You may never see the soda fountain the same again

I have one of those Coke machines on top in my man cave. The root beer stains like crazy. If you run coke through the root beer spout, it will taste like coke with root beer flavor regardless how much you clean or purge the system.

Cloaca-Cola
- There it is. That should have been the post title.
  
  You can edit titles on Lemmy
- ~~Soda fountain~~ (ancient)
  ~~Soda machine~~ (old)
  Cloaca-Cola dispenser (current)
  The Cloca-Cola ™ UIXperience (soon)
- A joke from Kingdom of Loathing.

All of that is unholy because the Coca Cola company is pure shit.
- It gets worse. They hired hitmen to kill trade union leaders in Colombia.
- Was this explanation accurate?

Nothing open to the public should have a touch interface. Has Covid taught us nothing?
- There’s also a QR code you can scan to control it via your phone. I’m sure no one has exploited that.
  
  And at least your phone has (mostly) only your own fecal bacteria on the screen.
- Covid doesn't transmit on surfaces very well.
  
  Other things do.
- I use my semi erect pinky to push it just to be safe.
  
  I use the second knuckle of my middle finger.
  
  Hey fellow semi erect pinky pusher!
- How are the buttons more hygienic?? A screen is much easier to clean or protect with plastic.
  
  The ones where you press the lever with the cup are.

I don't care what it comes out of as long as the machine is properly and regularly cleaned.
- I am afraid your out of luck either way.
  
  I have been straight up poisoned several times by improperly maintained soda fountains. I avoid them now.
- 🙂‍↔️

It's also annoying to use, slower and can't serve multiple people at the same time.
- No shit they don't want 5 people slamming out drinks at once. If even if one person says fuck the line and doesn't get a free refill they won.
- I think the extra annoyance is counteracted by the gains in customizability IMO
  Where else are you going to be able to get Peach Sprite or Vanilla Fanta?
  
  Or diet everything.
  
  Almost any gas station has those syrup pumps, and here in Utah, we have a soda shop (like Swig) on almost every corner.
  
  Peach or strawberry Sprite is my go to
- The only reason why I like them is because I can cherry all the things. Cherry Coke, Cherry Sprite, Cherry root beer... You get the idea.
  (I also like that cherry lime drink that several restaurants advertise under different names as their "exclusive" beverage. On the top of my head I know that Jack in the Box and Firehouse Subs both have it, with their own branding slapped on the name.)
  
  That's the reason I originally thought they were cool, however, in practice, they almost never allowed you to mix anything with anything, and it was purely a limit placed in the software. I couldn't cherry anything but coke and dr pepper on any of them I ever used. I couldn't add lemon to anything but the already raspberry flavored Fuze tea. I couldn't add vanilla to the root beer or have grape flavored sprite. Shit pisses me off, because it wasn't that they didn't have a certain flavor, the interface just didn't show the flavors available for every possible soda on the machine. Especially when I would see people elsewhere with them setup in the way you really want, where you could cherry everything. 😬
  
  Cherry Rootbeer tastes a lot like Dr Pepper to me... When we would run out at the store I worked at out of high school I'd just get Barq's and add a bit of cherry flavor from our defunct Icee ripoff machine.
  
  Five Guys has it too. Freestyle is the name I know. It’s fantastic.
- Unlike my ex wife
- I like them, but I'm always behind someone who looks like they've never used technology more advanced than a telegraph before
- Yeah, we had two of these replace the old school style drink stations at the hospital I work at. They had to bring back one of the old machines because the new machines were causing so much congestion in the cafeteria. Pretty sure the hardware in these predate blackberrys, they take forever to recognize any input from the screen.
  Plus if you are just trying to get water, it gets slightly contaminated from whatever beverage the last person got. Especially if it's blue powerade for some reason.
  
  Especially if it’s blue powerade for
  That's amusing, because it always seemed like blue powerade was the default nozzle for the 'water' option at the other style of machine, so it was getting that contamination there as well.
  
  why are you getting plain water from the soda machine when there HAVE to be semi-decent water fountains in a hospital? the powerade splashed water is on you at that point.
- The machines used to be relatively fast. But over time they've gotten slower and slower to the point it takes multiple seconds to respond to a touch.
  
  Where I am, they had popped up all over the place at first but have mostly disappeared since then and the ones that remain barely have any flavour customizations anymore.
  My guess would be that they came with predatory subscription fees or some shit like that that resulted in them costing more than they brought in and most businesses cancelled their subscription or downgraded to the basic version that just acts as a shitty version of the old style.
  Either that or they are difficult to keep clean and result in a lot of flavour syrup going to waste when the less popular flavours expire. Or a combination of the two, maybe with HP-style machine-enforced expiry dates on the syrups that are tuned for profit rather than safety/quality.
- The self serve suck for high volume but personally I hate when people butt in while I'm getting a drink. Wendy's seems to do a pretty good job but they are Crew serve units(for drive through) upside is more than eight flavors.
- Aren't those the ones made to collect data from users with a camera?
- So, NOT great at an orgy.

That's rich coming from the "why not cum from where we pee?" Species
- If breathing and eating don't get separate holes, piss and cum certainly aren't getting that luxury
  
  At least in males they aren't getting that luxury.
- You say that like we're the only species who do that, which very much isn't the case.
- Birds also cum from the hole whoch they pee

Lime coke from those machines is delicious. Fight me.
- I like to make something new each time. Might try this next time.
  
