Internet picks of the week

Curbed

This busy blog is primarily concerned with high-end estate agent listings of US property, but beyond the gated communities lie plenty of voyeuristic thrills, from the palatial power pads of the world's richest people to a Google executive's interior design quirks and Mary J Blige's sales techniques. Elsewhere are famous buildings recreated in Lego; a Taiwanese love motel's interiors which feature a slightly alarming Batman-themed suite; and a recent entry with all the English country homes Stanley Kubrick used as film locations (the Manhattan townhouse in Eyes Wide Shut was Luton Hoo in Bedfordshire).

Bangable Dudes In History

It may make historical scholars recoil, but TV and film's recent appetite for bodice rippers has eroticised a subject that many previously found dusty and dull. Here, under the subtitle "dead man porn for your still beating heart", blogger and Harry Potter fan Megan reassesses men and women from history – not for their impact on society but for their hotness. Each entry comes with a pie-chart to justify her particular choice – 19% of Edward VIII's fitness is attributed to marrying someone else's wife. It's brilliantly funny and absolutely no one is off limits. She speculates whether Stalin's nickname of "steel" referred to "his buns" and for "historic boner No. 15: Lewis Powell", she overlooks that he was a racist and a violent killer and focuses instead on his handsome pecs and the fact that he "cared for sick and stray animals … cuuuuute".