Hall of Technical Documentation Weirdness Updated

After months of neglect, I finally updated the Hall of Technical Documentation Weirdness. The new Hall has 37 images (well up from the previous 15) and is easier to navigate, thanks to the excellent free image-management software, JAlbum.

Since I launched the Hall, I’ve been meaning to cite this bizarre press hit I got on it from the Italian Libero News. I asked my Italian-speaking ex-pat friend James to translate a paragraph:

The man who makes sense of senseless instructions is the American blogger Darren “Barefoot”. On his site, he has listed about 15 examples gathered from here and there. First in the list is a figure tripping over a curved line that extends out from a big box. The caption reads: “If you drop this packing box on a dog, be careful you don’t trip over its tail.”

I’m not sure how they concluded that I was American. The quotation marks around my last name are understandable, given its unlikelihood as a surname. James goes on to write that “the rest of the article describes other entries on your list – one that receives particular note is the dildo-like fitting (next to last in your list) – the commentary reads ‘No comment.'”

Regular readers may recall that back in August, 2003, I got Slashdotted. Fool that I am, I’ve submitted the revised Hall to Slashdot. While I don’t like my odds of acceptance (I’m batting about 3-for-11 for story submissions), I figured I’d chance it.

UPDATE: I see that my story submission was accepted by Slashdot, but it hasn’t been posted to the front page yet. Once it does, this site will probably get jacked for a few hours as the Slashdot Effect kicks in. I’ve warned my ISP, but there probably isn’t much they can or will do.