Many Links About ObamaCare

Last week, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in a 5-4 decision that the Affordable Care Act, or "ObamaCare", as called by its detractors, was constitutional. Or rather, the individual mandate, that was the primary mechanism for funding of ACA, was legal because the consequences of not buying health insurance amounted to a tax, in a majority opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts. The Supreme Court's five conservatives, which included Roberts, still found it unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause, contradicting years of precedent and many Constitutional legal scholars' findings.

(Disclosure: I am a liberal. I am pleased that a policy that addresses our nation's barely existent healthcare system was passed through Congress by popularly elected representatives and survived every constitutional challenge up to the highest court of the United States. That is truly democracy in action. On the other hand, there is much to be done to bring the US healthcare system in line with the rest of the developed world.)

Below, I've collected various articles of interest related to the ACA and the Supreme Court decision.

• Josh Marshall of TPM dissects the short-lived call for a single-payer system. 
• Erin Ryan of Jezebel discusses a common practice in the US - marrying for health insurance benefits and discusses whether ObamaCare would end the practice. Not explored: separated couples not divorcing because of cheaper health insurance benefits; abusive spouses holding health insurance as blackmail for their significant others, etc.
• US healthcare is too expensive for a musician with health insurance, so he's moving to Norway. "And, yes, I understand that the free Norwegian health care is bundled into the costs of daily life there. Higher prices for items like gas, alcohol, candy, and automobiles support a political culture where looking out for the weakest in society is considered natural, even among most conservatives. If we do end up spending more on our living expenses there, and I never see another health document with thousands of dollars billed, I'll consider it very worth the move for my soul."
• The benefits of ObamaCare for women. In short, Obamacare will increase health-insurance coverage for women, lower their health-care costs—and end the worst insurance-industry abuses against them.
• ObamaCare, explained to you like a five-year-old. Without oversimplification. 

Legend Of The Condor Heroes Theme Songs

The theme songs for Legend of the Condor Heroes were duets recorded and sung by Roman Tam and Jenny Tseng (sometimes listed as Jenny Yan). In this first video below, you can catch a glimpse of the behind-the-scenes studio recordings. The over-sized sweaters, large glasses, and old, mechanical recording equipment really do put you in the eighties. You'll see many scenes from the first episodes, where we are being introduced to the main characters. 

In the video below, it's the second duet (I think), and the scenes are from later episodes. There's not much to spoil here, because we aren't really told what the plots are from the few seconds each of different scenes, but you'll notice a lot of new people, and especially older characters fighting duels. 

I think the below video, at eight and a half minutes long, has the power duo singing the three major duets from the show. I think it's from a joint concert, and what's great is they have a live orchestra backing them up. 

Patrick Stewart Reads Shakespeare Sonnets

Via AppNewser.

There's a new iPad app that features various actors reading Shakespeare's sonnets, including Patrick Stewart, David Tennant, Kim Catrall, and others. The app is a collaboration between Faber and Touch Press. Since I don't have an iPad, the next best thing is to actually watch them online in the Share-a-Sonnet Vimeo album. In this post, I've collected Patrick Stewart's readings.

 
Patrick Stewart reading Sonnet 4 'Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend' from Touch Press on Vimeo.

Patrick Stewart reading Sonnet 19 'Devouring time, blunt thou the lion's paws' from Touch Press on Vimeo.

Patrick Stewart reading Sonnet 29 'When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes' from Touch Press on Vimeo.

Patrick Stewart reading Sonnet 30 'When to the sessions of sweet silent thought' from Touch Press on Vimeo.

Patrick Stewart reading Sonnet 127 'In the old age black was not counted fair' from Touch Press on Vimeo.

