Memo To Self -- Things To Do This Fall -- August 21, 2023

Locator: 45445B.

Vaccinations:

• seasonal flu
• Covid-19 -- new vaccine, autumn, 2023
• RSV 

Not going to last: link here. The oil sector / ETF, a utility ETF.

Whoo-hoo, link here (note: these are now officially "utilities":

Time value of money, link here:

*********************
Back to the Bakken

WTI: $80.54.

Wednesday, August 23, 2023: 42 for the month; 244 for the quarter, 489 for the year
39448, conf, CLR, Edward 8-23H1, 

Tuesday, August 22, 2023: 41 for the month; 243 for the quarter, 488 for the year
None.

RBN Energy: Southeast gas midstream expansions heat up as MVP regains traction. Archived.

With the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project clearing some major legal hurdles in recent weeks and construction resuming, it’s become increasingly likely that Appalachian gas producers will soon have 2 Bcf/d of new takeaway capacity, potentially as early as late 2023. However, the degree to which the pipeline will translate into higher production from the supply basin and improved supply access for the gas-thirsty, premium markets in the Southeast will largely depend on the availability of transportation capacity downstream of MVP.

As such, the race is on to expand pipeline capacity from the pipe’s termination point at Williams’s Transco Pipeline Station 165 in southern Virginia, not only to deal with the impending influx of supply from MVP but also to move that gas to growing demand centers in Virginia and the Carolinas.

MVP’s lead developer, Equitrans Midstream, is hoping to build an extension to the mainline — the MVP Southgate project — while Transco has designs of its own for capturing downstream customers.

In today’s RBN blog, we provide an update on MVP and the various expansion projects in the works to move newly available supply to market.

Amazing North Dakotans -- August 21, 2023

Locator: 45444NODAK.

Patricia J. Idler, link here. Better, here.

Preceded in death by Rory. Obituary here.

Rory D. Idler, 30, of Alexander died early Saturday morning March 23, 2013, due to injuries sustained in a motor vehicle accident near Arnegard. Funeral services will be at 11 a.m., Saturday, March 30, at Cross Point Church in Watford City. Pastor Sam Coleman and Jason Guinasso will officiate, and interment will be held at the Alexander Cemetery. A family service will be held at 5 p.m. Friday at the Cross Point Wesleyan Church with a dinner to follow. Friends may share memories of Rory with family at www.fulkersons.com.

Rory Dwyer Idler was born into this world December 14, 1982, at Washoe Medical Center, Reno, Nevada, to Patty and Randy Idler. He graduated with honors from Reno High School in 2001.

His hard work and perseverance earned him a black belt in tae kwan do in 1994.

Rory captained the Reno High ski team and was a member of the Kirkwood Ski Patrol during the 2005-06 ski seasons. He graduated from Colorado College in 2005 with a bachelor’s degree in international political economics.

While at Colorado College, he was an avid rugby player and was captain of the college team his senior year. He was active in politics, working for several campaigns, managing finances and organizing volunteers on several major political campaigns in Colorado and Nevada. Rory was quick to make an impact on everyone he met.

Recently, he moved to North Dakota where he founded Roryality LLC and was in the process of developing land and had arranged to farm this summer. He was also currently employed as managing director of GPOM and Greaser LLC.

Rory had a passion for traveling and engaging people of all cultures and walks of life.

He studied in Russia, Vietnam and Cambodia. His travels took him to France, Belgium, Italy, Belize and Costa Rica. Additionally, he went to Panama and Mexico on Christian missions. He was engaged in a nonprofit organization for foreign improvement called Boots for Peace.

Rory relished hunting through wheat fields and brush patches in North Dakota with his dog Holiday. Nearly every autumn day would find him hunting with friends or alone with Holiday.

Rory had a strong faith in God and enjoyed telling others about Him. Rory always was passionate and active both when it came to work and when it came to having fun. Always the life of the party, he would lead people to play games, go on trips or set up elaborate practical jokes. He was quick with a joke and a smile or a helping hand depending on what the situation required. He had a sharp wit, kind heart and gregarious nature.

He was very well read and could converse intelligently on a wide variety of subjects. His relentless search for truth meant he was not hesitant about sharing his opinions and would back them with a literature of facts and arguments but was always open to new information. He could be found late at night with his younger brother and friends, debating passionately subjects ranging from economics to religion to philosophy. On any scope of topic, ranging from the greater meaning of life to the definition of brown bear, one could get a real education just listening to them.

He loved his friends and family wholeheartedly and was always there for them. He was true blue and always the reliable friend to go to.

His life was much too promising to be ended prematurely in a motor vehicle accident west of Watford City.

He is survived by his parents, Randy and Patricia Idler; his brother, Randy Keegan Idler of Reno, Nevada; and numerous aunts, uncles and cousins.

The Samsung 27-Inch 5K Display -- August 21, 2023

Locator: 45443APPLE.

Link here.

My 2020 27-inch iMac computer:

Refurbished 27-inch iMacs. Link here.

California Woes -- August 21, 2023

Locator: 45442CALIFORNIA.

Link here.

AI Creating Shortage Of High-Powered Chips -- NVDA Surged Today In Advance Of Earnings -- August 21, 2023

Locator: 45441TECH.

Pet peeve: saying the "AI story" is hyped -- just like the dot.com bubble in 2000.

Question: how many F-150s will Ford sell if they don't have the chips.

Nvidia: has sold out all of its "top-of-the-line" chips through 2024.

Elon Musk: bought all the Nvidia blades he could get his hands on to start his new AI company.

So, today, from Yahoo!Finance:

Much of the talk about the semiconductor shortages that plagued the globe during the pandemic may have subsided, but now a new chip shortage has emerged.

