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

Google Maps is a critical dependency for nutrition facts on mcdonalds.com

mastodon.social

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 110 posts

Re: Google Maps is a critical dependency for nutrition facts on mcdonalds.com

#41

Post by Eddygandr »

upon_drumhead wrote: post #24
ryantgtg wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Maps has more functionality than just targeted ads.

What part of https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/about-our-food/nutrition-... Requires a map? On my phone, there’s no map widget nor distance to a restaurant nor anything else distance related. There’s zero reason for the current functionality to require giving google my location. Sure, you can argue that one day they might add something that uses the map, but that day ain’t today nor does it seem a reasonable require…

What are your details for 10 chicken nuggets? Are they different to mine in Sweden?

Calories Calories 24grams Total Fat (31 % Daily Value) 24g 24grams Total Fat (31 % DV ) Total Fat (31 % Daily Value) 26grams Total Carbs (9 % Daily Value) 26g 26grams Total Carbs (9 % DV ) Total Carbs (9 % Daily Value) 23grams Protein 23g 23grams Protein Protein Saturated Fat: 4g (20 % DV) 4grams (20 Percent Daily Values ) Dietary Fiber: 1g (4 % DV) 1grams (4 Percent Daily Values ) Calcium: 15mg (2 % DV) 15milligrams (2 Percent Daily Values ) Trans Fat: 0g 0grams Total Sugars: 0g 0grams Added Sugars: 0g (0 % DV) 0grams (0 Percent Daily Values ) Iron: 1mg (6 % DV) 1milligrams (6 Percent Daily Values ) Cholesterol: 65mg (21 % DV) 65milligrams (21 Percent Daily Values ) Vitamin D: 0mcg (0 % DV) 0microgram (0 Percent Daily Values ) Potassium: 360mg (8 % DV) 360milligrams (8 Percent Daily Values ) Sodium: 850mg (37 % DV) 850milligrams (37 Percent Daily Values )

Re: Google Maps is a critical dependency for nutrition facts on mcdonalds.com

#42

Post by zagrebian »

sp332 wrote: post #5
cf100clunk wrote: post #3

Just a guess, but maybe its because there are different sources of the chicken, by region?

Is the script actually getting your location data though?

So the website asks Google for the user’s location, and it all happens transparently without the user’s knowledge? I’m not sure if I’d like that.

Re: Google Maps is a critical dependency for nutrition facts on mcdonalds.com

#43

Post by zagrebian »

gruez wrote: post #39
whirlwin wrote: post #18

Is there a more detailed explanation? It would be interesting to know how it works

Probably not, given that the post's author was seemingly more concerned about making an outrage post than doing the most basic of investigation. From what I can tell one part of the script is trying to do `google.maps`, which errors out because `google` is undefined. The code in question seems to be initialization related, so it's unclear whether the page actually requires google maps api, or the site was poorly desi…

OP here. I’m not outraged. I’m just sharing interesting observations.

Re: Google Maps is a critical dependency for nutrition facts on mcdonalds.com

#44

Post by xattt »

reaperducer wrote: post #33
jwie wrote: post #12

Interesting that they won’t infer a location from an IP or other information they have. Seems like they just want the location data and have an excuse to demand it.

Interesting that they won’t infer a location from an IP or other information they have. Right now, Google maps tells me I'm in suburban Atlanta. It's off by more than a thousand miles.

Same here. I am in Charlottetown, but can get either that, Halifax or Montreal, which I assume are at different levels of the interconnect to the rest of the Internet.

Occasionally, I will get French language automatically picked because of the assumption that I am “in” Montreal.

Re: Google Maps is a critical dependency for nutrition facts on mcdonalds.com

#45

Post by tredre3 »

asu_thomas wrote: post #35
reaperducer wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a very similar situation when I moved not too long ago. I couldn't arrange for gas service before I moved into my home because the gas company's web site would only accept Google-blessed addresses. I had to actually move in, and then go down to the gas company office with a copy of my lease to prove the address exists. Strange, since at some time in the past the gas company payed many thousands of dollars to ru…

> But, like in most big organizations, I suspect the web people and the company data people don't talk to one another. Sounds like you're trying to assume good intentions, but you sound extremely naive as a result. The issue is privatized utilities. They are an ordained monopoly. Their failure to "talk to one another" is not a failure at all. They have no reason to even consider the problem in the first place. You're…

Oh FFS plenty of government services do the exact same thing. The issue isn't private/public. It's our modern development culture of not looking for edge cases to begin with, and ignoring them when they arise later.

