Unfortunately it doesn't work if the restaurant doesn't update their pos system. There's a few false-positives but I haven't heard of any false-negatives.
Original author here: the phrasing placing an order was probably wrong - mcdonald's lists the products they're currently out in their api. I'm just querying for those.
My guess is that there is every possible combination of items that is added to the cart, and then the API response returns what items are unavailable/out of stock.
Honestly, I'm not in love with this post for HN. It seems like something done and communicated for twitter clout and is devoid of interesting details.
Because it's a meaningless number. If he is actually placing an order for that amount every minute, it would be a useful number (and he would be an asshole for making so many fake orders and filling their system with garbage metrics). If he placed ice-creams in the cart for 8000 stores, then he should give that number. The dollar value is a completely pointless number in this case, and was done purely for clickbait.
Not original commenter but I think jackric already alluded to the increased cynicism that develops from clickbait. Personally, when I see so many ppl giving up honest and nuanced statements/opinions for hyperbole in order to gain views/likes, it's disappointing.
Raises the noise in the signal-to-noise ratio of a browsing experience. I may pass over reading a useful truthful article because I'm trained to dismiss its title as misleading.
I appreciate the amusement and humor, but you might want to be careful with phrasing on something like this.
I think researchers and people who implement interoperation on the Web don't want to run afoul of federal law, nor accidentally give misleading guidance to people new to their kind of work, nor invite new rules that could be overly restrictive.
