This post detailing the unboxing, setup, and initial thoughts about a Dell XPS 13″ laptop has moved to my new site in 2022: The post is the same but now officially lives here instead:
https://www.kilmermedia.net/post/tech-review-dell-xps-13-unboxing-setup-using-testing
As of 2022, this post has moved to a new home. This post is the same, and the info is still free, and it can be accessed by clicking on the link or screenshot of the post below:
https://www.kilmermedia.net/post/wsjwine-club-and-pezzo-wine-review-must-read-before-purchasing
The NFL Sucks… Here’s Why
01/18/2015
I’ve been watching this silly game, American football, for many years now. As I become older and wiser, though, questions have started coming to mind. These, I’m sure, are things the NFL doesn’t like you to think about, but that’s their problem.
So here we are… today are the NFC and AFC Championship games… it’s not quite yet, you know, the “world championship” game (presumably labeled as such because the National Football League plays a game in London every year). These are the issues I have with the NFL and the sport it represents:
1) Field Officials dictate the outcome of games. Because of problems in past years, this is the first time the NFL has institutionalized a centralized officiating crew – in New York – to confirm calls. However, the only other time I’ve heard so much noise was when the NFL used replacement officials a couple years ago. The rules are too vague, and officials haven’t given enough time to confirm reviews with the home office. Officiating has been a problem for a long time (see the “Tuck Rule” for an example – inaccurate officiating that surely allowed a team to continue through the playoffs and, ultimately, “win” a Super Bowl).
2) Subdivisions suck. The Panthers – though they put up an impressive game against Arizona – they never should have been in the playoffs to begin with. A team with a losing, regular-season record should NEVER, EVER, EVER be in the playoffs. Currently, far superior teams in some divisions get shut out of the playoffs because of the current system requiring a subdivision winner. An example is that the Panthers (NFC South, 7-8-1 record) made it to the playoffs, while the Eagles (NFC East, 10-6 record) were shut out. In fact, seven non-playoff NFL teams had more regular season wins than the Panthers.
3) Home Field Advantage and Bye Weeks. If you’re a superior football team, why do you get to skip a game AND potentially play all of your playoff games at home? If you’re so awesome, shouldn’t you have to prove, just like any other team, that you belong in the playoffs? Maybe even have all playoffs games at “neutral” sites, and we’ll see who the better teams are.
4) Back to officiating… Playoff officiating crews have proven to be especially awful. No one seems to be able to explain why officiating crews stick together during the regular season and, in the playoffs, hodge-podge crews are thrown together. The regular-season crews learn to trust and understand each other. This year, we’ve seen good calls in the playoffs get overruled because another official saw the play go down a different way. In that case, officials determine the outcome of games when it’s close – not the teams. p.s. What happened to the centralized, New York crew that confirms calls?
5) The games are EXCEPTIONALLY DULL when you realize how slow-paced they are. You know, I actually get a lot of stuff done when I have the football games on at home. I half pay attention to what’s going on. I don’t subscribe to the NFL Network, I don’t buy football swag. I get crap done and think about how much of a time suck giving full attention to the games would be. It takes, what, 3 or 4 hours to play a game that, on the game clock, officially takes 1 hour 15 minutes? Check it out next time… anytime anything happens, the NFL goes to a commercial – a touchdown, a field goal, a kickoff return, a punt return, a time out. They have A LOT of advertisers, make a CRAP-TON of money from them, AND the NFL home office is actually considered to be a NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION…………….
6) NFL IS A NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION. I didn’t know about this until grumpy (like me today) sports guy on NPR, Frank Deford, mentioned that the NFL home office falls under the category of non-profit org (listen or read at NPR here). The commissioner, Roger Goodell, made over $44 million last year. I guess it’s “not profit” if the organization is funneling its money to the boss… then it’s just “salary,” right?
