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If you don't like Marcellus Laroon's pictures of London street life in the late 1600s, perhaps Thomas Rowlandson's "Characteristic Sketches of the Lower Orders" from 1820 are more to your liking. Moving up in society, take a look at what the fat cat bankers of 1824 wore, courtesy of Richard Dighton and contrast them with the costumes of the lower orders as depicted by T. L. Busby in the same year. All found at the Spitalfields Life blog, which has an uncanny knack for finding these extraordinary depictions of London street life in previous centuries.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:19 PM PST - 11 comments

How to think of the risks of Autism. "As a statistically minded neuroscientist, I suggest a different approach that relies on a concept we are familiar with: relative odds. As a single common measuring stick to compare odds, I have chosen the “risk ratio,” a measure that allows the bigger picture to come into focus." A succint NYT op-ed that is also a good primer on assessing health risks in general as well as the impact of media coverage on skewing risk perception.
posted by storybored at 10:02 PM PST - 20 comments

“Just as leaves in a tree are naturally arranged to get the maximum sun, we’ve mathematically arranged these balconies and cantilevers to catch and shade the sun.”
posted by bswinburn at 9:17 PM PST - 29 comments

How Reader's Digest Became a Chinese Stooge Larkin was delighted when Reader's Digest said it would take her work for one of its anthologies of condensed novels. Thirst would reach a global audience and – who knows? – take off. Reader's Digest promised "to ensure that neither the purpose nor the opinion of the author is distorted or misrepresented", and all seemed well. [more inside]
posted by modernnomad at 9:14 PM PST - 39 comments

Holy shit! I don't like to editorialize, but someone needs to give this nine year old a recording contract, stat!
posted by dobbs at 6:57 PM PST - 42 comments

Daniel Johnston and The Swell Season (Glen Hansard) on Austin City Limits.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 5:45 PM PST - 23 comments

Alz is a flash-game/short-film about what it's like to live with Alzheimer's. (SLNG, via)
posted by tybeet at 4:35 PM PST - 7 comments

45 Safety Rules written and illustrated by an eight-year-old.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 3:43 PM PST - 56 comments

S For Snail. Pictures of whimsical molluscs.
posted by jrossi4r at 2:53 PM PST - 6 comments

Why Scandal beats House Of Cards at its own game
Why ‘Scandal’ can’t hold a candle to ‘House of Cards’
Barack Obama Says Life in D.C. is “More Boring” Than Scandal and House of Cards Depict [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 1:49 PM PST - 61 comments

Actor Brian Cox meets Professor Brian Cox. After having been mistaken for one another for years, even to the point of apparently being invited to events when the other was expected, the two Brian Coxes hadn't previously met. Now here they are bumping into one another live on camera at the Empire Film Awards (on YouTube).
posted by feelinglistless at 1:30 PM PST - 24 comments

“What your mind believes, your body manifests.” Executive charisma coach Olivia Fox Cabane says she can make anyone more likable—for a price. But can charisma really be taught?
posted by rcraniac at 12:21 PM PST - 38 comments

Neither dead or alive, knife-wound or gunshot victims will be cooled down and placed in suspended animation later this month, as a groundbreaking emergency technique is tested out for the first time.
posted by latkes at 11:36 AM PST - 65 comments

What did Mozart do all day? A poster breaks down the daily habits and self-reported routines of hundreds of composers, painters, writers, scientists, etc to illustrate how people find the time to construct their work.
posted by The Whelk at 10:22 AM PST - 68 comments

Rwanda: 20 years later
posted by infini at 9:47 AM PST - 13 comments

An interview with physicist Freeman Dyson in Quanta magazine.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 8:51 AM PST - 32 comments

Veiled Truths by Hossein Fatemi [New York Times] [ Photo essay.] Photographs of women in Iran — who still face censure for insufficiently modest dress — through their hijabs.
posted by Fizz at 8:17 AM PST - 10 comments

Coltrane in "A love supreme" sessions. "Whenever photographer Chuck Stewart was hired by a record company to document a recording session, he would shoot during the rehearsal takes. Recently, his son David was browsing through his archives when he found six undeveloped rolls of film from December 1964, 50 years ago.. They portrayed saxophonist John Coltrane . . . with his quartet, making a work that would soon be hailed as a masterpiece and a landmark of 20th-century music: A Love Supreme." [more inside]
posted by goofyfoot at 7:20 AM PST - 9 comments

Geoff Dyer writes about having a stroke, and about life and light in California.
posted by Lezzles at 6:12 AM PST - 24 comments

More visualizations of the personification of our favorite search engine - now with added competitors! [more inside]
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 12:59 AM PST - 17 comments