Live data from Hacker News

“The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

jmspae.se

281–290 of 374 posts

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#281
Best Döner i ever eaten, was a small turkish kiez kebap in one of berlins backyard streets - they roasted the hell out of that chicken döner and you got only crust. Worst war lunch rushhour large chain kebap near the chinese embassy.

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#282
post #86

Hi there, "OP" here. First off, it's been fun to see this post spread across the interwebs since I first wrote it one caffeine-fueled day just over a week ago (first Menéame, now here) and for the heck of it, I thought I would clarify a few things; This post was (sortof) a meme. Sure, I "understood the assignment" and performed the quick "study" ("analysis" might be more fitting) for the sake of the original post ove…

please do berlin, london, and stockholm.

Yeah, this is a nice selection of European cities to compare!

Having lived in Berlin and Stockholm (and a few other cities), I'd say Stockholm has by far the worst kebab options of all places I've lived, while Berlin was the best one.

I'm curious whether this is reflected in local reviews, or whether the locals just lower or heighten their standards based on the what the average food quality is like.

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pardon my ignorance, but I always wonder how these money laundering kebab places work. We have some in my city too and they always leave me puzzled. If nobody eats there, how do they launder money? I'm probably daft/naieve but can't figure out the mechanics of money laundering when the business doesn't actually move any product.

The point is generally to recover cents on the dollar from money you can't otherwise use. Imagine you have a network of people moving illegal drugs. They collect money from their customers, and they need to pay it to you, the supplier. Arrange for them to eat a lot of food at your restaurant. Maybe they shout their friends. The money goes into the restaurant, and is mingled with other money. That money is used to pay…

The house is also part of the crime? As in, loosing is part of the money transfer plan?

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

please do berlin, london, and stockholm.

Yeah, this is a nice selection of European cities to compare! Having lived in Berlin and Stockholm (and a few other cities), I'd say Stockholm has by far the worst kebab options of all places I've lived, while Berlin was the best one. I'm curious whether this is reflected in local reviews, or whether the locals just lower or heighten their standards based on the what the average food quality is like.

Kebabs are one of the foods (like Chinese cuisine) that morphs depending on a combination of which kebab-eating group brought it to the country, and local cuisine.

I'm not sure about Stockholm, or Sweden in general, when it comes to kebabs, but kebabs in Norway bear little resemblance to the kebabs I get in London. And the UK now has a chain serving "German" kebabs, which again are significantly different from the kebabs we get from Turkish takeaway places and restaurants here... It's not that they're better or worse - I might crave one or the other depending on what I'm in the mood for, as they're almost different dishes.

So, comparing cities against each other is a lot harder than comparing differences in local opinion by location within a city.

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#286

Here in Berlin there are an enormous amount of kebab places (thousands). Basically, most places are embedded in neighborhoods and have a crowd of locals that go there. The quality varies wildly as a lot of these places are obviously aimed at the money laundering business (cash only) rather than serving food. Poor hygiene, indifferent service, etc. Many of these places are completely pointless from a business point of…

Pardon my ignorance, but I always wonder how these money laundering kebab places work. We have some in my city too and they always leave me puzzled. If nobody eats there, how do they launder money? I'm probably daft/naieve but can't figure out the mechanics of money laundering when the business doesn't actually move any product.

All cash transactions with essentially no/sloppy bookkeeping. Receipts optional. Money goes in, taxes are declared but it doesn't necessarily all add up. So they mix in some non clean revenue and it all comes out as income.

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#287
This seems like a clear case of survivor bias. When you’re near commuters and infrequent visitors, accessibility is a quality all of its own. As long as you don’t become infamous, you’re gonna get traffic.

The farther I have to travel to get to the food, the more motivation I’m gonna need. I’ll go pretty far for my favorite Korean food or for my buddy’s favorite doner, but if I’ve got a meeting in 30 minutes then I’m going to the least objectionable of the four closest places. And as easily nerd sniped as I am, let’s be honest that’s happening at least once a week, which is probably more often than I go to the good places.

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

please do berlin, london, and stockholm.

Yeah, this is a nice selection of European cities to compare! Having lived in Berlin and Stockholm (and a few other cities), I'd say Stockholm has by far the worst kebab options of all places I've lived, while Berlin was the best one. I'm curious whether this is reflected in local reviews, or whether the locals just lower or heighten their standards based on the what the average food quality is like.

As someone whose been living in Berlin for the last 11 years I'm always horrified to read people say they wish the had high quality kebabs "like in Berlin" - the average kebab here is atrocious (obviously optimized for price and not for quality) - the best ones are OK but definitely not amazing.

I don't want to find out how bad the kebabs are in Sweden and other places you hear the from like some US cities if you think Berlin kebab is high quality in comparison.

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pardon my ignorance, but I always wonder how these money laundering kebab places work. We have some in my city too and they always leave me puzzled. If nobody eats there, how do they launder money? I'm probably daft/naieve but can't figure out the mechanics of money laundering when the business doesn't actually move any product.

The point is generally to recover cents on the dollar from money you can't otherwise use. Imagine you have a network of people moving illegal drugs. They collect money from their customers, and they need to pay it to you, the supplier. Arrange for them to eat a lot of food at your restaurant. Maybe they shout their friends. The money goes into the restaurant, and is mingled with other money. That money is used to pay…

A bunch of computer games have had very restrictive rules about getting money back out of the game that other people have put in.

Because if you overprice something in a video game someone might buy it anyway. Because who’s to say the price didn’t spike high for some real world or in game event (like a holiday, a new challenge opening, or a voice actor died and everyone wants to dress like their characters). If you can turn the in game currency back and forth to hard currency, then you can sell a $5 item for $500 and walk away with 90-99% of the value (depending if the company charges a transfer fee).

Re: “The closer to the train station, the worse the kebab” – a “study”

#290
post #86

Hi there, "OP" here. First off, it's been fun to see this post spread across the interwebs since I first wrote it one caffeine-fueled day just over a week ago (first Menéame, now here) and for the heck of it, I thought I would clarify a few things; This post was (sortof) a meme. Sure, I "understood the assignment" and performed the quick "study" ("analysis" might be more fitting) for the sake of the original post ove…

That looks like a typical collider bias to me... There should be no correlation between location and quality... But as you are looking at restaurant that are still "in business" you are introducing a bias. If you simplify, a restaurant can have : - good/bad location - good/bad food

If your restaurant has bad location and bad food, it is not going to stay in business very long.

After that you can have a mix of all, but if you remove the "bad/bad" restaurant there is a correlation that appears, but it is due to the collider bias.

Post reply on HN