[HN Gopher] Spoil Your Secret Sauce
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Spoil Your Secret Sauce
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 55 points
Date : 2023-07-20 11:52 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (taylor.town)
(TXT) w3m dump (taylor.town)
| adamgordonbell wrote:
| I am really into and also confused by the writing style. This is
| great.
| detourdog wrote:
| I had a teacher that once said "don't get lost" which I see as
| the same advice.
| parentheses wrote:
| The style is very compelling. The author's style fits their
| "collection of random and loosely related insights" content.
| notjoemama wrote:
| Dr Pepper tastes like raisin/prunes (caramelized plum if you
| prefer) + cherry + vanilla + a hint of black pepper way way way
| off the back end, in that order.
|
| When I was a junior dev I created a looping mechanism in a vendor
| product that wasn't designed to loop. I let the company know via
| support ticket and they included it in their documentation of the
| product because they didn't know it could do that either. I never
| dove deep enough to find something new. Nor did I combine
| ingredients from different fields. You could call it lucky, but I
| think I was persistent and didn't know what my limitations were
| and that's why it happened.
|
| "Greatness awaits those who find secret sauce and share the
| recipe."
|
| No. No it doesn't. Although I really like the post and the
| positivity in it. I'm going to have to disagree with that point.
| Sharing your greatness more often results in some narcissist or
| psychopath (clinical, not conversational) taking credit for your
| work. In an era of social media infested domains, derivative work
| leeches off your effort and its more likely someone you've never
| met will become known for whatever you invent.
|
| I would recommend finding your secret sauce, iterating on it
| several times, then once you're further ahead of everyone else,
| share the first generation and promote that. Keep everyone else
| running to catch up to you and when they get close blow them out
| of the water by sharing the next generation ahead of where they
| are at.
| jareklupinski wrote:
| > Sharing your greatness more often results in some narcissist
| or psychopath (clinical, not conversational) taking credit for
| your work. In an era of social media infested domains,
| derivative work leeches off your effort and its more likely
| someone you've never met will become known for whatever you
| invent.
|
| i make demonstration and breakout boards and release the
| designs in the _hopes_ that someone influential will start
| cloning it
|
| one epaper demo board has led to countless companies emailing
| me asking how they can take their board clone and make it do
| the bespoke thing they ultimately wanted to make, since the
| original seller usually has no clue
|
| so maybe give up 90% of your sauce? the last 10% are
| circumstantial to the taster anyway...
|
| easter eggs are a great way to prove provenance if it comes
| down to it
| bamfly wrote:
| > Dr Pepper tastes like raisin/prunes (caramelized plum if you
| prefer) + cherry + vanilla + a hint of black pepper way way way
| off the back end, in that order.
|
| For the young'uns: Mr Pibb used to be this, with more-forward
| cherry, no hint of pepper, and maybe a little lower acidity.
| Smoother, cherry-heavy Dr Pepper. I always preferred Dr Pepper,
| but sometimes Pibb was what I wanted.
|
| Then they turned it into nasty, thick-feeling sugar-syrup so
| overwhelmingly sweet you can hardly taste anything else
| (like... two decades ago. "Pibb Xtra").
|
| So if that's all you've ever known and you're like "OMG how is
| this gross soda _a thing_? ", know that it used to be a lot
| better.
| constantly wrote:
| Your recommendation in the last paragraph of your comment is
| what the author is already doing here with this article.
| dirtybirdnj wrote:
| > Sharing your greatness more often results in some narcissist
| or psychopath (clinical, not conversational) taking credit for
| your work. In an era of social media infested domains,
| derivative work leeches off your effort and its more likely
| someone you've never met will become known for whatever you
| invent.
|
| I cannot upvote this hard enough. I have tried to be the
| positive force I want to see in the world and it's resulted in
| me being tarred and feathred as a heretic by people who feel
| threatened by whatever modernization I've been pushing for.
| It's sad and disappointing as an engineer working on a platform
| to have the people (management) in charge just NOT GIVE A SHIT
| about making things better.
|
| Just get more canaries, who cares if they are dying. Stop
| asking questions, get back to the mine or we'll replace you
| with someone who won't complain as much. Come to think of it
| this might be your third strike...
| elil17 wrote:
| >> _To nobody's surprise, MSG makes food taste better. Although
| replicable, this is wholly unimpressive. To earn your Michelin
| star, you'll need to make your umami masterpiece with mushrooms
| and elk liver and sardine skins._
|
| I liked the overall article but this section seemed off to me.
| People at the top of their field know when and how to "cheat" -
| which is why Rick Barry is in the hall of fame for his "granny"
| style free throw shooting. It's also why Michelin starred
| restaurants do use MSG
| (https://cnaluxury.channelnewsasia.com/people/why-are-
| these-a...).
