I love QR Code menus, especially when you can order through them.
But I hate when restaurants force them on you. Just give me the fucking choice so that everyone can order in the way they prefer.
Yeah but they can't data track you through a paper menu, and a company choosing to lose revenue?? impossible
Pretty much any webhosted service out there essentially needs to track ip's (unless they want to be ddos'd), so even the server thats serving the pdf can and will track you
They could even go the easy route and use something like bit.my to do it for them too
If you're on their WiFi, then they're just getting the restaurant's IP. If you're on mobile data, then they're getting your carrier IP, which is often inside layers of carrier-grade NAT. Either way, they don't get much besides knowing you're attached to a specific carrier.
Even then it usually goes through the device's browser and fingerprints as hard as some JavaScript virtually can, but I figured that was a bit long for the original post
(I mean shit your device probably tells google itself where its going, much less the connections on the other end)
edit: and of course this isn't just the restaurant collecting it cause why would they care, usually its a shady 3rd party that already has a massive profile on you they can cross-reference
Yeah, but want I want to say with this: the restaurant gets nothing out of providing the menu only as a PDF. It's stupid, just give me the OPTION to use a paper card, even though I prefer the PDF
Most services that convert a link to a QR code absolutely track their users. bit.ly (the URL shortening company) has a paid service to track where, when, and device IDs of who accessed the link whether it was through their shortened URL or the conveniently generated QR code that they can also make you.
While I think your opinion is vile, detestable, loathsome, abominable, and evil, I don't understand why you're being down voted.
Thank you for sharing your abhorrent, outrageous, and revolting opinion as it does contribute something meaningful to the discussion.
This is a great way to disagree with someone, I feel like Abraham Lincoln could have written it
you're supposed to wipe them with a moist towlette before you start licking the pictures
It's usually a PDF so you have to zoom in and out repeatedly to see everything. Super annoying.
I had some friends in town and we went to a place that made us use the qr code for the menu and had to order directly from the app and pay (and tip).
Same, but it was so busy that nobody at the table could load the menu; The restaurant’s tiny little closet server was essentially DDOS’ed. So the waiter had to verbally list the entire menu in the noisy restaurant.
Even worse, it was a restaurant where you order in rounds (Korean BBQ.) So every time the waiter came back to see what we wanted next, they had to list everything off again. By the third round, he just had a handwritten list he was handing to the table.
I love tech. But there are some things that just don’t need to be replaced by tech. And the fact that the restaurant didn’t even have any paper menus as a backup was jarring.
I love tech. But there are some things that just don’t need to be replaced by tech.
Dude. That resonated with me
Meh. I didn't like it at first because it was unfamiliar, but I really don't see anything wrong with it, especially if you can order and pay directly from your phone instead of waiting for a server to show up.
Qr codes can be malucious. Doesnt take a genius to swap one that compromises your phone while still tunneling to the menu so no one is suspicious.
if you can get a qr code on a current day phone that can auto install an app or tunnel, there are further issues at hand. the most a qr code might be able to do is redirect you to a website where it might try to prompt you to do something stupid with the phone.
I likely wont be fooled but i am not the target demographic to visit many bars or restaurants.
Soms people are easily fooled, shady people will exploit this.
Industries will also exploit this, if you’re on your phone anyway can easily serve you a form request for private information as well as picking up phone details trough their website already, over time i would not be surprised if the menu gets personalized in price and content to make sure they get the most they can.
Not knowingly.You could slap your tag into the page without anyone being the wiser and then them giving to the card to someone else to scan
Should have been a link to their own website to the page where this picture was uploaded.
That would be so meta.
Been to one restaurant that only had QR codes, and it was horrible.
The wait staff were only there to clean tables. They just came by and slapped a QR code card on the table (yes, slapped, they clearly didn't want to be there) and then walked away. The web site was horrible, and not designed with a small screen in mind. Had to order only through the website, including pay with my CC on their site. Also had to give them my phone number (so they could text me when my order was up).
Just the worst and most lazy corners cut at every possible chance.
See, Im going to speak in defence of the QR code in some places. If I go to a pub, staffed by interchangable 20 somethings who are simultaniously taking orders, wiping tables, pouring drinks, clearing tables... yeah I dont think those menus are getting wiped down all that often.
