high sugar snacks and food as motivation to stop eating this poison. If it’s purely a waste issue, find the first homeless person you see and give them a big bag of high sugar food. Even if its frozen meals they’ll give them to their buddies and use the microwaves at a convenience store and eat like kings for day.

              Honestly, a big part of this comment was me talking to myself, but not about sugar. But if it helps you, I’m happy.

        • Death_Equity@lemmy.world
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          I can smell when a woman has her period if I smell her skin, so not at any distance other than intimately. My best guess is all the hormonal changes alter pheromones from the normal and we can pick up on that.

          Not like it is a bad smell, just her normal natural scent changes.

          • MehBlah@lemmy.world
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            Oh yeah me as well. I can also smell when someone has a disease. I know cancer or at least the type my grandmother had but some of them I have no idea what is wrong with them. I can also differentiate different kinds of drugs.

      • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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        My sense of smell is very sensitive. Like I can detect people have been there by smell too, and often who it was. But I don’t think I’ve ever smelled ants or cockroaches. Thank god too.

      • TheFriar@lemm.ee
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        I have a good sense of smell but…that sounds more like cripplingly good

    • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
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      I’m one of these people. I can smell an apartment roach infestation from the front door, every time.

      And yes, restaurants always get the “sniff check” before we sit down. No-go odors are:

      • bleach
      • pine-sol (amonia)
      • heavy perfume (think “Glade plugin-in”)
      • insects (roaches, etc)
      • pet odor (wet dog, litterbox)
      • sewage (usually a dry floor drain but that’s still not okay)
      • dingy carpet (think: “old movie theater”)

      The first two are obvious attempts at covering up something worse with “clean” smells, and/or the staff has no idea what “clean” actually means. And they obviously don’t care what olfaction means to someone trying to enjoy a meal, which says heaps about what they think food service actually is. Everything else just speaks to the “I don’t care what you smell” part, or there’s something very wrong with how the kitchen is run. /rant

      An example of a top-shelf dining odor experience? I once went to a Japanese restaurant at opening time. The only smell in the dining room was that of the specific kind of imported cedar in the cutting boards. This is traditionally cleaned with boiling hot water, and nothing else. This released a gentle woody and pine-y scent that just filled the space and invited the senses. I came hungry, but I sat down ravenous. The meal to follow was something I will never forget.

      Edit: some clarification since this got some traction. I know that bleach and ammonia are s-tier disinfectants and absolutely necessary for food prep, health standards, and the rest. I use this stuff at home. My issue is with establishments that utterly fail at ventilating these odor and spoil the dining experience with strong chemical odors. Looking deeper I find very strong cleaning odors (long after opening hours) suspicious since it’s very easy to splash stuff around, giving the impression of cleanliness, but not actually clean anything. Strong chemical smells also make it impossible to detect sewage, rot, mold, soil, and other things that would easily flag a restaurant. I’d rather not take the chance.

      • John_McMurray@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Yeah no dude, I keep a ten percent mixture of bleach n water around to sanitize surfaces I use for food prep. This is standard practice. The dishes get soaked in a weak bleach mixture after washing. 3 sinks, wash, bleach, rinse. And there’s pinesol in the mop bucket.

        • GroundedGator@lemmy.world
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          There is a difference between standard bleach and pinesol usage and using it as a way to conceal other smells or problems. Or even worse, not knowing how to use those chemicals to clean. You know how to use a weak bleach solution for cooking surfaces, does your bartender? I’ve seen front of house employees over use cleaning chemicals because isn’t it better to use stronger chemicals to clean. My favorite was the hostess who didn’t want to clean the bathroom so she would just fill the soap and and paper products and fill a spray bottle with Lysol that she would spray around to give the smell of a clean bathroom.

          It’s unlikely anyone will notice the smell of properly used cleaning products.

          • ulterno@lemmy.kde.social
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            and fill a spray bottle with Lysol that she would spray around to give the smell of a clean bathroom

            Depending upon the formula of Lysol, that’s actually worse than not doing anything.
            We’ve got a brand called Lyzol and that seems to be the same formula as Lysol, before it got regulated in the US. If this were to be sprayed, I’d consider the area poisoned.

