Amazing Illusion

An amazing optical illusion. It's even stronger than the unbelievable Checker Shadow Illusion.

Jim on 06.26.09 @ 03:09 PM ET [link]

Post Rapture Pet Care

This belongs in The Onion, but I think it may actually be real. A group of enterprising atheists have created a wonderful way to scam believers: Post-Rapture Pet Care. Only £69.99! Hurry, the End Times are near, and operators are standing by!

Jim on 06.21.09 @ 04:43 PM ET [link]

Zero Tolerance?

From the BBC coverage of the Summer Solstice celebration at Stonehenge:

"Police drafted in extra officers and said there would be a zero-tolerance approach to drugs and drunkenness, with an alcohol limit of four cans of beer or a bottle of wine per person imposed by English Heritage."

Jim on 06.21.09 @ 03:58 PM ET [link]

My Name Is Yu Ming

Here's a very nice short film called My Name is Yu Ming, about a young Chinese man who decides to move to Ireland.

Jim on 06.12.09 @ 08:55 AM ET [link]

drop.io

drop.io is a nominally free service for storing and sharing files. You don't even need to sign up. Just go to their site and choose a drop name (e.g. 'jims-work-files') and then you can upload files to that URL (e.g. http://drop.io/jims-work-files). The drop name needs to be unique, of course, and the only security is the obscurity of the drop name, which actually is fairly good security. Your files are not accessible or searchable unless someone knows the drop name.

I've been using this for transferring files to a customer whose email system rejects certain file types. It's much easier than dealing with ftp. There's also a free email address, voicemail, and conference bridge with each drop, though I haven't used any of those.

You get 100MB of storage per drop for free. If you need more you can pay $10 per GB per year. As bulk storage rates go, that's really high.

Jim on 06.11.09 @ 09:00 AM ET [link]