even more quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a new rolling new york times thread

opening picture of clown zombie with balloon really helps sell the story

Ever been on a bus with an excess of polite people who don't sit, even with plenty of open seats? So all these polite people create a barrier to getting off, because they are all STANDING IN THE WAY. Which is not polite - what to do? Maybe instead sit down when there are seats, ladies and gentlemen.

triple shots all around at the Denver Chamber of Commerce tonight

Price of a maki roll of chopped fatty tuna wrapped in rice with caviar piled on each of the eight pieces: $240. I could never bring myself to order it, or two dishes filigreed with white truffles: the fried rice with mushrooms ($120) or the Ohmi beef tataki ($150). So I can’t tell you how any of them taste, but I can tell you that by the time I spotted something for less than $80, it struck me as a steal.

Amount I spent for 5.5 ounces of grilled steak raised in Australia: $78.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/07/dining/restaurant-review-kappo-masa-on-the-upper-east-side.html?ref=dining

i had to put that somewhere...

LOL you'd pay $10 for that steak and get a pint with it, here.

hey so no one posted the paleo bone broth article yet? i'll have to dig it up

lol. I hope you're just calling out the restaurant and not Pete Wells on that though, it's not really his fault.

Masa has been my dream meal since I read Anthony Bourdain's account in Medium Raw or the Nasty Bits or one of those, but I don't think I'd be going to the satellite locations. I'll just drop the obscene money at the real place.

no, i like pete! just the price of that fried rice...

i walked like 200 yards to work today and i could have used some bone broth at the time...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/07/dining/bone-broth-evolves-from-prehistoric-food-to-paleo-drink.html#

okay so the paleo bone broth wasn't too bad, making stock is fun and enhances all levels of my cooking ime. but i kind of think the fun of it is making it on your own and seeing humble ingredients simmer in a stockpot over an afternoon, it warms the house and the soul, you can see as the day passes the complexity of flavors increases. it's not something you shell out $5 for a shot of at fuckin street window. though i guess that is cool at the same time that in NY and SF you can buy a shot of bone broth at fuckin street window. good for them. boston would be more interesting if you could do that i guess

okay so the paleo bone broth wasn't too bad

meaning it wasn't too quid ag as i thought it would be. at least as paleo nytimes articles go

i was gonna ask how you liked it

Tam writes and illustrates the popular Nom Nom Paleo blog

argh

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/15/style/the-uproar-over-amal-clooneys-white-gloves.html

So hotly debated was Ms. Clooney’s fashion statement that it rated its own Twitter account, @msclooneygloves. Elsewhere, tweeters singled out the offending armwear as pompous or pretentious, charging that she appears to think of herself as royalty. Another joshed, perhaps accurately, “Amal wore the gloves to protect the engagement and wedding rings from prying eyes.”

speaking truth to power there, ruth la ferla

Have we talked about this?
http://www.alternet.org/media/ny-times-columnist-laments-woes-rich-kids-tells-readers-how-avoid-living-near-black-people

Holeeeeeeeee cow. Not surprised that the 1% think like that, but surprised that it slipped out in print, by accident in a major newspaper.

She and her husband treated their eight-year search for the right suburb the way she would research a value stock

Specialists in a single area don’t have much incentive to offer the warts-and-all download

Surely he doesn't really think the term is "download".

"Are the local children garden-variety pot smokers who have a little sex and a bit of angst at a reasonable age, or is something more troubling going on?"

Yeah have you see White Ribbon? Woah dude.

So amazing. "How much sex are the local children having? Does their angst start at a reasonable age?" Something troubling going on, indeed.

Could've been shortened from 43 Questions to 14 Words.

Heyooo.

Are the local children garden-variety pot smokers, or are they into the hydro shit?

If you don’t know anyone in town, find a way to invite yourself to homes of friends of friends. What are they reading? Are there any books at all? What about books for the children?

I love that one. If friends of friends of yours are living in the community, visit them and ask questions visit them specifically to gather bookshelf data.

I bet some of my neighbors own A Purpose Driven Life, The Secret, Dianetics, and a box set of Chicken Soup books - should I move?

Yes.

23 bathrooms...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/18/business/home-the-ultimate-investment.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/01/business/dollar3-tip-on-a-dollar4-cup-of-coffee-gratuities-grow-automatically.html

Take it to one of the many ilx tipping threads, where this subject can be flogged, flayed and boiled in oil at our leisure.

Could also go in the IA thread -- I hate those "suggested tip" boxes on screens (this is an issue in cabs too -- minimum suggested is 20%)

oh ffs

^mumbled under breath, *ghosts*

It's pretty quid/ag in that it's told entirely from the perspective of the tippers, business owners, and impenetrable venture-capital concepts rather than the conditions of tipped labor, etc., but yeah.

i always assumed it would be a good thing for tipped labor but idk.

dunno what the "it" is there, but just to clarify, I was just saying that the article, in not really speaking to that perspective, leaves itself open to be used by the quid/ag crowd as fuel for outrage against tipping on their $4 coffee drinks, etc. Pretty minor by the standards of these things.

sure. i meant that it seems like the auto-tipping checkbox might make it harder to not leave a tip. i'd be interested in seeing if there was any net effect or improvement on tipping amounts. not going to actually read through that article to see if it's covered because it's so obviously from the polish-my-shoes-bitch pov.

Hard to say really, it's also dealing with places that have the resources/clientele to install special devices, separate from the register, where you can swipe your credit card to tip an amount you pre-set? which just seems so weird and redundant that i have to assume this whole thing is definitely not about People Like Me, and makes total sense in some other universe beyond my ken.

lots of small start-ups here are opting for it instead of the usual register so there has to be some cost appeal i would imagine.

def some cost appeal to square up I'd imagine. touch screen cash registers are $600.

places that have the resources/clientele to install special devices, separate from the register, where you can swipe your credit card to tip an amount you pre-set

chichi places like, i dunno, taxicabs?

Taxicabs are relatively chichi but I'm not sure I take your meaning; ime they have one device where you swipe your card for the fare and then get the option to tip, not two separate gizmos for two separate swipes which is what I understood the article to describe. I don't see how two devices could fail to be more expensive. Maybe I'm missing something.

electronic tips also make me nervous because I'm never 100% convinced the worker gets it, although even with tip jars you can wind up with places that have shady management who skims off the tips.

If anything, you can be sure that the tips are well documented if received electronically

Suppose that's true, doesn't mean baristas/cab drivers/whoever gets the records though

But it's something that they or a lawyer could request. So I think that would add incentive for the business owner to make the right decision. I don't know exactly how it's documented, though, so maybe not. Either way, I am tipping the full amount because it's out of my hands.

the guardian can't help itself:

Why the hottest new arts venue is your living room
http://gu.com/p/45gxq

Instead of posting the article from the RE section, I'm just going to post the photo:

http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/02/08/realestate/08HUNT-MAIN/08HUNT-MAIN-articleLarge.jpg