The Tremendous 10 link roundup, #103

1. Learn what PDFs are | Tremendousness helped Adobe explain, in the most basic and clear way, exactly what PDFs are. Take a minute and fifteen seconds to check out the animated video.
2. W.E.B. Du Bois’ hand-drawn infographics from “The Exhibit of American Negroes” | “W.E.B. Du Bois was an American author, sociologist, historian, and activist. Apparently Du Bois was also a designer and design director of some talent as these hand-drawn infographics show.”
3. George Saunders Demystifies the Art of Storytelling in a Short Animated Documentary | “An interesting thing happens when you read certain of George Saunders’ stories. At first, you see the satirist at work, skewering American meanness and banality with the same unsparing knife’s edge as earlier postmodernists like John Barth or Donald Barthelme. Then you begin to notice something else taking shape… something perhaps unexpected: compassion. Rather than serving as paper targets of Saunders’ dark humor, his misguided characters come to seem like real people, people he cares about; and the real target of his satire becomes a culture that alienates and devalues those people.”
4. Stanley Kubrick’s typography | “It’s become common knowledge that Stanley Kubrick was a Futura fan. But did he use it very often?”
5. This Story About David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust Haircut is Amazing | “Suzi Ronson, the woman behind David Bowie’s iconic Ziggy Stardust haircut, explains how the look came to be.”
6. Spend the Money for the Good Boots, and Wear Them Forever | “I like buying high-quality things. And for the longest time, I’ve had this sneaking suspicion that buying high-quality stuff, which perhaps initially was more expensive, actually saved me money in the long run. It wasn’t until very recently, though, that I noticed a strong argument in support of my hunch.”
7. Husbands Are Deadlier Than Terrorists | “Consider two critical issues: refugees and guns. Trump is going berserk over the former, but wants to ease rules on the latter. So let’s look at the relative risks. In the four decades between 1975 and 2015, terrorists born in the seven nations in Trump’s travel ban killed zero people in America, according to the Cato Institute. Zero. In that same period, guns claimed 1.34 million lives in America, including murders, suicides and accidents. That’s about as many people as live in Boston and Seattle combined.”
8. The Story Behind TIME’s Trump Chaos Cover | “For the Feb. 27 cover of TIME on the chaos surrounding the initial days of the Trump administration we turned to Brooklyn-based artist Tim O’Brien. A long-time TIME collaborator, O’Brien’s work has appeared on over two dozen TIME covers since 1989, with subjects ranging from Pope Benedict XVI to Osama Bin Laden. His imaginative style and gift for detail made him the right choice to create a portrait of disruption in the White House.”
9. How to Reduce Your Anxiety about the News & Protect Your Psyche | “There are two kinds of anxiety: neurotic anxiety, which is characterized by over-rumination, looping thoughts, and generally unproductive worrying, and normal anxiety, which is what Kierkegaard talks about — the anxiety that we are able, the fear of our own potential, the ‘possibility of possibility.’ In this unique socio-political moment, I think we have to be very careful about which of these two types of anxiety we are indulging in.”
10. How do we design the news for people who are burned out? | “Since the election, many people I know who don’t work in news have taken a break from the news, social media or some combination of the two. This is healthy and normal. Taking a small break from the news is recommended by psychologists who study the negative health effects caused by constant bad news… How can we best meet their needs? Some ideas are below. Please build on these, or make them better!”

Image: infographic by W.E.B. Du Bois, link #2.