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| this reminds me of one of Bourdain's stories about being in
| culinary school... there was some kind of test where they had
| to make a basic broth, and he kept a tube of lobster paste
| smuggled in his sleeve
| gowld wrote:
| But you need the mushroom and elk to satisfy the fallacious
| superficial gatekeeping of the reviewers.
| jfengel wrote:
| I'm not really sure what gate is being kept here.
|
| The reviewers know what they like. If you like that thing
| too, you go get that. If you don't like that thing, you don't
| have to purchase it. Their tastes are just as superficial as
| fans of a sports team or movie franchise.
|
| I absolve you of the need to like the things that rich people
| like, if that helps. There's nothing there to be kept out of.
| There are plenty of foods to like in the world, and if the
| sneering of fancy restaurant critics bothers you, you have my
| permission to flip them the bird. Preferably a free-range
| heritage breed bird.
| elil17 wrote:
| This is simply not true. Numerous Michelin-starred
| restaurants offer relatively simple food. The most famous
| example is perhaps Liao Fan Hawker Chan, who serves mostly
| chicken and rice with soy sauce.
| zem wrote:
| this seems more like what people think about "fancy cooking"
| than the reality. if a chef has used mushrooms in a dish it's
| not because they want to get the glutamates the hard way,
| it's because the mushrooms have other flavours and textures
| that they wanted to incorporate into the overall dish. if all
| they wanted from the mushroom was the msg they would have
| used msg.
| martythemaniak wrote:
| > In many cases, the story is the sauce. The Mona Lisa isn't
| exceptionally good art - it's the world's most well-known
| painting because it was stolen and recovered during the birth of
| global media coverage. Likewise, Banksy's works are more valuable
| when theatrically shredded.
|
| Actually, it is stunningly good, innovative and unique art and
| was renowned and exceptionally valued long before it was stolen.
| When DaVinci moved/retired to France, it was one of only a
| handful of paintings he took with him. Napoleon hung it in his
| bedroom.
|
| A great documentary on it by Great Art Explained:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElWG0_kjy_Y
| turnsout wrote:
| Just want to throw this out there: in a business context, "secret
| sauce" can also just mean experience, a bunch of incumbent
| advantages, and successful ways of working. For example, people
| often talk about Apple's secret sauce, which in my mind is "just"
| the fact that they control the whole stack from silicon to
| services, and do a good job making it feel cohesive. It's not
| really a secret, nor is it a sauce you could use anywhere else.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| >> Greatness awaits those who find secret sauce and share the
| recipe.
|
| Nope. Not in the copy copy copy cat work of software startups.
|
| The idea behind your startup matters more than anything else.
|
| Not convinced? Go ask the Winklevoss twins.
|
| An amazing idea is a critical ingredient for startup success.
|
| Only if you have a great idea does execution matter.
|
| Success comes from the combination of great idea and great
| execution. Startup success requires both.... neither are
| optional.
|
| So sure, share your secret sauce if you want competition from
| people who have only the execution side of the equation. And
| having only skill in execution is MOST software entrepreneurs.
|
| Execution is the easy bit, compared to how devilishly hard it is
| to have a truly great idea.
|
| if someone tells you that ideas don't matter, that it's execution
| that matters, ask them why they don't create a really well
| executed startup selling dogshit and apple pies.
|
| The idea is the critical ingredient.
|
| If you aim to "make something people want" then you'd better have
| a great idea.
| Archit3ch wrote:
| > To earn your Michelin star, you'll need to make your umami
| masterpiece with mushrooms and elk liver and sardine skins.
|
| To earn your Michelin star, you need to know someone on the
| committee.
|
| (Or so I'm being told. I'm not in that industry.)
| detourdog wrote:
| I don't understand the pre-amble always thought Dr. Pepper tasted
| like cherry cola?
|
| Maybe it's Vanilla Cola.
|
| _Mastery is made of intuition and practice, but secret sauce is
| inherently unintuitive._
|
| I think it's unintuitive to the outside world and very intuitive
| to the creator.
| ink_13 wrote:
| Dr Pepper was formulated to taste the way Morrison's Old Corner
| Drug Store in Waco TX smelled in the early 1880s. It's not
| supposed to taste of anything identifiable.
