Simian Design

These are my delicious links for June 23rd through June 24th:

• Soviet Russian Album Covers – Amazing Hair Metal Records from the USSR. Fantastic stuff here.
• 10 Most Fascinating Mazes – The only real maze I've ever gone through is the one at Luray Caverns, and it was easy, yet I still got lost. I can't imagine the fun of a real large, actually hard maze. That'd be a fun afternoon.
• The Most Terrifying Mountain Bike Trail On Earth – The Emerald Isle’s legendary Cliffs of Mohan are just insane. INSANE. And these guys rode their bikes on them.
• Pentagram takes on Cigarette Marketing. – …"Marlboro filtered cigarettes can cause lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and may complicate pregnancy. Quitting smoking now greatly reduces serious health risks. Smoking by pregnant women may result in fetal injury, premature birth. Cigarette smoke contains carbon monoxide…BUT WHO CARES.
• The Creation of a Russian Terminator. – Brilliant series of shots showing how the Russians are creating an army of Arnold Terminators. Just brilliant.
• Visual Decision Making – Another body of web user experience research shows that website users are powerfully influenced by aesthetics, and that positive perceptions of order, beauty, novelty, and creativity increase the user’s confidence in a site’s trustworthiness and usability. Recent design writing and interface research illustrate how visual design and user research can work together to create better user experiences on the web: experiences that balance the practicalities of navigation with aesthetic interfaces that delight the eye and brain.

  In short: there’s lots of evidence that beauty enhances usability.

These are my delicious links for May 28th:

• The Pop's 'Stache Drink Identifier. – This is the Greatest Thing Ever. EVER. What is cooler than a mustache? Nothing is, that's what.

These are my delicious links for May 18th through May 20th:

• James T. Kirk Captain's Chair – This full-scale replica of Kirk's captain's chair from the original Star Trek TV series is constructed from the original design conceived by Matt Jefferies, and is limited to only 1,701 units. Features include a wood and steel platform, leather seat and back with oak arm rests, 360-degree swivel action, and various toggle switches, knobs, and buttons from the series, some of which play classic Trek dialogue or sound effects through the seat's built-in speaker.
• The Macho Man drugged to the eyeballs. – I used to think Crispin Glovers interview on Letterman was about the most fucked up I've seen someone give an interview.

  The Macho Man blows him away. NO MORE QUESTIONS!

• Solar Transit – WOW. Atlantis captured in solar transit with a solar-filtered Takahashi 5" refracting telescope and a Canon 5D Mk. II.
• Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas – Great time-lapse video showing the stars and the Milky Way rotate and move overhead. I wish that you could see the stars like this where I'm at without driving way out into the sticks.

These are my delicious links for April 20th through April 22nd:

• 10 of the world's most unusual places to spend the night – Tired of boring old hotels? With limited vacation time, there's no reason your lodging shouldn't be as fun as the rest of your travel experience!

  From converted train cars to converted prisons, here are 10 of the world's most out-of-the-ordinary places to stay.

  I'd most like to try the monastery I think.

• Firediff – In Case of Stairs – Firediff is a Firebug extension that tracks changes to a pages DOM and CSS.
• This is what 1000FPS looks like. – Here is the first SprintCam v3 showreel, made for NAB 2009 exhibition.
  Mostly 1000FPS shots, made during a recent rugby competition in the Stade de France, Paris

These are my delicious links for March 27th:

• Star Wars as Classic Art – These are really good. "It's no secret that the Something Awful Forum Goons love inserting Star Wars references into things, and this week that love runs wild and untamed. Using classic art as their canvas, they, uh, paint in Star Wars references. If you enjoy the wonders of art and/or the darling antics of beepy robots and outer space wizards, this Phriday is for you!"
• Flight Helmets – Wow. These flight helmets are cool. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter helmet is the scariest thing ever. Scary, but it's AWESOME. I want me one. I'd wear it around the house.
• Musselsoppans Vänner: Danish 70s Interior Design Porno Style – Wow. I kinda want rooms that look like this. It's pretty brilliant. Sorta NSFW, but only barely.

These are my delicious links for March 11th through March 12th:

• "I Look Straight into Linus' Weasel Eyes…" – Charlie Brown, as done by Frank Miller. brilliant.
• Ski Dump Bathroom. – Now THATS a bathroom. And of course when we're talking about wacky bathrooms, we're talking about one nation, right? Right. A Japanese coffee company, Goeorgia Max Coffee, modified the bathrooms of ski areas around Japan to promote their coffee energy drinks. This is definitely a high-octane bathroom.
• edith zimmerman plays with her food. – Edith has some fantastic photos of her food sculptures. The mantis and tangerine are really good.
• Approximate Conversion from Points to Pixels – I was being lazy this morning, and needed a quick way to convert some points into the appropriate EM size. Viola'. This chart helps out immensely.
• New York Architecture Images- black and white new york – Amazing collection of images of early New York. From 1894 on, just a real solid trip down history.
• 100 Free Useful Applications for Mac, Part I | Tools – A nice list, maybe a bit over-the-top, of useful Mac Tools. Some are obvious (Quicksilver, etc,) but there are some hidden gems in there.
• Floorplans of Sit-Com Houses. – By the same guy that brought us the Trilogy Meter, we are treated with another brilliant piece of charting and infographics. This time he's laid out, painstakingly I might add, the floor plans of many sit-com houses.
• Vintage air raid defense posters – In 1938, the Japanese Red Cross worked with government authorities to create a series of posters to teach the public about the new Anti-Aircraft Defense Law, which was enacted in seeming anticipation of air strikes following the outbreak of the Japan-China War (1937-1945). Among other things, the new law required citizens to take protective measures against gas attacks and prepare for disinfection, evacuation and relief.