Speaking of, I once volunteered to help set up for a Super Bowl, and this is the sort of thing Frank Deford was complaining about. I didn’t think about it then… I was more thinking how it was an awesome thing to be able to put on my college applications (I was in high school then), and how it would be a cool opportunity to see the field being prepared for the game millions of people across the world would watch. Now that Deford taught me a thing or two, the NFL doesn’t need any volunteers at all. They could easily pay every single person that helps out… but they don’t do it because they don’t have to – they “AREN’T IN BUSINESS TO MAKE A PROFIT.” Pfhhhhh.
7) Conflicting Rules #1. For kickoff, the clock doesn’t start until the returner catches the ball and runs it beyond the endzone. Punt the ball, and the clock starts ticking at the start of the play. I don’t get why there’s a difference.
8) Conflicting Rules #2. Kicking the ball out of bounds on kickoff results in a penalty, with the ball then normally being placed at the 40 yard line. Kicking the ball out of bounds for a punt, I guess it’s considered strategic – or a big mistake, and there’s no penalty.
9) Coach’s Challenges. Coaches are limited in the number of challenges they can make during the game (2 per half?). Considering the problem with officiating this season, coach’s should be able to challenge 3 times per half, since they have 3 time outs per half. You’re never gonna be able to convince me that shouldn’t be the case.
10) Overtime rules are stupid. Okay, check this out… two teams duke it out all game long. They’re pretty evenly matched, and the game ends in a tie. Luckily, one team ends up winning the overtime coin toss and chooses to receive a ball. They score a touchdown, like they did throughout the game (and so did the other team), but because they scored THIS touchdown, they win. That’s freakin’ goofy. The game was evenly matched, one team received the ball and scored a touchdown, and that’s it. That a game decided more by luck than skill.
11) I don’t buy into egocentrism/ethnocentrism. Until I stop hearing commentators saying “world champions” (yeah, I’m talking especially to you, Joe Buck) and stop seeing banners in stadiums saying the same, it’s just over-the-top and going to frustrate me. I touched on that a bit earlier, and there is nothing “world” about it. You want to see “world champions?” Wait for the WORLD Cup or the Olympics. American football has been growing in popularity for the past few years, but it’s got a long, looooong way to go to be the world’s most popular sport. In the meantime, stop bringing “world” into it, or maybe show everyone how strongly you feel and call last year’s winning team the “champions of the universe.” I’d like to see how that goes.
For now, I’ve had enough. I really have. I’m turning the TV off at this point. I might come back at some point but, for now, the NFL has a long road ahead in order to make it a legit (more than just a money-printing) operation. In the meantime, I’ll be busy living my life. See ya!
UPDATE TIME, YAY!
12) Roger Goodell, the NFL Commissioner, has no spine and/or real power on his own. There was the whole Ray Rice fiasco, and the Commish said “Okay, you punched your wife. You can’t play in the NFL ever again.” Some time passed, and an arbitrator said “You can’t do that, Roger,” and Ray Rice was reinstated. He hasn’t played yet, but he’s allowed to. Meanwhile, in the NBA, Adam Silver told not a player, but a billionaire owner, “You’re banned for life, and you have to sell your team,” and the team was sold.
THEN, on the day I wrote the original post, it turned out the Patriots had used deflated footballs, thus breaking game rules for what we assume to be THE ENTIRE GAME. Goodell, who is allegedly a good friend of Patriots owner, Robert Kraft (and a picture of the two hanging out at an event at Kraft’s mansion is on Goodell’s Twitter page), then says “Oh, well, we’ll do an investigation and let you know what we find after the Super Bowl.”
Are you freakin’ kidding me?
Okay, so some people argue “Well, judging by the score, the Colts would have gotten clobbered anyway.” Oh, so you can tell me with a straight face that the Patriots are so terrible at cheating that they’ve broken the rules a total of two times ever (Deflategate and Spygate) and got caught 100% of the time? That organization has a history of controversy, including questionable officiating, giving the team a free pass through the playoffs (see “Tuck Rule” mentioned in point #1 above). It’s much older, but also see “Snowplow Game” if you don’t know anything about it.
So there you have it… the NFL sucks, and that’s why you should stop buying overpriced nick-nacks and put that money towards retirement or a legit charity – not the NFL charity.
