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 reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API
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Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API
#282I ran the McBroken data through the Spatial Equity Data tool. It found McDonalds are slightly overrepresented in white areas while locations with broken ice cream machines skew Black and low-income. https://twitter.com/MarkStosberg/status/1319363954385297411
The machines also perform better in areas with: low English proficiency, limited household internet access, low-income residents, uninsured residents, cost-burdened renters, residents with less than a high-school diploma, and unemployed residents, according to this tool. I wonder why you chose just that one specific stat to highlight.
The data does seem to suggest that in an area annotated as "white" you are more likely to have location and it is less likely to have broken machines, whereas in an are annotated as "black" the opposite is true.
Those are the only two categories showing up as extremal on both tests.
Without digging into the methodology it's hard to get much more out of it. It's also not clear hwy "Low-income" doesn't show up as blue/over-represented on that chart.
Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API
#283Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API
#284Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
The most basic version of this would be an Google Maps embed, but you'll quickly run into styling and interaction limitations. Not the author, but McBroken looks to be built with Mapbox's Javascript library, so you'll need to break out a text editor. They have some good starter docs here: https://docs.mapbox.com/mapbox-gl-js/example/simple-map/ You can learn a lot by signing up for an API key from Mapbox and tweaking…
Thank you. Do you think the side panels (especially the dynamic one on the left) are a part of the Mapbox interface, or something separate?
This site receives all its data via vector tiles [0]. So as you pan around, you fetch basic visual map information (what the geography looks like) and McDonald's data at the same time.
Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
why is the % of bad clock so high For the same reason that a certain % of orders are wrong. When you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.
Calling fast food workers monkeys won't make you look any smarter.
The fact that you equate the two says more about you than me.
Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
> McCloud That’s an awesome way to name their cloud computing stuff that fits the brand really well. Is this an official/semiofficial name?
Imagine McDonalds had invented AWS and called it McCloud.
Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would have imagined someone in technology (or at least enough to read HN) would understand the hidden complexities of things they're not intimately familiar with
Well I don't, hence why I'm asking...
As for duration, that's a function of temperature and desired safety margin. The higher temp you go to sanitize, the faster you can sanitize, but if they're heating the ice cream mix as well, there's likely a limit to how high they can get without damaging/altering the mix. So the other variable is time, and that's probably what leads to the multi-hour sanitize cycle.
Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
The French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre was sitting in a cafe when a waitress approached him: "Can I get you something to drink, Monsieur Sartre?" Sartre replied, "Yes, I'd like a cup of coffee with sugar, but no cream". Nodding agreement, the waitress walked off to fill the order and Sartre returned to working. A few minutes later, however, the waitress returned and said, "I'm sorry, Monsieur Sartre, we are all o…
Re: I reverse engineered McDonalds’ internal API
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since you and the OP are here, I have a random question: were the blizzards ever made with liquid plastic ingredients? It probably sounds insane, but someone from a plastics company spoke at my high school and said this was the case since it was easier to ship and needed no refrigeration. Now, decades later, I'm wondering if this was just complete nonsense or had an element of truth to it. I've been able to find noth…
Not my field, but edible gums (guar gum, or xanthan gum for example) is "plastic" (adj.). Gums are used more and more, AFAICT as a consumer; presumably to allow products to be bulked out with air. Basically take anything homogeneous, add gum, add air, create a foam. Basically like an Aero bar but with way smaller bubbles. You just cut a quarter (I'm guessing on this figure) off your ice-cream ingredients by weight an…
These days the trend seems to be to reduce the packaging, at least here in the UK. "Same size - less packaging!". So it seems like reduced packaging and distribution costs, and perhaps fitting more onto store shelves, outweighs any extra sales from customers who are fooled into thinking the product is bigger than it really is?