Andrew Rosston

Underemployed armchair intellectual.
Lover of history, cultural exchange, cooking, and chess. Francophone.
Sharing US/JP history as a Perry descendant.

[Andrew Rosston @AndrewRosston]

Hello Japanese Twitter! I wanted to share some history of Japanese-American relations in honor of the relationship that has been built on X recently. I am the relative of two of the first visitors to Japan, Commodore Matthew C. Perry and the artist John La Farge. I'll share some Perry history and pictures in this thread and follow up with La Farge in a separate thread.
Last summer, I visited the current Matthew C. Perry in Rhode Island, where the commodore was buried, across the water from his hometown of South Kingstown. He is descended from a younger brother of the commodore, and I am descended from Oliver Hazard Perry, the eldest brother and at one time the most famous war hero in the United States. I have not yet met a direct descendant of Commodore Perry himself, but there were several that many Americans might recognize. A few of our relatives have given talks in Japan about Perry.
For those of you unfamiliar with American geography, Rhode Island is a tiny state next to Connecticut and Massachusetts in New England. It was one of the original Thirteen Colonies. This is a map of America in 1775 - Rhode Island is the tiny state in the Northeast. It's not an island either, and it's not named after Cecil Rhodes, who was born much later. Its capital city is Providence, giving it the old name of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. The second image points out where it is today, not far from Boston.

The third picture is a commemorative coin for each of Oliver and Matthew Perry, as well as their pocket watch (pictured later in this thread). The fourth image is a better picture of the Matthew Perry coin, in the hands of the current Matthew C. Perry.

Thread below - I will keep adding to this for a bit. I have tried to list names as specifically as possible for translation purposes, but please let me know if anything is unclear when translated to Japanese. Unfortunately, I don't speak the language myself.

[Andrew Rosston @AndrewRosston]

@Nijeldonax @EdwardEGibbon N=19 means a sample size of 19. I had more data, but a lot of it was not standardized, as fields of study are not the same across nations. So I had 19 data points (countries) that I could put into a statistical analysis, where the numbers I entered would all mean the same thing.

[Andrew Rosston @AndrewRosston]

One of the better studies I read for this was based on the UK Longitudinal Educational Outcomes survey, with some informative graphs & analysis, though it should have included more of the generated statistics & correlations in its appendix (as the LEO data is not publically available). https://t.co/YUYnEhYPTQ

A 2000s Irish study had Education majors earning substantially more than others due to teachers' salaries. (That changed since, I believe)

And a massive Russian education study that isn't in English but had some neat data, which I only used a tiny bit of. One of the points it made was that law and economics degrees were suffering lower wages due to an oversupply from correspondence college.

Lots of country-specific factors, in short.

[Andrew Rosston @AndrewRosston]

Which towns are these? I've been looking for work out of college for 2 years, with some contract gigs in the meantime, and I've never heard of anywhere like this. I have a friend who moved to a rural town to support his family, working remote, and he didn't know of anything.
(US, not Europe, if you meant this happens where you are.)

[Andrew Rosston @AndrewRosston]

An ancestor was on one of these prison ships for part of the war. They were quite horrible for the rebels interned within, dark & rife with disease.
British treatment of prisoners, their own citizens at the time, spurred our long-lasting hatred of redcoats. 1812 had similar.

[1776 Live @250YearsAgoLive]

Due to atrocious conditions at sea, Ethan Allen, who is a prisoner of the British Army, is put ashore at Halifax.

He and other prisoners have contracted scurvy, and the whole group is gravely ill.

[Andrew Rosston @AndrewRosston]

Marbury v Madison

[John Cleese @JohnCleese]

When did 'separation of the powers' go out of date ?

[Andrew Rosston @AndrewRosston]

@VBierschwale I'm probably qualified for all of these business analyst jobs. Let me know if you want me to personally contact any of these firms or your local gov and offer my work, as a test. Same with any other generalist roles that an Econ degree fits - all sorts aren't really hiring.

[Andrew Rosston @AndrewRosston]

@constans @michaelyehmd When I was 18, I got harsh feedback from a British professor on my writing, so I worked for years to improve it to such standards. If you have real critiques, I would love to hear them.

[Andrew Rosston @AndrewRosston]

@pannapacker No offense meant, as I am not very familiar with your work, but have you done anything to preserve such opportunities for future generations or open them elsewhere? The smartest men my age disdain academia, and much talent could be unlocked if this was not so.

[Andrew Rosston @AndrewRosston]

@hoshizorarock California is known for Priuses too, actually. We used to have a lot of smog near LA that made people in CA care more for hybrid cars.
I'm farther north by SF; we have more redwoods and tech firms here, instead of palm trees and actors. There are farms too - it's a huge state!

[Andrew Rosston @AndrewRosston]

@WSJ At least it'll bring jobs.

Just kidding - Amazon has filed thousands of LCAs in the same county for jobs they could train locals to do. They expect you to train yourself, so one guy admitted to me that he got a job there by having AI do all the coding for him.

[Andrew Rosston @AndrewRosston]

"Previously Político, and FT"

Hiring practices are so bad nobody is even surprised when these "professionals" struggle to write at a higher level than the machine.

[Izabella Kaminska @izakaminska]

Who exactly is going to use AI for any creative writing or business writing if they stand to be named and shamed by watermarks?!

[LegosArchive @LegosArchive]

Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry's ship, The Niagara, on the Maumee River in Toledo, Ohio for the centennial of Battle of Lake Erie (1913)

[Andrew Rosston @AndrewRosston]

@juicystar1908 @JobsNowPR Yes, my bad - see my other reply.

However, if everyone asks for specific experience, and nobody trains newbies, then nobody earns experienced workers. They just get frauds at higher rates.

[Andrew Rosston @AndrewRosston]

@juicystar1908 @JobsNowPR Misunderstood what you were saying re: qualifications for this specific job, which is IT.
I'd still suspect that the requirements are overloaded, but I'm not a dev. I've seen jobs asking for 2 years of Tableau experience for a bad salary, which means they get bad workers.

[Andrew Rosston @AndrewRosston]

@juicystar1908 @JobsNowPR The issue is that they cook job qualifications. Nobody needs experience to use ERP & CRM systems. They make fake senior roles for junior roles and then screen out anyone honest & high-standards, or those people just don't apply at all.

[US Department of the Interior @Interior]

This American pika isn't picking flowers for decoration. It's building a haystack.

All summer long, pikas gather grasses, wildflowers and other plants, carrying mouthful after mouthful back to its home. They spread the plants out to dry in the sun, then stash them away for the long alpine winter.

Photo at Rocky Mountain National Park by Eivor Kuchta

[Andrew Rosston @AndrewRosston]

@lsanger Just go play and see how you do! Getting roughly fair matchups regardless of age & experience is a great feature of chess. I started learning online in 2024 and have played 34 otb games now at the SF chess club. Your club would probably love having you too!

[Andrew Rosston @AndrewRosston]

@DKThomp The middle have jobs, and the youngest can't get interviews without lying. The middle isn't "holding on" but failing to, or unable to, train the next generation.