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Awesome disabled dancers: Clayton ‘Peg Leg’ Bates, the one legged tap dancer, via, playing a pirate l Reynaldo Ojeda does a fabulous one legged salsa l Chinese Disabled Performing Arts Troupe (they are deaf) doing the Thousand Armed Buddha of Compassion Dance l armless ballet dancer, Simona Atzori, (who paints as well) l Mahesh, "I can dance...without legs." [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 10:59 PM PST - 16 comments

B U R M A [Via Crikey] and "M" link quite disturbing [more inside]
posted by mattoxic at 9:46 PM PST - 48 comments

Any experienced studio engineer or producer knows that the presence of visitors in the studio can dramatically affect the performance of singers and musicians. Using advanced proprietary computer modelling, the Virtual Studio Visitor plug-in convincingly emulates the effect of various studio visitors on a performance, without the need for the visitors to actually be present. Also from the visionaries at Sonic Finger: the Dead Quietenator provides you with the highest quality pure digital silence, including several highly sought-after vintage silences previously unattainable.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:44 PM PST - 20 comments

Mine was The Fixx opening for A Flock Of Seagulls in '82 when I was 12 and it was the first time I smoked dope... I know this is the worst kind of query-Metafilter post but I can't resist. It is a fun article and I bet you have a better story.
posted by St Urbain's Horseman at 9:37 PM PST - 215 comments

In October 1947, the directors of J. Lyons & Co (think - teashops, nippies, bakeries, ice-creams, steakhouses, hotels, Wimpy Bars and Dunkin' Donuts), decided to take an active role in promoting the commercial development of computers. In 1951 the LEO I computer was operational and ran the world's first regular routine office computer job.
posted by tellurian at 8:53 PM PST - 13 comments

Dick Cavett had a nice little run on T.V. He became quite a celebrity based on his intellectual conversations with notable persons of the time.
posted by snsranch at 7:41 PM PST - 43 comments

The Faces of War, a fascinating document of the prosthetic masks used to cover serious facial injuries from the battlefield. Before plastic surgery was widely practised and used to reconstruct the horrific facial injuries of the First World War soldiers, men with the most serious facial injured were often hidden away from society.

Men such as those recorded in watercolour, and in pastels (warning: some may find these images disturbing); patients of Harold Gillies, pioneer of facial reconstruction at Queen's Hospital, Sidcup, the wars major centre for facial reconstruction and plastic surgery.
posted by chrisbucks at 7:08 PM PST - 24 comments

Ladies, please remove your hats. Irate parents wrote indignant letters to the principal. Make do and mend. Teddy boys (the first real manifestation of youth culture?): horsewhip all of 'em. You can take a maxi up but you can't let a mini down. Although midis did have some compensations. [more inside]
posted by frobozz at 5:06 PM PST - 13 comments

I got a gal in Kalamazoo, and a lucky number. Jumpin Jive! Is that the Chatanooga Choo-choo? No, even better! It's the Nicholas Brothers!
posted by louche mustachio at 5:00 PM PST - 10 comments

Exit Music. The King of Tartan Noir, Ian Rankin has retired his detective John Rebus. Ageing him with each novel, Rebus has finally reached the retirement age at Edinburgh CID; Although that may not stop him... [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:46 PM PST - 18 comments

Last weekend's PICNIC'07 conference in Amsterdam featured a Green Challenge: to come up with the best marketable green idea that could be developed and sold to consumers within two years. Dutch decentralized renewable energy company Qurrent took down the big €500,000 prize for the Qbox: a device which creates optimizing energy algorithms for all devices in a home. See also: Green Thing.
posted by chuckdarwin at 1:42 PM PST - 10 comments

Andy Samberg and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sittin' in a tree...
posted by maryh at 1:23 PM PST - 40 comments

Apparently the lead singer from Tool has had sex with many of the luminaries of Country Music. [more inside]
posted by jonson at 1:00 PM PST - 59 comments

This summer, the White House, pushed by the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney, requested that the Joint Chiefs of Staff redraw long-standing plans for a possible attack on Iran, according to former officials and government consultants... Now the emphasis is on 'surgical' strikes on Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran and elsewhere, which, the Administration claims, have been the source of attacks on Americans in Iraq. What had been presented primarily as a counter-proliferation mission has been reconceived as counterterrorism... The former intelligence official added...'Meanwhile, the politicians are saying, 'You can’t do it, because every Republican is going to be defeated, and we’re only one fact from going over the cliff in Iraq.' But Cheney doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the Republican worries, and neither does the President.'