If its a restaraunt, or trying to be upmarket... yeah make menus.
Without spitting on it, while in your direct line of sight, while making eye contact with you, hopefully.
Scan QR code
Hello would you like to let cookies into your life?
Time to navigate the decline cookies menu
Tap menu button/item
Goto 2
You forgot:
1½. Install our app. 2½. Give us your email and link to your socials. 3½. Install our app. 3⅔. Install our app. 4½. Push notification? Push notifications. 5½. Install our app.
I don't know, man, I always hate political cartoons that feel the need to label everything. Like, is that necessary?
It's not necessary. That is why this cartoon has them.
This artist makes cartoons that are parodies of over-labelled political cartoons. He satirizes by imitating his target's crappy form.
also if youre reading this and if you're not familiar with his work - the statue of liberty crying is in practically every cartoon as well.
Just been in a restaurant in France that thought a tablet would be a good idea for a menu. Fucking dimwits hadn't switched off the screen sleep though, and you had to tap it to wake it every thirty seconds
Plus it was an iPad, which only pensioners use, it was fucking awful
That sounds like an entirely unpleasant experience.
Reading your post inspired me to write a wryly informative yet droll linguistic comment for your edification and enjoyment (and my own entertainment). However my comment may strike you, in any case, I am certain it is entirely unrelated to the miserable experience you describe in your comment, as well as the content of the original post. Ready? Ok.
At face value, the message is entirely clear from what you've written. The restaurant owners required you to use a tablet to browse the menu items they have on offer, and that tablet had a particularly poor user experience.
However, I found your last sentence quite ambiguous, and interestingly so:
...it was an iPad which only pensioners use,...
I see at least three interpretations of this sentence fragment:
Okay, yes yes, readings 2 and 3 are hyperbolic; however, this was intentional, partially for the lolz, but also to convey a sense of saliency for the respective interpretations.
The internet comment section is such an interesting treasure trove of human language. See, in typical language use (by typical, I specifically mean how language evolved, as humans in the bush, making sounds at each other around a fire), there are a multitude of cues that go beyond the simple string of words, collectively referred to as "pragmatics." These are nonverbal cues like body language and facial expression, but also verbal cues like prosody, intonation, and stress. There are also "discourse" level aspects, like how we can follow the overall point of a speaker. (As an example of discourse, I told you up front that my comment would be somewhat amusing and educational, and hopefully I have delivered that to you - if I haven't, well it's still the discourse level pragmatics that underlie your feeling of annoyance or disappointment.)
Another pragmatic element is shared knowledge. Off the bat, we both have some fluency in English, but pragmatically (ha, see what I did there?), that's a given, but it goes further than that. Friends and family have a history of shared experiences. On the Internet, well we're both Lemmings, so we likely have an aptitude for technology, as well as other niche hobbies or interests. Shared knowledge is more or less anything that one speaker can assume about another on the basis of experience or overt group membership.
This is what is so interesting about Internet comments though - the pragmatics of language are often missing! This sentence might have been 100% clear if we had more shared knowledge. Perhaps all that was needed was hearing you say it, which would have carried prosody and stress.
Anyway, I hope you learned something interesting.
Was the food good at least?
I've fixed it for you, ya gobshite 🙃
I meant it's only pensioners who use Apple products, they're designed for people who don't understand stuff
Hence the popularity in the US 😂
The food was reasonable, but not exceptional, and ridiculously overpriced
Ooh, gobshite has a nice ring to it 🤪
Sounds about right for French cuisine. Yes, I said it - French cuisine ain't that great, it's just buttery.
"Reasonable, but not exceptional, and ridiculously overpriced..." Could be an apt descriptor for the iPad too!
It's a bummer that they kind of dominate the tablet space though... I want a tablet, but have been avoiding pulling the trigger because iPads are designed for the sticky fingered folk.
I dunno, France is one of the rare places where it's difficult to find a bad restaurant; they just wouldn't survive as food is so ingrained in the culture.
The problem was, I was in a ski resort; the menus are designed by culinary geniuses but cooked by bored season workers who are only interested in their next red piste or their next chalet girl's vag
Re tablets, was surprised by the S8 I got for my wife; it's an absolutely cracking piece of kit that's as good as any Crapple offering without being tied to a walled garden
Fair enough. Ski resorts in the US mostly only offer burgers and fries, so the seasonal worker attitude is more understandable. Leave it to the French through to try to put a fine dining experience atop a ski slope.
