The Haphazard Blog

Yesterday I read a column in the Boston Globe about a 15 year old girl who was basically bullied so much, she hung her self. This seems to happen every couple of months where we hear a story about a kid in school committing suicide that was picked on constantly. I’ve never seen it com to a level where the bullies were proud of what they had done. No remorse, not even indifference, but openly proud like they accomplished what they had set out to do. It’s also inexcusable that the school has taken no action with this much information out there.

When I was in grade school, there were bullies. For the most part everyone was picked on and/or picked on someone else at some point. But now with social networking and basically every kid having their own cell phone there is no getting away from it. You might get picked on during recess or on the bus, but then you would go home and that was it. No one would really be able to call your house and continue the abuse or just knock on your door. Now with text messaging and social networking (IM, Facebook, Myspace, etc.) the mental abuse continues all the time. You never get away and bullies can act more cowardly as they hide behind their PCs and iPhones.

I’m going to be interested to see what happens to those girls. Seems like there are plenty of people who know about them and how far they go. Certainly seems like this could’ve been avoided without the benefit of hindsight. It’s really sad.

One of the good things that the city of Newton does is provide curbside pickup of recyclables along with the garbage.  We are able to recycle paper (including cardboard), plastic, metal and glass.  Unfortunately, there is a drawback. The city provides all the containers for garbage and recyclables. The garbage can is pretty big and has a lid. The recyclable containers are about the size of a box containing a ream of paper, no lids. On a windy day, which Kansas is likely to have, everyone’s recyclables get blown all over the place.

In my backyard and the farm behind it I’ve seen plenty of stuff blow by as I work. Soda cans, beer cans, 2 liter bottles, newspapers, plastic sheets, small boxes, cereal boxes and even large boxes like a box for a new stroller. We try to pick up as much as we can, but I’m sure quite a bit of this stuff doesn’t get picked up. A lot more gets recycled than not, but it looks real bad when you look out the window and see trash blowing around.

I’ve been using Firefox going back to the days when they had changed the name from Firebird to Firefox. When my PC died, I had to rebuild a new one. I was backing up my Firefox profile at the time, so I only had to restore it. It took a little bit of manual work to do it, but it wasn’t a big deal. However, Firefox now took at least 20 seconds to fully exit (the window would go away, but the process was still running) and often 1 to 2 minutes. This is on top of the huge amounts of memory (physical and virtual) it eats up over prolonged usage.

I decided with my new PC, I would just discard my profile. It has been updated, upgraded and manually maintained through multiple Firefox versions. Add multiple extensions being installed and uninstalled over that time and it is time to start fresh. The one thing I did not want to lose were all my saved passwords. This turned out to be pretty straightforward. After I installed Firefox 3.6 (this method will also work with 3.5, but I’d recommend that whatever version you do this with, make sure the old one and new one are the same), I copied the key3.db and signons.sqlite files from the old profile folder to the new profile folder.

After writing the stuff above, I went to see if I could find a page describing the files that comprise a profile to link that would help people copy over other parts of their profile they want to keep while also having a clean install. You can read it here, and it points out exactly which files you need to move the passwords. There is also a guide on backing up and restoring profiles on that site as well.

I saw Avatar in 3D last weekend. I thought it was a pretty good movie. I don’t agree that it is #40 in the IMDb Top 250 though. The movie is visually stunning and it kept my attention from beginning to end. It is almost 3 hours long, but I didn’t feel as though there were any parts that just dragged. I’d definitely recommend it to others. My brother told me to see it in theaters, and he was absolutely right. It’s meant for the big screen and 3D. We’re still about 1 year away from that kind of 3D in the home.

In my area I had a choice between RealD 3D, Dolby 3D (sometimes called Digital 3D) and regular 2D. The closest IMAX theaters are 3 hours away, and although I have been to the one in Kansas City, it wasn’t solely to see a move (The Dark Knight). I did some digging to see which 3D is best. As usual, there wasn’t an obvious answer. From what I found, IMAX 3D is the most immersive. The drawbacks of it are that because it is so immersive it can cause fatigue and headaches because of the length of the movie. I think I still would’ve gone for it if it was in Wichita.