            Lyzol

            This contains some chemical that lingers even if you wash the floor with water afterwards and slowly produces volatile compounds, and stays for > a week. This gives me (and a few other people on quora) a headache. Again, from reports on quora, the smelly substance also tends to jump onto one’s hand, on touching the surface, making it disastrous for cooking.
            Nowadays, I use Dettol disinfectant liquid, which stops smelling after about 1/2 hour of wind.

          • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
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            My favorite was the hostess who didn’t want to clean the bathroom so she would just fill the soap and and paper products and fill a spray bottle with Lysol that she would spray around to give the smell of a clean bathroom.

            This is exactly the kind of BS I’m talking about. I once knew some pool lifeguards that had to rotate through bathroom cleaning duty. I overheard that their MO was to just get everything wet with a hose, splash pinesol on the floor, and call it a day.

          • John_McMurray@lemmy.world
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            I am my bartender. Also the janitor and cook. Yes, a ten percent bleach mixture does give an odor, it fades within minutes. I was just chopping raw chicken, sure, boiling water is an option, but awkward. Quick wipe down, spritz solution everywhere, wipe again 5 minutes later, better for all involved.

          • AgentOrangesicle@lemmy.world
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            Yeah, I can see a place smelling like a public swimming pool being off-putting. 10% bleach is really common across the food industry, though. Making bread, jerky, kombucha, and various grains, each facility had the same bleach concentration for cleaning (among other cleaning and sanitizing solutions).

        • Pilferjinx@lemmy.world
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          This is basically evey kitchen I’ve worked in. The pine sol can be substituted or more commonly mixed with other detergents.

      • tate@lemmy.sdf.org
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        In some areas (depends on local health dept.) restaurant kitchens are required to have weak bleach solutions around for sanitizing food prep surfaces.

      • AwesomeLowlander@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 month ago

        The first two are obvious attempts at covering up something worse with “clean” smells, and/or the staff has no idea what “clean” actually means.

        Or they’re the cleanest places you’ve never eaten in.

        • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
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          That’s entirely possible. The problem is that with chlorine or ammonia vapors savaging your nasal cavity, you’ll never really know.

          I’ve tried to push through in these situations and it’s never good.

      • ulterno@lemmy.kde.social
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        heavy perfume …

        “I don’t care what you smell”

        This is one reason I stopped eating lunch with other people. Some people use so much of Deodorant (oh the irony in the name) that the volatile compounds get adsorbed onto the surface of fluids in the mouth and then get tasted and also go into the stomach. All I’d say is - They taste bad.

        I don’t think those chemicals are supposed to be edible.

    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I can smell roaches and bedbugs. One is annoying. The second will cause me to flee a building in horror.

      I’ve also informed several friends that they were pregnant. They never believe me the first time.

    • hessenjunge@discuss.tchncs.de
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      I assume people just can’t identify the smell of cockroaches until they learned it? Similar to people being oblivious to the smell of marijuana when not familiar with it.

      I’m not sure I would recognize the smell of roaches if I didn’t keep them as food for other animals. Stinky little buggers.

      • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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        This is basically what the “attachment” thing is they’re referring to in buddhism. It’s not a deep concept. It’s just that it’s mixed into every mental action.

        All the meditation practice is just a matter of familiarizing oneself with the different smells in the kitchen of the mind.

        If normal thinking is like cooking, meditation is like standing in the kitchen and stopping yourself every time your body goes on autopilot and starts preparing food.

        Instead you just stand there, and stand there. If you’re doing vipassana then you’re taking each ingredient off the shelf and giving it a big whiff. One after another. For hours and hours, days, years. You’re getting more and more familiar with that kitchen.

        Then, one day while you’re doing your kitchen standing, your nose detects another specific note. A note that’s been there all along, but you never would have noticed if you hadn’t spent so much time cataloguing all the smells of all the ingredients and cleaners. But now you spent thousands of hours getting to know all those scents, and there’s this other scent.

