Overnight Open Thread (12-2-2013)

I'll Take Alternate Realities For $500 Alex

Krugtron the Invincible on Obamacare this Saturday:

'Health reform is starting to look like a bigger success than even its most ardent advocates expected'

This Is What Poverty Is Like...Or Not

So Linda Walther Tirado AKA KillerMartini wrote a piece on what it's like to be truly poor and how the limitations from poverty end up forcing her to make bad decisions and how she and her family have to live off of junk food in a hotel. It soon went viral on the internet.

Rest is a luxury for the rich. I get up at 6AM, go to school (I have a full courseload, but I only have to go to two in-person classes) then work, then I get the kids, then I pick up my husband, then I have half an hour to change and go to Job 2. I get home from that at around 1230AM, then I have the rest of my classes and work to tend to. I'm in bed by 3. This isn't every day, I have two days off a week from each of my obligations. I use that time to clean the house and soothe Mr. Martini and see the kids for longer than an hour and catch up on schoolwork. Those nights I'm in bed by midnight, but if I go to bed too early I won't be able to stay up the other nights because I'll fuck my pattern up, and I drive an hour home from Job 2 so I can't afford to be sleepy. I never get a day off from work unless I am fairly sick. It doesn't leave you much room to think about what you are doing, only to attend to the next thing and the next. Planning isn't in the mix.

...Convenience food is just that. And we are not allowed many conveniences. Especially since the Patriot Act passed, it's hard to get a bank account. But without one, you spend a lot of time figuring out where to cash a check and get money orders to pay bills. Most motels now have a no-credit-card-no-room policy. I wandered around SF for five hours in the rain once with nearly a thousand dollars on me and could not rent a room even if I gave them a $500 cash deposit and surrendered my cell phone to the desk to hold as surety.

Except that it appears to all be bullshit. She owns a house, is married to a Marine and has worked as a political campaign aide off and on since 2004, takes vacations to Vegas, and attended boarding schools in her youth and doesn't think much of your ilk.

So why is she still raising $100,000 to 'get out' of poverty?

When Kennedys Kill

On the morning of October 31, 1975 the body of 14 year old Martha Moxley was found in her backyard. Her skull had been bashed in by a golf club and her pants and underwear were pulled down. The night before she had been last seen with Thomas and Michael Skakel, nephews of Ethel Kennedy.

Gently interrogated by the police, murder suspect Michael Skakel threw the trump card: "You can't touch me! I'm a Kennedy." And indeed, the Greenwich, CT police didn't arrest him, even though the golf club that smashed in the 14-year-old's head came from Skakel's golf bag, and he admitted peeping in her windows - and abusing himself. He put himself on the scene, owned the weapon, and admitted unrequited lust for the victim. But "You can't touch me!"

From Wikipedia:

Over the years, both Thomas and Michael Skakel significantly changed their alibis for the night of Moxley's murder. Michael Skakel claimed that he had been window-peeping and masturbating in a tree beside the Moxley property from 11:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. Two former Elan students testified they heard Michael Skakel confess to killing Moxley with a golf club. Gregory Coleman testified that Skakel was given special privileges, saying Skakel bragged, "I'm going to get away with murder. I'm a Kennedy."

And indeed he did which is why it took 27 years and the eventually fading of the Kennedy influence to finally bring Michael Skakel to trial for the murder of Martha Moxley. And now after serving 11 years in prison he's out on bail pending a new trial due to 'inadequate representation'.

Operation Glasshole

So what do you do with a pair of Google glasses besides cheat at poker with them? Well you can also become a modern Cyrano de Bergerac and help improve a younger guy's game:

I'm married with three kids, and my wife has made it clear that Glass is not an aphrodisiac for her. So I figured I'd lend my device to a single twenty-six-year-old editor at Esquire. The plan: He'll wear it to a downtown New York bar, and I'll watch the live-stream video from home and tell him what to do. I'll be his Cyrano. I'll get a vicarious night on the town, all while eating my butternut-squash soup in the comfort of my home. I can't wait.

House to Soon Vote of the Undetectable Firearms Act Bill

Which despite its name would also ban plastic gun parts and even plastic magazines depending on how the DOJ interprets the vague wording.

Disappearing Product Features

Well Sony has become notorious for taking away features in its Playstation "upgrades" which you can't really opt out of. And now Tesla has stealthily removed a feature on its cars through a software update.

One of the great innovations of the 21st century are products that are cloud-connected and update and improve automatically. For software, gone are the days of having to buy a new version of physical media (disks or CD's.) For hardware it's the magical ability to have a product get better over time as new features are automatically added.

The downside is when companies unilaterally remove features from their products without asking their customers permission and/or remove consumers' ability to use the previous versions. Products can just as easily be downgraded as upgraded.

It was a wake up call when Amazon did it with books, disappointing when Google did it with Google Maps, annoying when Apple did it to their office applications - but Tesla just did it on a $100,000 car.

Affirmative Action Comes To School Discipline

Charles Bronson Deals with the Hipsters

"Hey man is that a vintage jacket?

The Yahoo AoSHQ group. Bla bla bla.

And my twitter thang.

Tonight's post brought to you by wait that isn't the correct spelling:

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posted by Maetenloch at 10:05 PM

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