Shifting Targets by Seymour Hersh
See also 'The President Has Accepted Ethnic Cleansing'
posted by y2karl at 12:25 PM PST - 148 comments

In 1975, armed with a big pile of 8-track car stereos and a whole lot of moxie, Dave Biro set out to change the sound of rock music. He failed spectacularly. This is the fascinating and tragic story of one of the rarest instruments in rock music- The Birotron. [more inside]
posted by 40 Watt at 12:14 PM PST - 19 comments

You can print a line on a Epson Printer located in Brugg, Switzerland. There is a live video stream to see what you're printing as well as a light switch so you're not printing in the dark (snapshot).
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:13 PM PST - 26 comments

Deanna Molinaro's Not-for-Children Books consist of two bizarre picture books involving sea creatures, and a surprisingly touching story about an alligator. While you're there, check out a few additional paintings and drawings.
posted by CrunchyFrog at 11:27 AM PST - 10 comments

Language Log is a great linguistics blog I have been reading, and I thought that Metafilter might be interested in these posts about sex differences in language use. The (less-technical) articles to which the bloggers are responding are all within the responses, so I didn't link to them. The Barry White Effect (voice pitch seems to correlate with reproduction) - Gabby Guys (men talk more than women) - Young Men Talk Like Old Women (usage of certain words) - Gender and Tags ("Certainly we don't seem to find real women and men as sums of the characteristics attributed to them") Are any of these differences actually caused by the speakers sex? The really fascinating thing, to me, is how unbelievably hard it is to study such a distinction.
posted by MNDZ at 9:36 AM PST - 18 comments

I am not a number, I am a free man. Forty years ago "The Prisoner" made it's American debut on CBS. A surreal and challenging science fiction series that follows "Number 6," a former government operative sent into a seemingly idyllic but twisted prison known as "The Village". Over the course of seventeen episodes, Number 6 struggles to retain his identity in the face of sophisticated and relentless attempts by the powers-that-be (led by people known only as "No. 2") to extract his secrets. It ended with a final episode that defies explanation and caused it's writer (the show's star Patrick McGoohan) to go into hiding after it aired. [more inside]
posted by inthe80s at 9:31 AM PST - 79 comments

National Geographic Magazine is all about the photos. Check out the Editor's Choices. Other goodness includes the Daily Dozen, a jigsaw puzzle generator, and user-generated photo galleries.
posted by RussHy at 9:10 AM PST - 9 comments

After a six hour swim, Karen Gaffney finished crossing Lake Tahoe. She's also done the English Channel as part of a relay. Karen also has Down syndrome and is a motivational speaker. [more inside]
posted by plinth at 8:08 AM PST - 6 comments

Craig Murray censored for attacking Alisher Usmanov. Ex UK ambassador to Uzbeckistan; Crag Murray has had his blog dumped by fasthosts and the bloggers (302 so far) fight back. Euro MP Tom Wise repeats some of Murrays allegations which have been published on the European Parliament website. Lots of Shenanigans; The controversy; An extremely rich man was accused of being a Vicious Thug, Criminal, Racketeer, Heroin Trafficker and Accused Rapist Oh, and he also wants to buy Arsenal FC.
posted by adamvasco at 5:36 AM PST - 14 comments

Remember this? It's content-aware image resizing. Well, now it's alive online. [more inside]
posted by flibbertigibbet at 5:03 AM PST - 28 comments

Thousand Islands The Thousand Islands are a chain of islands that straddle the U.S.-Canada border in the Saint Lawrence River as it emerges from the northeast corner of Lake Ontario. The islands stretch for about 50 mi (80 km) downstream from Kingston, Ontario. The Canadian islands are in the province of Ontario. The U.S. islands are in the state of New York. The islands, which number 1,865 in all, range in size from over 100 km² to smaller islands occupied by a single residence, to even smaller uninhabited outcroppings of rocks that are home to migratory waterfowl. [more inside]
posted by psmealey at 4:09 AM PST - 35 comments

The new Radiohead album is now available for pre-order from the band's website. How much for the download version you ask? Name your own price.
posted by gfrobe at 2:13 AM PST - 201 comments