only semi-scrounge, but free ("free") food nonetheless. yesterday alex sent me a link to his friend julia's site illsendyoucookies.com, which, apparently, launched yesterday. go visit it, it's nice.

premise is basically what the url says: girl likes making cookies (choco. chip) and sending them to people; sign up and she'll send you cookies. you can donate if you want, but you don't have to, and she'll stop sending cookies out to anyone if she goes over $100 in the hole on the endeavor.

this project is such a beautiful example of a commons (wiki: tragedy of the commons) that it makes me wonder if this is an econ thesis project or something. but she seems really sweet and genuine about it, so maybe not. she seems to be doing not so great on the money front after two days (net -$39), hopefully the linear projection of two and a half more days of cookies isn't accurate.

curious: do projects like these fare better with more or fewer participants? i would think fewer, as that would usually mean they were people with social ties to the baker, thus discouraging abuse of the commons. but maybe bigger numbers have some advantage? lower variance maybe? i think that wouldn't matter as much as the possible damping mechanism that social pressure might provide. makes me wonder what would happen if someone like kottke linked to it...