My city uses Google to fill addresses on their tax portal, so for new construction this exact issue arises. My power company (a public utility) uses recaptcha for logins and I frequently struggle with it.

Re: Google Maps is a critical dependency for nutrition facts on mcdonalds.com

#46

Post by asu_thomas »

stefan_ wrote: post #40
inhumantsar wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost certainly this. Not just chicken but breading ingredients, the oil they fry them in, probably salt content. Maybe sauces too?

That's a nice idea, as if these nutrition facts are super specialized to your precise McDonalds location, and don't actually ya know come down to how much the kid in the back of the kitchen is using the salt shaker. People don't actually believe these are anything more than averages with huge error bars right?

HN is full of propagandized technologists who have yet to realize how few of the world's problems are technical, and how approximately all of them are political.

I'm sure there are better essays with similar value, but the one that comes to mind is Heidegger's The Question Concerning Technology: https://www2.hawaii.edu/~freeman/courses/phil394/The%20Quest...

Re: Google Maps is a critical dependency for nutrition facts on mcdonalds.com

#47

Post by gruez »

ben_w wrote: post #37
gruez wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should I, the developer go out of my way to accommodate people going out of their way (by installing an adblocker/script blocker) to break my app? If you're going out of your way to create a non-standard execution environment, any breakages is on you.

Ad blockers should not be considered "non standard". Even if blockers do count as non-standard, random scripts not loading should not be capable of bringing down your site, and this should've been clear even before the npm left-pad debacle.

> Ad blockers should not be considered "non standard".

In this specific case the behavior is caused by more than a run of the mill adblocker with standard blocking lists. The OP seems to be using a very aggressive blocking list (eg. blocking all google services), or blocking all third party scripts altogether.

>Even if blockers do count as non-standard, random scripts not loading should not be capable of bringing down your site, and this should've been clear even before the npm left-pad debacle.

"shouldn't" is debatable here, especially when the cost to mitigate those issues are non-trivial (engineering effort) and the chance of it occurring (eg. google maps randomly failing) is low. A failed hard drive shouldn't bring down a computer either, but how many of us are using laptops with RAID1 drives?

Re: Google Maps is a critical dependency for nutrition facts on mcdonalds.com

#48

Post by clnq »

cf100clunk wrote: post #3

Just a guess, but maybe its because there are different sources of the chicken, by region?

Drop-down list with regions where the closest is selected based on your IP automatically?

We used IP to determine regions before there even was Google Maps.

Re: Google Maps is a critical dependency for nutrition facts on mcdonalds.com

#49

Post by mlyle »

stefan_ wrote: post #40
inhumantsar wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost certainly this. Not just chicken but breading ingredients, the oil they fry them in, probably salt content. Maybe sauces too?

That's a nice idea, as if these nutrition facts are super specialized to your precise McDonalds location, and don't actually ya know come down to how much the kid in the back of the kitchen is using the salt shaker. People don't actually believe these are anything more than averages with huge error bars right?

Just because the numbers may be approximate, doesn't necessarily mean that you don't need to measure again somewhere where you're doing something different. It's far more defensible for regulators to require a measurement or new calculation than to accept "eh, it's about the same, I promise."

Re: Google Maps is a critical dependency for nutrition facts on mcdonalds.com

#50

Post by Spooky23 »

inhumantsar wrote: post #4
cf100clunk wrote: post #3

Just a guess, but maybe its because there are different sources of the chicken, by region?

Almost certainly this. Not just chicken but breading ingredients, the oil they fry them in, probably salt content. Maybe sauces too?

McDonald’s does regional distribution that affects some of these factors too; different suppliers, etc.

It’s harder to see these days, but where I live in Albany, NY, McDonalds was in the New England region, and we would get the lobster roll “a New England favorite!”

Head a few miles away and you’d be in an area supplied out of New Jersey, Pennsylvania or Western NY. This sort of thing is noticeable if you live in a place that’s sort of a Venn diagram from a distribution standpoint.

Post reply on HN