        That’s the cockroaches. Now in this analogy, all the time you’ve spent meditating, doing shamatha meditation, you’ve been learning to magically delete parts of the kitchen. The kitchen is your mind so you kind of have magic powers there. You’re meditating. You see the pot go to the stove and start boiling spaghetti. “Nope, no cooking” and the pot goes back and the spaghetti goes back.

        All the shamatha meditation has been giving you the telekinesis needed to push things around in the kitchen. The vipassana meditation has been giving you a thorough understanding of what’s in the kitchen, where it goes, how it works.

        So you take your knowledge of the kitchen’s contents, and that lets you differentiate and notice the cockroach smell. That’s the result of your vipassana meditation. Identifying the cockroaches as separate from the food is your insight.

        Then you use the magic editing powers you’ve developed through shamatha meditation, ie now that you have the insight about the cockroaches, because you’ve done your shamatha you have the strength and control to just say “nah” and make the roaches disappear.

        At first you’re worried. What if the kitchen doesn’t work? But you cook some stuff. It works fine. Things smell better, it’s more pleasant to cook now, in a way you never knew it could be more pleasant.

        Anyway. I’ve done a lot of zen training, and I’ve always said that the word “attachment” is often poorly interpreted. It’s not the exact same thing that english word refers to. It’s just the closest word we have for this very specific thing happening in consciousness.

        The fact that buddhist insight can’t be conveyed in words does NOT mean it’s out of this world or esoteric. The smell of garlic cannot be conveyed in words either

        We can kinda shapes and sounds using words. We almost can’t describe tastes and smells at all, except by comparing them to similar tastes and smells. That doesn’t mean shapes and sounds are more real than tastes and smells. It just means our language doesn’t go there.

        So all the mystery of zen buddhism isn’t because of some deep well of thing that can’t be seen, hidden behind nonsense words. It’s just a mystery in words because it’s like the smell of cockroaches: no way to teach it to someone other than handing them a container full of cockroaches and saying “take a whiff of this”.

        There’s no way to hand someone a container full of dukkha (“attachment” in english) and say “get a whiff of this; this is the thing that causes your suffering”. Handing someone containers of samples to smell, in the mind, is hard. All you can do is give people instructions for being in the right spot to figure it out for themselves: “Sit down. Empty your mind. Pay attention to each thought that comes up, notice it, let it go”.

        In the analogy this becomes

        “Go to your kitchen. Don’t cook anything. If you find that you’re cooking something, take a moment to notice how what you were cooking smells, then put it away.”

        Sorry for the wall of text. I always say I’m gonna keep it short and then the minimum words to get the idea across ends up being huge. I’ll get better at articulating this.

        Anyway, this just reminded me of the buddhist thing, and I realized this “cockroaches in the kitchen walls” analogy works nicely with why meditation is done and how it leads to enlightenment.

          • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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            I do. Been keeping a journal since 2000 when I made my first entry on a plane to europe, because the guy who sold me the suitcase said he’d been keeping a journal since his first traveling.

            Unfortunately, all the notebooks up to 2022 (which was roughly 50-75 notebooks, filled with my handwriting) have been lost. About half when I couldn’t pay for a storage unit, and about half a decade ago when they were stored in a friend’s barn and then we had a falling out and he pretended to not remember my storing them there.

            But yeah. It helps me think to journal stuff out. So even though 90% of my journal entries are lost, it was still valuable to do.

            I just really wish I could read my entries from early twenties and understand my own state of mind then.

        • hessenjunge@discuss.tchncs.de
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          One more example for your kitchen analogy, albeit coming from a different direction, is probably the smell of Durian.

          When you first encounter the smell, you experiences pretty intensive stench - maybe like rotten meat. When you manage to get over it and eat it a bunch of times it does not stink for you anymore. You still recognize it’s a very intense smell, but it’s not stench anymore.

