NHS.UK frontend - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nhsuk/nhsuk-frontend <comment><USER2> This project has obviously been carefully planned out, well defined ahead of time, and overseen with a militant eye for detail and style. That has lead to a neat, tidy, and immediately accessible code base that delivers what look like rock solid UI components.

Compare and contrast that to every private sector project I've worked on (for global household names none the less) and this sort of thoughtfulness and consideration simply is not compatible with the business objectives, and as such is the first thing to get the chop, leading to code bases that grow increasingly incoherent over time and deliver flakey solutions at best.

The next time anyone tries to sell me on the notion that the public sector can't do anything as well as the private sector, this is what I'll point them to. They wont understand what they're looking at of course, but that won't make them any less wrong.

<comment><USER3> Not to be curmudgeonly but this is exactly what I would expect from public sector.

\- Odd technology choices. It took me a long time to figure out what .njk files were.

\- Misapplication of popular technologies. They're using webpack for... something? But most of the actual bundling is done by hand with gulp, and a lot of the JavaScript is operating in the global scope.

\- Overselling. It's just a bunch of scss with some mostly-HTML components.

<comment><USER4> Would this be more impressive to you if it were React or Angular? Your users don't care that it's Nunjucks or Sass. Nunjucks and Sass are perfectly fine.

<comment><USER5> But obviously the users are not the only or even major constituency here. These are UI components to be used by other developers and (like all software) to be modified down the road to satisfy new and changed requirements. Technology choices matters greatly.

<comment><USER4> The NHS is probably concerned with stability, accessibility and performance. Also I would like you to please explain why sass and Nunjucks are not good for "satisfying changed requirements"

Edit:

Also, are you serious that GDS should consider front end developers their constituents and not their users?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For background, this is done by NHS digital: [https://digital.nhs.uk](https://digital.nhs.uk)

They are a cultural descendant of GDS, who make GOV.UK amongst other things: [https://gds.blog.gov.uk/about/](https://gds.blog.gov.uk/about/)

All of GOV.UK is open source in a similar way: [https://github.com/alphagov](https://github.com/alphagov)

(Source: I worked for GDS.)

<comment><USER7> What is it about GDS that lets them do IT well? Most government IT projects end up complete disasters - the digitisation of the NHS and the fire service "firecontrol" scheme were two recent really insanely expensive projects that ended in utter failure. That seems to be the norm. What do you think makes GDS different?

<comment><USER8> I think most government projects are contracted out to huge bloated dinosaur companies with crony connections and more people on staff that know how to navigate government purchasing buerocracy than know how to code.

In the US we also have a new in house team of coders, led, I believe by xoogler Matt Cutts that has been doing an excellent job as far as I have heard.

I think the key here is that outsourcing your tech is rarely superior to highering talent in house.

<comment><USER9> Having been on the receiving end while working at a contracting company, I wouldn't say that.

The process seemed fairly open. The government send requests for proposals and contracting companies can bid. There is no trick involved. I found the requirements to be surprisingly well written on a few I had to read.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is only tangentially related, but I'd just like to thank the NHS for their excellent news site [1] which soberly reviews health related news, and is outsourced to part of the Economist Group.

They could certainly do with improving its accessibility, though. I wish there was some way to subscribe to it. I have to use a third party service to create an RSS feed from it.

[1] [https://www.nhs.uk/news/](https://www.nhs.uk/news/)

<comment><USER11> I'm the tech lead for the NHS website (www.nhs.uk) and I oversee the team who are building this frontend library.

I will pass on your comments about RSS to our architect (who gets to decide these things).

We do syndicate all of our content via a service which requires registration. Maybe you could try this as a workaround?

[https://developer.api.nhs.uk/](https://developer.api.nhs.uk/)

<comment><USER10> Ah, thank you. RSS would be great for me (and that API looks really neat!), but I meant more generally - perhaps for people who don't browse HN.

The content on Behind the Headlines is fantastic, but the page seems a bit unloved. If I search for "health news" on Google it doesn't appear at all (I checked the first 7 pages of results). The SEO for the individual articles is admittedly much better. I think I personally found the page by accident when I was looking for some news about the NHS.

So, I'm not sure what I'd recommend (other than perhaps an email newsletter for the less technically-inclined). It seems like you have a real diamond in the rough there with great content which is let down by presentation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Parliament.uk beta , this NHS beta design, GOV.WALES beta, etc. all look like GOV.UK. Are they related in any way (same developers?), or did they just thought 'hey the main gov website looks great and is open-source, let's do the same'?

<comment><USER13> I remember that there are guidelines for development of government websites, also on Github—concerning accessibility stuff and, I think, readymade client- side resources. Only I'm not sure if that was the UK government.

That was published pretty long ago, like a year or two.

<comment><USER11> I'm the tech lead for the NHS website (www.nhs.uk) and I oversee the team who are building this frontend library.

NHS Digital are working on a "Standards Library" encompassing how to go about building healthcare websites and services (as opposed to generic government services) which encompasses not only the design of a website but also the whole lifecycle of the service.

We still have work to do, but I think 2019 will see the release and adoption of our ideas across the UK!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why oh Why do not they care about security ?

Website scores an F for Fail on mozilla's

[https://observatory.mozilla.org/analyze/www.nhs.uk](https://observatory.mozilla.org/analyze/www.nhs.uk)

hosting platform is not secure :

[https://internet.nl/site/www.nhs.uk/431794/](https://internet.nl/site/www.nhs.uk/431794/)

email is not secure :

[https://internet.nl/mail/nhs.uk/179122/](https://internet.nl/mail/nhs.uk/179122/)

Please fix this and not let it drop into bureaucracy

</comment><comment><USER15> Dead link when I click on the logo at [https://nhsuk.github.io/nhsuk- frontend/](https://nhsuk.github.io/nhsuk-frontend/) \- Please fix.

</comment><comment><USER16> Big ups to these people and this institution! This is so cool.

</comment><comment><USER17> Out of the loop. What is this?

Front end template for allowing people or doctors or someone to use NHS backend?

<comment><USER18> >NHS.UK frontend contains the code you need to start building user interfaces for NHS websites and services.

<comment><USER17> Yes. I read that. But as an American who doesn't fully understand NHS... what is this?

Why are people making NHS Websites? That's the part I don't get, who is using this code and for what? Isn't NHS a government run service and they run their own websites?

<comment><USER19> The NHS isn't really a single body (1), it's perhaps easier to think of it like the US army in terms of structure rather than a single organisation.

There is a central organisation that sets overall directions and can give orders. But then there are lots of other organisations that are within it or attached in some way or even privately owned groups that operate in association with it.

Each group usually creates its own web sites and the central organisation doesn't usually interfere unless something is wrong.

The following is AFAIK correct, but it's my personal experience, and I'm not claiming to be an expert on the NHS!

As a simplified example, I am covered by the NHS. In my case NHS Scotland, which is separate from the similar system in England or others in Wales and Northern Ireland.

I am registered with the local NHS GP surgery which puts me on the system and provides most non-emergency access to care.

That GP's surgery is (probably) a private partnership of doctors who own the building and employ themselves and the other staff (nurses, admin, etc).

They get paid by the NHS system as a whole to provide me healthcare, but are not direct government employees.

I actually picked this GP's practice over several others, each of which have their own websites, because its website showed that it was open to new patients and because they offered open clinic times that matched my requirements.

On the other hand, the local hospital is owned (2) by the regional NHS hospital group as a government owned facility which employs the staff there as direct NHS/government employees. Except in emergency, I would go to my GP first, then be referred to the hospital.

However this is a separate organisation from the regional hospital group that operates hospitals in the next major city.

(1) NHS structure and funding: [https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/sites/default/files/2017-10/NHS...](https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/sites/default/files/2017-10/NHS_structure_2017.pdf)

(2) Though see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_finance_initiative](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_finance_initiative) for a more complicated explanation

<comment><USER11> I'm the tech lead for the NHS website (www.nhs.uk) and I oversee the team who are building this frontend library.

Your comment is a good explanation of how things work.

My employer, NHS Digital, is working on this frontend library as a way to spread good practice throughout the federated health and care system you describe.

In short, we spend money doing the research on how best to provide information to users/patients and then we promote the uptake of the technology we develop to best satisfy them - with the overall goal of improving self-care and reducing the need for costly GP appointments and hospital visits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> jQuery, gulp... Makes me sad and probably I won't use this. But their UX is good.

<comment><USER11> I'm the tech lead for the NHS website (www.nhs.uk) and I oversee the team who are building this frontend library.

