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

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

#351

Post by the_clarence »

numpad0 wrote: post #292
maeln wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would second this. In Paris, but I find it to be true in most European city, the area surrounding train station is usually not very nice. It is usually surrounded by cheap hotel for 1-night traveler, overpriced fast food (hence the initial theory) and social housing / cheap building (a lot of people don't want to live next to a train station due to the nuisance, so poor people often get stuck there). On the other h…

As a non-Parisian: the hard distinction between "metro" and "train" can be non-obvious, even perplexing, depending on which train systems one is accustomed with. Some systems just don't have it, in manners that if said in Paris terms it might be train to Lyon arriving next to Line 6 Westbound.

Train has a train station (with paid toilets now unfortunately in France) and connects to other parts of the country. Metro is a subway and is within city boundaries

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

#352

Post by the_clarence »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #301
s0fasurfa wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Berlin shouldn't be a surprise, because the Kebap Sandwich was invented here (at least according to some sources: https://berlinexperiences.com/was-the-doner-kebab-invented-i... ) Before that, Kebap was a dish served on a plate, taken in a seated manner.

The article itself gives a negative verdict on this: Verdict NO The Döner Kebab was not invented in Berlin. Popularised here? Ok. But there are no participation trophies for that. And they're correct. After all, you have not experienced döner kebap until you have tasted the original Klingon jIrtaH ghab .

I don't understand how it was popularised there though. It's a staple in France and seems to have no connection to Germany

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

#354

Post by mrguyorama »

hinkley wrote: post #289
jclulow wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

Counterstrike skins and gambling websites

Except the joke there is, you never even have to pay out! Gift cards to various tradeable "assets" are a reliable way to launder money, or more directly, launder stolen credit card details into usable money.

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

#355

Post by jrochkind1 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #297
percevalve wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, bu…

> if you remove the "bad/bad" restaurant there is a correlation that appears, but it is due to the collider bias. This sounds like the correlation appears because of you throwing away some data, but the way I see it, that correlation is real - you're not removing the bad/bad restaurants, the market is . I've been reading up on collider bias on Wiki and pondering the examples[0] - restaurants, dating, celebrities - an…

The correlation is still there, but it's a reason the causation you might have been thinking plausible might not be.

In OP's case, however, the correlation did NOT seem to exist.

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

#356

Post by leptons »

numpad0 wrote: post #292
maeln wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would second this. In Paris, but I find it to be true in most European city, the area surrounding train station is usually not very nice. It is usually surrounded by cheap hotel for 1-night traveler, overpriced fast food (hence the initial theory) and social housing / cheap building (a lot of people don't want to live next to a train station due to the nuisance, so poor people often get stuck there). On the other h…

As a non-Parisian: the hard distinction between "metro" and "train" can be non-obvious, even perplexing, depending on which train systems one is accustomed with. Some systems just don't have it, in manners that if said in Paris terms it might be train to Lyon arriving next to Line 6 Westbound.

>As a non-Parisian: the hard distinction between "metro" and "train" can be non-obvious

Do you know the difference between "train" and "subway", because "the metro" is just a subway, just like in NYC or commonly found elsewhere in almost any large city.

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

#357

Post by stackedinserter »

macintux wrote: post #80
smpnav wrote: post #70

On a slightly related note, what’s with the terrible quality kebabs in the UK? You go to Germany and it’s almost a completely different food.

The ancient joke springs to mind. Heaven is where the cooks are French, the police are British, the mechanics are German, the lovers are Italian and everything is organized by the Swiss. Hell is where the cooks are British, the police are German, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss, and everything is organized by the Italians.

And Canada is a place with American cuisine, French government and British technology.

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

#358

Post by registeredcorn »

I was actually expecting to see data that would refute the initial claim in the reverse! The outcome was not at all what I was expecting.

The assumption that I had made was, "More foot traffic = more customers = more reviews = higher overall rating". I was expecting to see a very high score close to train stations, and a hard slope the further you went from stations. My thinking was that location would heavily favor the rating, both in terms of convenience for customers, and in terms of non-Parians eating the food, because they are on vacation, traveling, etc. as the author had mentioned. I figured that if they are in higher spirits, they would leave higher reviews.

After seeing the results, it does make me wonder if this might have still played a role, but to a lesser degree? Hard to say, given how scattered it all is. Botting really does ruin metrics like this.

Personally, I think, it would be interesting to see something like the following in part 2:

1) Distance from station and proximity of kebab shop to bars/nightclubs. Perhaps someone who is drunk, and plans on taking the metro back to a hotel is likely to think a kebab is far better, compared to one who is further away from heavy drinking and further away from transportation. Both of those things being removed would make me think the overall review would be lower, but I think the actual ratings would be far more accurate, and more likely given by Native Parisians (assuming it's by a neighborhood, or whatever.)

2) It would be interesting to see what the impact is, in terms of amount of reviews reviews, the further away a kebab shop is from a station.

For example: If we are to assume that kebab_1 and keba_2 both open within six months of one another, but one is 1km from a station, while the other is almost on the platform, how much will that impact the number of reviews received?

3) Finally, it might also be interesting to hear what other food review websites that might offer this type of information. I assume the French have at least one French-centric social media platform for food reviews, which you can (hopefully) grab data from. How does that sites info compare to Google?

3a) Other nations food review sites might be interesting, too. My understanding is that Iran and Turkey are both very passionate about kebab, I could imagine them have thorough reviews of Parisian kebab shops. I could also see Japan having a pretty passionate food review site, given how crazy the Japanese can get for France, Paris in particular. I.e. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_syndrome

4) Perhaps there would be some interesting datapoints to pull out based on places that have closed permanently. That is, "Is a kebab shop that is close to a station more likely to stay open, or close down?"

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

#359

Post by OkayPhysicist »

s0fasurfa wrote: post #296
vanderZwan wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Berlin shouldn't be a surprise, because the Kebap Sandwich was invented here (at least according to some sources: https://berlinexperiences.com/was-the-doner-kebab-invented-i... ) Before that, Kebap was a dish served on a plate, taken in a seated manner.

This is plainly false. Doner was being served in both sandwich and wrapped forms in Turkey well before the 70's. It was one of my grandfather's favorite foods growing up in Ankara in the 40's, and I've got family photos with street vendors selling it on the streets of Istanbul in the 60s.

It is true that in Turkey, you'll find the Döner Iskendar (cubes of bread, covered in döner meat, covered in sauce, on a plate) as a very common dish, but to claim that the street food variant was new in the 70's is insane. There are a ton of people alive today who can refute that, trivially.

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

#360

Post by dhosek »

sebastiennight wrote: post #295
Symbiote wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would need to further filter for the largest railway stations, perhaps by number of platforms ≥ 6 or 8, otherwise you will include many urban and suburban stations that serve essentially the same purpose as metro stations.

There are not a lot of stations that a Parisian dweller would consider to be a "railway station" AND "inside Paris". I'd say mostly Montparnasse, Gare de Lyon, Gare de l'Est, Gare du Nord, and Austerlitz. RER, Transilien, Metro and Tramway stations would not count as "train stations" in the eyes of a Parisian/French person, and places outside of the Périphérique (the ring road that follows the old defensive "Thier wa…

I’d go with if it isn’t Gare «something» then it doesn’t count.
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