Simian Design

These are my delicious links for December 9th:

• Zeppelin Eureka – I want to take a Zeppelin Ride over San Francisco now. Great photos.
• The great alone: Scott and Shackleton's Antarctic – Robert Scott's ill-fated trip to Antarctica and Ernest Shackleton's attempt to cross it are great tales of human endurance. Here we present photos taken by their on-board photographers, Herbert Ponting and Frank Hurley, presented in the book The Heart of the Great Alone.

These are my delicious links for September 16th:

• Backpacker Classics – I am not sure which books backpackers carry with them these days so this list may be a little out of date. The concept of backpacker books goes back to the days of the hippy trail when travellers would carry such classics as the I Ching, the Tibetan Book of the Dead or anything by Herman Hesse. A backpacker classic should have an element of profundity, preferably mystical -if not it should have cult status or be a statement about who you really are. There is an element of self discovery in setting off – the path to enlightenment, the journey inwards…A backpacker book is not a 'beach read'–the book must be worth the weight and space it takes up and should be reverentially handed on to other travellers or left in a hotel or bus station for another seeker to chance upon.
• Sports Design Blog: Old School Design: The NFL Helmet Hat – In the early 1980's there was a really great licensed product known at the Helmet Hat. The Helmet Hat was one of the most unique and innovative ideas in a time when sports licensed products were still growing as a retail force. The Helmet Hat featured the graphics of your favorite NFL team all over the top of the hat, just like the would look on the team's helmet.

  I want a bunch of these.

These are my delicious links for August 13th:

• Top 10 Gruesome Fairy Tale Origins – Fairy tales of the past were often full of macabre and gruesome twists and endings. These days, companies like Disney have sanitized them for a modern audience that is clearly deemed unable to cope, and so we see happy endings everywhere.

  Well, here is the gruesome and twisted original endings.

These are my delicious links for July 21st:

• 19 Amazing Acts of Death Defiance – For the record, I'd totally do the Skydive from the Heavens one, in a heartbeat. Wouldn't hesitate.

  But there is no way in hell I'd do the tightrope walking, nor the free diving. That shit is just crazy.

• Expert Confirms Authenticity Of Vinland Map – A Danish expert said on Friday that a 15th century Vinland Map, the first known map depicting part of America prior to Christopher Columbus’ arrival on the continent, is almost certainly authentic.

  The map has been surrounded by controversy since its discovery in 1950, with many scholars suspecting it was merely part of a hoax intended to prove that Vikings were the first Europeans to land in North America (a claim confirmed by an archaeological find in 1960).

• Amazing Laser Light Magician – Fantastic show, must watch. I was impressed, would love to see this live.

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 14th:

• Best Signature Ballpark Foods in the U.S. – I can't believe I'm linking to WomansDay. God. But this list, AND PHOTOS, of some of the fantastic dishes you'll find at the country's top major league stadiums will leave you hungry.

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 23rd through January 24th:

• Grow Tower – It's another GROW! These are just simply the best flash games out there, and this one delivers. Fun, fun fun.
• Scriball – Fun flash game where you draw a line that the ball follows. Click for jumping. Easily waste some time here.
• Ranking ALL of the Beatles Songs. – I don't agree with the placement of many of the songs, but I do find the list fantastic. He lists out reasons for each songs placement, and a little history about each song. I myself would have had Good Night and Dear Prudence higher. Same for "I've just seen a face" and "Across the Universe".
• Dummy Text Generator – This is an EXCELLENT Lorem Ipsum generator. Dummy text is text that is used in the publishing industry or by web designers to occupy the space which will later be filled with 'real' content. This is required when, for example, the final text is not yet available. Dummy text is also known as 'fill text'. It is said that song composers of the past used dummy texts as lyrics when writing melodies in order to have a 'ready-made' text to sing with the melody. Dummy texts have been in use by typesetters since the 16th century.
• Hidden Wine Cellar. – Wow, this is an amazing wine cellar. It's a trap-door in your floor that spirals down to a wine cellar. It's simply one of the greatest things I've ever seen.

Theresa Neil has an excellent article up on 12 standard design patterns.  These concepts are central to enterprise application and web productivity application design.

The image shown here is just a high-level overview of what those patterns are, and she delves into what each of these patterns are and what encompasses them.

Quick quote in regards to the Master/Detail pattern:

Master/Detail screen pattern can be vertical or horizontal. Ideal for creating an efficient user experience by allowing the user to stay in the same screen while navigating between items. Horizontal layout is a good choice when the user needs to see more information in the master list than just a few identifiers- or when the master view is comprised of a set of items that each have additional details.

A very useful article.    Lots of really good info.

These are my delicious links for January 5th through January 6th:

• Build a box with a hidden compartment. – This box has an inlaid wood exterior with a custom mermaid design, padded satin lining, and secret compartment in the bottom that is held closed magnetically and only opens if you know how to do it. I looked at a lot of historical furniture pieces for inspiration – Jefferson boxes, letter boxes, captain's desks and spice cabinets were all often built with very clever hidden compartments. The mechanism I used isn't based on anything historical, but it works well and isn't noticeable if you don't know to look for it.
• TiltShiftMaker – Create your tilt-shift picture – Easily transform your existing digital camera photos into tilt-shift miniatures using tiltshiftmaker.com.
• Top 36 Cool Backgrounds and Patterns Resources for all Designers – Searching for that perfect background for your design can be pretty difficult, from these resources you can browse through 1000s upon 1000s of backgrounds and patterns. Hopefully this will make your search that little bit easier, mind you with this number of resources it may make it harder.
• Top 50 movie special effects shots – Den of Geek – This is not a list of 'iconic' SFX shots, such as the opening shot in Star Wars or the final shot in Back To The Future, etc. There are many fantastic SFX shots in cinema history that are artistically 'awesome' without qualifying here. For the purposes of this list, a shot has to be either a) exceptionally convincing, b) ground-breaking or c) an exemplary execution of an oft-used technique. Only one shot is allowed per film.
• Stonehenge beneath the waters of Lake Michigan – Mark Holley, a professor of underwater archaeology at Northwestern Michigan University, discovered a series of stones – some of them arranged in a circle and one of which seemed to show carvings of a mastodon – 40-feet beneath the surface waters of Lake Michigan.
  If verified, the carvings could be as much as 10,000 years old – coincident with the post-Ice Age presence of both humans and mastodons in the upper midwest.
• 10 Promising Free Web Analytics Tools – Six Revisions – Web analytics is the process of gathering and analyzing your web content’s data in order to glean meaningful information about how your site is being utilized by your users. There are plenty of Web analytics applications out there, and you probably already know the big guns such as Google Analytics, Crazy Egg, and remote-site services such as Alexa and Compete.

  We go off the trodden path and explore a few lesser-known Web analytics options. In this article, you’ll find 10 excellent and free tools and applications to help you gather and analyze data about your web content.