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Not in petrochemicals, but neither is this is this reporter. I get it, it's supposed to be a joke, but it's such a poorly executed one fraught with so many majo

Not in petrochemicals, but neither is this is this reporter. I get it, it's supposed to be a joke, but it's such a poorly executed one fraught with so many major components glossed over that it detracts from any humor the article could have had. When the Onion writes something, it's humor is wonderful because not only the wit is there but there are few if any inconsistencies even for pedants who dissect things such as I. 1000ppm of hydrogen sulfide surely can kill you. The work-around this is to take delivery of a barrel of "sweet" rather than "sour" crude. Even in the "sour form", you get "up to" 1000ppm. However, barrels 1) are sealed properly by institutions with safety regulatory agencies just like any other industry, and 2) to get H2S exposure at that rate, you'd have to effectively stick your head into a barrel and inhale directly. To calculate actual PPM you'd likely be exposed to, you'd have to evaluate the aromatic distribution of H2S. (see: Gas-Phase Reactions: Kinetics and Mechanisms, Chapter 2). The journalist is right about the insurance policies. She later even mentions she has sweet crude. :facepalm: >> My boss insists that I must factor in the cost of lost productivity for the many minutes spent on the phone with FedEx in an attempt to trace the package as it zigzagged across Manhattan. On that basis, I’m probably already in the red. Bloomberg - I love your reporting for what it is. Tom crushes it in the morning. Alyx Steel makes poignant remarks. BBC doesn't try to be The Daily Show. Stick at what you're good at & don't try to be VICE. Especially for someone who reports on finance, she's overlooking so many things. Insurance she mentioned earlier but didn't bother to mention factor that capex. Storage is an opex (she mentions consignment venues (tech analogy: co-locating your servers) but those are fees she didn't factor in). In real life, if she's arbitraging US oil, the journo needs to be a CME member. For a March maturity date, a ~3 mo membership lease is $1k as an opex. * Further reading: "Petroleum and Gas Field Processing", et al. Chapter 7: Crude Oil Stabilization and Sweetening "Gas-Phase Reactions: Kinetics and Mechanisms" V.N. Kondratie, et al. Chapter 2 (or there abouts). Merck on pulmonary irritants: http://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/pulmonary-disorders/environmental-pulmonary-diseases/irritant-gas-inhalation-injury http://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/pulmonary-disorders... CME fees: http://www.cmegroup.com/company/membership/membership-pricing-cme-lease-prices.html http://www.cmegroup.com/company/membership/membership-pricin... Edit: To anyone who's downvoting me, by all means please respond (with some cordiality if you would), as to why! I tried to cite my sources properly, but if any professionals who deal with futures (especially crude oil, and even more so those who have taken delivery or performed the arbitrage she "simulated") see anything factually incorrect, I'm really happy to be corrected. Edit 2: I responded as to why I found this article so aggravating below. Please read it before you down-vote me. It's comparable to how frustrated my tech friends and I get when television shows cross the threshold of comical technical inaccuracy and progress into a zone of visceral opposition. HN traditionally had a "Don't downvote people solely because you disagree with them" policy. My remarks are relevant to the article and (to my knowledge) factually correct.