People differ on which is better between RealD 3D and Dolby 3D, but I read enough that says Dolby 3D has less of a ghosting effect than RealD 3D. I saw it in Dolby 3D and I didn’t see any ghosting. I didn’t have any issues with the quality of the video. I’d say the main drawback is that the glasses are re-used, so depending on how much the staff at the theater cares, they could have different levels of cleanliness. My lenses had some water spots on them. They were more than happy to swap them if you want. In my case, I couldn’t see them when wearing them, so no problem. The RealD glasses are yours to keep after the movie is over, so you always get a new/clean pair.

I came across a comparison of the various 3D technologies  (not the red-blue glasses) that I found interesting:

3D System Comparison

I found it interesting because a couple years back movie executives were talking about how to get people to continue to come out to theaters with the proliferation of HDTV, large screen TVs and home theaters. One idea was 3D. Over the last couple of years, there has been a fair amount of 3D movies. They were mostly animated, but there were a couple that weren’t. There has also been some sports in 3D in theaters. But this year we will see television broadcasts in 3D and television channels dedicated to 3D The vast majority of people will need new equipment (TVs, glasses, cable/satellite box, Blu-Ray player) to enjoy it, but it’s coming. Surprisingly, the technology that will be used is the one with the least drawbacks in terms of quality. The glasses currently to cost a little over $100/pair. Also, for anyone who already wears glasses, it’s not the most comfortable thing to wear a second pair for long periods of time.

I’m looking forward to 3D in the home, but I think I’m going to let a generation or two go by before I get a new TV that supports 3D. For now, I’ll enjoy it in the theater. Speaking of, the preview for Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland looked really good. The story has been done over and over (most recently on SyFy), but I could be enticed to see it in 3D.

One last comment on Avatar in general. Before I went to see it, I saw on TV that people were saying they felt depressed after seeing the movie because they wished they lived in Pandora. They must have blocked out the parts where they live in nature, there are killer animals everywhere and humans are bringing war to them. I didn’t feel sad or depressed after watching it.

It has been a week of looking back on the Patriots and from what I gather, some big changes are likely coming. The big theme was a lack of leadership.

There was a culture in the locker roomthat was basically eliminated in one off-season. Rodney Harrison’s contract ended at the end of the season and he was going to take his time to decide on his future. The Patriots traded Mike Vrabel at the start of free agency for basically nothing. I don’t know if they traded him over a $1M roster bonus or because he wasn’t producing. Harrison decided to retire in June. Tedy Bruschi got through half of training camp and decided to retire. Then the Patriots traded Richard Seymour right before the season started. From what I can gather now, these guys were the “assholes” in the locker room. They were the vocal ones who would make sarcastic remarks like “leaving already?” to the rookie who was leaving before they were. They weren’t afraid to call out other team mates for anything they felt was lacking. Poor play, poor focus, poor discipline, etc.

When Harrison and Bruschi retired, they pointed to Brandon Meriweather and Jerod Mayo as leaders. The problem was, them, along with Tom Brady, Kevin Faulk, Vince Wilfork and Ty Warren are all nice guys. They lead by example but they won’t call a team mate out. There were always stories about how during practice, Harrison would turn it into a real competition with Brady. His goal was to incense Brady every practice. He was vocal and clear about it. In turn, Brady wanted to beat Harrison. They made each other better every day. They pushed each other. And this was widespread through the whole team.

There was a good story Willie McGinest told to the Globe that kind of sums up what was lost:

“When we were there, we had a foundation and a nucleus of guys that were competitive,” said McGinest. “And not competitive against the other team. Competitive against each other. I remember yelling over at (Richard) Seymour during the game, Ty (Warren) and me saying, ‘They ain’t running over here!’ And he and Vrabel yelling back, ‘They ain’t running here.’ And then (Vince) Wilfork saying, ‘They sure as heck ain’t running here.'”

They pushed each other to the point that no one wanted to be the reason they lost. They all did their jobs at a high level. It makes me realize how lucky we were as Patriots fans. Bill Belichick was able to get together all these guys who made each other better. Yes, his schemes were good, but these were a group of extraordinary players. It also looks like they were all on the defensive side of the ball. In one off-season, Belichick got rid of the last of them. I think this clarifies why Junior Seau was brought back so early. Unfortunately, pre-game speeches only carry a team so far. There was no one on the sidelines (or in practice) challenging their team mates to play better. Now you have guys laughing and joking after the beating they took to end the season. A year ago, no one would’ve been smiling in that locker room.

