Prefab housing isn't just for the..."thrifty" anymore! Yesterday Wired featured a selection of twelve modular, prefab housing units -- from lofts to place atop city skylines to 60 square-foot cabins with "cathedral ceilings". Today The NY Times reports that the idea has "become fashionable at architecture schools and among an upscale segment of the housing market." As such, MoMA has commissioned five architects to set up their prefab-ulous designs in their vacant lot on......

Brian Cox is widely admired for commanding performances in films like The Bourne Identity, Rushmore and the original Hannibal Lecter in Michael Mann’s Manhunter. But like most actors from across the pond, the Scottish Cox originally built his reputation on decades of tireless stage work in theaters around the word. Until the stagehands’ strike shut down Broadway, he could be seen in the role of Max, a diehard British Marxist and Cambridge professor in Tom......

Above is a picture of the observation towers at the New York State pavilion of the 1964-65 World's Fair in Flushing Meadows, Queens. A flickr member scanned the picture, and many others, after he found a scrapbook on the street in Cambridge, MA. He believes that the photos were taken by a woman named Lillian Seymour, who visited the World's Fair in 1965. The 1964-65 World's Fair in Queens was the only World's Fair......

The most charming weddings article in the NY Times today is not in the Styles section, but the City section: It's about the many Queens couples who get married at Queens Borough Hall, a three-and-a-half story brick building designed by William Gehron and Andrew J. Thomas. About 9,000 couples got married there last year, and after being married by a deputy city clerk, sometimes they pose in front of a retired Redbird Subway car that......

Newsweek released that latest list of 1,200 top high school rankings. It is precisely the kind of list that makes people many parts crazy, because their schools aren't listed at all or because their schools are listed and it'll drive up property prices. The NY Sun says that the list snubs the city, as none of the city's prestigious schools are listed in the top 100: "The top-ranked city school, the High School for......

LAist is experimenting with blogging dates from J-Date, but finds the best men are found offline. Some date vicariously online and that is one reason why porn is big -- really freaking big -- so they ask if they should cover XXX since the heart of it lays in the city's San Fernando Valley. A writer grapples with her food porn photography obsession, another gets censored on Flickr, one gets scooped by the LA......

The wedding season is in full swing: Second week in a row where there are over 30 weddings in the NY Times Weddings & Celebrations section. Here we go: Total Number of Weddings: 32 (including Vows column) Total Number of Same-Sex Weddings: 2 Youngest Bride: 24 Oldest Bride: 47 Youngest Groom: 24 Oldest Groom: 62 Biggest Age Difference: 17 years Number of Couples Where Bride and Groom Are the Same Age: 2 (24, 38) Number......

THEATER: Teflon war criminal and Nobel laureate Henry Kissinger made news again this week with the revelation that Dr. Strangelove has secretly cautioned against any troop withdrawal from Iraq because, just like ‘Nam, such action would “become like salted peanuts to the American public; the more troops come home, the more will be demanded.” Kissinger’s breathtaking contempt for democracy is matched only by his Machiavellian genius; both attributes are skewered to great effect in this......

LAist has so much fun this week! They go to E3, where they overhear the timeless remark "Man, this is where nerdy girls get laid." Is that a promise? They also give us this week's best CDs and make us realize that LA is the best place to use Zillow. Ah, Houstonist. They're biking to work, that is, if they can figure out how to get there. That's right, Mapquest says "Houston had the......

Another short Weddings and Celebrations, so let's jump in: Total Number of Weddings: 10 Total Number of Same-Sex Weddings: 0 Average Age of Brides: 35 Average Age of Grooms: 37.3 Youngest Bride: 26 Oldest Bride: 72 Youngest Groom: 26 Oldest Groom: 80 Average Age Difference: 2.7 years Largest Age Difference: 8 years Number of Older Brides: 1 Number of Older Grooms: 7 Number of Same-Age Couples: 2 Number of Native New Yorkers (State): 3 Number......

There is nothing better than food investigative journalism! Frank Bruni, the Times' food critic/restaurant reviewer, went undercover as a waiter for a week in order to gain insight on crazy diners, mercurial tipping, and knowing a restaurant inside out. His stint was at the East Coast Grill in Cambridge (better to avoid annoying NYC foodies!) and he posed as "Gavin," a freelance writer. We loved this part:I'm shadowing Tina, who has worked at the......

David Haskell, Topic Magazine...

Jeff Jarvis, Buzzmachine...

Thanksgiving is a little more than a week away, and Gothamist is gearing up for the best holiday of the year. (Why is it the best holiday? Because there's no gift-giving, people usually come together, and it involves ridiculous amounts of yummy comfort foods.) Our stomach growled a little louder this morning as we read the 12 Thanksgiving side dish recipes from different chefs in the Times today. Here they are: Sausage Stuffing With......

Every so often, news will pop up about various geniuses being autistic, based on books and essays about their behavior. Cambridge professor Simon Baron Cohenbelieve that Albert Einstein and Sir Issac Newton had Asperger's syndrome, a mild form of autism, which seems to explain their eccentricities and problems with socializing. There have been thoughts that Bill Gates is autistic, inspired by his rocking in chairs, his odd tics. "People with Asperger syndrome are often of......