FWIW, GCE have console. Another thing I miss in AWS is the ability to change instance user-data while running (GCE also allows this, including the ability to long-poll for changes)
Rackspace (at least, when I worked for a company that used them) has access to the console; their website has a link to a VNC page (running a Java applet) that connects to the console of the VM; you can even type into it, unlike AWS.
It was extremely handy, and I miss having it. Debugging issues in AWS is a bit trickier.
I doubt that $30/month figure is plausible for someone without high quality preparation and storage facilities and great discipline. But it seems like a pointless discussion to me; there is no place in the US you can't avail yourself of a SNAP card and an average of $126/person/month (www.cbpp.org figures.)
If a kid isn't being fed it isn't for lack of funds, it's some other dysfunction. I have no doubt such dysfunction is indeed prevalent, but correcting it would involve a direct intervention of the day to day behavior of individuals. And while it may be easy to hypothesize about such a world from the comfort of your $5000/month Seattle apartment, in the real world people -- including both the parents and the kids you have in mind -- don't want it, will resist it and so the whole thing becomes another shit show at the end of which you'll still have kids going hungry.
Hasn't there been a huge push since the 90s to make accessing SNAP and other "welfare" services harder to access (long complex enrollment processes) and harder to keep access to?
Other than that sure you can eat fairly well on $4/day - if you have decent access to stores, storage to stockpile bulk purchases when on sale and appropriate pots/pans/knives, a stove, perhaps an oven, refrigeration, etc.
There are a lot of people who lack several of those prerequisites.
> Hasn't there been a huge push since the 90s to make accessing SNAP and other "welfare" services harder to access
There has been a huge push of a narrative to that effect. Actual USDA enrollment rate data doesn't reflect much success in these supposed policies however; current enrollment (over 40 million) is far above any point in the 90s (less than 30 million.)
> In Seattle, a small starter home in a half-decent area is $700,000
I closed on a house 6 months ago on a $375K house in Seattle. New townhouse, with direct access to downtown in 30 minutes. The deals are out there, just have to look for them.
As others have noted, Simplenote (in its various apps and platforms) works just fine offline. I work for days without a connection and then it syncs to the server whenever there's a chance.