I'll be making sure we remove our jQuery dependency when I can. For now the team is simply aiming to get to an MVP that we can iterate on :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Nicely written codebase but I can't get past the fact that they use JQuery...

<comment><USER11> I'm the tech lead for the NHS website (www.nhs.uk) and I oversee the team who are building this frontend library.

I'll be making sure we remove our jQuery dependency when I can. For now the team is simply aiming to get to an MVP that we can iterate on :-)

<comment><USER22> What does the backend stack consist of?

<comment><USER11> This is a very difficult question to answer comprehensively because our "website" does a lot more than just present information to people! Most of the content you can see on www.nhs.uk is Python/Django/Wagtail plus a whole heap of infrastructure. But there are aspects of our service written in C# or JS for example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I can't believe how this made it to the top of the HN homepage.</comment>


I was a corporate restaurant consultant - <AUTHOR> https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/article/bjp9xv/how-chain-restaurant-menus-get-made <comment><USER2> I work as an independent consultant and one of my recent projects was a study on the fast-casual restaurant industry on behalf of a long/short investor. It's a fascinating industry, and a bit depressing to learn about in depth (kind of like reading this article).

The basic business model of all franchised restaurants with fixed menus and nationalized marketing budgets is getting people in the doors with something appealing (e.g. a value meal) and then get them to buy high-margin products (i.e. coffee, soft drinks, french fries, and food items that don't contain vegetables or meat).

One thing I think most people don't realize is how much the house loses money when you go in there and buy the healthy stuff. At QSRs from McDonald's to Panera the cost of delivering a salad to the customer exceeds the salad's price. If you're a starving entrepreneur and you can be disciplined about shopping for value, the healthy stuff at QSRs might be your best bet on a daily basis.

<comment><USER3> > the cost of delivering a salad to the customer exceeds the salad's price.

Is this mostly due to the higher cost of fresh ingredients, or the additional labor required to assemble them?

<comment><USER2> > Is this mostly due to the higher cost of fresh ingredients, or the > additional labor required to assemble them?

Both. On ingredient cost alone, restaurants will analyze across multiple dimensions: the per-unit pure cost (e.g., the wholesale price of a head of lettuce), transportation cost, storage cost, and spoilage rate (lots of interesting volatility modeling done on this).

<comment><USER3> There must be a price point where it starts to turn a profit, and it must be less than, say, $25 for a salad.

There are plenty of places that turn a profit mostly selling healthy stuff and a moderate (but not cheap) price point.

Admittedly, these places tend to attract people who can and will pay a higher price for healthier options.

<comment><USER2> Salads are profitable for QSRs in a broader sense -- they're loss leaders.

QSRs are happy when the customer comes in to buy a $5.59 salad that costs them $5.85 to make, because the customer also usually buys another product that has great margin, e.g., a $1.79 drink that costs the restaurant $0.20.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Years ago, my wife's friend who was the marketing director of a regional chain of family friendly restaurants told us about a few menu positioning tactics that are used to maximize revenue. The one I still remember is the item on the first inside page on the top right corner is the item with the highest margin, usually pasta. The reasoning for the placement is that people who didn't have a strong preference for what they wanted would scan the entire menu and then return to the beginning of the menu and get "stuck" in the corner on their second pass. I'm not sure if this is based in any research but it's a fun thing to look for when you are out to eat.

<comment><USER5> I worked for a large restaurant retailer in the corporate office. It's a mistake to call it a restaurant company. These companies are marketing companies and marketing drives everthing. Even to the detriment of operations and efficiency.

<comment><USER6> > These companies are marketing companies and marketing drives everything.

This is a _huge_ problem with our society. Marketing is important, but when it takes over it destroys companies, people and eventually society itself.

We see it with restaurants. Once, a restaurant was simply a place which served food; now it's a brand, an experience, a carefully-crafted image which imparts all the right feelings but only some of the substance — if any.

We see it with food. The produce we buy isn't the healthiest or the most nutritious: it's what _looks_ healthiest & most nutritious, by metrics which no longer come close to making sense (e.g. the redness of a tomato doesn't signify ripeness in a world with artificial pseudo-ripening, and the shininess of an apple is meaningless in a world with vegetable wax).

We see it with relationships, with entertainment, with hardware (c.f. speculative execution & caching), with software (c.f. shiny effects), with political parties, with 'news' — in a word, _everything_. Our world is being destroyed by marketing, by appearance with no substance to back it up.

I can only identify the problem; I don't know what the solution is.

<comment><USER7> Right, it's this quote from the article:

>"Asian food no longer has a health halo merely by existing," the manager explained as I cleared away plates of mangled spring rolls. "The once 'healthy' perceptions of brown rice and lettuce cups aren't believable anymore. Today, guests are linking health to nutrient density. Ancient grains. Avocado. Micro-greens."

The experts' domain here is not what is actually healthy. Actual health doesn't even enter consideration. It's what "guests" are "linking" with health, that is, only perception matters because the operational goal is personal profit above doing right. Our food industry at large is suffering from a total preoccupation with orthogonal concerns, of which our insane food culture is the natural consequence.

<comment><USER8> Michael Pollam has written about this extensively... the proliferation of "magic ingredients" that confer "healthy" status on the same old food. "Ancient grains" are just starch. Omega-3 fatty acids are just oil. Etc. The fashion changes, but the structure stays the same.

Chain restaurant food relies on year-round availability of ingredients of consistent quality (although "seasonal menus" exist, they're more about marketing than availability, the illusion of freshness again). Lots of white flour, vegetable oil, refined sugar, factory-farmed meats. Restaurants are more factory than art. Raw ingredients go in, get turned to finished products and sold on-site.

<comment><USER9> > Chain restaurant food relies on year-round availability of ingredients of > consistent quality (although "seasonal menus" exist, they're more about > marketing than availability, the illusion of freshness again)

Yep. The yearly appearance of the mcrib and its huge marketing push tracks the price of pork futures. McDonalds is a commodities trader as much as it is anything else.

<comment><USER8> My mind jumps to something Budweiser did, after being purchased by InBev. Their recipe uses a particular hops from a unique valley in Germany. Under InBev, they suddenly declared they had enough of these hops, and wouldn't buy any more for a year. This crushed farmers in that valley, of course... and then Budweiser could negotiate for better prices with the survivors a year later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I see the results of these consultant-driven places everywhere and, everywhere it's like they all used the same consultant in a dire bid for relevance. It's poke-this, quinoa that, avocado toast with a side of "authentic" matcha.

The hell with it. Give me a "voice" — do something with your food. Don't Kardashianize every damned item.

An example of someone I feel that is doing it right is a guy in Houston named Russell Ybarra. He just started his latest place called Burger Libre — and it wasn't consultant driven, it was driven by his decades of success with his Gringo's chain in Houston. The "consultants" are his friends and employees along with actually knowing how to make a restaurant succeed.

Tillman Fertitta is another guy who uses years of experience to create great chain experiences.

The restaurant business is filled with people that have more money than sense. It's obviously about the food, but it's about having something to say with the food and experience — and that voice rarely comes from consultants that travel to 20 restaurants in 2 days looking for insight.

The same could be said about startups. Want to make money? Don't chase yoga pants. Yoga pants follow, they rarely lead. If you are duplicating what's working with the yoga pants crowd, you are already 5 steps behind.

"Don't skate to where the puck is, but where it's going. — Wayne Gretzky" — Michael Scott.

<comment><USER11> I don't know where it's like where you are, but around here, there's a dozen established eateries, and corners of strip malls that get new restaurants every 8 months or so. There's gotta be a solid profit in selling loans to people who have a dream of owning a restaurant (or bar, or eatery, or whatever), but haven't the faintest clue how to run the business.

<comment><USER12> The statistics thrown around are 75-80% of new restaurants won't last the first two years.[1]

That day want terribly surprise me, as I spent a sizeable portion of my career travelling around fixing restaurants.

Biggest issue I've seen is people creating a restaurant because they think it will be fun, or high profit margin. (Spoiler: it is neither).

(Source: chef for 18 years). [1] I don't have a source to back this up, it's just been repeated so many damn times. I think it would be closer to 60-70%

<comment><USER13> >think it will be fun, or high profit margin.

Quite possibly the complete opposite. Especially when today's asset / property prices are being pushed up to a ridiculous level by QE, rent eats into profits, And most restaurants owner I know has thin profits margin and lots of long hours working.

>The statistics thrown around are 75-80% of new restaurants won't last the first two years.

I guess it depends on location, but 50%+ of new restaurants changes hand within the first 3 years.

