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9:21 p.m. — Richard Keil of Bloomberg News leaned across the aisle, shoved aside his I-Pod headset and grinned as he said: “The President of the United States is AWOL, and we’re with him. The ultimate road trip.”

Drudge has the unedited notes of Washington Post reporter Mike Allen during the recent Presidential trip to Baghdad. (The Washington Post ran a news article and a polished, edited “behind-the-scenes” account by Mike Allen.)

As my niece would say, “Windy! Windy!” There’s a wind advisory in effect until the morning — at Clover Airfield the winds are N20 gusting to 30 MPH. I had to move my lawn chairs and potted plant to a leeward side of the house!

Via λ the Ultimate: Why Functional Programming Matters. A wonderful paper (despite its age) touching on lazy evaluation, functional programming patterns, and uses as examples numerical differentiation and alpha-beta pruning. Abstract:

As software becomes more and more complex, it is more and more important to structure it well. Well-structured software is easy to write, easy to debug, and provides a collection of modules that can be re-used to reduce future programming costs. Conventional languages place conceptual limits on the way problems can be modularised. Functional languages push those limits back. In this paper we show that two features of functional languages in particular, higher-order functions and lazy evaluation, can contribute greatly to modularity. As examples, we manipulate lists and trees, program several numerical algorithms, and implement the alpha-beta heuristic (an algorithm from Artificial Intelligence used in game-playing programs). Since modularity is the key to successful programming, functional languages are vitally important to the real world.

Oh, man. I thought that the Turkey-flavored Jones soda was fictitious. Well, apparently, it’s real.

McSweeney’s: Inaugural Speeches From Our Action Heroes. He-Man, Jem, Lion-O, and Optimus Prime graciously accept the reins of the country. “Thank you and God bless. Thundercats Ho!”

“To make a long story short, don’t go to Fry’s unless you want to spend like five hundred dollars you don’t actually have.” —Penny-Arcade’s Tycho, who until recently was unacquainted with Fry’s Electronics.

“Usability without innovation represents failure. Innovation without usability merely means we aren’t done yet.” [via djslim]