Notes From All Over, Late Saturday Morning -- Marh 28, 2020

Texas: pandemic and oil bust. What else could possibly happen? Oh, that's right, hurricane season just around the corner. Link here.

Twitter: all of a sudden OPEC+ -- particularly the "+" -- Russia -- is sounding more conciliatory.

CAPEX during a bust. Counterintutitive. I think folks may be surprised. I will come back to this later.

Production: by July, 2020, a lot more oil may be taken off the market than folks anticipate. I will come back to this later.

Another statistic we're missing: how many test kits test positive? 50%? 90%? 95%? 99%? My hunch: the number of documented cases will continue to rise as long as test kits continue to become available. If the government / commercial sector provide a million test kits to US consumers; close to a million cases will be documented.

This takes me back to surgeons and appendicitis. Before surgeons operate on a patient for suspected appendicitis, surgeons must clearly state in the medical records that the reason for the surgery is "appendicitis" or "rule out appendicitis." Then, after every one hundred cases, let's say, an "inspector" reviews all surgical appendicitis cases. If a surgeon scores 100% -- that means that in every case in which she took a patient to surgery for appendicitis, the medical record indicated the patient had been diagnosed to have appendicitis before the surgery. That means, and read this closely, the surgeon was missing at least an occasional case of appendicitis. Obviously as the skill of the surgeon gets better; experience increases; and, technology, especially improves, the surgeon's score will trend toward 100% but should not be 100%. I've long lost the "acceptable" range for this metric. I imagine it's 96% to 99% these days if the denominator is big enough.

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The Vocabulary Page

I try to work with the granddaughters on vocabulary whenever I get the chance. The oldest one, Arianna, probably has the best command of English. I assume Olivia is very similar, just a couple of years younger, but we don't often see her. And, of course, it's a real joy to learn vocabulary with Sophia, age five years.

I think it would be interesting to spend one week on vocabulary in various disciplines. For example, think of all the vocabulary in just this one paragraph from Edmund de Waal's The Hare With Amber Eyes, page 188:

Emmy dresses to go out. It is winter 1906 in a Viennese street and she is talking to an archduke. They are smiling as she hands him some primroses. She is wearing a pin-striped costume: an A-line skirt with a deep panel at the hem cut across the grain and a matching close-cut Zouave jacket. It is a walking costume. To dress for that walk down Herrengasse wold have taken an hour and ahalf; pantalettes, hemise in fine batiste or crêpe de Chine, corset to nip in the waist, stockings, garters, button boots, skirt with hooks up the plaquette, then either a blouse or a chemisette -- so no bulk on  her arms -- with a high-stand collar and lace jabot, then the jacket done up with a false front, then her small purse -- a reticule -- hanging on a chain, jewellery, fur hat with striped taffeta blow to echo the costume, white gloves, flowers. And no scent; she does not wear it.

Then, next week: architecture.

The following week: horse-drawn carriages.

The week after that: furniture.

One quickly gets the idea.