<comment><USER12> The standard costing for a restaurant meal is 25% food cost.

It approx breaks down as: .25 food cost .25 staff cost .25 rent and gas/elec etc .25 profit.

That's not real world though, that last .25 is going to be eaten into. I personally prefer to try and run at .21 - .22

It may seem like an awfully unbalanced profit margin, (in relation to me saying low profit margin), but you need to add in wastage on top of this, both due to staff error(eg keeping by too much stock on hand), unexpected quiet periods or even supplier sending lower quality produce. There's also the matter of variable prices for ingredients as well.

This is one of the biggest things I had to drill into clients, it's not just about making good food and slapping a fee on top, it's a strict regieme of training, control and excellent book keeping on top of a passion for food and a desire to make people happy.

As to your last paragraph, I believe that's covered by closing, I should have clarified on that point, my apologies

<comment><USER13> Interesting. When I first got into the industry, knowledge pass down to me as 30% Food Cost, 30% Staff, 30% Rent / Electrics, and 10% Profits. Again this differ from places, City and non City restaurants. And This is mostly in Asia, HK, Taiwan and China. ( Not Japan )

When I left the industry, Food Cost are now pushing down close to 20%. Staff Cost and Rent made up of nearly 70%. With Rental taken nearly 40%. Since Staff Cost, and Rent are mostly fix cost, the only way they could improve Revenue was to becomes fast food alike, i.e faster table turnover. ( A trend I really dislike )

>This is one of the biggest things I had to drill into clients, it's not just about making good food and slapping a fee on top, it's a strict regieme of training, control and excellent book keeping on top of a passion for food and a desire to make people happy.

This. So Much.

I still wanted to get back into Food and Hospitality business someday. I think Food is a topics that connects with everyone. And I still think there is lot of innovation and tech could help with the industry, it is rather unfortunate no one is taking a look into it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > For every perfect, client-ready pizza, there were at least six that missed > the mark— ... pepperoni that curled when cast in the oven, pockmarking the > pie with tiny buckets of grease.

Ummm, that's a feature, not a bug. Right? best pepperoni is the curled up kind as far as I'm concerned.

<comment><USER15> After reading that passage in the article, I thought maybe I'm misremembering - weren't cupped pepperoni the superior?

And then, when it got to the passage about "truffle oil" being "craveable" I stopped doubting myself. Truffle oil is synthetic garbage used to sucker people unaware of the non-relationship between truffles and "truffle oil."

Now I just can't figure out whether this is a fast food consultancy that knows nothing about actual food (which would be ironic, but not surprising), or whether they know about food, and this is pure cynicism on their part regarding the public's taste in food.

<comment><USER16> > Truffle oil is synthetic garbage used to sucker people unaware of the non- > relationship between truffles and "truffle oil."

I've had real truffle oil in Croatia and it is absolutely divine. A far cry from the synthetic stuff, which I can now smell a mile off. The real deal is incredibly expensive, mind.

I suppose I just wanted to point out that not _all_ truffle oil is garbage, although perhaps in the US the real stuff is vanishingly rare.

<comment><USER17> I'm nowhere near an expert, but isn't the same thing true for olive oil? It's a huge market but probably also with huge differences in quality.

<comment><USER15> Olive oil is oil from olives, with marketing playing up differences between brands for the sake of price stratification.

Truffle Oil is olive oil with synthetic flavor and perfume added, to make people think it's somehow related to truffles. Real truffle oil isn't a thing: truffles are consumed shaved into food like a hard cheese, generally, and their flavors don't infuse oil well at all. Marketing here isn't about making some truffle oil look better than others; it plays the role of making people believe that truffle oil is a thing at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> A related video from Dan Jurafsky where his team analyzed the words in 6500 menus and found correlations of adjectives & nouns used by the cheap vs expensive restaurants.[1]

(Or put another way... imagine this thread's "menu design" story being multiplied 6500 times and DJ researchers analyze the _output_ of those consultations -- the 6500 menus. The corpus reveals some interesting repeating text patterns.)

To apply DJ's findings, we notice that the author India Mandelkern writes:

 _> Back at the office, our team pooled our observations on multicolored sticky notes that we stuck to a giant whiteboard. "Dishes have no freshness cues."_

We assume this results in a Pei Wei menu[2] with these excerpts (and with particular words _underscored_):

 _> Then we wok-sear it in our _delectable_ orange sauce and finish it with _fresh_ orange slices

>our Wei Better Orange Chicken and Wei Veggie Orange Chicken are made with _fresh_, not frozen chicken,_

According to DJ, the expensive restaurants would not use words like _" delectable"_ and _" fresh"_.

[1] deep link: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iYwUh1Hdho&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iYwUh1Hdho&feature=youtu.be&t=14m27s)

[2] [https://www.peiwei.com/orangechicken](https://www.peiwei.com/orangechicken)

<comment><USER19> I learned the concept of counter-signalling from that video

"Contrary to this standard implication, high types sometimes avoid the signals that should separate them from lower types, while intermediate types often appear the most anxious to send the "right" signals. The nouveau riche flaunt their wealth, but the old rich scorn such gauche displays. Minor officials prove their status with petty displays of authority, while the truly powerful show their strength through gestures of magnanimity. People of average education show off the studied regularity of their script, but the well educated often scribble illegibly. Mediocre students answer a teacher's easy questions, but the best students are embarrassed to prove their knowledge of trivial points. Acquaintances show their good intentions by politely ignoring one's flaws, while close friends show intimacy by teasingly highlighting them. People of moderate ability seek formal credentials to impress employers and society, but the talented often downplay their credentials even if they have bothered to obtain them. A person of average reputation defensively refutes accusations against his character, while a highly respected person finds it demeaning to dignify accusations with a response."

[https://kelley.iu.edu/riharbau/cs- randfinal.pdf](https://kelley.iu.edu/riharbau/cs-randfinal.pdf)

<comment><USER20> Could something similarly explain how law enforcement treats the poor and minorities?

<comment><USER21> The simple answer is that the enforcers of the law don't usually come from poor and minority communities.

<comment><USER22> Interestingly even if they do they still don't treat the poor and minorities very well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> One of the first jobs I had after graduating with a culinary arts trade degree was at one of the big 5 chains of restaurants where they nail salvage items to the walls and play classic rock. After 2 years working the kitchen and bar, I can attest fully these are the equivalent of a Chuck-E-Cheez for adults.

"food" is slightly more than a step up from fast food. main course Items are delivered frozen and reconstituted in a high speed sous vide system. Fries or any fried finger food are frozen, and depending on the franchise owner there is a specified hold time of up to 2 hours. My location ignored this because 'we sell so much food!' when in reality we're ignoring it because wastage is logged and reported to corporate and the franchise owner wasnt interested in lectures from the suits.

Other items like specials and anything that read 'grill' was placed in one of four high speed commercial microwaves, then sent to a 'finisher' which resembled a grill but simply imparted the markings on the food in about 20 seconds. Hamburgers didnt receive this treatment as they arrived fully cooked in many cases, with the exception of the angus burger, which was one of 2 items on the menu that was actually thawed and cooked on a real grill.

The bar isnt operated on a razor-thin margin of profit, its just flat out greed. items are chosen for hold time and markup. Frozen margaritas/anything can be held for up to 2 weeks, as the mix from corporate is largely preservatives. distributer orders do not specify a brand, only a negotiated price for a specific liquor. Beer provided almost for free, as corporate aggressively negotiates the terms and in some cases, owns major stake in distributors. all poured alcohol is underpoured partly because the establishment is cheap, and partly because the only thing that can shut down these shitty chains is an alcohol violation or poor customer experience because of an 'over-service event' at the bar. they just reopen in a week 'under new management' anyhow.

If you're wondering how franchise owners play into the restaurant, theyre basically nonexistent. Our franchise owners only visible presence was a plaque on the wall with their names, and occasional half-hearted sentiments from the managers on things the owners would like us to do which were basically restatements of what corporate wanted us to do. It wasnt until my last year of employment when I learned they were in their early eighties, and confined to a nursing home somewhere out of state. Power of attorney rested with their son, who had been in and out of drug treatment programs somewhere in california. We were eventually purchased as a franchise package by a venture holdings company in chicago.

<comment><USER24> Do people really expect anything beyond that from a franchise/chain restaurant?

If you have a total of 5-10 items on the full menu, your food is likely fresh made.

If its a giant menu with all kinds of styles, laminated, well, it's not a kitchen back there but a conveyor belt.

