Friday, May 13, 2016 -- Wow -- I Did Not Note That Until Now -- FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH

Active rigs:

	5/13/2016	05/13/2015	05/13/2014	05/13/2013	05/13/2012
Active Rigs	27	83	190	187	209

RBN Energy: The Case for Building Low-Cost Methanol Capacity.

Wells coming off confidential list today:

• 24962, 1,957, Enerplus, Grassy Knoll 2-11H, Mandaree, t11/15; ucm 127K 3/15;
• 26362, SI/NC, MHA 6-28-29H-148-92, Heart Butte, no production data,
• 30970, SI/NC, BR, Gudmunson 4-1-26TFH, Elidah, no production data,
• 31060, SI/NC, MRO, Heather USA 13-35TFH, Antelope, no production data,
• 31877, drl, CRL, Corsican Federal 4-15H2, Sanish, no production data,
• 32039, 2,308, Newfield, Skaar Federal 153-96-30-2H, Sand Creek, t2/16; cum 50K after 46 days

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The Apple Page

From the front page, section B of today's WSJ: Apple's New Classroom Experiment.

YUMA, Ariz.—Fourth-grade teacher Blanca Rivera wasn’t thrilled when she heard that Apple Inc. would provide each of her 31 students an iPad. She thought the tablet computers were “just for games,” and wondered how they would help students learn.

Eight months into the school year, her students use iPads to create presentations about angles, produce videos about the water cycle, and assemble digital books about fractions.

During exams taken on the iPad, Ms. Rivera can monitor their progress and note questions that confuse them. When she notices students daydreaming, she sends short messages to their iPads saying “focus.”

“It really enhances their learning and it motivates them to learn,” said Ms. Rivera of the iPads.

Ms. Rivera’s school, H.L. Suverkrup Elementary, in Yuma, AZ., is part of an innovative effort by Apple to use technology to help level the playing field between rich and poor students. The experiment, part of an Obama administration initiative, is aimed at overcoming obstacles that have hobbled previous efforts to realize the promise of tablet PCs and other gadgets to make learning more enjoyable and effective.

There are reasons for skepticism. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group of wealthy nations, recently said schools investing heavily in technology showed “no noticeable improvement” in test scores. The group said students who use tablets and computers heavily actually tend to underperform those who use them moderately.

So many story lines.

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Wal-Mart Takes Aim At Amazon

On the same front page, section B, this story: Wal-Mart tests two-day shipping to challenge Amazon Prime.

Wal-Mart will use:

• regional carriers
• its own 6,000 tractor-trailers (one of the largest private trucking fleets in the US0
• it's 4,600 US stores as "fulfillment centers"

Wal-Mart has its work cut out for itself taking on Amazon Prime.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

One data point: the move could make Wal-Mart less reliant on FedEx Corp. which handles the bulk of Wal-Mart's parcels.

The story noted that Wal-Mart is re-allocating capital to reflect growing on-line shopping. The article noted that Wal-Mart closed more than 150 US stores earlier this year to free up resources to invest in its e-commerce offerings. That may be accurate; but I thought the 150 stores were closed due to under-performance.

I don't know. I think Wal-Mart has met its match with Amazon when it comes to on-line shopping. But I'm probably wrong.