Annoying New York Times articles

[WOM]

...after having their hopes dashed for what would have been a bright future in environmental destruction.

"Retrain now for a bright future in tobacco, alcohol and gaming!"

[Incandenza]

It's the portraits that really made that article.

[Hot Pepsi]

Set to graduate in May, Mr. Arvie, 22, has switched careers and accepted a job at JPMorgan Chase, where he expects to get involved in derivatives and marketing in the technology industry. Someday, though, he said, he might find a place in the energy industry.

Wow, life is really hard for that guy, isn't it?

[Hot Pepsi]

It's the portraits that really made that article.

It's astounding. Onionesque

[ursus arctos]

This is very true.

When we graduated uni into the teeth of the recession, the most lucrative jobs available to graduates of the nation's oldest pile of brick were (with one exception) all in petroleum engineering, which was manifestly not one of the place's strong suits. I recall Oklahoma State crowing that their graduates had the highest starting salaries in the country.

As I have noted before, the exception was a standing offer from the National Enquirer to rat on our classmate Caroline Kennedy. In an all too rare demonstration of decency, no one took them up on it.

[San Bernardhinault]

As I have noted before, the exception was a standing offer from the National Enquirer to rat on our classmate Caroline Kennedy. In an all too rare demonstration of decency, no one took them up on it.

Is this bait for us?

Go on... Was there anything to rat about?

[ursus arctos]

Nothing out of the ordinary for an affluent late 70s university student, at least as far as I was aware of.

We were not close at all despite ostensibly being in the same department(nor we were at law school, where we crossed paths again).

[Mr Cogito]

Wow, life is really hard for that guy, isn't it?

Bring back Enron! Your country needs you!!!

[Hot Pepsi]

This is very true.

When we graduated uni into the teeth of the recession, the most lucrative jobs available to graduates of the nation's oldest pile of brick were (with one exception) all in petroleum engineering, which was manifestly not one of the place's strong suits. I recall Oklahoma State crowing that their graduates had the highest starting salaries in the country.

I've known a few people to go into some kind of engineering related to fossil fuels and they all seem to involve moving to places that I wouldn't want to live ever, or maybe even pass through, like a rig in the middle of the ocean or Qatar or Barrow or Houston. It pays relatively well, but it means aligning oneself with an industry that is destroying the planet.

That article is breathtaking for many reasons, but not least of all because it suggests that not ending up in the exact field one studied in college is a major hardship, even though that describes, I suspect, the vast majority of college graduates, as well as a lot of engineering graduates.

The hardships caused by a boom and bust industry like that do not fall on 23-year-old Rice grads, FFS, but on all those people driving trucks or working directly with the extraction equipment. Even if their skills are transferable to something else, they'll probably have to move, possibly far away and that generally gets harder the older one gets.

As I have noted before, the exception was a standing offer from the National Enquirer to rat on our classmate Caroline Kennedy. In an all too rare demonstration of decency, no one took them up on it

I suppose offering dirt on classmates could be a lucrative side hustle for many Ivy League grads, but it would no doubt impair one's chances of taking advantage of their alumni networks, which is a major reason to attend a university of that caliber and cost.

The most famous people that I went to college with are the coaches of the Bills and Steelers, respectively, but I didn't know them at all. Nobody famous was in my department. But then I was in the religion department and if you get famous doing religion, you're probably doing it wrong.

[ursus arctos]

Every energy industry type we have encountered has done time in some really difficult places. Difficult geographically, difficult politically, difficult socially - often all three.

Fracking aside, all of the easily accessible resources were exploited long ago, and many engineers find themselves needing to leave exploration and development for a "desk job" if they want to raise a family.

It is a long and complicated topic, but I believe that the influence of Ivy "networks" is generally overstated. What is understated is the degree to which such credentials create privilege that can be deployed almost anywhere and without any reference to a "network". A hypothetical Caroline Kennedy rat would still have Harvard College Class of 1980 on their CV (and would almost certainly elide their experience with the Enquirer).

[Hot Pepsi]

That’s probably true, but I wouldn’t want the Kennedys or their friends as my enemies, no matter where I went to college.

[ursus arctos]

You are a wise man

[ursus arctos]

[ad hoc]

I've only this week become aware of peloton bikes. They're exercise bikes that connect to the Internet right? And cost over 2000 euros? Plus some kind of monthly subscription?

[ursus arctos]

Yes, and you can see why they would be an irresistible subject for the current incarnation of the NYT

[ad hoc]

Indeed. The NYT and that sickening "How to spend it" supplement the FT puts out (do they still or have they stopped?)

[ursus arctos]

They still run it

One of the advantages of accessing the FT only on-line is that that atrocity is significantly easier to avoid.

[Uncle Ethan]

But what about his e-bikes?

[San Bernardhinault]

That is a spectacular headline.

"Isn't it a scandal that "Joe From Scranton" can afford an exercise bike". It's as if the last 4 (or, in fact, 250, but particularly 4) years never happened.

But we have to find an angle that makes it look "serious" rather than just a petty dig about the President spending money on a thing that probably cost less than a single overcooked burger at Mar a Lago did... so...

"Isn't it a scandal that something that might not be infinitely secure is connected to the internet is in the White House". It's as if the last four years of tweeting from the golden throne never happened...

[WOM]

I just finished that article that ua linked on the other thread, about the minefield of financial stuff awaiting Trump. I'm struck, once again, by how many newspaper articles just end. There's no summation or encapsulating thought. Just...bang....no more sentences. It's almost as if they hit their word count and just moved on.

[Hot Pepsi]

Triangle style. You put the least important bits at the end so they can cut it off to make it fit in the print issue. But even though that shouldn't matter any more, that style remains, because of tradition and because it is assumed that a lot of people won't read the whole thing anyway.

[ursus arctos]

They are at it again

[Benjm]

I hadn't come across the Shinola brand before. Does it claim the heritage of the polish company?

Anyway, unless the watches are usually available at a heavy discount, the writer may be revealing more about their own world than Biden's by classing them as "Everyman". They're not exactly Casio.

[ursus arctos]

The original Shinola shoe polish brand was founded in Rochester, New York in 1877,^[3]and went out of business in 1960.^[4] The modern company was founded in 2011 by Tom Kartsotis under his investment company, Bedrock Manufacturing (now Bedrock Brands).^[2][5] Kartsotis, previously a founder of Fossil Group, wanted to create a high end American watch manufacturing brand to rival Swiss watchmakers at a lower price point.^[6] Bedrock decided to acquire the Shinola brand after an associate used the World War I-era expression "You don't know shit from Shinola" as a rejoinder to Kartsotis' stated ambitions for the company. Unexpectedly, the joke generated a serious discussion about restoring the Shinola brand.^[7][8] Market surveys established that when faced with a choice of paying US$5 for a pen from China, $10 for one made in the United States, and $15 for a pen made in Detroit, consumers would be willing to pay a premium for the last one.^[7]

[Benjm]

Hmm, that marriage of luxury goods with post-modern naming seems a bit queasy to me but, having discovered recently that there is a brand of casual wear called Kangaroo Poo, I may just be an old stick in the mud.