<comment><USER25> The New York area is full of diners with enormous menus that are not chains. Quality varies highly (and often not correlated with price), but I believe it's mostly made in-house.

<comment><USER26> It definitely varies, but diners bulk buy most of their stuff from national distributors for sure. Nuggets, fries, burgers, meatloaf, gyro meat, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The article mentions Applebee's and that made me think of Chili's. I remember in the late '90s going Chili's somewhat regularly and always being happy with the food and service.

On a whim, we went to a new Chili's about a year ago and nothing was very good. Anything that wasn't deep fried was microwaved. It made me wonder if my tastes had changed over the past 20 years or if Chili's changed their processes. Is this the result of relying on consultants?

<comment><USER28> Everything changed. We're not the generation they're catering to any more? An upbringing of burgers and fried food has brought a new generation to restaurants.

<comment><USER17> I want to believe that said generation, if they really are into burgers and such as much, would gravitate towards higher quality products, but I guess convenience, lack of competition / options, familiarity, and probably most importantly, cost would stop anyone from making it in that area.

<comment><USER28> Maybe 'quality' is in the eye of the beholder. Really good, boutique burgers are quite tasty. And you can fry food badly or well. There's room for it all in a good restaurant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The biggest take away (no pun intended) I got from this article is that the owner was cluless and the chef was non existent.

Where I come from, the chef designs, costs and impliments the menu. If I, or the theorical they, don't draw customers or sufficient funds to cover the business they are out on their arse.

For a chain, there needs to be an executive chef whose sole job is to cost, oversee each location, ensure quality standards are being kept, use the fact that the restaurant is order x amount more than anyone else to get a better price from suppliers and make sure everything is running at cost (our next cinname in the industry is bean counters for a reason haha).

This sounds to me like the owner got in way over their head.

</comment><comment><USER29> Working in the hospitality field for half my life, I can attest to this article. Its really on point (company I work for went through a similar exercise a year or so ago).

The thought that goes into menu design is spectacular but it's less science and more shooting darts in the dark; No one can predict consumer behavior but there are always "staples" that have been proven to work.

<comment><USER30> I wonder how often consultant-driven revampings like this actually succeed. I seem to remember that the show "Kitchen Nightmares" generally fails to turn around the restaurants they work with.

<comment><USER29> From personal experience: 50/50\. If a brand has solid OPs, then consulting firms do wonders; Menu is only part of the equation.

If a brand has spotty OPs (poor service, lack of "energy", employees who are not engaged) then a new menu will not help them.

McDonalds, Panda Express, and Subway did not win because they had the best food; They won because they had predictable food with good OPs and understanding of trends.

A real word example: Panda Express makes sure that when their orange chicken is coming out of the kitchen, it's always in a sizzling wok. That "experience" is trained (by their OPs) from the beginning to embody the story of "hot & fresh right off the stove" feeling (from the guest).

Chipotle attempted to simulate a similar feeling with their open kitchens: sounds of knives chopping and grill sizzling provides an atmosphere that their food is fresh, regardless if its mass produced.

This wasn't by chance but heavily researched, including the sound (in decibels) of the sizzle from the guest's side.

<comment><USER31> What is an OP?

<comment><USER29> OPs is Operations. Kinda like DevOps for development, they keep the wheels turning.

OPs are usually everything after the GM (General Manager) so the area manager (would have multiple stores), then regional manager (would have several areas) and above.

Operations also include anything that has to deal with getting product into the store like Research & Development, supply chain, or commissary.

Hope this helps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This article is a sad reminder that the goopy atrocity that is PF Chang's is the ONLY encounter swathes of Americans ever have with "Asian" food. What a shame.

</comment><comment><USER32> I don't get all the sadness in these responses. Are you guys all surprised that businesses finely tune their marketing and operations in order to maximize profit, and sometimes they hire consultants to help? You wouldn't be surprised that retail clothing stores measure and optimize everything about their ops, store layout, merchandise presentation, color palette, music, the fragrance in the air. Your favorite grocery stores are carefully engineered, too, and your favorite hotels, home improvement stores, gas stations. Nobody would be surprised that these places are tweaked and optimized for profit by MBAs. But, suddenly it's shocking that your favorite restaurants are all phony too?

<comment><USER33> Not sad that they do it. Sad that they do it _stupidly_

Almost everything described in this article as an optimization was something that makes my experience worse

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> > "Yes," the strategist answered. "That's an operational solve."

I recall several years ago 'ask' being used as a noun (which struck me as very odd, given that 'request' exists and suffices); the use of 'solve' instead of 'solution' seems equally gratuitous.

Has anyone spotted any other similar oddities in the wild? I wonder if it's a trend. One wonders if 'food' will someday just be called 'eat' (yes, there's already 'eats,' which is subtly different) or 'article' 'read.'

Reading the article itself, it's a little amusing how much of this is trend- chasing (European blazers, odd habits of speech, 'lighter, brighter, fresher') rather than trend-setting. It's a bit like a middle-aged dad trying to seem 'hip' and 'with-it.'

Incidentally, the restaurant in question appears to be Pei Wei.

<comment><USER35> "Learnings", which seems to be uttered by people who also speak of "asks". I find all these terrible.

<comment><USER36> Please do the needful.

<comment><USER37> kindly revert back with the same

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I had thought it was Peiwei as well but Peiwei doesn't serve korean BBQ bimibap (maybe its their newest item and I haven't seen it yet). Everything else in the story matched 100% with Peiweis decision making.

Peiwei has had some... questionable management choices in my opinion. They revamped their website not once, but twice overhauling it with a new webstack in the last 2-3 years. Everytime its been changed, its gotten significantly worse to order online. They originally had a perfectly fine site built in PHP now its in ASP.net. They had broken functionality on their chile ramen noodles for about 3-6 months which is strange because I reported the issue to corporate and it didn't get fixed.

I didn't quite understand their marketing strategy until I read this article. I remember when poke bowls were introduced. Then dandan noodles. Then thai peanut noodles (which was removed). They are trying to do everything, which never works out at the end. Peiwei has a lacking brand identity, they do everything but at an extremely mediocre level.

They just.. simply are copying the current trends. Japanese / Korean fusion used to be the hottest trend in this market. Then it shifted towards hawaiin and pokebowls. Now the current hot trend I would say is streetfare food / tapas (taiwan, singapore, and thai).

Source: I eat at peiwei maybe once a month for 3+ ish years, personally have met the owner of Panda Express, and consulted with many growing restaurant and national chains as well.

</comment><comment><USER39> I wish I could figure out what chain the main example is about.

<comment><USER40> Some tactical googling about the orange chicken says Pei Wei. Not from around there, never heard of them, but it's clear from their menu PDF.

<comment><USER41> Definitely Pei Wei, I w just ate there a few nights ago. It might be that it's in a location with a thousand authentic Asian restaurants nearby, but it's almost always empty.

The new menu is pretty good though, I have to say. I think they've been using it for a few years now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> i've been a corporate consultant for roughly 20years. Last year, I started working with the biggest restaurant consulting firm in NYC, The Restaurant Company. I can tell you, one of the most honest truths I can bring to this conversation is how the world works; plain and simple. We as consumers, pay for service. and I'm not referring to the service of a waiter; the service fees associated with service. NOTHING in this world is priced at cost, price is determined by the "perceived value". Not something you should be depressed about, but just aware of, as a consumer. If you pursue to purchase things at cost, you will have to chop out a few middle men. Your vendor, your farmer and the entity you walked in to purchase the meal. Your pockets are paying for convenience, unless you have an interest and time in growing your own garden and raising a few cattle.

James Leak Head QSR Advisor The Restaurant Company www.therestaurantcompany.us

</comment><comment><USER43> I remember reading a story once about how McDonalds wanted to start introducing wraps or salads or something. The impact on the supply chain at that scale was immense.

</comment><comment><USER44> Part of my soul just died

</comment><comment><USER45> Anyone know the name of the consulting company featured in this article? I find this kind of stuff super fascinating -- the intersection of behavioral economics, lean manufacturing, queuing theory, and food.

</comment><comment><USER46> I don't eat out very often any more, and I really don't miss it. I get better food at home, for less money, and counting travel time, it's probably faster too.

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm so jaded that I read "Blockchain Restaurant Menus" and believed it for a second...

<comment><USER47> So it wasn't just me then

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> The marketing jargon is entrancing.

<comment><USER49> I'm particularly irritated by the talk of "guests". It's a huge insult to charge guests money for food. If I have to pay then I'm a customer.

<comment><USER16> To me it's in the same league as referring to McDonald's locations as "restaurants".

