You may have heard about Mailinator, a service used for creating temporary e-mail addresses for site registrations. The standard use case is:
1. You begin registering for a web site that wants your e-mail address.
2. You think of an e-mail address at mailinator (spam@mailinator.com for instance)
3. The web site sends out an e-mail to confirm that validity of the e-mail address
4. You get the e-mail at Mailinator, use the link to confirm your account, and never use it again.
They have a useful (and entertaining) FAQ if you want more information about it.
But the real reason for this post is that I discovered a fun way to use the site. Since there are no passwords, you can check any e-mail address you want. Just type in a name and login. At first it feels like you’re reading someone else’s mail (well, technically you are) even though you’re really not doing anything wrong, but then it gets fun. It was intriguing to read the spam some accounts get. I found one account (bob@mailinator.com) with an e-mail from a used car salesman saying he tried to call but it was a wrong number and he was really looking forward to hearing back from the guy. If only he knew what mailinator was for…
I’ve spent far too much time on the fast food logo game but I’m still stuck on one. It’s the red and white hot air balloon and I think I’ve seen it before, but I just can’t remember where.
I got the first few without any help, but then it started getting harder and I took advantage of a few online resources, listed below in order of utility.
Ad art’s list of logos (PDF)
Mint’s fast food page
Yahoo’s list of fast food restaurants
Wikipedia’s list of fast food restaurants
Dane Golden’s illusions of candor
Free dictionary’s list of restaurant chains
There are other collections of logos to identify too, like daily web sites, technology companies and car manufacturers.
Daily web site answers
Tech company answers
Helpful links for the cars
Ad art (PDF)
A forum
Our auto shop
The one thing I don’t understand is why in the world would anyone pay $1 to get an answer? I mean really, it’s just a game.
