Scout Tufankjian has a ton of truly great photos of Obama (and other people / events, as well). The guy's photogenic, and she's a great photographer.

(via)

The web was originally designed to allow scientists to share data:

The WorldWideWeb (WWW) project aims to allow links to be made to any information anywhere. [...] The WWW project was started to allow high energy physicists to share data, news, and documentation. We are very interested in spreading the web to other areas, and having gateway servers for other data. Collaborators welcome!" —from Tim Berners-Lee's first message

Today, you can search for hours for information on a topic - "deblurring algorithm", for example - and not find a single paper that isn't hidden behind a pay-per-download page. Oh well. I hope the authors of those papers get a cut of the download fees, at least.

From the Daily WTF:

Hello All,

A techie named A--- M---- will be coming this Weds the 14th by 9:30 to help us with
any remaining IT problems we’re having. He’s helped us a couple of times here before,
and I’ve used him personally for several years. Warning for those who haven’t met
him – he’s a very strange, ultra intense guy – but very efficient and seemingly
knowledgeable and competent. He’s always been able to solve my problems within a
fairly quick time frame.

Don’t be alarmed if he tries to give you a DVD about 9-11 issues – it was our deal
with him that he would give us his old $40/hr rate if we would agreed to watch this
DVD, which apparently (I still haven’t watched it) is some diatribe against the US
govt, which he utterly mistrusts – along with all the machinery of establishment
generally. My advice: don’t chat with him (more than necessary to be civil) or you’ll
get an earful about all this!

Otherwise a nice guy… I promise!

Yikes!

Ludacris’ Hos

Nine Inch Ear Hair

Hey, did you know that Obama is actually going to end up winning Texas overall ? No ?

Funny how that works.

Continue reading →

The great Tuck Andress on the Wes Montgomery style of guitar playing:

1.1.3 Wes Montogomery technique of down and up strokes with flesh of thumb (not actually a pick technique at all): This is like becoming a superhero: Everyone reads the comic, many buy the Superman outfit, but few actually end up using their super powers to save the human race. If one wears the outfit too long without saving humanity or at least flashing some super powers, one may begin to look a little silly.

Advantages: The sound and feel of flesh on strings are extremely satisfying.

Disadvantages: Getting a clear and consistent tone on upstrokes is virtually impossible, the stuff of superheroes. I kept working on this in parallel to all the picking techniques I tried, but I tried not to wear the outfit in public too much for fear of embarrassment.

Tuck has super powers. No worries there.

Watch this one to the end... the guy's the best.