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Will Shortz, crosswords, and the perplexing rise of Sudoku: My latest New York magazine article

Here’s some fascinating economic work: Recent studies show that if you graduate into a recession, it’ll hurt your earnings for the rest of your life.
The New York Times recently reported on this work, and it’s pretty freaky stuff. In one study, Paul Oyer of Stanford tracked the earnings of biz-school grads from 1960 to 1997. His results? As the Times reports:
He found that the performance of the stock market in the two years the students were in business school played a major role in whether they took an investment banking job upon graduating and, because such jobs pay extremely well, upon the average salary of the class. That is no surprise. The startling thing about the data was his finding that the relative income differences among classes remained, even as much as 20 years later.
The Stanford class of 1988, for example, entered the job market just after the market crash of 1987. Banks were not hiring, and so average wages for that class were lower than for the class of 1987 or for later classes that came out after the market recovered. Even a decade or more later, the class of 1988 was still earning significantly less. They missed the plum jobs right out of the gate and never recovered.
Apparently, America is no longer a country where you can start at the bottom of the greasy pole and work your way up. Nope — nowadays, people care about where you start, so if your first job out of college needs to be impressive and high-earning right off the bat. If it is, then you lock into a cycle of self-perpetuating mythology: “Hey, that guy’s paid so much, he must be good. We should offer even more and hire him away.” The dismal reverse is equally as true.
In one sense, this is just another manifestation of the winner-take-all dynamics that emerge in our power-law-dominated world. It would also explain why the folks who graduated in the early 90s — in the trough of a nasty recession — were slagged as “slackers”, while the “Generation Y” kids who graduated into the Caligulan dot-com boom of the late 90s were revered as energetic, idealistic, forward-thinking, woof woof, ribbit ribbit. They were tarred — or starred — by their economic context.
Mind you, since I personally graduated in 1992 in Toronto, when unemployment was a mindboggling 25% for people under 25, I’m trying not to dwell too much on this, heh.
I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.
Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!
The “Milky Way Transit Authority” map
Should automobile software be open-sourced?
My Bookforum review of Jaron Lanier’s “You Are Not A Gadget”
Molecular secrets of the “iron-plated snail”
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January 31, 2010 » 07:29 PM
V. A. To me death seems to be an evil.
M. What, to those who are already dead? or to those who must die?
A. To both.
M. It is a misery, then, because an evil?
A. Certainly.
M. Then those who have already died, and those who have still got to die, are both miserable?
A. So it appears to me.
M. Then all are miserable?
A. Every one.
January 24, 2010 » 03:22 PM
One of the more interesting trends is family, which came in at number five. Specifically, discussion about family, moms, dads, daughters, etc. jumped during 2009. With Facebook users getting older, this isn’t a big surprise. However, the fact that the mention of “kids” jumped by a factor of five this year is rather dramatic. It’s tough to know what this means, though. (via Facebook Unveils Most-Mentioned Topics of 2009
)
January 15, 2010 » 01:36 PM
BEYOND AWESOME. They are announcing a recall of the Plush Uterus “due to a potential choking hazard for children”. To apply for it, “Please send an email to the address below with the subject line, ‘UTERUS OPT OUT’”.
January 14, 2010 » 10:04 PM
“To order, please TYPE “YES” IN CHECKBOX BELOW TO AGREE YOU UNDERSTAND THIS PLUSH MUST BE KEPT AWAY FROM KIDS (it is a sex organ, after all). If it is not checked, WE WILL NOT SEND THE UTERUS.” (via @ibogost)
January 11, 2010 » 01:45 PM
I watched Space: 1999 back in the day, but I swear to god I do not remember this scene.
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