Culture & Religion — August 4, 2010

Thom Filicia Knows Good Taste

Interior design star Thom Filicia just stopped by the Big Think offices to tell us a thing or two about good taste and what it takes to be a tastemaker. Surprisingly, he said bad taste isn’t actually the worst thing—it’s better to be tacky than to be boring, he said. He also said that Lady Gaga is worthy of all the hype she’s received in the past year, told us why the interior of the Four Seasons is his favorite space in Manhattan, and talked about why doing Queer Eye for the Straight Guy was like “coming out every day—for three years!”

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a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

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7 min

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with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

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