Whoops

August 30, 2009 6:12 AM

It really isn't safe out there.Click any link and scroll down for up close shipping and aircraft disasters.
posted by adamvasco (17 comments total)

Um, I bet there's something at this site but the circa-1999 design does a great job of hiding it.
posted by tommasz at 6:16 AM on August 30

I imagine this being narrated in the voice of the "future of AT&T ads":

"DO YOU FOLLOW OUR DAILY REPORTS OF VESSEL CASUALTIES?

YOU SHOULD !"
posted by odinsdream at 6:37 AM on August 30

Terrible organization, unreadable layout, obnoxious animated GIF's and pervasive grammatical and spelling errors all combine to make the content the elusive prize in a web browser easter egg hunt. I almost wish I had browsed this on a mobile device to add to the unusability of the site, thus accentuating the pleasure of actually finding the funny pictures and stories.
posted by idiopath at 6:55 AM on August 30 [2 favorites]

Jesuit Crêpes, that site is a hunting-for-content nightmare.
posted by moonbiter at 7:10 AM on August 30

Don't forget the archives of the US Naval Safety Center, source of pretty much every photo of people doing stupid things you've ever seen.

And "circa-1999" is giving that site way too much design credit.
posted by range at 7:11 AM on August 30 [12 favorites]

See, I knew icanhascheeseburger.com could open more sister sites!
posted by jeffburdges at 7:24 AM on August 30

Web 0.7?
posted by Evilspork at 7:51 AM on August 30

Hey, I've been there before! (And to the Naval Safety Center, of course.)

I ended up at cargolaw.com after looking up the MV Ital Florida, which was immortalised in the "Your Shipment of Fail Has Arrived" image macro. The cargolaw.com page for the Ital Florida mishap is here.

And yes, cargolaw.com's design may actually predate the Web, their command of the English language is patchy, and they do inexplicable things like run images as GIFs instead of better-looking, smaller JPEGs.

But if you need a big ol' dose of uncut schadenfreude, it's still a fantastic site.
posted by dansdata at 8:07 AM on August 30 [1 favorite]

(Many of the Naval Safety Center photos only promise a dude falling on his head and/or having something heavy fall on him, possibly while everything's sliding down a road; those ones get kind of samey after a while. But then, there's this one.)
posted by dansdata at 8:27 AM on August 30

I recommend the 60-second Web 2.0 fix: just change the font from Times New Roman to Verdana/Helvetica.
posted by crapmatic at 8:31 AM on August 30

yes, yes, hideous site design, but amazing photos. Did any of you even look at them? I love the sea and appreciate the opportunity to see photos, for example, of a ship at 90 degrees.
posted by MLIS at 8:35 AM on August 30

More like circa 1997 and designed by a person who learned web design out of a magazine (as I did back then).
posted by autodidact at 9:00 AM on August 30

hint: Click on the "go directly to article" link down in the lower left, Before I found that I kept pushing the "forgot what I'm looking at" button.
posted by StickyCarpet at 9:20 AM on August 30

Compelling content goes a long way to forgive poor site design.

But I'm not sure it goes that far.
posted by mazola at 9:41 AM on August 30

amazing photos. Did any of you even look at them?

I'm still trying to find one.
posted by jamaro at 10:07 AM on August 30 [2 favorites]

This one is pretty astonishing. Taking a SAM hit on an engine just after takeoff and limping it back in one piece is amazing. This is not a scenario a commercial transport pilot often drills for...
posted by bitmage at 1:04 PM on August 30

I'm still trying to find one.

The trick is to find the link on the destination page that says "Go Directly To The Feature". Click that... that's what you really want to see. I can't imagine why the site was designed that way.
posted by dammitjim at 2:27 AM on August 31