benten10 11y ago
To reply with the response such posts usually get: You must be really fun at parties! This post was entertaining to most of us because we are not in the industry, knew little about the presence of hydrogen sulfide, and did not realize that the industry was so reluctant to sell to random interested buyers. Yes they could have written "This reporter tried to buy a barrel of oil, but sellers were reluctant, and it was calculated that individuals buying crude oil is not a profitable venture. She was also cautioned that Hydrogen sulfide is toxic, and is released by crude oil". They chose not to do that because, well -- that's not fun to read. You are being downvoted because you are essentially telling us: 'you idiots, this is not funny, this is not news, this is stupid, there are smarter people there doing serious work, why waste your time on this' in extended form. One might be well suggested to, as they say, 'cheer up'.
- gus_massa 11y ago
  I like that comment. One of the thing I like of HN I that you can have a serious technical discussion about any subject. Some users know more about chemistry, some users know more about computers, some users know more about rockets, ... Many press articles have a lot of hype and exaggerations, and it's nice to have comments with more technical balance and details. About the downvotes: It's common to get a few downvotes, even with very good comment. Just ignore them. (But if you get 10 downvotes, try to read your comment again.)
- iheartmemcache 11y ago
  Bloomberg is a really targeted news institution on which people rely for not comedy but financial information. It's reflected in the fees you pay to get access to their terminals, it's reflected in their promos, and even the corporations who select to advertise with them know they're trying to hit a target reader. Usually, that reader is not someone looking for a comic laugh. Imagine pulling up a Linux news site and seeing something that's funny to someone who is in marketing because of some wacky antics. You went there to see what sort of critical patches need to be administered, but instead you saw "What happened when I tried to install Linux on my leather shoes!". I'm upset because context is important. Especially for news outlets which are called the fourth estate for a reason. When I turn on PBS Newshour I don't want 50 minutes of Paris Hilton. If they re-oriented an entire episode to cover Paris Hilton just to get more viewers (equivalent of click-bait), I'd be equally upset. I'm not calling anyone here stupid, but this clearly is not news. "This post was entertaining" -- that's my whole problem. Bloomberg is a news outlet. Jon Stewart went on the O'Reilly factor and eloquently articulated the problem with select subsets of media (oversimplified to "to fill 24 hours of content, some outlets have resorted to silly antics to increase/retain viewership rather, rather than do what they're supposed to -- report the news). This article was under "News" not "Op/ed". RE: parties, again, context. I don't engage in pedantry there, because one can generally categorize that form of interaction as "social" rather than "news/informative". At which point, I politely engage in small talk until I find something they like which I find interesting (whether its model aircrafts or modern farming, I can find something interesting to talk about with anyone generally).

benten10 11y ago

To reply with the response such posts usually get: You must be really fun at parties! This post was entertaining to most of us because we are not in the industry, knew little about the presence of hydrogen sulfide, and did not realize that the industry was so reluctant to sell to random interested buyers. Yes they could have written "This reporter tried to buy a barrel of oil, but sellers were reluctant, and it was calculated that individuals buying crude oil is not a profitable venture. She was also cautioned that Hydrogen sulfide is toxic, and is released by crude oil". They chose not to do that because, well -- that's not fun to read. You are being downvoted because you are essentially telling us: 'you idiots, this is not funny, this is not news, this is stupid, there are smarter people there doing serious work, why waste your time on this' in extended form. One might be well suggested to, as they say, 'cheer up'.

gus_massa 11y ago
I like that comment. One of the thing I like of HN I that you can have a serious technical discussion about any subject. Some users know more about chemistry, some users know more about computers, some users know more about rockets, ... Many press articles have a lot of hype and exaggerations, and it's nice to have comments with more technical balance and details. About the downvotes: It's common to get a few downvotes, even with very good comment. Just ignore them. (But if you get 10 downvotes, try to read your comment again.)
iheartmemcache 11y ago
Bloomberg is a really targeted news institution on which people rely for not comedy but financial information. It's reflected in the fees you pay to get access to their terminals, it's reflected in their promos, and even the corporations who select to advertise with them know they're trying to hit a target reader. Usually, that reader is not someone looking for a comic laugh. Imagine pulling up a Linux news site and seeing something that's funny to someone who is in marketing because of some wacky antics. You went there to see what sort of critical patches need to be administered, but instead you saw "What happened when I tried to install Linux on my leather shoes!". I'm upset because context is important. Especially for news outlets which are called the fourth estate for a reason. When I turn on PBS Newshour I don't want 50 minutes of Paris Hilton. If they re-oriented an entire episode to cover Paris Hilton just to get more viewers (equivalent of click-bait), I'd be equally upset. I'm not calling anyone here stupid, but this clearly is not news. "This post was entertaining" -- that's my whole problem. Bloomberg is a news outlet. Jon Stewart went on the O'Reilly factor and eloquently articulated the problem with select subsets of media (oversimplified to "to fill 24 hours of content, some outlets have resorted to silly antics to increase/retain viewership rather, rather than do what they're supposed to -- report the news). This article was under "News" not "Op/ed". RE: parties, again, context. I don't engage in pedantry there, because one can generally categorize that form of interaction as "social" rather than "news/informative". At which point, I politely engage in small talk until I find something they like which I find interesting (whether its model aircrafts or modern farming, I can find something interesting to talk about with anyone generally).