Are You Ready For A Cold Winter? More Than Three Months Without A Sunspot -- Ice Age Now -- July 2, 2018

It's been almost this long since we've seen a DUC reported as completed in the Bakken. LOL.

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The Amazon Page

I've blogged about this before. It's hard to believe. I just order three items. Sales before tax: $19.65; $11.95; and, $11.95.

Tax is a wash, whether I buy it on-line or from a local retailer.

Amazon price significantly lower than local retailer for the $11.95 item ($15.99 at local retailer); the $19.54 vs $19.99 at the local retailer.

Since all three were gifts, I mailed them directly; saved at least $10/item in mailing costs.

And then this: because I "agreed" to routine shipper --instead of 2-day Prime shipping -- Amazon gives me a credit of $5.00/item or $15 total credit. Local retailer would not give a $15 credit for $45 purchase just for agreeing to picking it up later. LOL.

And that's the challenge local retailers have. There are partial solutions, I suppose, but still incredibly difficult. The on-line sales tax ruling will help some states with their revenues, but for an individual customer like me the sales tax issue is wash.

And if the item is sent to a state with no sales tax, then no sales tax is collected. What a great country.

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Burned Out

From SeekingAlpha:

• Tesla Senior VP of Engineering Doug Field isn't returning to the company after taking a leave in early May
• Field was involved in vehicle development for Tesla, including work on the Model 3

This makes number 4 or 5 of high level executives to leave Tesla in the last few months.

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The Music Page

From The WSJ:

Proudly weird and just 16 years old, Billie Eilish is determined to make people uncomfortable.

Her approach is already bringing her unexpected success. The Los Angeles-based singer signed with Interscope Records in 2016 after her spare, haunting song “ocean eyes” went viral. This year, she worked with the Grammy-nominated R&B star Khalid in April, released a low-key cover of Drake’s “Hotline Bling” in which she plays ukulele in June, and in October she is scheduled to perform with the British indie group Florence + the Machine.

Meanwhile, Ms. Eilish is working on her debut album, but don’t expect it to hew to any of the above styles.

But this is what caught my attention:

The noirish artist Lana Del Rey, who with New Zealand singer Lorde helped pave the way for today’s alternative-pop stars, has only one U.S. Top Ten hit, yet she has a devoted audience: Her songs have been streamed nearly 1.7 billion times since 2015, according to Nielsen Music. Ms. Uchis and another young singer, Charli XCX, have each racked up more than 200 million U.S. audio streams over the same period.

This is probably what introduced Lana Del Rey to millions of Americans who would otherwise not have heard of her: