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English churches can be very picturesque. People have very strong opinions about their favorites. They can be colorfully decorated with painted walls,(previously) or filled with strange animals carvings! There is a complex architectural terminology devoted to the details of their construction. [more inside]
posted by winna at 10:29 PM PST - 13 comments

Molly Paxton, Carrie Figdor, and Valerie Tiberius have a new paper in Hypatia quantifying the gender gap in philosophy (pdf). [more inside]
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 10:27 PM PST - 52 comments

Tonight, for only the third time in Major League Baseball history, a player (Kendrys Morales of the Los Angeles Angels) hit two home runs in the same inning, one from each side of the plate. Morales' second home run of the inning was a grand slam, his first since the ill-fated events of 5/29/10, when he suffered a freak ankle injury jumping onto home plate in celebration of his game-winning hit, just as his career was really beginning to take off. Morales subsequently missed nearly two full seasons of baseball, returning just this year.
posted by The Gooch at 10:08 PM PST - 19 comments

During his tenure as Mayor of New York City, "public health autocrat" Michael Bloomberg has attempted to regulate trans fats, smoking and sugar-filled sodas. Now, he has a fresh target: moms who don't breastfeed. Beginning September 3, NYC hospitals participating in a new, voluntary program: Latch-On NYC (press release / posters / FAQ -pdf-), will make formula less accessible, to encourage moms of newborns to breastfeed instead of using formula. [more inside]
posted by zarq at 9:35 PM PST - 231 comments

A Day Job Waiting for a Kill Shot a World Away (SLNYT)
posted by destrius at 8:05 PM PST - 79 comments

Formula 1 powerhouse McLaren not only designs good cars, they've commissioned a series of YouTube cartoons featuring Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton, their current drivers. Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:47 PM PST - 10 comments

The Castaway's Guide To Making A Home: What do people do when they're shipwrecked on a deserted isle?
posted by Chrysostom at 7:07 PM PST - 39 comments

Simple Desks: A frequently updated collection of beautifully minimal desks and workspaces, interspersed with occasional musings on minimalism, productivity, design and technology
posted by Egg Shen at 7:01 PM PST - 48 comments

By late May, more than ten million copies of E.L. James’s Fifty Shades trilogy, an erotic romance series about the sexual exploits of a domineering billionaire and an inexperienced coed, had been sold in the United States, all within six weeks of the books’ publication here. This apparently unprecedented achievement occurred without the benefit of a publicity campaign, formal reviews, or Oprah’s blessing, owing to a reputation established, as one industry analyst put it, “totally through word of mouth.” [Grey Area: How ‘Fifty Shades’ Dominated the Market]
posted by vidur at 6:46 PM PST - 101 comments

Quiltsrÿche Who needs dope licks when you have fussy cuts? Boo Davis's punk and metal inspired-quilts. This ain't your granny's rock-and-roll muslin. [more inside]
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 5:04 PM PST - 17 comments

Maritime Monday. (No NSFW images in this link, but some weeks there will be a random picture or two of a topless mer-person or sailor.)
posted by resurrexit at 4:19 PM PST - 12 comments

"The Heretic: For decades, the U.S. government banned medical studies of the effects of LSD. But for one longtime, elite researcher, the promise of mind-blowing revelations was just too tempting." [more inside]
posted by andoatnp at 3:31 PM PST - 113 comments

Moonrise Kingdom opens with Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra. Similar to Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf (a version narrated by David Bowie, part 1 with the character introductions), the Guide uses a narrator to identify the principal instruments. The movie closes with (non-plot spoilers): [more inside]
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 2:08 PM PST - 32 comments

Debunking Five Myths of the Viking Appearance. [more inside]
posted by Atreides at 11:17 AM PST - 138 comments

This Is How Olympic Swimmers Really Look While Diving.
posted by Fizz at 11:16 AM PST - 54 comments

Jonah Lehrer resigns from New Yorker after making up Dylan quotes for his book. Tablet report is cached. (Previously.)
posted by Avenger50 at 11:05 AM PST - 206 comments

Bikinis that match book covers. Matchbook is a tumblr that features bikinis that unintentionally match the cover art of well known books.
posted by sweetkid at 10:55 AM PST - 33 comments

Is it possible to make a living in the arts? Meet the double jobbers.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 10:39 AM PST - 37 comments

Writer decides to walk for a week in a place where cars are the rule. [more inside]
posted by skepticallypleased at 10:15 AM PST - 98 comments

"Let’s Map Who Owes The Local Warlord Money": Meet An Urban Planner For Cities That Don't Yet Exist (via Small Wars Journal). [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:12 AM PST - 6 comments

Boolean Buddhas I started to combine multiple copies of the Buddha model with simple shapes, using boolean operations. [more inside]
posted by dubold at 9:03 AM PST - 24 comments

Excellence is mundane. Excellence is accomplished through the doing of actions, ordinary in themselves, performed consistently and carefully, habitualized, compounded together, added up over time.: An Ethnographic Report on Stratification and Olympic Swimmers (1989) [more inside]
posted by latkes at 8:59 AM PST - 9 comments

The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic : Richard A. Muller is a physicist, teacher, and author. His popular "Physics for Future Presidents" course is available for free online (previously). Yet Muller has a more controversial side: Climate skeptic. But last year, his Koch-funded Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project confirmed global warming is real and today, an OpEd in the New York Times states that humans are almost entirely the cause. [more inside]
posted by gwint at 8:58 AM PST - 60 comments

Kid President gives Pen Ward the first Medal of Awesome! Ward is the creator of Adventure Time! (Previously &)
posted by dobbs at 8:14 AM PST - 51 comments

RUN. HIDE. FIGHT. A PSA by The City of Houston released three days after the Aurora masacre.
posted by splatta at 6:41 AM PST - 214 comments

Scouting New York (previously) presents "The Filming Locations of Annie Hall," Part 1 and Part 2.
posted by griphus at 6:41 AM PST - 41 comments

Ever wonder what it would be like to experience what a firefighter sees? Here's a helmet cam of working inside a burning building. [slyt]
posted by quin at 5:31 AM PST - 64 comments

Chris Marker, director of La Jetée and Sans Soleil, among many others, and co-writer of 12 Monkeys, has died at age 91. English obit. French obit. Article on Chris Marker in the Guardian from 2002. Another appreciation from 2002. La Jetée on YouTube. Previously. Previouslier.
posted by chavenet at 5:11 AM PST - 70 comments

Neuro Images posts images of brains and art based on them. Some of them are beautiful; some of them are grotesque; some of them are confronting or sad (the complete series is here); and some of them are strangely reminiscent. (previously)
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:04 AM PST - 9 comments