Linkology: Friday Links for 3/26/10
First some administrivia: we’ve had a pretty big spike in readership this month, so I’d like to say hello and thank you to all our new readers. This place would just be an empty echo chamber without you, so we appreciate your readership and RSS subscriptions. If you’d like to follow us on Twitter and Facebook as well, we’d love to have you.
But now, on to some more abstract things, in no logical order, that hopefully mesh with your early-Spring Friday. Here goes.
Auto Smiley is a computer vision smiley generator that uses your Mac’s webcam to watch you work. When (or if) you smile, the software recognizes it and pastes an ASCII smile – : ) – into your front-most application. Talk about enforcing online authenticity, eh?
Ever wonder sort of weird ‘filler’ item you need to buy on Amazon to qualify for free shipping on an order? Enter Amazon Filler Item Finder. Simply enter how much you’re short for free shipping and this simple tool will show you items that match the amount. Cute. (Although the logical question is: wouldn’t shipping, in many cases, be cheaper?)
Rally racing is largely about the car, right? Nope: self-proclaimed racing freak Bill Caswell bought an old, beat-up BMW 318i off Craigslist for $500, fixed it up (he threw in a modern M3 engine) and entered it into a race against teams with $400K+ cars and full support crews. He came in third in this class. As one commenter notes, a story like this contains so much win.
Don’t want to walk around the city with your expensive DSLR slung around your shoulder looking like a total tourist? Say hello to Cloak Bag, the world’s first shoot-through camera bag.
Adobe demonstrates ‘content-aware fill’ feature that’s slated for a future version of Photoshop. This will save so much manual effort. Incredible. (Look for it to be magically part of the CS5 suite, which will be introduced on April 12th.)
Finally, I leave you with a video of Bob Kramer, founder of Kramer Knives, master knifemaker and one of only 114 master bladesmiths on planet Earth. His chef knives sell for over $2400 and have a 14 month wait time. But most importantly, here’s a guy who early in life struggled with dyslexia and finding his calling, and now gets up every day to chase his passion. It’s what all of us want, right?
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