Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 454 posts

Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

#111

Post by nocman »

jl6 wrote: post #93
userbinator wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why "broken" instead of "down for scheduled maintenance"? The latter implies continuance of service, the former leaves that open.

“Down” used in that sense is computer jargon. “Broken” is universally better understood, at the small cost of some accuracy which doesn’t matter to the customer.

No, that's by no means originated with computers.

People have said "the phone lines are down" for years, meaning landline phone service was temporarily unavailable (often when no actual physical cables were knocked down off of poles, etc, though that might be where the use of the term originated in that case).

I'm sure there are plenty of other examples of using 'down' to mean the same kind of thing (all of which predated computer use being common in a regular person's life).

Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

#112

Post by slg »

_peeley wrote: post #86
slg wrote: post #74

I don't have much sympathy for a huge corporation like McDonalds, but isn't this is kind of an asshole move by the developer?

Further down the thread he mentions that no order gets executed, he's just querying. I guess still making trouble for anyone using that data, but at least nothing's going to waste.

That just leaves me with more questions. What does he mean by "executing" an order? He used the word "placing" before. Is he placing the order and then immediately cancelling? Or is he just putting items in his cart? Why such the high dollar total on the order? Is it a single order at every store every minute? Does it really need to be that frequent?

Regardless, it annoys me when I see developers abuse semi-public APIs as it just ends up being a motivating factor to close things off more. There is most likely some developers working for McDonalds who have been scrambling as a response to what this guy is doing. It isn't nice to create unnecessary work for others just so you can have a little fun.

Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

#113

Post by tenebrisalietum »

johnsillings wrote: post #97
jl6 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Down” used in that sense is computer jargon. “Broken” is universally better understood, at the small cost of some accuracy which doesn’t matter to the customer.

It matters to me

Why? What are you going to do different if you are told it is broken versus down for maintenance? You're still not getting any ice cream?

Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

#114

Post by jandrese »

userbinator wrote: post #76
wnissen wrote: post #49

Just a note, the machines are not broken, they have shut themselves down for sanitary reasons. Ice cream, as a food that is very close to neutral in pH and without much in the way of preservatives, is a common source of listeria bacteria. To prevent serious health issues, the machine must be sanitized regularly. As I understand it, the process is involved, and any given McDonalds may not have a person with the time a…

But why "broken" instead of "down for scheduled maintenance"? The latter implies continuance of service, the former leaves that open.

Because the teenage wage slave at the register doesn't give a shit about your fine distinctions.

When I worked that McDonalds the machine was almost always down simply because the night crew didn't give a shit and it was too much effort to clean. I worked mornings with the old folks because I was too uncool for the night shift.

Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

#115

Post by cvhashim »

ThinkBeat wrote: post #89
schoolornot wrote: post #15

Not sure where this data is coming from but for months now I've been ordering ice cream through the McDonalds app only to find out when I get there that the machine is broken and that they can't cancel or refund the order, which ultimately results in a stressful cash refund. It's happened multiple times at various locations around Manhattan. Eventually I'll just use this method to get 30-day cash loans on my credit c…

Take it from someone who has spent a few summers troubleshooting, fixing, flushing and cleaning soft serve ice cream machine. If they are not working one day do not go back there and buy ice cream. There are few employees who are trained to maintain and clean those thing at McDonald's. If they get gross they usually just turn them off which cuts the cooling and then it gets very very nasty. Getting a bellyache is the…

McDisgusting

Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

#116

Post by macd »

duxup wrote: post #68
wnissen wrote: post #49

Just a note, the machines are not broken, they have shut themselves down for sanitary reasons. Ice cream, as a food that is very close to neutral in pH and without much in the way of preservatives, is a common source of listeria bacteria. To prevent serious health issues, the machine must be sanitized regularly. As I understand it, the process is involved, and any given McDonalds may not have a person with the time a…

I suppose ice cream isn't high on the list of services they feel they need up and running all the time, but if the machine is determining this I would think there would be some level of predictability that would allow them to schedule sanitizing and etc. It's funny that the machine tells them there's no ice cream. I visited my local library for a tour. They have an automated system that collects returned books, sorts…

There's a great short story called Manna that builds on this idea: https://marshallbrain.com/manna1

Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

#117

Post by noir_lord »

nocman wrote: post #111
jl6 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Down” used in that sense is computer jargon. “Broken” is universally better understood, at the small cost of some accuracy which doesn’t matter to the customer.

No, that's by no means originated with computers. People have said "the phone lines are down" for years, meaning landline phone service was temporarily unavailable (often when no actual physical cables were knocked down off of poles, etc, though that might be where the use of the term originated in that case). I'm sure there are plenty of other examples of using 'down' to mean the same kind of thing (all of which pre…

Iirc it goes back to telegraphs, the line been physically down would prevent them working and it’s hung around since.

Like hang up, when was the last time I hung up a phone, that style of phone went out of fashion here 30 or more years ago.

Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

#118

Post by m0zg »

cm2012 wrote: post #101
m0zg wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, the OP is literally right - ice cream + milk in a blender results in a better milkshake. Try it sometime. That's how milkshakes are made at a lot of the other restaurants.

Yep and a social network is literally just a database with some pages attached. People make them all the time in basic programming classes.

Don't be dense. What I described is the _official_ and _correct_ way to make milkshakes that you will find in any decent cookbook. You've responded with false equivalence.

Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

#119

Post by corentin88 »

samtheprogram wrote: post #80
duxup wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard to imagine that lasts long...

It seems the first explanation given wasn’t entirely accurate (or is at least misleading), as they continued roughly 50 minutes later: > to clarify how this works: mcdonald's keeps track which locations have a broken machine, I'm merely querying for those - no order gets executed, no ice cream is actually wasted Maybe in reality, the order is created, but not actually “placed” in order to query the above info? Or may…

What I’m understanding is that the order is placed, meaning it’s in checkout. But he’s not actually fulfilling it, meaning he didn’t ordered/paid for ice creams for real.

Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API

#120

Post by ehsankia »

joezydeco wrote: post #100
wnissen wrote: post #49

Just a note, the machines are not broken, they have shut themselves down for sanitary reasons. Ice cream, as a food that is very close to neutral in pH and without much in the way of preservatives, is a common source of listeria bacteria. To prevent serious health issues, the machine must be sanitized regularly. As I understand it, the process is involved, and any given McDonalds may not have a person with the time a…

Here's some detail, as someone that has worked with those machines before (internally and externally). In the good old days the soft serve and shake machines were taken apart every night and every piece was washed and bleach-sanitized by hand. Then it was reassembled in the morning. This would leave a lot of room for error and possible contamination in the process. And the sight of a shake machine hitting full pressu…

At first I was gonna ask why does this not run on off hours, but then you mention bad clock, so the next question is, why is the % of bad clock so high, and why isn't the clock also cloud based or set in a way that can go wrong.

Next up, what about redundancy, do stores only have one machine?

Post reply on HN