Belichick got rid of all the vocal guys. There was no one left to police the locker room. There were no dissenting voices to challenge Belichick. I don’t mean like Adalius Thomas, but players who performed on the field week in and week out. Leaders who would stand up to the coach when needed. The only voice left was Belichick’s. It goes back further than these guys. He got rid of Lawyer Milloy (but was lucky to have Rodney Harrison to fill his leadership shoes). After he joined the Bills, his first week there in the film room players were laughing at another player for blowing a play. Milloy tells everyone that it isn’t funny. The new guy was already showing them how to do things the right way.

Brady talked about it to an extent on the radio show and after the loss. That he needed to be a better leader. That you just can’t replace all those guys they lost. This is why I think a lot of change is coming. I’m hoping Belichick realizes what was missing in the locker room and he goes out and gets free agents who bring that edge back. We were all waiting for the real Patriots to show up this year. Most of us didn’t realize the people who really made the “Patriot Way” go, are gone. Whether they can get it back remains to be seen. There is no one left there to teach it to the next guy. It seems that no one took that torch from any of them. They were content to have Vrabel, Harrison, Bruschi and Seymour do it all.

This is one of many problems the Patriots have going into the next year. They have no offensive or defensive coordinator. The Baltimore Ravens (and even some Patriots players) said it was like they were in the Patriot’s huddle throughout that game. Is there any excuse for another team being able to predict/defend the offense that well? Coaches, schemes, players, leadership, there’s a lot of work to do in Foxborough.

For any Patriots fans who would like more information about the leadership void and why things didn’t go so well this season, I recommend listening to this Patriots Football Weekly podcast.

Roger Goodell recently said the following according to ProFootballTalk:

Honestly, we don’t have a solution for it. We’ve had a lot of suggestions. A lot of people have talked about things from making scheduling changes to re-seeding the playoffs. A couple people have suggested the idea of potentially modifying the draft in certain ways. But none of these have been studied in depth.

This is in response to the reaction to the Indianapolis Colts to rest their players at a time when their team was 14-0 and had a real shot at going 16-0. The fans at the game were very upset. The Colts have a long history of resting their players late in the season once they have clinched home field advantage for the playoffs. The outcry was much larger this season because they were undefeated and then compounded by their actions afterward. Ranging from bogus excuses for why they played hard the week before (debunked by ProFootballTalk) to then risking injury to their players to establish arbitrary individual statistical milestones.

The NFL tossed out some ideas that Goodell mentioned. Giving out draft picks to teams that continue to play hard was the first one I heard. This one didn’t make much sense to me since they’d be rewarding teams that are heading to the playoffs. If the idea is parity, and they give the teams that did poorly better draft positions, it would be counteractive to reward good teams with additional draft picks, regardless of where they are in the order.

Another idea, adjusting the schedule so the last 3 games are division games won’t help much either. The weight the division has is already diminished when only 6 out of 16 games are division games. Using this year as an example, the Colts were uncatchable with 3 games left. It didn’t matter what those 3 games were.

I think the solution lies in re-seeding. The basis of teams resting is that they have established either the top seed in the playoffs or that whatever they do, their seed in the playoffs is set. They have to make a change that strikes at the reason for resting.

My suggestion is to continue to determine the playoff teams as they are now (division winners plus two wild card teams). Then add an emphasis to a team’s late season performance. I’m throwing out doubling the weight of the last 4 games of the season. In this scenario, this is what would’ve happened this season:

2009 NFL Playoffs Reseeded

The Colts and San Diego Chargers end up flipping seeds and the Cincinnati Bengals drop from the fourth to sixth seed in AFC. For the NFC, the top 3 seeds remain the same and the Arizona Cardinals drop from the fourth to sixth seed. At first glance, it doesn’t seem to solve many problems. Looking at the NFC, 5 teams ended up with the same weighted record. The New Orleans Saints rested their starters in the final weekend and lost. The Philadelphia Eagles would’ve had a shot at the #1 seed with a win. The Colts would’ve locked up the #1 seed with one more win and possibly been sitting at 15-0. Do they go for 16-0 then or lay down? I’d like to know how many teams would throw away a chance at going undefeated. As far as I know, this is the first time in NFL history that a team willingly lost the first game of their season.

