Not my practice blog, by Scott Knaster

What's on Ashlee's iPod?

Check it out.

John Kerry for President

When it comes to voting for president, the first fact I realized is this: obviously, either George Bush or John Kerry will win the election, so I'm not interested in voting for anybody else. I believe Kerry can be a great president, although I'm not sure -- but I am absolutely sure that Bush does not deserve to be re-elected.

If you believe Pres. Bush has not earned re-election, but you're not sure about Kerry, consider this: we're not just electing a person, we're likely electing (indirectly) more than one Supreme Court justice, who will affect our laws and lives for decades.

Do you disagree with John Ashcroft's priorities in law enforcement? If Kerry wins, Ashcroft is gone.

Bush, who calls himself a conservative, inherited a budget surplus but created huge deficits. If you're a conservative, do you support that?

The Bush administration manipulated facts and the media to start a war in Iraq that has cost tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars so far. Why are we there? Do you feel safer because we invaded Iraq?

There's substantial evidence that Bush did too little to fight terrorism before 9/11. A Presidential briefing called "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States" was given to Bush a month before 9/11, but no action was taken.

I'm voting for Kerry and I hope you do, too.

Seeking PhotoShop hacker

I'm looking for someone who can do a super quick (like, today) PhotoShop-y project -- hacking an image. If you're interested, send me mail. Thanks!

Total Lunar Eclipse

Don't miss the total eclipse of the moon tomorrow night (that's Wednesday, pal)! Hope for clear skies!

O'Reilly Mac OS X Conference

I'm going to be hanging out at the Mac OS X Conference this week. If you're there too, look me up for a cuppa coffee!

Baseball and math

Ever since I was a little nerdling, I've been interested in baseball and the numbers that surround it. I learned that certain numbers were sacred and unchangeable: 2130, 714, 257, etc. All those are gone now. I watched them fall.

Another unchangeable fact is that no team in the history of baseball has ever lost the first 3 games of a best-of-7 series, then come back to win the next 4. Never happens. When the Giants faced an 0-3 deficit in the 1989 World Series, and pitcher Mike Krukow was told that "history" would prevent them from coming back, he responded "King Farouk history!" (because he was on the radio and couldn't say what he meant: "Fuck history!").

And now this one is gone too:

Baseball had played 100 previous postseasons heading into this October. In those, there had been 136 best-of-seven (or longer) series. And not only had no team ever come back to win the series after losing the first three games, none had even forced a seventh game. Only the 1999 Mets forced a sixth game. Only five teams before the Red Sox even forced a fifth game.

And then the Red Sox beat the Yankees four consecutive games.

King Farouk history! And Go Sox!

Good old Segway

Has Segway passed into nostalgia now? Check out this recent Blondie comic strip -- go here and get the comic for Saturday, October 2.

New U2

Here.
"Uno, dos, tres, catorce"? What's up with that? John?
It's funny, though.

Birthday database

For a freaky Orwellian good time, check out Anybirthday.com. There you'll find a database of the birthdates of (so they say) 135 million people. From the FAQ:

Q: How did you get the information contained in your database?
A: This information was obtained from Public Records.

There you go!
(I read about this at Diane's place.

Book signing!

It's a geeky book signing! John Rizzo and I will be at Brentano's Books at Valley Fair Mall signing copies of Hacking iPod and Mac Toys.

It's this Saturday, October 16th, from noon to 4:00 PM. Brentano's is very near other mall geek attractions, such as the Apple Store and Wetzel's Pretzels. Come on down, say hi, visit the Apple store, and grab some mall food.