Links + Commentary

• Fifth-grader originally banned from presenting speech supporting marriage equality now okayed to speak. One step forward, two steps back, four steps forward. 
• The Justice Department doesn't feel it's their duty to notify people in prison that they might be innocent, or to make it easier for them to get out once they're cleared of their crimes. 
• Aisha Tyler posted a Facebook note titled "Dear Gamers" that ends with: I'll still be playing when your mom's kicked you out of her basement/and you have to sell your old-ass console/and get a real job.
• The House passes a resolution expressing regret for Chinese Exclusion laws. The rest of America's immigration policy remains deeply racist.
• SodaStream's product seemed pretty cool to me until I found out that their main production factory is in "Mishor Edomim, a settlement and industrial zone in the occupied West Bank, on confiscated Palestinian land". I will not be buying this product.
• How lies spread. An analysis of how the media ran with the "drones surveil American farms" panic attack.
• Priscilla Dang defends herself from gropers with her martial arts skills. 
• Fossilized turtles' sex acts frozen in time. 
• Club Unicorn: In which I come out of the closet on our ten year anniversary - A young, gay Mormon man says he is happily married with children, and has a happy sex life with his wife.
• In Which I Feel Compelled to Start a Blog Because of a Club and a Unicorn - A young, straight Mormon talks about how she was formerly unhappily married to a gay Mormon man, had children, and eventually ended up divorcing. 

Prometheus Links + Commentary

I watched Prometheus over the weekend, and came home with mixed feelings.

The good: Beautiful, gorgeous visuals, good actors, some frightening scenes, works as a thriller.
The bad: Writing is clunky, plot doesn't make sense.
The stupid: Everyone is stupid. Literally. As someone in the hello, tailor blog comments: "Nobody talks to each other except to info-dump, and worse, nobody follows their job descriptions (geologists can't follow their own maps, security leaves their weapons at home, scientists don't perform tests, captains can't keep track of their crew, doctors don't care that a woman is running around in bloody underwear with her intestines hanging out, etc.). If the characters don't care about things, why should we?"

To me, there's a lot of fun in dissecting media, but this has been done much better elsewhere, so I'll just point to them here. Warning: I spoil everything, and I don't hide it. If you want to read someone who hides spoilers, you'll have to go somewhere else.

• The Fashion Harbinger critiques Prometheus on plot and costuming. 
• Interview with Sir Ridley Scott on the Prometheus and Alien universe. Movies.com: You throw religion and spirituality into the equation for Prometheus, though, and it almost acts as a hand grenade. We had heard it was scripted that the Engineers were targeting our planet for destruction because we had crucified one of their representatives, and that Jesus Christ might have been an alien. Was that ever considered? RS: We definitely did, and then we thought it was a little too on the nose. But if you look at it as an “our children are misbehaving down there” scenario, there are moments where it looks like we’ve gone out of control, running around with armor and skirts, which of course would be the Roman Empire. And they were given a long run. A thousand years before their disintegration actually started to happen. And you can say, “Lets’ send down one more of our emissaries to see if he can stop it. Guess what? They crucified him. 
• Penny Arcade's comic. 
• Prometheus Pre-prequel. (YouTube)
• Prometheus Unbound: What The Movie Was Actually About. Long, long, long analysis of the various symbolic imagery in Prometheus. What you have to understand: it makes no statement on whether the film itself is good or bad - it's mainly just analyzing the symbolic imagery and how often it comes up. That's it. 

Toasty Loves...Shutterfly

Seriously, I do. I've been using Shutterfly to print my pictures ever since they've been around. They provide gorgeous pictures and photo products, and as I discovered this week, they have excellent customer service.

In the first incident, I tried to log onto my account a few times, but for some reason I couldn't get on. I changed my password several times, but was still unable to access my account. Fortunately, Shutterfly actually has a customer service number that is really easy to find, and the customer service representative walked me through the entire process of fixing the issue. When he was unable to help me out, he told me that he would personally walk over to the tech people and that I'd receive a note shortly from one of them confirming that they had fixed and reset my account. Which they did.

In the second instance, I ordered pictures, and when they came, the envelope had been opened and taped back shut. All my pictures were in there, but the fact that the envelope came opened disturbed me. I sent an email to Shutterfly's customer service, and was surprised the next day to receive an email saying that they were really sorry and they would make sure to find a way to make sure it didn't happen again. By the way, they would also send me replacement pictures for free.

I've used Shutterfly to print photos, make birthday cards, and photo books. I love their unlimited storage, and I love that I am able to maximize various discounts to get pictures at awesome prices.

