Kramer's Daily Dump for Tuesday, November 16th, 2021

[Kramer]

Back in 2004, I was doing the morning show in Little Rock, Arkansas at the shitty rock station there.

I started a message board, and on that message board I had a blog called "The Daily Dump". I spent hours on that thing every day. I wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote. It got a massive following, and the more people reacted or posted in it, the more it fueled me to write.

I love the format of message boards over regular social media because you can easily add pictures, video, etc. Furthermore, I'm bored to death with social media. I would ASSUME a lot of YOU are bored with it too, because instead of communities of people sharing thoughts and ideas on real stuff, it's all become so watered down. I know I bitch about it a lot, but I seriously cannot understand why pictures of food, constant memes that say the same thing, and people spewing their same old, tired political view on the same subjects over and over and over again - can be of consistent entertainment for ANYONE.

What I really want to do is to build a small community of people that think alike. If it winds up just being 20 people who really GET each other, I'm SO COOL with that. SO cool with that. With that said, I'm bring this website back to life. 

The homepage is www.tksradio.com - it takes 10 seconds to register. On this board, you can be anonymous if you want, and you can say what you want without the fear of being banned. I'm not trying to be Facebook, but for our little community, we will allow each other to say what's on our fucking minds. 

This is the front page as of right now:

 

Let me know what you think, and let me know what you may like to see in addition to what's there now.

www.tksradio.com

 

 

 

Last June I quit my radio job.

Follow me on this.

I was waking up at 2AM. I'd fly to the station, prepare for the show and create content until 6. Then I'd do the show based on the owners political opinions and viewpoints, get off the air at 9. Then I'd take care of programming stuff, and then fly home to do voice over work. All day long I was working until I went to bed.

I started making serious money doing voice over - so one of them had to go, and the shitty talk show is what went.

Now I only do voice work, and I make more money than I've ever made in radio. 

Following?

If I were to take a stopwatch and click it every time I start working (from home) and click off when I'm done with a project - and did that all day, do you know how many hours I'd wind up having worked?

1 1/2 hours.

Think about it, I'm almost making 3 times the money I was in radio - all in 1 and a half hours per day.

Hey that's awesome though, right? I MEAN HELL YES! Who wouldn't want that?

But what do I do? 

I've started reading. Okay great. I have the motorcycle. Okay super. 

I've never been this bored in my lifetime. 

I'm built to always have something going on, something in the background, something to think about, something to do, goals, hurdles, snap snap snap . . . And there is ZERO of that right now. I'm trying to think of another business to start, but so far nothing that's standing out to me, screaming for me to do it. I do love doing the podcast - even if the content is always under ten minutes. It's fun and I have some other ideas on that front, but even that is kind of boring because no one ever responds.

Thoughts? Ideas? Any of you have the same problem?

 

 

500 National Guard troops on standby as closing arguments set for Kyle Rittenhouse trial

Quote

 

As attorneys in the Kyle Rittenhouse homicide trial prepare for closing arguments Monday, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers has 500 National Guard troops on standby outside of Kenosha, ahead of a possible verdict.

 

Some see Rittenhouse, 18, as an armed vigilante who should to go to prison, and others say he acted in self-defense while he was there to help provide first aid and protect people's property.

 

Rittenhouse shot and killed Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber using an AR-15-type rifle during protests and demonstrations in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on August 25, 2020. Rittenhouse also wounded Gaige Grosskreutz. The shooting took place during protests in the aftermath of a Kenosha police officer shooting Jacob Blake.

 

Rittenhouse now faces five felony charges and a misdemeanor weapons charge. If Rittenhouse is convicted of the most serious charge against him, he faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison.

He has pleaded not guilty to the six charges.

 

 

 

Kramer Komment:

I'm a little torn on this one actually.

If you look for trouble, and then you FIND trouble, you cannot cry about the outcome. This idiot went there specifically looking for a reason to pop off and do what he eventually did, which was to shoot people. Was he defending himself? Yeah probably, but he went LOOKING to be threatened. He went specifically looking to try to be Billy Bad Ass. 

HAVING SAID THAT - does he deserve to be in prison for the rest of his life? Probably not.

I'm a little astonished by how this has turned in to a race thing when all the people shot were white.

Pretty crazy that yesterday the Judge dismissed the underage gun charge.

 

 

 

 

I REFUSE TO GO ALONG WITH THIS

 

Kramer Komment:

NO NO NO NO.

You will not convince me Pete Davidson is one of the sexiest men alive. 

Just because he's been banging Kim Kardashian doesn't mean shit. I don't care if his shclonger is 37 inches long, he isn't a great looking guy, and he isn't really that funny.

What Planet am I on?

Okay that's enough time on this stupid ass story. Carry on...

 

New Hampshire high schooler allegedly suspended for saying there are ‘only two genders’ sues school district

A New Hampshire student-athlete is suing his school district after he was suspended from a football game for allegedly expressing his views that there are "only two genders."

 

The interior of Exeter High School (Google Maps)

The lawsuit, filed in Rockingham Superior Court on November 4, alleges that the September suspension violated the student’s constitutional right to free speech and the New Hampshire Bill of Rights because he expressed his religious beliefs. 

 

Exeter High School (Google Maps)

The plaintiff is also aiming to block the enforcement of Exeter High School’s gender-nonconforming student’s policy because of what he says is its infringement on his First Amendment rights.

 

 

High school computer lab.  (ehs.sau16.org)

Fox News has reached out to Exeter High School, which referred all questions to the school district. The school district did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment. 

The district’s policy on transgender and gender nonconforming students "requires that all programs, activities, and employment practices be free from discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity." 

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Kramer Komment:

We live in a time where a person who argues that there are only TWO genders is punished.