| technothrasher wrote:
| Where did you get that info from? You made me curious, so I
| tried to dig in a bit. The entire early history seems a
| little murky when you push past the 'official' story and try
| to find evidence. But even so, I couldn't find anything at
| all referencing what the flavor was intended to be. I was
| trying to find Morrison's original patent from ~1885 to see
| what it had in it, but couldn't dig it up.
| detourdog wrote:
| I also found a the true story they didn't mention it. Most
| of the "true stories" seems to be the struggle for credit.
|
| The early drug store/soda fountain days seem pretty wild.
| People were freely mixing up drugs and sugar water.
|
| The early seeds of RiteAid originated in a small central
| PA. town. Think about all the derivative business spun out
| of drug store plus soda fountain.
| technothrasher wrote:
| The most questionable part of the "true story" to me was
| that the soda was named after Dr. Charles T. Pepper
| because Morrison was in love with his daughter. According
| to census data, Dr. Pepper's daughter was 5 years old
| when Morrison was 17 and lived in the same town, and
| there's no record of Morrison having worked for Dr.
| Pepper as claimed or having known him at all. But there
| was another Dr. Pepper who lived a couple houses down
| from Morrison when he was 17 who had a 16 year old
| daughter at the time.
| detourdog wrote:
| It definitely has notes of horse or barn. I guess the point
| is the first vanilla, almond, or cherry cola was original.
|
| The preamble makes more sense to me with the olfactory
| dynamic added.
| k__ wrote:
| Isn't Dr. Pepper simply off-brand cola with almond syrup?
| toast0 wrote:
| IMHO as a soda drinker with discerning taste, Dr. Pepper is
| kind of its own category, but more root beer adjacent than
| cola adjacent.
| k__ wrote:
| Good point.
|
| Root beer isn't a thing here, so I don't had a reference.
| detourdog wrote:
| Anybody willing to make that claim has my attention.
|
| Do you think it is different than Mr. Pibb? Do you think it
| is like cherry Coke?
|
| Having developed some in Pennsylvania Dutch country I have
| to ask what about Birch Beer?
| toast0 wrote:
| Mr Pibb/Pibb Xtra is in the same category as Dr Pepper,
| IMHO and Coke had originally named it Peppo to target the
| Dr Pepper market; incidentally Pepsi doesn't have
| anything in the "pepper-drink" category). I don't have a
| lot lot of familiarity with Pibb, because this category
| isn't something I desire very often, and Pibb
| availability is generally low; but next time I see it, if
| it's not one of the hideous Coke Freestyle machines where
| the flavors come out of inkjet cartridges, I'll give it a
| try and update my references. There's some similarity in
| initial flavor to cherry Coke, but you know, there's
| cherry Dr Pepper out there too, and that's
| distinguishable from regular Dr Pepper.
|
| I must admit I haven't had birch beer; but I'll try it
| when I see it too. :)
| detourdog wrote:
| Yes, I assumed that Pep- was similar to -ito in the salty
| snack category.
|
| The untrained pallet might compare birch beer to
| toothpaste.
|
| I thought of cherry Dr. Pepper as just more cherry.
| gowld wrote:
| Funny that PEPsi missed the PEPper drink market.
| bamfly wrote:
| Pibb used to be cherry-forward, smoother-drinking Dr
| Pepper (nb I preferred Dr Pepper).
|
| Pibb Xtra is mostly just SUGAR punching you in the taste
| buds.
| randdusing wrote:
| Dr Pepper was introduced before Coca Cola.
| k__ wrote:
| One more reason why it couldn't be on-brand.
| detourdog wrote:
| That I think is the point being the first recognized
| commercial soda defines the category. I didn't get it
| from the preamble because I wasn't aware of Dr. Pepper's
| iconic status.
|
| I usually drink water flavored seltzer but I'm going to
| have a Dr. Pepper today.
| technothrasher wrote:
| Huh, only by five months. Dr Pepper was officially sold
| starting on Dec 1, 1885, Coke on May 8th, 1886.
| vogon_laureate wrote:
| _You must ignore others to notice invisible insights. But to
| avoid Cassandra's curse, you must learn to understand the people
| you ignore... Greatness awaits those who find secret sauce and
| share the recipe._
| parentheses wrote:
| This article feels incomplete and fragmented. So it fails to make
| and substantiate a real point, though a lot of the
| sentences/paragraphs would make great T-shirts!
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(page generated 2023-07-20 23:03 UTC)