Month: October 2013

The Unknown Armies Bundle of Holding.

If you have not yet bought Atlas Games‘ excellent and insanely good urban magic occult underground game Unknown Armies yet, the current Bundle of Holding will give you a ridiculous amount of good gaming material in PDF form for about fourteen bucks. I already own all of these and I still picked it up, largely because it’s nice to have this stuff on the iPad and the price is very attractive (a little over two bucks a book).

It is my hope that this may presage them bringing back the game line. Which would be AWESOME.

#Obamacare got 99 problems but the rich ain’t one.

The rich, after all, don’t rely on Obamacare for their coverage. Everybody else? Yeah, well. About that.

It’s a batting average that won’t land the federal marketplace for Obamacare into the Healthcare Hall of Fame.

As few as 1 in 100 applications on the federal exchange contains enough information to enroll the applicant in a plan, several insurance industry sources told CNBC on Friday. Some of the problems involve how the exchange’s software collects and verifies an applicant’s data.

Low traffic* you can deal with. Bad site architecture you can deal with. Even poor selection you can deal with.  But the problem here – which is that a lot of people who think that they have gotten through the process have not, and thus are at high risk of not having insurance in January – is a really, really critical one for the administration.  And I don’t know how seriously they’re taking it: if I was running this thing and it was my good name on the line I’d never have let things get this bad in the first place.

But then, I don’t think that I’m a Greek demigod.

Continue reading #Obamacare got 99 problems but the rich ain’t one.

The Speaker’s office is keeping score of #HarryReidsShutdown.

Every funding bill that the House has passed and that the Senate has refused to even consider – which is to say all of them, except for the one funding the military.  Basically, Harry Reid thinks that he can let a few kids with cancer die and still not worry about losing his Senate Majority Leader gig… but even his current caucus might balk at playing games with the troops at that level of sadistic indifference.

It will, unfortunately, undoubtedly have to be updated.

Via

 

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Maryland, #Obamacare, SIS BOOM BAH! 100 signups (100-minus), RAH RAH …HUH?

Thank God I am not stuck relying on the federal government in order to get health insurance.

…Maryland has been at the forefront of implementing the Affordable Care Act. It established six policy work groups. It trained more than 5,000 people to help consumers enroll in new health-coverage options. When its online insurance exchange passed a critical test in the summer — one of the first in the country to do so — a top official gave an emotional speech thanking workers. If any state was going to be ready for Oct. 1, when millions of uninsured Americans would be able to start buying coverage under the health law, it would be Maryland.

But when Tuesday arrived, Maryland’s Web site stumbled badly. People couldn’t log on, forcing state officials to delay the opening of the exchange for four hours. Even after it opened, many frustrated users were unable to create accounts, the first step in buying coverage. All told, fewer than 100 people have managed to enroll.

Continue reading Maryland, #Obamacare, SIS BOOM BAH! 100 signups (100-minus), RAH RAH …HUH?

Hey, it’s Skyrim: the Movie! (No, not really.)

This Vikingdom flick looks really, really bad.

…not to mention uncomfortably like some of my past gameplay, if I had somehow managed to play a game that combined the feel of Skyrim (yay!) with the combat animations of Dragon Age 2 (…yay?).  The martial arts Vikings were a nice touch: I personally like to ninja it out in my games whenever possible – and sometimes when it’s, strictly speaking, not.

The public’s access to Healthcare.gov just got a good deal more selective.

Classical reference. Anyway:

HHS to take Healthcare.gov applications offline this weekend for ‘scheduled maintenance’

The agency reports that it will take down the application section of Healthcare.gov this weekend during off-peak hours “for scheduled maintenance.”

In a release titled “Week One Success,” the agency touts “sustained improvements” to the consumer experience since the launch Tuesday, despite the ongoing and widespread prevalence of long waits and error messages greeting people around the country who are trying to use the site.

I’m sure that they’ll be figuring all of this out eventually, but it’d be nice to hear how many people are actually using the site to, you know, buy health insurance. Because so far the silence is speaking volumes…

Moe Lane

Jonah Gol… God, @BarackObama is just a twerp, isn’t he?

After a while you almost get numb.

Almost.

…Obama told CNBC’s John Harwood that Wall Street should be far more panicky about Republican efforts to use the debt ceiling to win concessions from the White House. I don’t blame Obama for being annoyed with Republicans for trying to use the debt ceiling the exact same way he did when he was a senator. But normally a sitting president doesn’t try to talk down the economy just to win a political point.

Continue reading Jonah Gol… God, @BarackObama is just a twerp, isn’t he?

Quote AND Tweet of the Day, Nobody @BarackObama Knows Has Troubles edition.

First, the quote, from the Wall Street Journal:

Said a senior administration official: “We are winning…It doesn’t really matter to us” how long the shutdown lasts “because what matters is the end result.”

Ah, those Ascended Beings and hyper-geometric messaging geniuses over at the White House.  But, alas, I cannot beat Jake Tapper’s (apparent) reaction to that line:

Continue reading Quote AND Tweet of the Day, Nobody @BarackObama Knows Has Troubles edition.