UPDATE #3 – 10/22/17
If you’re sick of the NFL, and controversy, and drama, and highly paid athletes who think their stature means people want to hear them run their mouths, these are the official sponsors of the National Football League (according to the NFL Players Inc.) you can choose to not do business with:
Anheuser-Busch
Barclaycard US
Bose
Bridgestone
Campbell’s Soup Company
Castrol
Courtyard Marriott
Dairy Management, Inc. (Fuel Up to Play 60)
Dannon
Extreme Networks
FedEx
Frito-Lay
Gatorade
Hyundai Motor America
Mars Snackfood
Microsoft
Nationwide
News America
Papa John’s
Pepsi
Procter & Gamble
Quaker
Verizon
Visa
USAA
BuzzFeed BuzzKill…
11/05/2014
The more I learn about copyrights, social media, and unorthodox business practices, the more I learn how scummy BuzzFeed’s business model is. They occasionally put together interesting, time-killing lists that many people share and talk about, but it turns out that’s often at the expense of copyright holders. I discovered a couple weeks ago that BuzzFeed lifted one of my pictures from Flickr – a place where none of my photos are downloadable, which means they had to screen grab the picture, then upload it to BuzzFeed’s server and to their Twitter page. I already have a decent concept of intellectual property/copyright laws and decided to dig a little deeper into the company’s business practices. What I discovered is that multiple copyright infringement lawsuits have been filed against BuzzFeed.
That company’s stance has generally been that they can grab photos from any source and, by creating a list of “Home Organization Hacks” (or whatever list it may be), the use of the lifted photo as part of a group of lifted photos is “transformative.” By that, they seem to be convincing themselves they are creating a new, unique work that serves the greater good of the world. But would people even be as interested without images that supplement the text? Sometimes it’s not even about the text. How about all of those collections of “12 Amazing Images You Have to See” or “The 10 Best Album Covers”? In those cases, the posts couldn’t even exist based on descriptions alone. That’s because all of those images, even the supplemental ones, are essential in achieving the goal – providing a visual experience that leads to more page clicks.
BuzzFeed’s CEO has even said, “I would love if every image contained some secret metadata and a way to license that image…” Well, my files on Flickr DO include metadata, and that information isn’t retained when you screenshot one of my images because you don’t see a download link. There is no download link as a deterrent. I fully know it doesn’t stop theft, but you also aren’t going to come away with the full-res photo. I’ll provide that to you for a fee. And I obviously have the resources to track down unauthorized use.
While on the topic, I license photos all the time for work. Once you establish a relationship with a photo provider, it’s an easy process. Depending on the photo, a single one is usually hundreds of dollars for worldwide use but can sometimes cost thousands. In using any photo, I have to get approval from lawyers and a license agreement has to get signed. We don’t even think about pulling any random images from who-knows-where and using them without permission because we would get sued… rightly so because we respect the rights of those who create intellectual property.
So alas, believing in the adage “You use it, you bought it,” I’ve sent an invoice to BuzzFeed. This is me being nice – seeking rightful compensation, rather than going to court. I’m hoping the result is simple enough because I can be a real pain in the ass when the boxing gloves come off.
Bottom line – Please don’t enable BuzzFeed with clicks. Aside from the deals they officially broker with content providers that have armies of lawyers (i.e. Reuters, Getty, AP), evidence suggests the other part of their business model comes from snagging whatever photos they can quickly/conveniently find and pretend they are in the public domain. They aren’t, and such a business model can’t and shouldn’t be sustainable.
2015 update:
After some back-and-forth with BuzzFeed, and some reminders about how costly the civil penalties for copyright infringement can be, they sent me a check. I’m glad they did, but I also shouldn’t have had to ask. It makes me wonder how many other people have had their images snagged and won’t ever see a dime.