Do you ever just look around some times and just say, "HOLY FUCK!"

How did we get here?

 

 

Ping. Ding. Chirp. Notifications Are Driving Us Crazy.

With workplace tools multiplying and personal messages creeping in, it can be hard to get anything done

 

Wait, what was that one?

J.J. Cooper has become fluent in interpreting the cacophony of notifications emitted by his phone and computer each workday. But this ding was different.

“It was that needle-scratching-on-a-record kind of sound where it’s like, wait a minute,” says the 49-year-old, who edits a baseball magazine and website in North Carolina. “I was like, no, I have to find out what this thing is.”

He trawled through 20 open tabs. But it took him a while to find the culprit.

“Another notification distracted me,” he says.

We’re on alert overload. Stray comments and offhand requests once shouted across the office now blink and buzz at us from Microsoft Teams and Slack. Our communication has grown fragmented, spread across myriad apps we have to learn, conform to, remember to check.

Meanwhile, personal texts and social-media mentions have bled into the workday after all this time at home, adding another layer of distraction to our time on the clock. Why put your phone on silent if the boss isn’t hovering over you?

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Our culture has evolved to accommodate rapid communication, says Gloria Mark, a professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, and it can be mentally taxing. Many of us struggle to conjure up that brilliant thought that hit right before the notification burst in. “Your memory is just overflowing with information,” she says.

It doesn’t make for great circumstances for getting work done, but there are ways individuals, managers and organizations can contend with the onslaught.

Dr. Mark’s research finds people switch screens an average of 566 times a day. Half the time we’re interrupted; the other half we pull ourselves away. Breaks—even mindless ones like scrolling Facebook —can be positive, replenishing our cognitive resources, Dr. Mark says.

But when something external diverts our focus, it takes us an average of 25 minutes and 26 seconds to get back to our original task, she has found. (Folks often switch to different projects in between.) And it stresses us out. Research using heart monitors shows that the interval between people’s heart beats becomes more regular when they’re interrupted, a sign they’re in fight-or-flight mode.

The onus is on teams and organizations to create new norms, Dr. Mark says. If individuals just up and turn off their notifications they’ll likely be penalized for missing information. Instead, managers should create quiet hours where people aren’t expected to respond.

“It’s a matter of relearning how to work,” she says.

Matt McDonald has tried. Last year, his company encouraged everyone to test out muting Slack notifications. The 36-year-old, who works for a digital agency in South Carolina, made it a couple of hours before caving.

‘It’s a matter of relearning how to work.’

— Gloria Mark, a professor of informatics at UC Irvine

“I’d keep checking just to make sure I’m not holding anybody else up,” he says. “No matter what, I keep crawling back to the notifications.”

He dreads having a pile of work waiting for him if he lets up for too long. And no matter what his bosses and colleagues say they expect, he can’t shake the idea that Slack messages are supposed to be addressed instantaneously.

“There’s this feeling that someone sent this to you and they’re waiting for this response that has a ticker counting down,” he says.

Emily Parks, a productivity consultant in Raleigh, N.C., says some of her clients are energized by hopping back and forth between tasks. She recommends they turn off notifications for 25 minutes to focus, then take a five-minute break afterward. Those with longer attention spans should aim to hunker down for 52 minutes, then take a 17-minute break.

The key to safely logging off email or Slack for a stretch is being transparent, she says. Tell your boss you really want to be able to focus, and ask what they think is a good frequency for you to check messages. Set an appointment on your calendar at first, and you’ll develop a habit. “You are in control,” she says.

And keep your clicks to a minimum. Tools like Apple’s Mail app can amalgamate all your email inboxes in one place, Ms. Parks says. Most of her clients receive 300 to 500 emails a day, across multiple accounts. Platforms like Hootsuite or Buffer can roll together various social-media mentions.

Sometimes the problem isn’t even yours, technically. Kelly Mayes, a public-relations professional who has long worked from home, hates notifications.

“They just make me insane,” she says.

So she turned all hers off. Then, in March 2020, her husband started working from their Franklin, Tenn., home as well. Turns out he likes keeping his volume up, and he gets about 10 Slack notifications every five minutes.

“I was like, ‘Hey, that knocking sound, you like that? That works for you?’” Ms. Mayes says, referring to one of the platform’s distinctive audio alerts. She felt her anxiety flare reflexively with every ping. “It was a different company—totally not my problem. But it brought me back into that place of, ‘Everything’s on fire, something needs my attention.’”

She took to wearing AirPods and listening to an audio book or music during the workday. And she convinced her husband to turn off notifications when he’s working in more central parts of the house.

Shawn J. Burke tried to eliminate notifications he felt were useless (ads from Uber) so he could focus on the ones he can’t miss (when does that meeting start again?) But recently, he was greeted with a new phantom beep. He couldn’t even figure out which device it was coming from.

“I’d move to another part of the house and bam, it would pop up again,” says Mr. Burke, who lives in Garden Grove, Calif., and works for mortgage-technology company PhoenixTeam. He isolated his Samsung watch, which he had recently reset, in the bathroom. After 48 hours of fiddling, he was eventually able to diagnose the issue: a default to factory settings he had inadvertently triggered.

He felt victorious. And yet, surveying his collection of seven work and personal computers, phone and watch, he sometimes wonders if it’s all worth it.

“This was all supposed to make our life easier,” he says.

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Kramer Komment:

I have completely turned my phone off.

If my Son is away somewhere and Christy isn't here, I'll turn it on - but otherwise, it is off. I do not have Facebook or any social media hooked up to it either.

You MUST leave it alone and take a break from it.

The numbers about how often someone looks at their phone is fucking ridiculous.

 

Millennials spend over 200 minutes per day on their phones.