New Website Monitors Ice Cream Machines at Boise McDonald’s

Say goodbye to hearing "I'm sorry, our ice cream machine is broken."

Every once in awhile, you get a particular craving for something sweet. It's not something that can be satisfied by a piece of chocolate or something from the vending machine in the break room. Nah. It's a McFlurry craving and you have to get to McDonald's immediately to satisfy it. For me, it's the Oreo flavor that can take over my life in these moments. So you grab your keys, drive to Mickey D's and sit in the drive-thru. You place your order only to hear that the ice cream machine is broken.

You're heartbroken.

There's nothing worse. However, the days of that disappointment may be long done thanks to some brilliant ingenuity and one smart algorithm. McBroken.com is a new website that will tell you which ice cream machines are down in our area. It was developed by a 24-year-old software engineer named Rashiq Zahid.

How did he do it? In simple terms, reverse engineering. But it's more complicated than that.

It started when he tried to order a McSundae through the McDonald's app. The item was listed as unavailable and it clicked in his mind that maybe it was unavailable because the machine used to make it was broken. Somehow he was able to reverse engineer the fast food giant's internal API and by attempting to place an $18,752 order at every McDonald's location in the US every minute he can determine which locations don't have an ice cream machine in working condition.

Just nod your head and accept that this is a gift from heaven.