          However, for everyone else unfamiliar with it it still stinks like hell.

    • marcos@lemmy.world
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      TBF, there are lots of things with a smell similar to cockroaches. Some of them wouldn’t be a red flag to be found at a restaurant. Also, smells are very localized, and I doubt your friend walks through the kitchen.

      But yeah, I’ve gone away from restaurants because they smelled like cockroaches.

      • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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        Smells are very localized

        Smells are airborne. They move with the air.

        You can walk into a house and tell they’re cooking dinner, just by smells that have traveled 50 feet from the kitchen to the front door.

        • marcos@lemmy.world
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          Dispersion varies widely due to the kind of smell, intensity, and air circulation.

          Most smells do not travel 50 feet.

          • hessenjunge@discuss.tchncs.de
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            Most smells do not travel 50 feet.

            I have to counter that in my experience most, if not all smells travel 15m. When the wind is right that increases massively.

    • RBWells@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Roaches do have a smell. Yuck. Ants though? There are so many different kinds of them, I can’t smell them, or I haven’t noticed if so.

      My lunatic ex had a nose like a bloodhound. He could smell anything.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I don’t question your friend’s ability to smell cockroaches, but I gotta tell you, there is no restaurant without them. The best you can do is minimize.

      Roaches go where there’s food. That’s just a fact of life.

  • TheControlled@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Holy shit I thought I was either full of shit or a mutant freak. I’m happy to be a mutant freak.

    I feel so validated right now you guys have no idea.

    • NatakuNox@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      This! I used to tell people all the time I could smell some ant hills from several yards away. Fire ants smell like death. The larger and more aggressive species in my area smell more than the more benign ants. I’m sure it’s a warning to other animals to stay away.

  • alekwithak@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    This just tells me ant particles are constantly flying into my nose and mouth and I don’t have receptors for them. Gross

  • PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca
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    1 month ago

    Wait are you telling me y’all actually don’t smell ants? They’re a weird and kinda smell like blue cheese. Definitely the smellier of insects.

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      The only time I’ve smelt ants is when they get crushed. Are you telling me you could smell an ant trail just by walking into a room?

    • Kongar@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 month ago

      Never in my life has an ant had any smell whatsoever. I was today years old when I realized people could smell ants.

      In fact, I’ll go one step further. I grew up on a farm, tons of bugs. The only bug that I can ever remember smelling are those stupid Asian stink bugs invasive thingies that seem to have proliferated in the northeast US recently. When you squish them, they smell like green apples.

      I can’t think of any other bug that smells at all - even when they are squished.

      • blackn1ght@feddit.uk
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        1 month ago

        I’m convinced these people are just making it up, I’ve been alive nearly 40 years and not once heard of this being a thing.

        • Kongar@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 month ago

          I mean, they probably DO smell - but like I’ve never gotten on my hands and knees and sniffed any bug up close. Maybe these people are more sensitive to smells and can pick them up yards away - or a whole colony?

          But ya it’s weird that I’ve never heard of this at all. I had heard of people born with tails or horns, females with beards, color blindness, tiger stripes on skin, the asparagus thing, rain man, hemaphrodites, on and on…

          But today I learned ants smell ;)

      • marcos@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Formic acid does really smells like steel tastes. But I’d blame the nickel for the taste, iron tastes differently.

      • PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca
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        1 month ago

        Ya on the floor, outside smells like bugs a bit too (and dirty and a million other things).

      • scottywh@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        I can smell ant hills that are far enough that I can’t see them from an open car window.

  • Allero@lemmy.today
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    1 month ago

    It’s like me figuring out after 23 years that most people don’t sneeze looking at the sun

    • Digestive_Biscuit@feddit.uk
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      1 month ago

      Same for me. If I feel a sneeze coming on I look at a bright light to hurry it up. I thought this was normal but appetite isn’t.

      • Death_Equity@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Bright lights, especially flashing ones, stimulate the same nerve cluster that the urge to sneeze comes from and can help trigger a sneeze that is loading. Some people are more susceptible to that stimulus than others.