My only issues stem from their interface - I think they could stand to be less complex, and more accessible to the average user.

The Legacy of Rodney King

Rodney King passed away a few days ago. An ordinary, flawed man who became the symbol of something much greater than himself also couldn't escape his legacy. After he was beaten, he continued to be a flawed man, struggling with addictions and other demons. But he seemed to have made peace with the incident that defined him for over twenty years.

I wondered - has anything really changed in the past twenty years?

Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African-American male, is dead. It took almost two months for his murderer to be arrested.
Oscar Grant, an African-American male, was shot dead by a BART cop who claimed he mistook his gun for a taser. Even with video evidence, Johanne Mehserle was only convicted of involuntary manslaughter for which he was only sentenced for two years, in which he received "double credit" for time already served. And now he is trying to appeal his conviction because he actually wants to return to police work.
Kendrec McDade, an African-American teenager, was shot dead by cops in Pasadena, who believed he participated in an armed robbery. McDade was unarmed. He had no gang ties, nor did he have any criminal records.

It seems to have become more fatal.

Links + Commentary

• What Facebook Knows - To read later. 
• China is sending its first female astronaut into space. 
• Second patient at Cedars-Sinai denied transplant because of medical marijuana use.
• Prometheus and the fannish mindset: Plotholes aren't everything. The Fashion Harbinger may just be my new favorite blogger. In this post she gets at why nitpickiness when it comes to the stuff we want to love isn't real criticism. 
• Late-term abortion forced by corrupt Chinese officials. What's unusual about this incident was that it was photographed, and made public.
• The Mommy Fight Site. Explores an anonymous online parenting forum for the DC area. Fascinating for its viciousness and class hate that comes out with the protection of anonymity. I have half-formed thoughts about anonymity, moderated anonymity, pseudonymity, and the myth of using real names to protect and hold people responsible for their actions. There's no such thing. 

Links + Commentary

• Is it Fair for Chefs to Cook Other Cultures' Foods? Fascinating conversation between Francis Lam and Eddie Huang on food and cultural appropriation. Honestly, the title of the piece is misleading. Lots of food for thought.
• Home Sweet Home - Eddie Huang's followup on his personal blog. 
• New "Anne of Green Gables" TV series in development. The producers will be working with the Montgomery estate; however, they are planning on updating it for the modern era. I'm not sure how that would even work. 
• Tank Man, Tiananmen Square photo, uncropped. Much more powerful than the original that was published.
• Nearly 1 out of 10 people killed in Los Angeles died at the hands of Los Angeles cops. Unacceptable.
• 22 Pixar rules for storytelling. 
• What travel guides tell foreign visitors to the U.S.
• Tiananmen political prisoner Li Wangyang found dead. Officially it was suicide, but it looks suspicious.
• Exiled former student leader Chai Ling stirs up controversy when she says that she has forgiven the Chinese government for the Tiananmen massacre because of her Christian religion. 

Legend Of The Condor Heroes 1983 TVB Series Re-watch

I'm excited. I just received my DVDs of the 1983 TVB version of the Legend Of The Condor Heroes to arrive. Part one of Jin Yong/Louis Cha's famous Condor Heroes trilogy, it follows the story and adventures of simple-minded Guo Jing and his partner-in-crime Huang Rong. While the sequel, Return Of The Condor Heroes, is much more popular, I think the first part is actually better story-wise.

When I was a kid, I was fascinated by the martial arts heroes genre, and spent hours watching tapes of young heroes and heroines fighting off evil and navigating the martial arts world of ancient China, which seemed to exist separately from the actual Chinese government of the era.

The best thing about the Condor Heroes are the characters. It's your basic coming-of-age story, but what makes the story so special is Huang Rong, the love interest. When you meet her, she's impulsive, petty, but also ruthless and smart, complementing Guo Jing's simple-mindedness and innocence. She's one of my all-time favorite characters, ever.

I'll be watching this again, and writing down my impressions as an adult. It'll be interesting to compare my childhood impressions with my adult outlook. One caveat: I do not have any screen capture software, so most of my posts will be heavy on the text.