<comment><USER50> A restaurant "is a business which prepares and serves food and drinks to customers in exchange for money."

McDonalds prepares and serves food and drinks to customers in exchange for money. This clearly makes it a restaurant. It may not be a fine-dining type of establishment, but it _is_ a restaurant.

More pretentious is all the hipsters that look down on restaurants like McDonalds simply because it doesn't fit their narrow, preconceived notions of what a restaurant should be.

<comment><USER51> Agreed. Long back my office used to have 'canteen' for food. But nowadays it is considered downtrodden and 'Cafe' is used in place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> One of the biggest mistakes I see at mom and pop stores is too low prices. I told the mom and pop Asian place at the local high-end mall to raise their soda can prices from $1 and I just went back and they'd raised it to $1.50. It's really the mom and pop places that would benefit the most from consulting like this.

<comment><USER53> My local Ma & Pop diner charges 2.75 for drip coffee. I just don't order it anymore. At 2.25 it was already ridiculous.

I'm a soda-holic. I never order soda at any restaurant. 100% water for the last 3 decades. The cost is too high and the quality is shit as well. McDonald's Coke is probably the worst I've ever tasted. It's been shitty since the 70s.

<comment><USER54> _I 'm a soda-holic. I never order soda at any restaurant._

Counterpoint. I'm a very occasional and 'casual' soda consumer, but if I'm at a restaurant and feel like a soda I'll order a soda no matter if it's $1 or $5.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I couldn't read to the end of that article, I just felt myself dying inside.

</comment><comment><USER11> I hate these people. The pessimist in me thinks it's the emergent behavior of universities convincing people they have to have a college education to be successful, which turns out millions of MBA's, who then descend on society, looking for untapped profit to optimize.

It's a position that does nothing for the customer but convince them to spend more for less.

<comment><USER56> "I hoped he didn't sense the sarcasm in my voice. As much as I enjoyed the perks of the job (free pizza), working at the agency had been a mixed bag. I had spent nearly eight years in grad school analyzing the politics of 18th- century venison feasting, and here I was, Googling high-res images of French- fry containers before I could leave for the day."

<comment><USER57> I suspect the agency he worked for is going to hear about the article, realize who it was, and hound all his future employers about what a disloyal cad he is.

I appreciated the insights that the article offered, but it felt like a scurrilous bit of whistleblowing to me, the kind you really don't want to know about, like married CEOs sleeping with their staff.

<comment><USER58> What's wrong with whistleblowing? It's pretty concerning that your example of something that isn't worth blowing a whistle about is basically rape.

<comment><USER57> A CEO sleeping with subordinates absolutely crosses ethical and moral lines, but it isn't rape. It's not rape unless it's rape.

There's too much depressing shit in the world to report and publicly name and shame everyone that decides to be a cad. If he crosses over from cad to monster, that's when I want to hear about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Interesting article about what's involved, but there doesn't seem to be any "science" in the article. Just a combination of knowledge, experience, competitor analysis, and "see what happens".

<comment><USER60> looks like science to me, only without p-values and peer reviewed papers.

<comment><USER61> Next you'll have people claiming vaccines cause autism and global warming isn't real and you'll have to believe them because "it's just a combination of knowledge, experience, analysis and 'see what happens'".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> In capitalism it's all about illusion. Illusion of healthy, illusion of choice, illusion of ancient, illusion of homemade. If they can sell it to you, reality doesn't even matter.

<comment><USER63> I think this is pretty much a constant in every system of human organization that's ever existed.

<comment><USER62> I guess you're right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> I read this article for about 15 minutes and I did not come across any science.

<comment><USER65> Ok, we'll switch to the subtitle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Hey we all 'program' right? And I 'paint'. And a doctor will 'cure'. Its been going on for aeons.

</comment><comment><USER66> "If any subject uses two words and one of them is science, then there is no science behind it" \- My maths teacher explaining the word - "political science".

<comment><USER67> Computer science is obviously a total scam.

<comment><USER54> Obviously not a scam (I doubt most people would call political science as scam either), but the question is, is it a science?

<comment><USER68> At the university I studied at it was still called "Government". I suppose the "science" is to make a distinction between the "practice of" and the "study of". If you study history you are a historian, but if you study politics you are not a politician (usually), so I suppose you have pick something academic sounding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> > I was a corporate restaurant consultant. Here's how the sausage gets made.

Didn't even make two sentences without a tired old cliché, maybe supposed to be clever because of the food connection. Sounds like a venture capitalist.</comment>


What's left of NoSQL? - <AUTHOR> https://use-the-index-luke.com/blog/2013-04/whats-left-of-nosql <comment><USER2> I hope he didn't place any bets on the future of NoSQL then.</comment>


The Math Forum Internet Mathematics Library - topics - <AUTHOR> http://mathforum.org/library/topics/

<comment><USER2> This is nice... for 1997. Don't get me wrong, a curated list has tremendous value, but it's missing one thing that would make it so much more valuable:

A Google search function that would allow you to pick a topic, and then the search would be restricted to the curated sites for that topic. I don't think the Google site filters allows you to do multiple domains, but it probably could be accomplished with Google custom searches.

<comment><USER3> It like most such things virtual or otherwise, needs a real curator. Shouldn't be any broken links in such an offering, but it only took two to 404 out :( Good news is that just the title of the link was enough to find the paper in question: "PRIMES is in P - Agarwal, Saxena, Kayal", just a click Google away :)</comment></comment>


Google+ searchers are younger, richer than Facebook searchers - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/google-searchers-are-younger-richer-than-facebook-searchers/3122

<comment><USER2> Since Facebook is already mainstream, this isn't a surprise.</comment>


McDonalds Just Innovated the Hell Out of Straws - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcodesign.com/3068197/mcdonalds-just-innovated-the-hell-out-of-straws <comment><USER2> The breakthrough happened in a white boarding session. "One of our team members said, 'How about we change this? Instead of drinking the bottom up, we drink from the top down.'</comment>


What is the largest source code you've seen on a single file? - <AUTHOR> What is the largest source code you seen/worked on in a single file in terms of line numbers. Give us examples plz. <comment><USER2> I do js so its rare to see a LOC over a few Ks, largest I've seen was about 15K. I know google and facebook have >100K LOC client side JS projects when compiled, I doubt those are in native JS though.

</comment><comment><USER3> There's Adminer, which is some hundreds of kB in a single file...but that's a feature of the build: after packing _eeeeverything_ into one file, it's supposed to be deployed like that; development happens on many sensible-sized files.

I seriously doubt anyone actually _edits_ files over 10 K lines nowadays, even though a script might pack the result into a much larger one.

(Back When Dinosaurs Reigned The Earth, I've worked on a monolithic script of about 50 K lines, but that was just as convenient as you would imagine)

</comment><comment><USER4> The first company I worked for had a 10k line java file that comprised ~90% of their codebase</comment>


One man in a tiny Irish town could derail Apple's plans for Europe - <AUTHOR> https://news.vice.com/story/one-man-in-a-tiny-irish-town-could-derail-apples-plans-for-europe <comment><USER3> Interest in the environment is very much in the minority in Ireland. He's going to be facing an uphill battle. All the major environmental groups left Ireland around 2000 because of lack of interest. People here just ape the US and drive around in massive diesel powered SUVs and don't see anything wrong with it. All they're interested in is making as much money as they can from the US multi-nationals.

Is it really a good idea to cut down a forest so Apple can have some privacy? There must be plenty brownfield sites they could build on. There's not much trees left in Ireland - it has the 2nd smallest forest area in Europe - <USER2> 10%.</comment>


Ask HN: The CEO wants a rural office, I want an urban one, how do we decide? - <AUTHOR> My CEO wants to open an office in a rural area an hour outside the city. I want to open the office closer to the city.
My argument is that even though the rent is higher we will be able to attract better talent. His argument is that the lower cost of living in the rural area will attract talent.
Neither of us is unbiased. I live in the city and the CEO lives in the rural town.
What is some objective data and / or articles we can review to help us make an informed non-emotional decision?
For context:
I'm the CTO and most of the employees for the next year will report to me.
This is not the bay area. <comment><USER2> This will depend in part on the kind of work you do.

If it were me, I would look for some articles on businesses that chose to locate in rural areas and thrived. Then look for articles about the type of business you want to create that thrived and pay close attention to anything they say about what factors were important to their success.

Silicon Valley started as a lovely area and Stanford decided to foster tech businesses there. I think there was a lotto farmland out there at the time, but you should double check that. Now, SFBA is so expensive that some people don't want to live and work there. A lot of talent is moving to places like Seattle and Austin because it is just too crazy in the Bay Area.