        • Digestive_Biscuit@feddit.uk
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          Flashing lights. I have to try that now.

          Years ago me and my sister walked through our newly built town centre together. They had installed bright white stone on the ground and both of us couldn’t stop sneezing (sunny day, stone reflects sun back up). It’s not as shiny now it’s not new but I hate walking through that area to this day.

          • Death_Equity@lemmy.world
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            My usual strategy to force a sneeze over the edge is to look up with my eyes(not at the neck, more effective) and put a flashlight on strobe and it is highly effective.

            Another funny human quirk is the clinically proven most effective method to cure hiccups. Especially great if your partner has them and you are willing to help. It doesn’t matter how the stimulation happens either, but they were more appropriate with their testing methodology than a couple needs to be.

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        1 month ago

        I wiggle my fingers in front of my nose in a sort of “multilegged gallop” motion, as if ky hand were trying to scramble up the bridge of my nose and slipping. But with no touch.

    • Valmond@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      There are a couple other ones, like cilantro tastes like soap (took me some time to figure that one out) and apparently one that makes pee stink when you eat asparagus, and you need another to actually smell the pee stink (I don’t know if it’s true, I just got em all and collected info in the internet).

    • stebo02@sopuli.xyz
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      1 month ago

      do you mean like in the morning when the sun rays hit your nose you must sneeze?

    • Floey@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      Biting into a piece of dark chocolate for the first time will cause me to quickly sneeze similar to how people do when the step out into the sun or inhale black pepper.

      • clickyello@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        The photic sneeze reflex (also known as ACHOO syndrome, a contrived acronym for Autosomal-dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst)

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    1 month ago

    Mine has always been vision and hearing hard sounds, like doors closing. I can hear all the stupid little sounds like that. And I’m just weirdly good at deciphering shadows at night as long as there’s some light.

    I’m sure in ancient times this variation of who has good senses for what served a purpose.

    • Twitches@lemm.ee
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      I am oddly good at hearing engine noises. If a motor or piece of machinery starts doing something different I usually hear it. I worked in manufacturing and I could usually call out a machine that was about to breakdown. Also when a part has been replaced I usually hear the difference in noise.

      • Charzard4261@programming.dev
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        Now you’ve got me wondering if your super hearing stops at machinery or if you could hear the human body doing it’s thing, provided a stethoscope and test subject- I mean willing participant.

    • MIDItheKID@lemmy.world
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      I have really annoying hearing. I’m not sure how to fully describe it but my ears are super tuned into sounds. Very often I will be sitting with my wife or somebody else and I am like “do you hear that?” and they are like “wtf are you talking about?” and I have to be like “Shhh… That! Did you hear it?” and they are like “no wtf” and then I’m like “Wait no no… Wait… That! Did you hear it?” and they are like “Wait yeah… How tf did you hear that while we were talking? Were you paying attention?” and I’m like “No, I wasn’t because I kept hearing this noise”…

      Like… Sometimes people’s voices just sound like noises and I can’t hear them unless I focus because my ears are listening to the noises around me. It can be really frustrating.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        Oh yeah, I get that too, where my brain just decides not to decipher spoken words suddenly. At any rate, noise cancelling headphones are awesome.

    • caboose2006@lemmy.ca
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      I don’t think the shadows at night thing is genetics. Think that’s more of a paying attention lol. People say they can’t see and that’s because they’re looking for details and colour. In the dark you’re looking for outlines and shadows. I learned this from my flight instructor. But it’s a skill more people need to learn. This isn’t to say night blindness doesn’t exist.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        Nah, I figured this out in the military. I was always the last guy to start using my night vision device. Now, to be fair this was 20+ years ago and night vision devices have come a long way since then. Even in my years we got an upgrade that was much better and I used it a lot more. But I was also the one guy hitting all the night fire targets. So there was definitely something there before I went and got old.

