Overnight Open Thread (10-13-2013)

Sorry tonight's ONT is gonna be on the minimalist side. I had a gum graft on Friday and while the procedure was painless, the after-effects really knocked me for a loop. The last two days have mostly involved sleeping, vicodin, ramen, and the occasional operation of heavy machinery.  So you'll have to mostly entertain yourselves.

Heh

(Thanks to Andy)

The Beginnings of OCP

Abandoned by the city Oakland residents are organizing their own private police forces.

Oakland has an understaffed police department and is the city with the highest robbery rate* in America. In the last few weeks three separate campaigns have been started on Crowdtilt in order to fund four months of private security patrols in three different section of Rockridge. Near $35,000 have been raised so far, and two of the three projects have raised enough funds to ensure they will move forward.

"We shouldn't have to do this," says Steven Kirsh, who is running the last of the three Rockridge campaigns, "but we need to do this." He doesn't see the Oakland Police Department suddenly getting more resources, so in order to protect his belongings, family and property value, the $82 per household doesn't seem like much to ask, for 12 hours of patrolling five days a week. For a four month trial it will work out to less than a dollar a day.

The Birth of Microsoft

Paul Allen, a college dropout from Seattle, wandered into the cluttered kiosk one snowy day in December 1974 and saw that the new issue of Popular Electronics featured a home computer for hobbyists, called the Altair, that was just coming on the market. He was both exhilarated and dismayed. Although thrilled that the era of the "personal" computer seemed to have arrived, he was afraid that he was going to miss the party. Slapping down 75 cents, he grabbed the issue and trotted through the slush to the Currier House room of Bill Gates, a Harvard sophomore and fellow computer fanatic from Lakeside High School in Seattle, who had convinced Allen to drop out of college and move to Cambridge. "Hey, this thing is happening without us," Allen declared. Gates began to rock back and forth, as he often did during moments of intensity. When he finished the article, he realized that Allen was right. For the next eight weeks, the two of them embarked on a frenzy of code writing that would change the nature of the computer business.

Azerbaijan Has The Most Efficient Elections in the World

They already have the results tabulated even before the voting begins.

"Florida's hanging chads ain't going nothing on Azerbaijan. Fully a day before the polls were to open, election results were accidentally released via an official smartphone app, confirming what everybody already knew - the election was rigged from the beginning. The official story is that the app's developer had mistakenly sent out the 2008 election results as part of a test. But that's a bit flimsy, given that the released totals show the candidates from this week, not from 2008."

The First Actual Space Laser Gun

Madonna Turning Muslim?

Well about as much as she was Catholic and then Jewish.

"I am building schools for girls in Islamic countries and studying the Qur'an. I think it is important to study all the holy books. As my friend Yaman always tells me, a good Muslim is a good Jew, and a good Jew is a good Christian, and so forth. I couldn't agree more. To some people this is a very daring thought."

Just wait until she starts stripping out of a burka on stage and making out with Mohammed.

"Killed 99 Bears"

Sexy in the 70s

10 Musicians Who Killed Someone

Weekly AoSHQ Commenter Standings

Top 10 commenters:
1 [493 comments] 'Anna Puma (+SmuD)' [69.21 posts/day]
2 [446 comments] 'AllenG (Dedicated Tenther) MFM Delenda Est'
3 [417 comments] 'Jane D'oh'
4 [366 comments] 'MWR, Proud Tea(rrorist) Party Assault Hobbit Chelsea </i></s></u></b>'
5 [361 comments] 'Niedermeyer's Dead Horse'
6 [356 comments] 'Nevergiveup'
7 [342 comments] 'Flatbush Joe'
8 [325 comments] 'Vic'
9 [307 comments] 'artisanal 'ette'
10 [297 comments] 'Brandon In Baton Rouge'

Top 10 sockpuppeteers:
1 [116 names] 'phreshone' [16.28 unique names/day]
2 [56 names] 'The Political Hat'
3 [49 names] 'kbdabear'
4 [39 names] 'Cicero (@cicero)'
5 [37 names] 'Beagle'
6 [37 names] 'Doctor Fish'
7 [33 names] 'adams petro porn'
8 [31 names] 'Brandon In Baton Rouge'
9 [31 names] 'Schr?dinger's cat </i>'
10 [30 names] 'Low Information Voter'

The group. Yeah.

Where it's at - the Twitter

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posted by Maetenloch at 10:33 PM

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