Not my practice blog, by Scott Knaster

Halloween at work

In my lifetime Halloween has mutated from a holiday for (mostly) kids to a national event for everyone. The first time I noticed this was in the late 1980s when I worked at Apple. The Halloween tradition there was for everyone in costume to march around the campus in a long line, parading down Bandley Drive in Cupertino and ducking through the lobbies and interiors of each building. That was pretty fun.

At Microsoft in the '90s, at least once or twice, employees' kids came to campus and went trick-or-treating from office to office.

What happens where you work?

Naughty tombstones

A woman in Minnesota is in trouble for putting up naughty Halloween tombstones, including Ben Dover and the ever-popular I. P. Freely, because, well, think of the children!

"I like Hugh Jass the best," said AJ Knollmarer, 11 year-old

This recalls the great nasty pumpkin controversy of 2003.

Acronyms for not being at the office

When I worked at Microsoft, the usual acronym for reporting that you weren't going to be in your office was OOF (pronounced "oof"). This was (and still is, I suppose) a standard part of Microsoft-speak, and treated as an actual word, especially in relation to setting up a vacation bounce for email, e.g. "I forgot to turn off my OOF when I came back from Hawaii."

If OOF is an acronym, what does it stand for? Out of...facility? Dunno. But it was universally used.

At every other company where I've worked, the standard acronym is OOO (out of office), and it's never pronounced as a word or used as a noun.

Bill King

Rest in peace, Bill King, an amazing sports announcer and human being. He managed to break every stereotype of the jock world: he was well-rounded, funny, geeky, and friendly to everyone, even 23-year-old nerds who kept stats for him during basketball broadcasts (me).

Update: here's an article that reveals more of what Bill was like.

Google hiring Mac developers

Yay! See here and here.

Send me mail (I'm scottk-at-Google-dot-com) for more info, or just apply directly here.

Glimpse of the future

Last night Barbara and I went to see Serenity at the local discountplex.

me: Two for "Serenity", please.
ticket person behind glass: (hesitates) Uh, two seniors, you said?
m: (grins) No, two for Serenity, please.
tpbg: (flustered) Oh. OK. Sorry.
m: (pondering mortality, and considering saving money) How old is a senior?
tpbg: Uh, 55.
m: OK. Soon, but not yet.

Well, not that soon.

Songs from TV commercials

Folks always seem to be interested in finding out about cool music that's played in TV commercials. So Apple collected up a bunch of them into a playlist (launches iTunes). The playlist notes tell you which commercial each song was used for. But surprisingly, there is only one tune from an Apple commercial in there. To find more, click iMix on the home page and search for "commercials".

Revolution in the Valley

Better late than never, Forbes reviews (and enjoys) Andy Hertzfeld's book (which was derived from Folklore.org).

Kicked off plane for t-shirt

A woman on a Southwest airplane wore a t-shirt that was offensive to some passengers. Southwest asked her to cover it up or leave, so she left.

Rock, paper, scissors + 22

Here's a really cool obsessive work: RPS-25. It's like the old game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, but with 25 different gestures. My kids and I love it.