[tokenadult]

9gag certainly illustrates how hard up the Internet is for high-quality humor. (Just now, browsing the site, I didn't find anything I would want to share with my friends.)

Fundersclub sounds quite disruptive.

Bufferbox might be useful (at the right price) once it is within walking/bicycling distance of my house, as a UPS store location already is.

[jack-r-abbit]

Does the UPS store accept FedEx, USPS, and Amazon packages?

I have no use for BufferBox personally because packages get delivered to my house just fine. In the case of USPS, our neighborhood mail boxes have the old style key boxes and the postman just locks it in and puts the key in my mailbox. In some cases I've had things delivered to my office instead. I can't think of the last time I had to go retrieve a package.

Anyway, I understand that a great number of people do not have a reliable solution for getting packages when not at home... or keep hours that do not match with the non-24x7 drop points. BufferBox seems to solve that issue by making things self-serve. Sure it costs a few bucks per delivery, but that is the price you pay for convenience. And when you don't really have a better solution, you pay it. I wish them a great deal of success.

[jcollins1991]

One of the biggest selling points of BufferBox originally (to me) was that it was in the main student building of uWaterloo so pickup can be any time and you don't have to miss class or go all the way to a post office. Given that they've already expanded to Union Station in Toronto, their next expansions will likely be targeting similar situations (places where people with busy lifestyles go on a daily basis). So chances are you won't be getting a BufferBox nearby for a while.

Regarding price, IIRC the prices for service (in the Beta at least) were extremely attractive, only a few bucks for the couple of credits needed for a decent sized box. For larger item's I'd probably find a cheaper way to get it shipped direct and avoid their charges, but for small items (4 or 5 books from Amazon maybe) their fee is pretty insignificant.

[noelrock]

I find BufferBox a strange inclusion here, given similar competitors such as Ireland's parcel motel are up and running on a larger scale here already...

[polshaw]

IMO 9gag shows how a reliable stream of quantity can beat out quality of content on the web. Every time you go to 9gag (AFAIK, can't say i've visited much) there is new content.

It preys on the 'seeker' human behaviour (like reddit, minecraft, even HN). Maybe next visit there will be something hilarious?

A lower volume of higher quality wouldn't invoke the same response.. visits would often have no new content, and users wouldn't regularly visit.

[cookingrobot]

I think even more important than volume is that 9gag, reddit etc have lots of bad content, with an occasional gem. That's the most effective reward schedule for creating compulsive behavior. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement#Schedules_of_rein...

[polshaw]

That is precisely what I was alluding to, yes.

[samstave]

I just had a weird thought:

Could FunderesClub be an avenue for laundering money?

Think of it this way - an entity or a group could setup many accounts on FundersClub to invest small-ish amounts <9500 in many many avenues and be able to make interest on that money and then sell whenever they want. Because they invested smaller amounts than would be required to be reported, however you would have to pay tax on all interest/dividends received over $1500.

Although, I am sure there are some very creative financial mangers for the elite of silicon valley that do away with even these rules with a deft hand...

[rdl]

There are many many vastly easier and lower risk ways to launder money, which don't leave a well documented audit trail throughout the system.

I think your average individual or organization laundering money would want to invest in the kind of things he understood, like small businesses, in the later stages of laundering money, too.

[samstave]

I am not a clever man, please explain the vastly easier methods.

[rdl]

Place into cash-based businesses with minimal consumables tracking (nail salons, hairdressers, laundromats, service based businesses in general); layer via vendors to those businesses (invoicing for product they don't receive, or just marking up product they do get to premium prices), integration by dividend/partnership payouts to individuals, or other commercial transactions to other businesses. (Really, now that layering happens inside the USA to avoid bulk currency smuggling detection, and happens in businesses vs. cambios, layer/place/integrate is a much fuzzier distinction than it was in the 1980s. It's basically "get physical cash plausibly into a till" and then cycle it.

[samstave]

This might sound crazy and naive but this sounds like the most ripe area of cyber fraud: creating an ap/series of apps (inventory, sales, POS, etc) that supports this type of fraud...

They already exist... on the industrial scale. Which is where the rumored Wachovia laundering of mexican drug money was really active...

[rdl]

Yes, selling "licenses" which can be transferred, redeemed, and re-used is pretty plausible. However, your average Mexican cartel leader doesn't understand software, and is going to be a lot more comfortable with a sketchy mundane business where he can physically see it and understand it.

Cellphone stores are often used for this, I think, though.

[NeilRShah]

Been watching Breaking Bad? ;)

[samstave]

Off topic!

For your punishment, you must donate to the charity of my choice:

http://www.savewalterwhite.com/

[thejosh]

Quite pleased that the donation link is an actual cancer donation link.