Style Saint - Fantasy Wedding Stylebook

I met the CEO of StyleSaint the other day, and decided to check the site out. I'm still playing with the site, but here's a stylebook I created with StyleSaint. The theme is "Fantasy Wedding", and I was toying with the idea of re-doing my wedding in a dreamland.

Punchcard App Pays Out

So far, I have received 3 physical checks from the Punchcard app. The premise of the app is very simple: when you purchase something from a store, take a snapshot of the receipt with your phone, and "punch" in the store. When you have "punched" a store 10 times, you'll receive a check for the average of your purchase amounts up to $30. Supposedly merchants have other deals that they can also give you once you've hit the 10th punch, but I've only ever received checks.

I like that it's very simple to use. There's not a huge learning curve, and it's free. It's available for both Android and iOS. The one nice thing about it, is that there's not really a limit to the type of places where you can "punch" in. According to TechCrunch, "it just switched on loyalty programs for millions of locations across the U.S., even if they didn’t ask for it.

“We’re looking at this as seeding the market, essentially,” explains Punchcard CEO and serial entrepreneur Andy Steuer of why the company has seemingly put the cart before the horse. In other words, usage and rewards first, paying customers (i.e., businesses signing up) second."

There are some oddities in it - the way Punchcard pulls up locations for you to punch in, is powered by Foursquare, and this can result in some weirdness. For example, one of the locations near my house is "Taco Man". Who, or what is Taco Man? I have no idea.

There is a tab for Offers, that presumes to give you local deals similar to what Google Offers, or Groupon, or Living Social does. However, every time I've tried to click on a deal, it fails to actually take me to the offer. It's not like many of those offers are very appealing anyway, so I don't use it.

One thing to remember about this app is that you have to snap a picture of your receipt at the point of purchase. This has been an issue for me when I've used the app because the GPS/Foursquare function is inconsistent, and for certain locations, it wouldn't show me the stores that I was standing right next to. I think this is a bug that got fixed in the latest update, but I need to test it.

You can only "punch" the same location once a day, but you can "punch" your receipt, if you forgot on the day of, up to five days later. This is great, as long as you are right next to your location. I've found it useful because the grocery store is right down the street from me.

There's another downside: your punches have expiration dates. For example, if you punch into a Ralph's store, you'll need to collect 10 punches by a certain date and it will re-set. Usually the date is several months from when you've punched in - however, I had a ludicrous situation once, where I punched into the Los Angeles Zoo on Memorial Day. The expiration date was for June 27, which was less than a month away. How could the app realistically expect me to show up to the zoo 10 times before the month was out?

Although, how could I not love an app that sends me cash? The app is not altogether altruistic. It's also a solution for small business owners. Punchcard also launched "Punchcard for Business", which lets businesses analyze the data collected from the punched receipts, and push out special offers directly to loyal clients. It's a win-win situation for everyone.

Genuine Apologies

Let's face it - apologies are a dime a dozen, but most of them are insincere and self-serving. So when real people with power face their faults with thoughtfulness, it's worth highlighting:

• Jason Alexander writes an apology for calling cricket a "gay sport": So, I can only apologize and I do. In comedy, timing is everything. And when a group of people are still fighting so hard for understanding, acceptance, dignity and essential rights – the time for some kinds of laughs has not yet come. I hope my realization brings some comfort.
• Mark Cuban apologizes for making a homophobic joke: I guess what I am doing is admitting that at some level I am prejudiced and that I recognize that I am .  There are a lot of things in my life that I need to improve at. This is one of them. Sometimes I make stupid throw away comments that I quickly realize are wrong. It doesn’t happen often, but it happens. It was a mistake and I realized it. I learned from it.

Links + Comments

• Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi's Twitter, full of links and pics to space goodness.
• US astronaut Ron Garan's Twitter. He's also on Google+.
• US astronaut Don Pettit's Twitter. He's also on Google+.
• NASA's Google+ page.
• The world's worst password requirements list. (I sympathize with this list.)
• 10 unusual uses for discarded eggshells. (Practical.)
• Food trucks make it to Paris. (I like the description of Parisians trying to eat tacos with a knife and fork.)
• Solar plumes.
• Apparently charter schools can kick your kid out when you complain that they're being racist to your kid.