I had a class on economic geography. Specific businesses need access to specific things in order to succeed. You basically need to list what things the business has need of and pick a location that fulfills those criteria. Some things that might matter:

A nearby college.

Critical infrastructure, such as high speed internet.

Transit and shipping options pertinent to your needs.

Research facilities, chamber of commerce or other business support.

This needs to be a business decision. Either location may work, but you need to pick it based on needs of the business.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your feedback!

> This will depend on part on the kind of work you do.

We're a SaaS.

> A nearby college.

The city is closer to the engineering colleges, the rural area is closer to the liberal arts colleges.

> Research facilities, chamber of commerce or other business support.

That is definitely one of the factors I want to use to express my view. Both locations have great Chambers of Commerce but the city has (rough guess) 30x more businesses in it.

<comment><USER2> _We 're a SaaS._

Make a list of what you need for that. Obviously, coders. But that won't be all. I am a writer, not a programmer. I am not familiar. But find out what that typically entails. Read articles on successful versions, the more similar to your area, the better.

 _The city is closer to the engineering colleges, the rural area is closer to the liberal arts colleges._

Do a more thorough assessment of what sorts of resources each college has. Just the type of college is not enough information. Find out what kinds of other things they have. Do they do internships with local businesses? Does one have a business incubator? Do they work with the local SBA? Catalog everything that may be pertinent to your business.

 _but the city has (rough guess) 30x more businesses in it._

Is this a B2B SaaS? If so, that may be really important.

Since you are in the city, one thing you can do is start putting in some face time at local meetings of various sorts and making contacts. It takes time to develop a business relationship. Start now. It may not pay off, but if it is going to pay off, the sooner you start, the better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Where is the rural area located in relation to the suburbs--that is, is it on the same side or the opposite side from middle-to-upper-middle-class suburbs with an educated population? Is it truly rural or in an exurb? How are the suburbs growing--that is, can you expect the suburbs to swallow up the rural area the CEO is looking at?

Edited to add: how close is the nearest university to the rural area?

<comment><AUTHOR> The rural location is close to some decent liberal arts colleges but much further away from engineering colleges.

The suburbs won't swallow the rural area any time soon. As it is the city has a lot of room to grow before the suburbs start expanding.

To be clear too... the rural area isn't even in the suburbs. It is further than that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The smart money is on the city. It's what everyone else does - why make waves? But I don't think that going rural is without merit. Having lived and worked in a big city my whole career, I can't help but feel that employers setting up shop in expensive places just helps to drive up inequality. As a drone, I never get to enjoy the finer points of city living, and just pass off my paycheck to the landlord.

Also, don't underestimate the benefits of rural towns. Small town America has been decimated over the last decade. Any source of decent salary is worshiped, and you may find your company and employees get to enjoy real ownership of their environment.

On the other hand, I've never heard the cost of living being a huge driver in talent. You would need to recruit farther and wider, and probably pay relocation expenses. But I imagine the people who take it will be much more loyal. And there is a huge contingent of people in the tech space that love the country and are under-served by the job market.

</comment><comment><USER5> I grew up in a metropolis. I worked in San Francisco downtown. I hated it. I had to take the train for 40 minutes to work. The train didn't feel safe. I had to leave at a certain time everyday or I will miss the train back home. The city was chaotic and noisy. Couldn't find parking if you want to drive. If I had a choice, I'd pick the rural area. The success of a business requires intense focus. I'd prefer a quiet place to focus on the work.

I never understand why so many startups like San Francisco. I talked to some people, they seem to like the night life there. IMO, they are not sincere entrepreneurs.</comment>


Ask HN: Seeking ideas for a C/C++ side project - <AUTHOR> I would like to spend some of my spare time working on a C/C++ side project which may exercise a lot of multithread programming and unix/linux network programming.
I am an average C++ engineer who has a lot of free time somehow. I am hoping to complete the most of the fundamental parts of the said side project in 4-6 months.
Any suggestions? <comment><USER2> I'd suggest a blockchain project

or a web server</comment>


Holographic Neural Architectures (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.00931 <comment><USER2> I wonder if this should really be called a holographic network:

"we are projecting all training example into a single bounded dimension. As with VAEs, we also combine the input information with an optimized prior. However, we treat the prior as a separate input to the network. Because the network has very little information from the training examples, it must complement it with an accurate general representation of the training set. Because these representations are continuous, multi-dimensional, and represent the whole training set, we call them 'Holographic Representations' and the architectures capable of generating them 'Holographic Neural Architectures' (HNAs)."

This seems to me to be very similar to what has always been done in regressions on complex data.

<comment><USER3> > it must complement it with an accurate general representation of the > training set

This in particular smells off, it sounds magical. This could only work when the sort of general representations the network knows how to complement with already match the data.</comment></comment>


Cooking for Engineers. No more ramen! - <AUTHOR> http://www.cookingforengineers.com/

<comment><USER2> Something about the colour in the images of the food was a bit off putting.

If you are going to do food, the images have to nail it first time. I don't know what it is but the colour needs correcting. A white background also helps. The difference between someone really noticing a recipe and ignoring it can be greatly improved by adding good quality images. For example compare these:

\- <http://flickr.com/photos/roboppy/sets/72157594175367381/>

\- <http://blog.cookingwithpatty.com/>

with these ~ <http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/154/Biscotti>

Another problem I see is the lack of tools to create a community as outlined by greenspun ~ <http://philip.greenspun.com/panda/community>

_"... Add the vanilla extract, almond extract, orange zest, and slivered almonds to the egg and sugar mixture. Using a spatula, stir once or twice to combine. ..."_

As for the rest of the site it's actually pretty good. But I wish the recipes would suggest the best ingredients they can find. For instance real Vanilla beans instead of an extract. Read the "biscotti - starbucks quality" comments.

<comment><USER3> If we're posting food blogs....

<http://offthebroiler.wordpress.com/> is my favorite one. The photography is incredible. You can skip the top two posts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "No more ramen", says the philistine who hasn't ever had real ramen. :(

(Real ramen comes piping hot from ramen shops (restaurants), not from 10-cent packets...)

<comment><USER5> Seconded. I went to a nice Ramen shop in Tokyo--basically amazing.

<comment><USER4> > I went to a nice Ramen shop in Tokyo--basically amazing.

There are probably some pretty good ramen shops closer to you. Check yelp or google maps...

<comment><USER6> Maybe he lives in Tokyo.

<comment><USER4> Well, there might _still_ be a closer one, by a couple blocks... ;-)

<comment><USER5> Well, I live in the bay area, so you are right, there is probably something closer.

<comment><USER4> There are several somethings-closer!

(I'm typing this about 2 blocks from my favorite Ramen shop in San Jose! ^__^ )

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The misunderstanding here is that I eat ramen because I'm that broke! Or busy. Mostly broke.

</comment><comment><USER8> but...but i love Ramen

</comment><comment><USER9> hey this is pretty brilliant! "Recipes 2.0"</comment>


All your Facebook Access Tokens are belong to us - <AUTHOR> http://attack-secure.com/2013/10/all-your-facebook-access-tokens-are-belong-to-us/ <comment><USER2> Can't read blog post:

Error 520 Ray ID: c513da5e9750697 Web server is returning an unknown error

[https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en- us/articles/200171936-E...](https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en- us/articles/200171936-Error-520)

humm...

</comment><comment><USER3> Can anyone get to the article?

<comment><USER4> worked for me. tldr: Facebook apps were leaking the access token via the android log cat which is accessible from any app installed on your device.

<comment><USER5> AFAIK since Android 4.1 the READ_LOGS permission (needed for an app to be able to access logcat output) can no longer be granted to a 3rd party application... of course, there are going to be lots of devices out there running Android < 4.1.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> We condemn anyone that stores passwords as plaintext. Time to treat access tokens as nothing less than a password.

<comment><USER7> How would you store access tokens on a device, using two-way encryption or do you have something else in mind?

<comment><USER6> Two way encryption, yep.

<comment><USER8> but then for any reasonable application to be able to use them they'll need to store the unencryption key anyway..

<comment><USER9> Obviously you wouldn't store the encryption key in plaintext...