Check it out… they spelled my name wrong at the end of the video, but it’s not about me anyhow – it’s all about raising money for the ALS and Diabetes foundations… A few years ago, one of our crew members, Joey, was diagnosed with ALS. Since then, so much has happened behind the scenes. The cast is always so generous throughout each season, so the crew always gives back around the holidays by pooling money and giving them nice gifts baskets and vouchers for amazing restaurants in L.A.
A couple years ago, the cast made sure all that money went to Joey, to go towards his medical bills. In addition to our contributions, the cast wrote checks, and the total ended up being almost six figures. It was an emotional day, with all this going on in the “squad room” set, which is the orange-walled room with cubicles so often seen on the show. There was hardly a dry eye in the room.
Seeing first-hand how devastating the disease is, I donated to the ALS Association (and Alzheimer’s Association) last year. Since then, it’s been astonishing seeing how awareness has picked up. I know many of you have donated, and many of you have done the Ice Bucket Challenge. Thank you for that. To take it one step further, some of our crew have created two one-of-a-kind jackets, with the proceeds going to the ALS and Diabetes foundations…. take a look here – http://www.ebay.com/sch/31archer/m.html?item=111482517423&hash=item19f4e037af&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562
I know $1,000+ is steep for many folks, but if any of my friends happen to win the auction, I will send you a poster autographed by the cast and a season 12 “cast and crew” hat.
Again, whether it’s via the auction or donating on your own, thanks so much for your generous contributions
Fighting Copyright Infringement
09/13/2014
I’m fighting an ongoing battle against copyright infringement. It’s sometimes a tricky subject – which battles to pick – and sometimes the choice is completely obvious. I host a lot of photos on my Flickr account. I try to only post my best and most unique photos, and I’ve discovered people out there exploiting my work.
My “better half” asked “Why don’t you just put a watermark on your photos?” In the photo world, that’s always a dilemma. A clear, unobstructed photo looks, well, clear and unobstructed. It’s most aesthetic. It just looks good and, if anyone wanted to license a photo, I wouldn’t have to look through my 100+ GB archive of photos from my domestic and international trips. I could just grab the full res. image I uploaded to the server and provide it to the licensee.
In an attempt to protect myself, and my property, I’ve added to every Flickr post: “Please don’t use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without my explicit permission. © All rights reserved.” It’s starting to seem that’s insufficient. People must think they can host photos of their public structures (and that it doesn’t void my rights) or photos as a not-for-profit use on a blog. They’re wrong.
The worst and most blatant infringement I’ve seen so far was a company offering one of my images for sale on a coffee mug. That’s insane and to think there are no consequences…. wow.
Here’s the tally so far (and don’t worry, I’m not going to link to weird sites that might blow up the internet):
$20 Bills
my post: https://www.flickr.com/photos/53135611@N08/5992643526/
not my post: https://twitter.com/BuzzFeed/status/421021189826674688
Santa Barbara Mission
my post: https://www.flickr.com/photos/53135611@N08/6031391488/
not my post: https://plus.google.com/113662442292147469372/photos/photo/5727270185275512002?pid=5727270185275512002&oid=113662442292147469372
Old Lemon-Monroe High School – Monroe, Ohio
my post: https://www.flickr.com/photos/53135611@N08/7039953453/
not my post: (removed after sending a “cease and desist” notice) http://kamgraphics.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Lemon-Monroe-2012.jpg
Old Lemon-Monroe High School – Monroe, Ohio (again)
my post: https://www.flickr.com/photos/53135611@N08/7039953453/
not my post: http://www.monroelocalschools.com/popup-news.cfm?id=414
In-N-Out Burger sign
my post: https://www.flickr.com/photos/53135611@N08/6115300870/
not my post: http://www.socalcarmeetsforum.com/viewimage.forum?u=https%3A%2F%2Fc1.staticflickr.com%2F7%2F6089%2F6115300870_eb8246246d_z.jpg
This is a fair warning to the infringers of the world: Do your research. It’s gonna get easier, not tougher, to track down stolen content. I’m protecting myself, and the hammer of justice soon will be coming down with more force and more frequently.