  These AWESOME posters are the result.

These are my delicious links for March 10th:

• You only can live here if you have a Really Nice Ride. – Tokyo's stunning levels of overcrowding pose one of the most severe architectural constraints around–it's one of the reason that it's become home to lots of amazing architecture and product design. In that vein, two design firms have solved a problem you might not have even guessed existed, by creating apartment complexes aimed specifically at giving motorcycle fetishists a safe place to park—and show off—their rides.
• Periodic Table of Typefaces – Now this is cool. I'd totally buy a poster of this. It combines two great memes into one package full of awesome. Plus it has Futura and Helvetica as the top two elements, which is proper.

These are my delicious links for February 11th through February 13th:

• Petzal: The Rules of Gunfighting | Field & Stream – 1. Forget about knives, bats and fists. Bring a gun. Preferably, bring at least two guns. Bring all of your friends who have guns. Bring four times the ammunition you think you could ever need.

  2. Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammunition is cheap – life is expensive. If you shoot inside, buckshot is your friend. A new wall is cheap – funerals are expensive

• Star Trek Inspired Corset – Wow. Now I need myself a Capt. Kirk outfit to complete the role-playing experience this will entail. But certainly the most fun you can have playing Star Trek, I can guarantee you that.
• Shuron Eyewear – These are some eyeware frames I can get behind. There are about 5 I'm seriously looking at. The retro feel of them just appeals to me.
• Paper-Based Visualization Competition: The Winner and More … – Winners chosen for the Paper-Based Visualization. Some very nice entries, worth browsing.
• Mindfuck Movies – "Some movies inform. Some movies entertain. And some pry open your skull and punch you in the brain."
• Japanese Bladesmiths – A unique behind-the-scenes visit of the crafstmen who hammer out the best and most expensive kitchen knives in the world in the city of Sakai, Japan.
• BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | 'Arctic unicorns' in icy display – Nice video of these Narwhal. They're just odd. The BBC filmed the whales during their summer migration, as they navigated through cracks in the melting Arctic sea ice.

  The team believes this aerial footage, which forms part of the BBC Natural History Unit's new series Nature's Great Events, is the first of its kind.

• A House that Takes Outside/Inside to the Extreme | Design & Innovation … – I like this (in the proper climate). California architects of the 1970s were a big force in popularizing the idea of indoor/outdoor living, with houses that featured huge patios and glass-walled living rooms. But a new villa in Germany pushes the idea to its logical extreme.
• Phantom Corsair from 1938 – Boing Boing – Wow. Why don't they build cars like this? This is super-mega-fantatically-awesome. Seriously. Build this and jetpacks, so I can die happy.
• Surprising stories behind 20 Muppet characters – CNN.com – Fascinating. Did you know Oscar the Grouch was originally an alarming shade of orange. In Pakistan, his name is Akhtar and he lives in an oil barrel. In Turkey, he is Kirpik and lives in a basket. And in Israel, it's not Oscar at all — it's his cousin, Moishe Oofnik, who lives in an old car.

These are my delicious links for January 19th through January 20th:

• How to Design the Perfect List – Lists are a beautiful way to display content and information in a very easy to scan, easy to read method. Lists are found on most blogs to list posts, comments, tags, or links. In this post we will be exploring the modern practices of lists as an element of web design and they will be showing you how to design better lists to add to the overall design of your site.
• Slave reunion photo from 1916 – Wow. This is a photo from 1916 of 4 former slaves. They're all over 100 years old. James Madison was president when they were born, and America was 36 years old. And here they are in a relatively "modern" photo. I'm blown away.
• Harry Eng – Master Bottle Filler – One evening Harry was in a London hotel and decided to visit the Puzzle Museum the next morning. When he and his friends had finished their bottle of wine, he took the bottle up to his room. He then filled it with a book of matches, menu, and the pack of cards as a gift for us. This is a particular favorite as he assured us that the only tools he had were a pencil and rubber bands.
• The Sexy Curls jQuery Plugin by Elliott Kember – You know that page-curl effect you get sometimes on sites? This is how to do it with jQuery. Not bad.
• Coaches view of Madison Square Garden – Rangers Coach Tom Renney describes the view form behind the bench at Madison Square Garden.
• Stainless steel teeth – John Gilpin makes himself some stainless steel teeth. Quite amazing.

These are my delicious links for October 13th:

• Pictures of the Sun – Gorgeous collection of pictures of the Sun, as done by The Big Picture.