The Market, Energy, And Political Page, Part 2, T+63 -- October 15, 2018

Earlier I mentioned that I've started following "crudehead" over at Twitter. That and 50 cents will get you a senior cup of coffee at McDonald's. No such discount at Starbucks, alas.

But I digress. Back to "crudehead." His/her general theme seems to be:

• says if either supply side/demand side deviates from expectations, pricing can get very, very "messy" -- in either direction I assume

Which doesn't seem particularly profound. I don't know if he/she (and from now on, I plan to use the literary "he") leans toward being an "oil peaker" or not. But I think so. Regardless, this screenshot probably encapsulates the "supply-demand" argument as well as any:

If South Korea cuts Iran oil to zero, where is the "spare capacity"? Where is the supply?

China's teapot refineries: more oil, please.

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The Book Page 

My two books of consequence this week:

• The Double Bond, Primo Levi: A Biography, Carole Angier, c. 2002
• The Aeneid, Virgil, translated by Frederick Ahl, c. 2007, introduction by Elaine Fantham

Frederick Ahl:

• Classics and Comparative Literature, Cornell  University (presently)
• College Year, Athens
• as performed in and directed a wide range of plays in Greece and the US
• has authored other books on Greek plays and playwrights

Elaine Fantham
Princeton University, 1986 - 2000
author of other books on the classics

An article in the current issue of The New Yorker brought me to The Aeneid.

Deep in the recesses of my mind, Dr Ford and her supporters label her a survivor. They need to read the history of Ravensbrück. Perhaps that's was brought me to a biography of Primo Levi, who authored Survival in Auschwitz, which I have not read, but will probably read after I finish Carole's biography.

"Survival" and "survivor" seem to be two words currently in fashion.

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A Dirac Unit

Link here.

From another blogger:

Reading a new biography of the Nobel-winning physicist P. A. M. Dirac, I found a different definition of the unit Dirac, i.e., one word per hour. This definition is more realistic than the former.

The relevant description [refers to a] "unit of taciturnity."

Surely the unit commemorates Dirac's taciturnity, but it should be called a unit not of taciturnity but of volubility or talkativeness, because the number of words per unit time is smaller for the person of higher taciturnity.

Like me, it appears, that blogger has too much time on his/her hands. LOL.

For the record, I always thought the Dirac unit was a unit of "talkativeness," and not "taciturnity."