<comment><USER10> It's encrypted keys all the way down.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How are you building work from home dev environments? - <AUTHOR> As a developer, how are you working remotely?
This is a new scenario for lots of people, and I think people are struggling to create good development environments using their home computers.
Started accessing office network via VPN and using my work machine with VNC. But, latency is a bit high for typing and its not productive.
Next, tried using Visual Studio Code in my home machine, and Remote SSH Extension for loading source code and development tools (linting, compilers, interpreters, etc) on my work machine. This made things a bit easier, but latency for saving files and waiting for VSCode Git Extension scan changes is a bit high, bothering me.
Made a separate Firefox profile too, syncing with my work machine, and it's great.
I am not keen of copying company source code on my home computer, and starting mixing personal and work files. I like to compartmentalize things.
How do you do?
Separate VM? Separate Linux user? systemd nspawn container? Separate OS installation? Separate computer? How do you avoid mixing things and making a mess?
PS - Don't have company issued laptop - very small company PS - Running exclusively on Linux PS - Databases (production/development) and data stays at company network <comment><USER2> I'm doing remote work for decades, so nothing changed but the lunch menu. Now I have to cook by myself. I always worked via laptop, and only for massive tests need to use the big machines. Most of them locally, as being independent is far superior. Most stuff is open source, do I can use public CI's and trackers.

Working remotely is also far more productive as there are zero interruptions to your workflow. I would say twice as much. Unfortunately you'll also do more hours, because it's so much more productive, so beware to stop. Time to think and reflect is important, and you might forget that. Turn off slack, irc and similar notifications. Check email only twice a day, it's a huge timesink.

</comment><comment><USER3> Tooling for me is fine as I'm a simple web dev and often worked from home anyway.

The downside is my wife is struggling to work from home too...and the kids are all home.

I get up at 4 or 5 am just to get some uninterrupted / quiet time...

</comment><comment><USER4> Most of the projects uses docker, which i use to develop my own projects anyway, so, i dont need to install different dependencies or make my own pc as anything else. I just use it as regular.

</comment><comment><USER5> systemd nspawn containers. but you have choices. lxc/d, nspawn, docker... I've also used qemu with virsh but haven't recently had the time to set this up in my current abode. my needs are likely different than yours. I'm a security engineer/developer so I'm building a lot of tools in house ... deployment and distribution isn't as much of a concern. I don't really deal with SQL backends in the same way you might. So I can get away with building a local db or feed data into an ELK stack over VPN + SSH. I'm using openvpn btw. Currently work for a regional health services provider and generally deal with a lot of different environments. As you can imagine right now is hectic and being able to to handle dependencies for all the different tools and libraries helps stay ahead of the curveballs. Having containers and virtual environments (venv) mostly planned out keeps me from throwing my workstation out the window as well.

Now is the time to awaken your inner DevOps guru.

</comment><comment><USER6> I've been using Remote Desktop. I don't notice the latency I'd guess it's under 20ms. If I had to use local pc it would be a big hassle setting it all up again. Years ago I worked somewhere where the network was VPN and you bring the laptop home to work, that worked very nicely.

</comment><comment><USER7> Shouldn't your employer provide you with a device or the means to work from home? Despite the ongoing crisis, your employer can't possibly force you to use your own devices. What if you had no personal laptop or desktop workstation?

<comment><USER4> As a dev and company owner, i would say its optional. Ive always like to use my own devices, most of the time. Sometimes i receive some money because of that, but it was just a bonus. I did because i wanted to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The day before we got the offical WFH order, I dragged my workstation and setup home and plonked it on the dining room table.

In normal times i have a laptop at home and connect to my workstation with a VPN, mosh+tmux and/or local emacs + TRAMP.

</comment><comment><USER9> Docker solved most of my problems but I used to simply have another user account on my home machine so my personal stuff doesn't mix with work. Makes it harder to get distracted by personal things, too.</comment>


LCD Soundsystem on failure and laziness - <AUTHOR> http://blogg.svt.se/psl/2010/09/27/ett-sorgligt-och-patetiskt-misslyckande-prat-med-lcd-soundsystem/

<comment><USER2> i have been loving lcd soundsystem lately.

inspirational to hear how poorly he feels he did during his early adult life. i've been doing music for years too, luckily for me not my main focus.

nicely put contrasting lazy vs. scared.

side note, i love that he turned down a job to write for seinfeld.</comment>


Linux developers working on Windows UEFI secure boot problem - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/linux-developers-working-on-windows-uefi-secure-boot-problem-7000000909/

<comment><USER2> Maybe this will have the unintended consequence of driving more sales to the boutique computer stores that create their own systems.</comment>


Howto piss off a Java programmer in 2 minutes - <AUTHOR> http://engwar.com/post/50

<comment><USER2> _"... Yes, the list comprehension beats it all. It's simple and elegant. Most importantly beautiful and pleasing to look at. ..."_

      ''.join(chr(48+((ord(c)>>b)&1)) for b in xrange(7,-1,- 1))

One line I like I was using today. Of course there is always the chance the person using the big stupid language can also use other smaller succinct ones.</comment>


Show HN: All the day's news distilled into one newsletter - <AUTHOR> http://www.inside.com <comment><USER2> The tagline should be "all the headlines I already see on Facebook and Twitter".

<comment><AUTHOR> Makes sense!

A majority of our users actually report spending significantly less time on Facebook and Twitter after subscribing. We try to deliver all the most interesting and important news with information-dense summaries and lots of contextual links – so there's definitely overlap with what many of us see in our FB/Twitter feeds, but for me (and lots of our users) those feeds tend to be noisy, inefficient ways to get a daily rundown of what's happening in the world (although they are great for breaking news, discussions, and lots of other things).

<comment><USER2> Kudos for replying graciously to a snarky comment =P</comment></comment></comment>


I'd like to sell my ThemeForest business. What 's the best way? - <AUTHOR> Currently generating about $24-25k per month but depending on what month, the income increases to 30k. About $165k since January to date. This is after Envato commission. There is another theme in the queue, which should increase the earnings a lot more (hoping to see $35k/month).
There is not much expense, support is outsourced ($3000/m) and hosting is WPEngine ($100/m).
Anyone interested? <comment><USER2> Somewhat related: "What I Learned Selling a Software Business (Bingo Card Creator)" [https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/selling_s...](https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/selling_software_business) NH discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11347006](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11347006) (439 points, 111 days ago, 84 comments)

</comment><comment><USER3> What is in the portfolio, and how old are the themes?

<comment><AUTHOR> I have both old and new themes. Oldest is from 2014. I have constant sales for all themes in my portfolio.

For example, yesterday was around $1.2k, distributed nearly evenly among themes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow, why would you want to sell??

<comment><AUTHOR> Too bored I guess + family issues taking lots of time. I need a 9 to 5 job so I can disconnect from work after 5!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> price?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am open for offers at the moment. I was thinking around $2m +</comment></comment>


Fits.me raises €1.3 million, lets you try on clothes before you buy – on the Web - <AUTHOR> http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/09/22/fits-me-funding/

<comment><AUTHOR> I've thought a lot about this exact problem. My ideas involved webcams and some scaling/modeling algorithms. This seems more...baroque, but probably more accurate than my ideas. Fascinating stuff.</comment>


The Lost History of Gay Adult Adoption - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/19/magazine/the-lost-history-of-gay-adult-adoption.html?mod=e2this&_r=0 <comment><USER2> I'm sure that in legal circles, there are a whole host of similar "law hacking" examples. This seems like a particular ingenious approach. I'd be interested to learn about other circumstances where laws are creatively misused to achieve noble ends. (The examples where the law is misused for nefarious ends are too numerous to mention).

<comment> vezzy-fnord [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drzyma%C5%82a's_wagon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drzyma%C5%82a's_wagon)

<comment><USER3> This reminds me of the tiny house movement that avoids building regulations w.r.t. minimize size and grid hookup by putting wheels on their semi-permanent houses.

<comment><USER4> It's not exactly a tiny house movement invention, the Roma have been doing this for a very long time. There are also tax advantages to having wheels attached to your house, in plenty of places that means you're not paying property tax for the dwelling.

<comment><USER5> > It's not exactly a tiny house movement invention, the Roma have been doing > this for a very long time.

For very different reasons, and theirs aren't semi-permanent.

> in plenty of places that means you're not paying property tax for the > dwelling.

Then again in plenty of places (at least in western europe) you must have a permanent residence, so a mobile dwelling (whether an RV or a boat) can only be a secondary residence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This happened near where I live. A gay couple did an adoption but now they're father and son so it's not legal for them to marry.

