Hacker News Reader

Comment by athenot | Hacker News Reader

I do that in the US even where they have an employee bagging my stuff. In fact, I do that to ensure optimal packetization—for an IP analogy. :)

Otherwise I end up with 2 pieces of fruit in 1 bag, 1 bottle of soap by itself in another bag, followed by again more fruit in the 3rd bag… It's a fun fragmentation problem.

View on HN

As a german in the US, I suddenly felt as if I had a OCD about the way to bag stuff. Store employees were more or less dumping things kind of randomly in bags without sorting by weight and by robustnes of the product. On the other hand declinining help with bagging seemed to be kind of unusual.

Other differences I noticed: Time at checkouts was at least 2-3 times longer than in Germany, even at the better german supermarkets cashiers are much faster. Also, in Germany I never encountered cashiers to comment on the goods I bought (I don't mind much, but it still felt a bit like an intrusion in privacy. I once bought a glass of Ghee - a common ingredient in southern german cuisine - and the cashier went on and on about how unusual it was that a white guy would buy it).

>Germany I never encountered cashiers to comment on the goods I bought (I don't mind much, but it still felt a bit like an intrusion in privacy. I once bought a glass of Ghee - a common ingredient in southern german cuisine - and the cashier went on and on about how unusual it was that a white guy would buy it)

In the US service employees are required to be fake "friendly." This was an attempt at that. I hate it myself.

I always associated ghee with India, I had no idea it was used in Germany too.

Its not really. Most people would get it from the "asian shop", but many "German" supermarkets have a small shelf for "international" stuff like asian noodles, taco shells and russian stuff.

Seriously, Ghee is Butterschmalz

Ghee is just slightly different - it is cooked longer so it is more caramelised, and you can taste that.

Ever thought why you shouldn't use real butter to fry meat? Its because it will turn brown and black because of proteins. You can however extract the fat from butter by melting it: clarified butter. Ghee - if it has not been fermented/flavoured - is essentially clarified butter.

I always try that (grouping things I want bagged together) but usually the bagger just does his own thing anyway.

Knapsack/binpacking

Reply on news.ycombinator.com