If you think it’s okay to use photos in an unauthorized fashion, read this:
“The $8,000 Mistake That All Bloggers Should Beware”
This post has moved to a new site in 2022. You can still access the same, free info by clicking on the link or post screenshot below:
https://www.kilmermedia.net/post/apartment-diy-building-a-headboard
A Tribute to My Friend – a Dead Man
02/23/2014
He took his own life. “How?” is the question I’ve gotten the most. Where I’m originally from, drugs are the likely culprit. Last year, heroin claimed the lives of two people I went to school with. I was starting to think the Midwest – Ohio – was like some sort of vortex, where there is just so little hope and people get caught up in that momentary escape/high…. that was until Phillip Seymour Hoffman OD’d on Super Bowl Sunday. But it wasn’t heroin that took the life of my friend, nor was it any drug.
Quite frankly, “How?” is a question I can’t answer. The wonder has crossed my mind, but the answer isn’t something I’ve asked. It’s something I don’t really want to know. The last thing I want is a mental image of how those last seconds or minutes could have faded away.
What’s really important here isn’t me or my perspective – it’s the heartache, the your-heart’s-been-completely-ripped-in-two-pieces anguish for so many people that was caused by one person’s momentary decision. I’ve been there, I’ve thought those thoughts, but fuck that – I’ve wondered what other people would think… my parents… my siblings… my friends… my nieces and nephews. In this case, I wish the guilt brought on by over-analysis would have outweighed those low points that everyone has. Not to diminish, but we all have our ups and downs. Some situations come about and are more serious than others, but leaving your children behind is something I can’t understand. I’m sure it’s something my friend couldn’t understand, either… No one could foresee the events that would come, though I remember him telling me, at a young age, of his dad’s decision to leave this world behind.
What’s left, though, are memories…. really good memories and a lot of them… camping out in my dad’s backyard, making prank phone calls, drinking Surge all night, then going skateboarding at 6 AM. Walking along Shaker Creek, seeing an absolutely massive bird that seemingly could have been a very-lost California Condor. Band practice upstairs, then downstairs when the family moved. Playing Tool’s “Stinkfist” in front of the whole school at the talent show in 8th grade. Amber. Playing Korn’s “Blind” at the talent show in 9th grade and all the practice involved with that. Uncle Tommy, at point-blank range, pulling the trigger on an empty paintball gun pointed at my head. Working in live sound together. Working at a haunted trail together for a couple seasons. The Korg ER-1. Buying two drum sets (the crappy black one and the shiny silver one). Many years later- going to a dueling piano bar in Long Beach and having a few beers, talking about making amends. On the last visit here, having beers at the Ramada bar, talking more about making amends… the Universal City overlook on Mulholland Drive and looking down on all the city lights, when he put his mom on speakerphone, saying “Guess who I’m with right now?”
Admittedly, this is a difficult time, but I think my buddy was happy here in that moment… proud of where he was and what I’ve done. I took the plunge, made the move, and got away from that place where everyone automatically assumes that every death is an overdose.
My friend- I miss you and will continue to do so… not that I expect you to be reading my WordPress account from up on high. But I just want your spirit/your soul/you to know that I hate your decision but yet remain proud of some of your accomplishments…. wish you were here, buddy. I wish it was as easy as saying “come on back,” but it sure as hell is not.
Friends, and anonymous people that visit this page, if you ever feel like you need to escape this world, consider that there are people out there who love and respect you…people who would be distraught and feel completely lost without you around. It’s true. People aren’t psychics – they can’t read what you are feeling, even if you think it’s obvious, so please do yourself a favor (and everyone else) and reach out. I’m a good listener, and there are hotlines available to help, too. 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
This post has moved to my new site in 2022. Click the link or screenshot below to access the same helpful info, just at a new home:
https://www.kilmermedia.net/post/tech-disassembly-of-logitech-z-10-speakers
This tutorial for how I reset the master password on my Samsung Gravity 2 phone has been moved in 2022. The post is the same but now lives on my new domain here:
https://www.kilmermedia.net/post/samsung-gravity-2-lost-master-reset-password-resolved
leaving celestia 
