Internet Wading: The return

It’s been a very long time since I shared some of the miscellany I run across on the Internet, and the first of the month is as good a time as any to resume. As it happens, Roger Green, from whom I stole borrowed this blogging idea, just posted his latest Rambling post. I’m still, um, internet wading through the links.

So, to start things out, how about “18 True Size Maps That Prove Maps Have Been Lying To You”? Naturally, I knew about these, or so I'm claiming.

Like a lot of other people, I’m excited that “A Landslide of Classic Art Is About to Enter the Public Domain”. It’s the first time in TWO DECADES that we’ve had such a trove enter the public domain, and there’ll probably be a lot of long-forgotten stuff in that, the result, in part, from stupidly-written copyright laws.

Or, maybe something more practical is in order. How about “Wiki Has Released Over 83,500 Vintage Sewing Patterns Online For Download”. Or, you can skip the talk about it and go directly to the Wiki and start sewing. I don’t sew, but my mother did, and used sewing patterns, so I’m familiar with the concept. Mainly, I think it’s fascinating to look at old designs and what people once thought looked good.

Photography has always fascinated me, as has painting and other visual arts. I’m not necessarily any good at any of that, but, for me, the trying is what I enjoy. I’m also fascinated by colour, and, specifically, how human skin tone is depicted. A few years ago I shared a video about how colour film was made for white people. Well, now I’ve seen something that drives this point even farther: “This Artist Took 4,000 Portraits to Show the Range of Human Skin Color—and the Results Exceeded the Pantone Library”. Pantone® is the colour-match standard used in printing, and it, or the CMYK equivalents, are used to make up every colour possible (which in this case means printable). What the project showed is that skin colour is far more varied that most people realise, and that means that race really is a social construct. But, then, all of you already knew that.

Okay, that’s enough for this outing. It’s been a long time, and I don’t want to burn myself out.

Colour Wheel illustration By László Németh [CC0], from Wikimedia Commons.