[http://www.post-gazette.com/local/north/2015/10/09/Fox- Chape...](http://www.post-gazette.com/local/north/2015/10/09/Fox-Chapel-gay- couple-had-to-legalize-their-status-through-adoption-now-it-keeps-them-from- getting-married/stories/201510110112)

<comment><USER5> I was going to mention adoption dissolution (which has been used by other couples in the same situation: [http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/05/28/newser/...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/05/28/newser/28064115/)) but the article covers it:

> when the couple petitioned Allegheny County Judge Lawrence O'Toole to > dissolve the adoption this summer, he ruled the state's adoption law didn't > allow him to do so.

That's just sad, and they only just went the adoption route 2 years before same-sex marriage was legalised.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This makes very clear the practical benefits of same-sex marriage and the real impact it has on people's lives.

Whenever I encounter people being dismissive of same-sex marriage because it's just symbolic/a distraction/etc., these are the kind of examples I give to show how wrong they are.

</comment><comment><USER8> I imagine this would be quite the headtrip for a lot of people to deal with:

 _Adult adoption by gays and lesbians has only been quietly discussed, both in or outside the gay community, for fairly obvious reasons; there isn't an easy way to tell your friends and family that the man or woman with whom you share a bed is, legally, your son or father, or your daughter or mother._

I am glad we legalized gay marriage.

</comment><comment><USER9> The article doesn't mention adult adoption in Japan at all, which is strange. Japanese adult adoption (a centuries long-standing practice) was covered in the US news and HN in the past year.

<comment><USER10> Why would it? Japanese adult adoption isn't romantic in nature.

<comment><USER11> Not always, it's sometimes used by gay partners in Japan as an alternative to marriage since they cannot legally marry. It's exactly the same situation as the one described in this article.

And like the article, it's not an ideal solution.

<comment><USER5> > Not always, it's sometimes used by gay partners in Japan as an alternative > to marriage since they cannot legally marry.

True but GP is talking about "a centuries long-standing practice".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Not that long ago people tried to argue that marriage equality wasn't needed to protect basic rights of individuals involved. They just needed to use contracts/adoption/etc.

This is a great article to remind us how bogus that argument was.

<comment><USER13> > This is a great article to remind us how bogus that argument was.

I'm not sure what you mean. At no point does it indicate that the adoption tactic ever failed; in fact, the article seems to be at pains to show that adoption routinely and reliably secured most or all of the rights that marriage would have, and swapping adoption for marriage now is little more than a change of paperwork. Based on this article, you would have to say that marriage equality _wasn 't_ needed to secure the basic rights like inheritance, hospital visitation, etc.

<comment><USER12> The article details the gymnastics required, required only of gay couples, to approximate those rights.

And after all the gymnastics, they and only they had to endure, they ended up with approximation of what heterosexuals were able to accomplish with a conversation at a Justice of the Peace.

The article details the patchwork quilt of rights, the limits, the variation among States, that resulted from this sort of "solution."

It only seems successful to those who didn't need to do it.

<comment><USER14> >they and only they had to endure

Lets not pretend that gay marriage is the last marriage equality that will have to be fought for, even if the ones to come seem as crazy to use as gay marriage seemed to many of those who fought for interracial marriage.

<comment><USER6> Three person marriage is likely next.

It avoids incest taboos and the groundwork has already been done.

<comment><USER15> I think this is wrong. As Dan Savage pointed out, heterosexuals had ALREADY changed marriage long before the gays came along. Forgive the bluntness, but marriage used to basically be a property transaction where a woman was transferred from her family to her husband. Long ago, though, marriage in the US has legally been viewed as a merge of equals. In fact, ALL states AFAIK had already gotten rid of parts of their laws where husbands had different rights/responsibilities from wives. Allowing gay marriage was just replacing husband or wife with "spouse" in any legal document.

With 3 party marriage, the vast majority of laws related to financial transactions would fundamentally have to change. Some simple examples 1\. Survivor benefits: If someone is in a >2 person marriage, does that mean all of their spouses can continue to collect survivor benefits until the last person dies? 2\. Tax-free inheritance: Similar to the above, but does a >2 person marriage mean everyone gets tax free inheritance? 3\. Healthcare benefits: Could you put 5 spouses on one employee-sponsored health plan? 4\. Tax laws: Tax laws would need a total rewrite because all brackets/amounts just support a single person or a 2-person marriage.

>2 person marriage has huge legal and financial implications that gay marriage did not.

<comment><USER6> _1\. Survivor benefits: If someone is in a >2 person marriage, does that mean all of their spouses can continue to collect survivor benefits until the last person dies?_

Survivor benefits continue as long as there is a surviving spouse. It doesn't matter if there are 1 or 3.

 _2\. Tax-free inheritance: Similar to the above, but does a >2 person marriage mean everyone gets tax free inheritance?_

Every surviving participant in the marriage inherits tax free. Just like now.

 _3\. Healthcare benefits: Could you put 5 spouses on one employee-sponsored health plan?_

Yes.

 _4\. Tax laws: Tax laws would need a total rewrite because all brackets /amounts just support a single person or a 2-person marriage._

Married or Single are the current choices. That wouldn't be any different. It would actually incentivize multiple person marriage.

<comment><USER15> And your answers are fundamentally why >2 person marriage isn't coming anytime soon. All of these solutions are basically break the entire slew of existing financial setups around marriage. Do you think a company would be willing to put 5 married people on the same spousal health plan? Do you think Social Security is going to be OK with 1 person's benefits potentially outliving them for decades as they carry on to multiple spouses?

>2 person marriage is fundamentally different from existing marriage laws in a way gay marriage is not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why is this article on hacker news? What does it have to do with this community? I am just wondering how it fits in to the vision of what HN is supposed to be. Or do I not understand what it is?

<comment><USER17> What do you think should be here? Why, specifically, do you think this doesn't fit?

<comment><USER16> I come here for news on cutting edge technology and startup culture, not social issues.

<comment><USER18> [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

 _On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one 's intellectual curiosity._

There are gay people in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, and there are gay people in these forums. I would guess that there might be a higher percentage of gay people on HN than in the general U.S. population. Issues like this one are deeply important to them, and people who know them (which is a growing demographic).

In any case, HN is filled with submissions and comments on languages, platforms, and businesses that I really don't care much about, but their presence does not bother me.

<comment><USER16> I just didn't think it fit the profile. I didn't downvote nor complain, just asked what the justification was.

Wasn't hostile, but my inquiry has produced some downvotes. Go figure.

<comment><USER18> For what it's worth, you didn't get a downvote from me.

I would just point out however that questioning a topic's presence on a forum could easily be perceived to be hostility toward that topic. You might or might not know that on HN gay-related and other not-strictly-tech topics have come up on occasion that inevitably trigger queries like yours (some overtly hostile), and most likely the opposition you are experiencing comes from readers who have become tired of the routine.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Training classifiers with natural language explanations - <AUTHOR> https://blog.acolyer.org/2018/08/24/training-classifiers-with-natural-language-explanations/ <comment><USER2> Part of what this reveals is the intimate relationship between querying and labeling. A query (in the SQL sense) is the human attempting to express a domain concept through a program. Here the queries have an imperative flavor (being written in Python). From the article for example, identifying causal relationships in text by searching for "due to" is a domain concept encoded as a weak heuristic.

This suggests that our query tools need to be more deeply integrated into human-in-the-loop machine learning workflows. For example, in my use case of analyzing TV news videos, let's say I want to identify a panel of guests. I'll come up with a query like "3 to 5 people on screen, whose pose suggests they are sitting, and they're looking at each other." While this query isn't a perfect filter (precision nor recall), it will likely find a few positive examples. Then I can query "show me more scenes like this one," and slowly build up a training set from my queries. Then I train a classifier, and inspect its results. Rinse and repeat.

Edit: also, I'm sure there's a billion startups that do some variant of this for some domain, but I think we really need a better open source ecosystem around visualization and labeling of data for this workflow to be truly accessible in most domains.</comment>


Notification email from stackoverflow contains funky characters - <AUTHOR> http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/13014/notification-email-from-stackoverflow-contains-3-after-zip-code

<comment><USER2> This sort of thing can backfire of course. Some folks see <3 and think 'ass hat'. Others of course see line noise.

Not an issue for stack overflow but probably not something you would want to put at the end of your Bank's form letter notifying you of the commencement of foreclosure.

So the interesting question for HN is this; what level of casualness is your startup taking with its customers and how do you insure that it is appropriate?

<comment><USER3> Wow, I didn't know the alternate meaning of <3.

On a side note, I'm not (just) a customer of stackoverflow, I'm a contributor/participant.

Do "standard customer relationship" rules still apply?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> fantastic, game-changing and inspirational. whatever next?!?</comment>