        • MalReynolds@slrpnk.net
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          1 month ago

          Likely red/green colour blind, less cones but more rods (better resolution, also night vision). Your ancestors may have done night watch in the village or been hunters.

          duping above so you read.

          • Lorindól@sopuli.xyz
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            Yes, I do have severe deuteranomaly. Diagnosed when I was 6 years old.

            I’ve read quite a lot about this, there are many cases where red/green blind people have exhibited above average night vision.

            I was also very good at spotting camouflage, since the patterns were designed to fool people with normal colour vision. The only time my colour blindness was a disadvantage was in a contest between regiments, I had to direct artillery fire as fast as possible and the targets were big red boxes in front of the treeline.

            Our lieutenant lost his shit when he realized that he had a colour blind forward observer. We still won the contest, my squad handled the measurements impeccably and I verified them on the map. There was discussion of transfering me to other duties after this, but when I asked “Sir, how many big red box targets are there are in real war?” they quickly dropped the issue.

        • Lorindól@sopuli.xyz
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          During my military service I also discovered that I had exceptional night vision. I never stumbled in the dark forest and I could even read maps when others couldn’t see shit. I didn’t pay much attention to this quirk, but my commanding officer realized this and put it to good use. The following overnight recon patrols on foot and skis felt endless.

          • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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            Mmm yes I solved that problem by being a mortar guy in headquarters company. They had access to far better scouts than me.

    • MalReynolds@slrpnk.net
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      Likely red/green colour blind, less cones but more rods (better resolution, also night vision). Your ancestors may have done night watch in the village or been hunters.

    • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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      I think I’ve read the latter is due to a higher concentration of rods in your eye.

  • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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    1 month ago

    Gotta love how they see a video talking about it, with comments talking about it, and their first step is to post on Facebook asking about it before doing a simple search on their own.

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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    Probably similar to that “bitterness” test that a lot of kids got to do in science class where you taste that little strip of paper. To some it’s nothing, to others it’s very bitter. Genetics has given some the extra “taste”, supposedly that might allow people to avoid eating poisonous things containing oxalates or glucosinates. Unfortunately it also means you probably dislike things lie IPA beers or other foods that have bitter compounds that don’t bother others.

    • el_abuelo@lemmy.ml
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      Huh that’s interesting…I hate beer, lager and coffee, all everyday adulting things…I wonder if I have this gene.

    • Shou@lemmy.world
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      I have a high sensitivity to sour. It sucks. Apples are often too sour. So it’s not just ants, or bitterness.

    • H4mi@lemm.ee
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      Some people can see images and hear voices inside their heads…

      • erin@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        It really fucked me up when I realized that “picture this” wasn’t an entirely figurative saying, and everyone else does actually see stuff in their “mind’s eye.”

          • erin@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            I can do that too. You’re misunderstanding the concept. I’m perfectly capable of drawing, eyes closed or not (though it’s much harder eyes closed, obviously). I do digital art. I just conceptualize things differently. I don’t have a mental image, it’s more like a knowledge of what shapes go together to make certain forms. I build things piece by piece from fundamental shapes that I analytically know make certain objects or creatures, but I don’t have an image of what it is until I have actually put it down in paper.

            I don’t know if I worded that in a way that makes sense, as I’ve always struggled with explaining how I conceptualize to people that have an ability I don’t. I know what shapes make up a dog, but I can’t see the dog, if that makes any sense.

          • Crackhappy@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            Your “eyes clothes” typo was so unexpected it got me good. I couldn’t stop giggling for a solid minute. My partner asked me what was so funny and I gasped out “eyes clothes” and she just sighed and walked away.

  • sunbeam60@lemmy.one
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    1 month ago

    Same as asparagus wee. Man, when anyone has eaten asparagus I can smell it before I enter the door to the bathroom. When I have eaten it myself, I’m partly horrified and partly morbidly fascinated. What the fuck is up with only some people being able to smell it.

  • bamfic@lemmy.world
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    I can smell wasps nests. The queen odor is very strong to me. But other smells people notice are lost on me.

    And I hear everything. Autism I guess.