When I get small amounts of change, like a nickel, I often leave them on nearby ledges or fences or mailboxes or any object I can find. It's not so much altruism, as making life more like a video game where you can find small amounts of money by searching random objects.

Nobody is going to drop back 20 bucks after they found the $10 bill.

Thinking outside the box and buying someone a coffee can sometimes have unexpected results: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2860312

Link seems to be broken. What did it point to?

Please try both and share your findings with the group.

If I drop ten dollars on the ground, the person who finds it doesn't know they've been the recipient of someone else's generosity (rather than someone else's clumsiness) and hence they're less likely to pass that generosity on.

The experiment started on Twitter where a smaller group was initially involved (but sadly not this canuck). It was more of a take a coffee, leave a coffee thing between friends. Fun to watch.

Posting it to HN should bring interesting results. There's still money on it at the moment.

- It's hard to drop ten dollars cash on the other side of the country.

- You don't need a smartphone to use ten dollars you found on the ground.

- Cash can be spent somewhere other than Starbucks.

- There's no twitter account broadcasting the amount of money dropped on the ground.

- If you find money on the ground, chances are not good that it was dropped by someone from HN.

- If you tweet about money you found on the ground, you are just a jerk.