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© Copyright 1997, Jim Loy
I hear that Pepsi won a taste test. So did Coke. How can this be? Coke tastes better than Pepsi, and Pepsi tastes better than Coke.
What this shows, which we already knew, is that there is not much difference between Coke and Pepsi. Some people (like me) prefer Coke, some prefer Pepsi. Most people do not have a preference.
But, I am mystified. Why do they even conduct taste tests? Do people really decide on what they drink based on other people's preferences? Don't they try both, and then decide for themselves? Or are people really sheep who will follow other sheep? That must be it.
By the way, they are probably cheating on those taste tests. They probably report only favorable taste tests, and throw out the unfavorable ones. See How To Lie With Statistics - by Darrell Huff (the best book ever written).
Some people don't believe me, when I say that I can tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi. It's fairly easy, if it comes from a bottle or a can, and is uncontaminated by disgusting chlorinated ice cubes which dominate those $1+ glasses of Coke that I sometimes get.
I ask for Coke and get Pepsi. And they smugly say that I apparently couldn't tell that it was Pepsi. I respond, "I wondered why it tasted like caca." Caca is a euphemism for caca.
A couple of weeks ago, I ordered Coke at my pool league competition (at The Point After). After a couple of tastes, I told my teammates that it was the ugliest Coke I had ever tasted, and never finished it. I later found out that it was Pepsi. Don't they have to tell you that it is Pepsi?