Monday Links from the Armchair Vol. XXVIII

[NickFitz]

Another Monday, another bundle of excuses not to do anything useful:

• Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning - "Drowning is not the violent, splashing, call for help that most people expect. The captain was trained to recognize drowning by experts and years of experience. The father, on the other hand, had learned what drowning looks like by watching television. If you spend time on or near the water... then you should make sure that you and your crew knows what to look for whenever people enter the water." Serious stuff from Mario Vittone: read this before you take your family to the seaside, or even the swimming pool.
  
  
• "yeah thats not what I was looking for at all." - designer David Thorne (who previously achieved a degree of fame by trying to pay a bill with a drawing of a spider) was asked by a colleague to produce a poster about her missing cat. As is usually the case with Thorne, the matter rapidly degenerated into an exchange of increasingly bizarre emails. "Having worked with designers for a few years now, I would have assumed you understood, despite our vague suggestions otherwise, we do not welcome constructive criticism. I don't come downstairs and tell you how to send text messages, log onto Facebook and look out of the window."
  
  
• Kite Aerial Photos - a gallery of Scott Haefner's photographs taken from kites.
  
  
• Notes on being a nice person online who sells software - advice from developer Brent Simmons. "Marketing isn’t a bad word. But the word 'marketing' can cheapen real experiences. This is really about being a nice person."
  
  
• Howtoons - "We use everyday objects to invent toys you can build!" Keep the kids entertained over the holidays with this collection of comics showing how to make all kinds of things from stuff.
  
  
• Microsoft Windows "Chicago" beta-1 - "One day while browsing the net I stumbled across an old MS-Word document titled "Microsoft Windows Chicago Reviewers guide". It contains screen shots and lengthy descriptions of Microsoft's Chicago Beta-1 operating system from around May 1994." Nathan Lineback offers a sneak preview of the OS that became Windows 95.
  
  
• Free as in "Me" - Merlin Mann lays into those who think the web exists solely to let them make money from page views: "You 'page' your articles to the point of hostile unreadability. You disguise or bury links to source articles in a way that makes your article seem a little more canonical than the real thing. You encourage unmoderated comment threads in which cheering an uncivil race to the bottom of the Port-O-Let means triple page views... You ruin the fun for surprisingly little money and eventually discover, to your surprise, that whatever shred of credibility you originally brought to your enterprise has disintegrated into a light dusting on some backfill banners."
  
  
• Diagrams - Mark Poyser's diagrams range from Hitler's family tree to the connections between various Wall Street scandals in the year 2000.
  
  
• Peter Paul Biro, fingerprints, and a lost Leonardo - when a putative work by Leonardo da Vinci came to light, one expert climbed to be able to validate it from a fingerprint in the paint. But, in the world of fine art, can you be sure that the expert isn't the real fake? Fascinating, exhaustive article by David Grann for the New Yorker.
  
  
• Awkward Family Pet Photos - following on from Awkward Family Photos in vol. XXI.

Happy invoicing!

[Drewster]

NF

One is a rough old dog.........the others a Poodle!

[Moscow Mule]

• Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning - ...Serious stuff from Mario Vittone: read this before you take your family to the seaside, or even the swimming pool.

Saving somebody in "aquatic distress" is more dangerous for you than saving somebody who is drowning. They actually teach you to stay away from a casualty on the water until they've stopped splashing around and trying to grab you.

[doodab]

"yeah thats not what I was looking for at all." - designer David Thorne (who previously achieved a degree of fame by trying to pay a bill with a drawing of a spider) was asked by a colleague to produce a poster about her missing cat. As is usually the case with Thorne, the matter rapidly degenerated into an exchange of increasingly bizarre emails. "Having worked with designers for a few years now, I would have assumed you understood, despite our vague suggestions otherwise, we do not welcome constructive criticism. I don't come downstairs and tell you how to send text messages, log onto Facebook and look out of the window."

That whole site is hilarious. This is a gem

http://www.27bslash6.com/p2p2.html

[scooterscot]

Like the aerial kite shots, wonder what sort of kit you need to put together to make it happen. Looks impressive.

[Moscow Mule]

Like the aerial kite shots, wonder what sort of kit you need to put together to make it happen. Looks impressive.

Wired did an article on how to photograph stuff from space last month. I reckon similar kit would work on a kite...

[thunderlizard]

That whole site is hilarious. This is a gem

"It's like twitter. Except we charge people to use it."

I'll have to disagree about that. The exchanges are blatently fictional, except that they sometimes use real people's names. It's self-satisfied, malicious and delusional.

[doodab]

I'll have to disagree about that. The exchanges are blatently fictional, except that they sometimes use real people's names. It's self-satisfied, malicious and delusional.

It's funny. I don't much care if it really happened or not.

[TimberWolf]

Saving somebody in "aquatic distress" is more dangerous for you than saving somebody who is drowning. They actually teach you to stay away from a casualty on the water until they've stopped splashing around and trying to grab you.

I once dragged two people out the water who were in a state reminiscent of that described in the article. Someone on the beach asked me if I was a good swimmer and pointed out two people 100m off shore. So I am swam out and took a look. I knew they weren't quite right, but didn't really know what was up, as they never said anything. They were just floating there. [I believe the girl had got in trouble and the boyfriend had gone to help and now they were both stuck]. Anyway I dragged them both to shore in an unseemly manner, at which point they still didn't say flip all. A few others drowned that day though unbeknownst to me.

[OwlHoot]

Anyway I dragged them both to shore in an unseemly manner, at which point they still didn't say flip all. A few others drowned that day though unbeknownst to me.

"A few others drowned that day"! Where the flip was that beach?

Sounds like you were at the Normandy beaches on D Day!