So by weighting the last 4 games of the season, it rewards teams for playing well into the playoffs. The reseeding also eliminates a bad team in a bad division from getting a home playoff game. Their reward is a ticket to the playoffs. Performance on field gets you home field. I ran the “numbers” for the 2005 through 2008 seasons as well and you can see the end result in the gallery at the end of the post. Some quick (mostly New England Patriots-centric) observations (these all exclude the effect of how teams would’ve played had they known records would be weighted, so it assumes each team tried their best to win the game):

• In 2008, the Colts would’ve jumped from a wild card to the first seed. They started out slow but finished up on a long streak. Nice reward.
• In 2007, the Patriots still lock-up the #1 seed early, but the NFC field is shaken up. Do the New York Giants still make it to the Super Bowl? What would’ve been…
• In 2006, the AFC Championship game could’ve been the Colts at the Patriots instead of the other way around.
• In 2005, the seeding in the AFC is changed so the wild card teams host the division winners, but the games stay the same. If the results also stay the same, then the Patriots avoids the Denver Broncos (the team/coach (Shanahan) have had Bill Belichick’s number) and play the Colts instead. The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Broncos that year and if the Patriots beat the Colts, they play at the Steelers in the AFC championship. I like their chances. And yes Steelers fans, this is why the Patriots are the team of the decade. Three Super Bowls to 2 and the Patriots were 2-0 against the Steelers in the playoffs. Both games were the AFC Championship in Pittsburgh. The Steelers never had to beat the Patriots to win a Championship.

Another season ends poorly. It was almost fitting that the Patriots had their worst game of the year when it mattered the most. They came into the season as Super Bowl favorites (according to Las Vegas odds) and didn’t come anywhere close to the expectations laid out by the media. This season has been an effort in setting new lows.

As far as I can remember, Brady was pulled from a game for the first time in his career because they were losing so badly (vs. the Saints). Brady and Belichick have now lost their first home playoff game. Everything was simply uncharacteristic Patriots this season. For me the most telling was the Patriots lost 5 games that they led at half time (4 of them were by 10 or more points). In Bill Belichick’s first 9 seasons as Patriots head coach (2000-2008) they had lost only 5 games they led at half time, total.

In retrospect, some are saying this is a “rebuilding” year. It’s hard to believe that when the offense had almost all of the players they had in 2007, or 2008 when they had Matt Cassel at QB and won more games. Was Jabar Gaffney the entire difference? Maybe the offensive line is getting older. The defense was supposed to get younger and faster along with a much improved secondary. Did trading Mike Vrabel and Richard Seymour hurt them badly? Rodney Harrison and Tedy Bruschi retiring?

I think they need a player that can be disruptive to the passing game, especially getting after the QB.  But, I believe more of the blame this year falls on the shoulders of the offense. They produced in the first half, but then were anemic in the second half in too many games. Wishful thinking is Tom Brady was still getting back into the game and both he and Randy Moss suffered from other undisclosed injuries. If that is age related, then it’s not likely to be a one time occurrence. Wes Welker will likely miss half of the 2010 season, maybe all of it. He certainly won’t be his old self in 2010.

The Patriots had a pretty good draft last year. They got a lot of young players who contributed and it filled out their roster pretty well. I’m hopeful they will focus on trying to get a few impact players (trading up) instead of collecting contributors (trading down). My list right now looks like outside line backer/pass rusher, outside wide receiver, running back, cornerback, tight end and offensive lineman. They could fill some of these in free agency as well. It will be interesting to see how it ends up going.

If it’s an uncapped year, the Patriots avoided any restrictions on signing players with the wild card round loss. They are a high revenue team, so I wonder if they will spend at the top. Traditionally they have spent near the cap limit. It’s an interesting dynamic for the owners. They want to win and could get players that normally would’ve been very difficult under a salary cap. On the other hand, if they’re spending a lot, it’s hard to convince the players that the current split is inequitable. They can also cut players with no concern for the dead money. This part could be bigger than many anticipate given Tom Brady’s comments about commitment, discipline, working hard, etc. in comparison to the past. I think some surprising cuts are coming.

It should be an interesting off-season.