Will check out the Samsungs, thanks for the recommendation. Cheers, good chatting with you :)
Why's it yikes? I'll admit it was a bit of a ramble, but my comment was (mostly) coherent, factual, and at least a little humorous. No?
God I hate the way this dude draws joints on people, elbows and shoulders are jutting out way too much and the people look like weird bony aliens wearing human skins that don’t fit right
Wow, the onion is on point these days. I don't know how they can produce satire in today's America.
I like the way you managed to use the correct "whom" to sound posh then completely fucked it up with the "at" on the end :)
You can end a sentence on a prepositional phrase. That's an old style suggestion, not a rule.
The Kelly cartoons are done by a progressive pretending to be a conservative. The Onion often gets hate letters from progressives who think it's genuinely conservative, and more glowing letters from conservatives who think the same.
Taking into account that this is the Onion, it's probably aimed at at everyone like the good ol' days.
Had anyone gotten the code to work?
Closest thing I got was a Google image search near match for an xvideos qr
its not a real qr code,
there is no timing pattern between the 3 big squares.
there has to be a black and white alternating pattern between the inner corners of the three squares, that afaik is used to determine the size of pixels while scanning.
there has to be a black and white alternating pattern between the inner corners of the three squares, that afaik is used to determine the size of pixels while scanning.
Huh. TIL.
At least as a backup. Sites break, internet goes down, occasionally people don't have their phones, so on. Or maybe I'm just sick of looking at my damn phone.
Right. We go out to eat to get away from the trappings of our mundane lives. Plus it's just chintzy.
I love people’s absolute moral outrage about scanning a QR code. The same folks crying bc they have to ask for a plastic straws or wear a smal piece of cloth on their face in the grocery store.
Yeah, I get wanting to not reprint menus every time something changes, but there are ways to do that which are more convenient and accessible than "scan a QR code to go to a random website and pray you have working internet access and also the site is working and up to date." Y'know, like a damn menu board on the wall. Whiteboard/chalkboard even!
This is my personal preference, a place I used to go a lot had a black board across one whole wall and the menu was hand written on it. The menu changed frequently and it was often full of flourish and creativity from some employee.
If you're using these links as restaurant menus as opposed to ordering platforms (this is how I use them, and how this post & other commenters seem to be presenting the concept) that's kind of limited to a risk of straight up being phished in a situation where you don't really have any reason to hand over your information.
In a pub/bar setting it's helpful to know what's available at the bar before I'm standing at it, especially if I'm buying a round. That is to say it generally lowers the bar to menu availability, not raise it. Because before the pub/bar would simply have no table menu and you'd figure out what you wanted by asking or looking at the taps
There are clickless exploits and other methods that don't require you to enter information, nevermind that nearly all of these menus have ordering and payment available through them and mimicking websites is fairly simple.
QR codes cannot be trusted just like links from unknown sources cannot be trusted.
I think you'll find there isn't an Android or iPhone on the market today vulnerable to SQL injection or XSS etc via scanning a QR code. You're talking about device vulnerabilities that get patched and it's equally possible to encounter these exploits with plaintext URLs
You’re talking about device vulnerabilities that get patched
Patching out zero days takes time.
it’s equally possible to encounter these exploits with plaintext URLs
Yes which is why I clearly stated that following URLs from any unknown sources carries risk.
The difference is that due to menus being a point of payment they have a greater incentive for abuse.
So we shouldn't use smartphone features if they could potentially have exploits? With this logic you shouldn't have a phone.
If the restaurant doesn't have a good enough reputation that I couldn't trust the QR they provided (which displays the URL so I can inspect it before launching the web browser), I also wouldn't want to trust my health to eating there.
It isn't like some random thing you found on the sidewalk.
I'm pretty sure these are just an echo of the same concerns people put forward when URLs first started being included in signage, due to general privacy/security concerns with the internet. Somehow we got through it!
I wear masks, carry stainless steel straws so I don't have to use paper ones. You want me to eat at your establishment more than once, don't make me use my phone at meal time.