  Only a might try? Bro can't even let himself imagine me flavors.
- Ginger lime diet coke is an abomination and I'm here for it.

I just want water man
- water man
  You can use the term "Aqua Man" to sound fancier.
  
  Aqua Homo if ya want to be extra Latin.
  
  Nah, that's different. Water man is the grown up version of the water boy.
- And the water always tastes like shit out of these because they don't clean the tip. On the old style it was always sharing lemonade or Powerade and you could just run the line for a second or two to clear it
- Water fucking rules, man.
  
  ...well? What are the rules?
  Edit: These replies have a lot less rules about how to fuck water, or in water, than I expected.

I also remember when gas pumps had a separate hose and nozzle for each grade of gas.
- You don't have that? Where are you?
  
  Most modern pumps in the US have one hose and buttons to select the grade. You’ll get a bit of the previous customer’s selection from what was left over in the line, but it’s not a huge difference if you’re getting 10 gallons. It can be a bigger deal for something with a small tank, like a motorcycle.
  Diesel still gets its own hose, as putting diesel into a gas car or vice versa can be very bad.
- Wonder if they stopped having to do that when they removed lead
- Usually depends on the place around here. Some do, some don't.
  In theory, separate hoses mean low octane and high octane don't mix (mid grade is already a mix of the two). In practice, it really doesn't matter. Except for diesel; don't want to mix that with anything else.

❤️cloacas❤️

you can use pressurised air to clean the duct. Some verterbrates like to call it farts

This hurts as someone who fixes both.
- Confirm this for me. It's not one hole per drink on the first, isn't it? It's two per, since one is for the creamy thick syrup, the other is for fizzy water.
  That's why you basically end up with soda water if the syrup is out.
  That's correct, no?
  
  100% I was going to mention this but didn't wanna seem to nerdy.
  If you are interested in learning about them search up lancer lev and you'll see pics and manuals.
  i love some of the newer dispensers but you can't fuckin beat classic valves. On or fuckin off brother no in-between. i don't need no gentrified machine, give me bare stainless and black plastic with a decal and I'm happy.
  i just rebuilt and installed a fountain and icewell combo original built in 96. shits built to last and is always repairable, freestyle machines break so easy, it's all tiny parts and plastic.

...do I want to search up what a cloaca is?
- It's the omni-genital.
  
  The Wikipedia article describes the biological act of a "cloaca kiss," which may or may not be exactly what it sounds like depending on an individual's imagination.
- I feel like the context of "the opposite of 1 hole per beverage" gives a good vague explanation. Another is "how I pictured women's anatomy before I took a health class."
- Even if you know what it is, it may surprise you that more that one species can breathe out of it.
  
  Even humans can absorb oxygen through the intestines
  https://scienceblog.cincinnatichildrens.org/ig-nobel-prize-awarded-to-takanori-takebe-for-butt-breathing-study/
- You do not.
  
  Ok thank you.
- Do it. Knowledge is power.
- It's one of those words where whatever you first think of when hearing it, is probably fairly close to the real thing
- As long as you're not studying biology, you get a pass on this one.

These things are not new...

On the plus side, you can often position your cup in the often un-mixed stream to get more syrup.

But what of the super cloaca?

~~Cloaca~~ master orifice

Cloaca-cola, as envisioned by Pininfarina!

Fun fact: the Coca Cola Freestyle machine is designed by the Pininfarina company, of the same Pininfarina legacy of classic Italian car design fame.

This is why I always let the first second or so spray into the splash tray.

Counter argument: Vanilla Coke
- Also being able to get anything in diet instead of just one or two things.
  
  Or being able to get nothing as diet/zero because they never replace the non-hfcs BIBs.
  Half of restaurants seem to forget what backup is when they get these machines.
- Or like 3 different nonstandard fruit flavored sprites. At once
- Second counter argument: peach sprite
- Do you not have those syrup things? Pretty much every gas station has one.
  
  Very few restaurants have them (especially those without bars), and the ones that do never clean the pump head so it's always covered in dirt and bacteria. At least I know that the soda fountain nozzle(s) gets cleaned nightly at most restaurants. But nobody ever seems to sanitize the flavor pumps.
  
  Plastic pumps separate from the fountain? I’ve seen them once or twice but I couldn’t name a chain that I’ve been to which has those. But also you’d have to know the ideal ratio of syrup to base soda rather than have it pre-mixed.

I love those machines. Diet cherry decaf vanilla etc etc etc....
- You can find some unusual things on there!

I've never seen either of these machines irl.
- You’ve never seen a pop fountain? They’ve got them in all kinds of restaurants and movie theaters. Do you not go out much?
  
  I go to the movies once a week, but it's more of an arthouse place, where you're not bombarded at the entrance with sugary snacks and drinks. To give you an idea: I've never seen anyone eat popcorn there. I do go to restaurants but never to the likes of McDonalds and such, I imagine they would have these things? Perhaps they're also not that common in Europe?
  
  Here in the UK when you go to a movie theatre, you're getting beer or wine. Maybe G&T if you're fancy.

I'll never see my lizards the same again.

Well, I don't drink that bullshit so I couldn't care less.

That's just plain science!

If you are drinking any of those drinks you deserve to drink from the cloaca. Just drink water, it won't hurt you.
- Oh boy, someone with a differing opinion on food/beverage that I can shame for liking things other than water