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Comment by nayroclade | Hacker News Reader

I always found the "Amazon 4-Star" name funny. Presumably when it was first pitched internally it was called "Amazon 5-Star", then they realised that meant they basically couldn't sell anything, since nothing popular gets a full 5 stars. So they changed it to "4-Star", which just sounds awkward, and lacks the suggestion of top-quality that "5-Star" would. Instead, it's like the "Amazon Not-too-bad" store. I was amazed that they actually went ahead with it.

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When did naming things have to reflect reality? ie it's "Burger King" and not "Bearable Burger"

It was a pretty good burger until 2013 when they changed the machine they used to cook the burgers. Now it's worse than McD's and that's saying something.

Wait that explains so much! Do you know more about the change?

I've been weirded out by the fact that their jr burger buns are now super shiny as if they are spraying something on them. I know this is processed food, but no burger bun should be able to reflect sunlight the way their burgers now do...

I haven't seen them in person but a simple egg wash will make any baked product very shiny.

I'd be inclined to agree but typically egg wash alters the texture of the bread. You get a more darker and crunchy texture after baking. This bread is still soft and still quite light. The weird thing is the more expensive burger(Whopper) is still matte. You'd think if they were going to fancy up the bun it would be the Whopper bun right? Very strange.

Yeah it used to really taste flame grilled. It's pretty low rent nowadays - to the point where I wouldn't go there even if desperate.

Which is ironic because when BK came to the Netherlands a lot of people went to it because its burgers were better than McD's.

That's a pretty low bar

I can't tell if it was franchise specific, but we have a Burger King near us in Clear Lake/Houston that is absolutely amazing. Fries are always crispy and well seasoned, the patties actually have grill marks and taste like they've been charred. The location hasn't been updated since before I moved away in 2015, and has been consistently good since 2010 or so when I first moved near it.

That said, every other Burger King around me, and near my house in Louisiana, and near all of the places I lived including NJ, NY, CT, VT have been awful. I never ate there BEFORE this 2013 change though, so I cannot comment on the quality in the before times. But my local, is amazing. Tastes like I remember it from the 90s.

The burgers are fine at the one accross the road from my job but the Burger King here has to most bland frys I dont think they salt them at all they are crispy but lack taste.

who is this appointed this beef monarch anyway?

The Lady of the Fry Oil?

Dairy Queen

I'm gonna be 90 and Burger King/Dairy Queen puns are still going to make me laugh.

I lived in Quito Ecuador back in the late 70s/ early 80s. There was a hamburger place called "Burger Queen"--the name was in English, presumably to attract people who knew about Burger King. They had a sign that read "Casa del Whooper" (not Whopper).

We had a Burger Queen in town when I was growing up. They closed in I think the early to mid 80s and became a Hardees.

That's pretty funny, in the old movie Coming to America there was a scene parodying something similar but it was McDowells vs McDonalds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djI_ret3S9g

The Golden Arcs

My fiancee used to work at a place called "Decent Pizza". Their motto "Not the best but not the worst."

Apparently PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) was originally named after a fictional grocery store called Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery.

Sounds like something straight out of A Prairie Home Companion.

Honestly I respect it. I wouldn't object to a "regular food" takeout / delivery service.

Actually, these do exist - they deliver daily hot meals to the elderly, for example.

My favorite in this space was the MadTV skits about a computer/video dating service called "Lowered Expectations".

Something interesting I found while looking up Hungry Jacks (the Burger King franchise here in Australia) is that the angry Whopper is a normal menu item here but it seems to be only a seasonal/special item for Burker King.

Please tell me what is in an Angry Whopper?

Also, time I was in Australia, I had a burger with a fried egg and a beat. It was SO good.

It's a spicy version of the whopper.

It is a Whopper with onion rings and Jalapenos.

Shoulda just bit the bullet and gone with "4.8-star." I'm sure they talked about it and yeah it's goofy and awkward but it would get the meaning across and maybe show a bit of a sense of humor and that's exactly why they never ever could.

Good sense of humor at Amazon... Yeah right.

They could have followed the lead of TV manufacturers and called it "5 Star Class" (4.5 star)

They should have left it as “Amazon 5-Star” with nearly 5-star products.

Yeah it’s kinda like a dollar store but instead of focusing on the upside (cost) it reminded you of the downside (quality).

"'Amazon Not-too-bad' store" sounds pretty reasonable. Maybe a too-clever work around for the 5-Star problem would be to call it "100-Star," which would be 4 in binary notation. Or they could call it "5th-Star" since 4 stars is the fifth number of stars b/c the range of starts is zero indexed.

  Ordinal : Cardinal
  1 : 0
  2 : 1
  3 : 2
  4 : 3
  5 : 4
  6 : 5

The range of stars is very deliberately NOT zero indexed, you cannot rate a product below 1.

It has been a constant source of irritation in my life that I could never rate the Spawn movie zero stars on IMDB.

Consider the first star as an award for technically qualifying as a “movie” in much the same way as tree bark qualifies as food.

It’s actually the pith between the bark and the sapwood that is edible.

If you don't die within 1-2 weeks of watching a movie, it surely deserves at least 2 out of 10 stars.

Presumably when it was first pitched internally it was called "Amazon 5-Star", then they realised that meant they basically couldn't sell anything, since nothing popular gets a full 5 stars. So they changed it to "4-Star"

This would not be the first off-by-one error at Amazon.

Also funny because there are many product categories on amazon where if its not above 4.5 its probably shit

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