As more companies scramble to develop advanced generative artificial intelligence models or integrate them into their systems amid the popularity of new tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT, demand for the high-powered graphics processing units (GPUs) needed to deploy them is surging.

The souped-up computer chips are critical for running the countless calculations involved in training and deploying AI algorithms, but very few companies make them.

Today, I had the good fortune to have a two-hour lunch with a cyber-security expert who just got back from ten days in Las Vegas, attending DefCon. He said "generative IA" cannot be underestimated. No matter what other words are used to describe AI, it's all about generative AI.

Interestingly enough, I heard the same thing -- generative AI -- from another software engineer last week.

Two big phrases that keep popping up:

• spatial computing: Tim Cook
• generative AI:

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site.  Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here. 

All my posts are done quickly: there will be content and typographical errors. If anything on any of my posts is important to you, go to the source. If/when I find typographical / content errors, I will correct them.  

Again, all my posts are done quickly. There will be typographical and content errors in all my posts. If any of my posts are important to you, go to the source.

Zero Hedge: link here. 

Zoom beating expectations: not on my bingo card today.

My Little 2011 Honda -- Mileage Update -- August 21, 2023

Locator: 45440HONDA.

Gasoline expenses: for my car -- July 23, 2023 --> August 21, 2023: $31. One month.

Most recent data:

BR With Four New Permits; Two DUCs Reported As Completed -- August 21, 2023

Locator: 45439B.   

Market today:

**************************
Back to the Bakken

Active rigs: 38.

WTI: $80.72. Can't hold $81, much less $82.

Four new permits, #40143 -  #40146, inclusive:

• Operator: BR
• Field: Elidah (McKenzie)
• Comments:
• BR has permits for four West Kellogg permits, lot 2/section 6-151-97, 
• to be sited between 265 FNL and 265 FNL and betwween 2247 FEL and 2112 FEL.

Two producing wells (DUCs) reported as completed:

• 39087, 1,193, CLR, Colette 4-18H,
• 39088, 1,389, CLR, Colette 5-18H,

Covid-19 Update -- August 21, 2023

Locator: 45438COVID.   

Provisional mortality data, US, 2022, CDC: link here.

COVID-19 mortality update, US, 2022, CDC, May 5, 2023: link here.

Mortality analyses, coronavirus research center, Johns Hopkins University, data as of March 10, 2023: link here.

Leading cause of death, 45 - 54 years old, 2022: link here.

Covid-19 cases and deaths, per capita, globally: link here.

• Cases / capita:
• Norway: #73 -- 269,751 / one million
  
• Sweden: #78 -- 265,595 / one million.

• Deaths / capita:
• Norway: #101 -- 1,020 / one million.
• Sweden: #44 -- 2.420 / one million.

Sweden now has one of the highest rates of vaccination in the world; I wonder what changed their mind? As folks may remember, the Swedes said "no" to the lock down and were going to depend on herd immunity to beat this thing. Michael Lewis, in Premonition, explains why that did not work.  

I remember in the mid- to late-1950s when the polio vaccine came out, how that vaccine was distributed, and the Americans' response to that vaccine. Of course that was before Joe Rogan and RFK, Jr.

*************************
My Covid-19 Library

The Genetics Of Corona Virus, link here. 

Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus, David Quammen, 2022. Link here.

Spike: The Virus vs. The People - the Inside Story – Sage Scientist’s Revelatory Covid Memoir -- Jeremy Farrar -- October 15, 2022. Link here.

Apollo's Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live, Nicholas A. Christakis, c. 2020. 614.5924CHR. Link here.

Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City, Fang Fang, translated by Michael Berry, c. 2020. 614.5924FAN.

Covid-19: The Pandemic That Never Should Have Happened And How To Stop The Next One, Debora MacKenzie, c. 2020.  614.5924MAC. Credentials: a journalist, with history of "working as a biomedical researcher.” LOL. Book jacket does not say what her degree was in and where she got her degree.

The Premonition: A Pandemic Story, Michael Lewis, c. 2021. 614.5924LEW. Credentials: best-selling author, to include: The Fifth Risk; Moneyball; Liar's Poker; The Big Short.

Fifth Risk: written during the first half of the Trump administration, The Fifth Risk framed the federal government as a manager of a portfolio of existential risks; natural disasters, nuclear weapons, financial panics, hostile foreigners, energy security, food security, and on and on and on. [He could have included other risks: loss of free speech; loss of rights to own guns; loss of right to privacy and on and on and on.]

This, Premonition, may be one of the most interesting of the lot. Told by a great story-teller. No index. Will have to find out for myself his thoughts on Fauci and gain-of-function. Later: review over at The [London] Guardian. Less than impressed. I agree. Explains why Trump did not fire Fauci: he did not have that authority.

New Apple Chips? August 21, 2023

Locator: 45437APPLE.  

Link here.

Time For Something A Little Different -- Brain Research -- August 21, 2023

Locator: 45436RESEARCH. 

From Wired, September, 2023
Gül Dölen

Research.

• critical periods of brain development
• multiple critical periods
• walking, seeing, hearing
• bonding with parents, developing absolute pitch
• assimilating into a culture
• is there a "master key" or opening (or re-opening "lost") critical periods?
• spoiler alert: psychedelic drugs (previously discussed on the blog)
• enter, stage right: Gül Dölen (I assume pronounced Jill Dylan)
• neuroscientist, Baltimore, MD
• grew up in San Antonio, TX
• began with a beach vacation, Antalya, Turkey -- eight years old
• in college: Brain and Behavior
• psychedelics hijack the machinery used by molecules that occur naturally in the brain
• noted strikingly similar molecular structures between the neurotransmitter serotonin and LSD
• enrolled in a dual MD/PhD program at Brown University and MIT
• joined a lab that studied learning and memory during "critical periods"
• her focus focused on fragile X syndrome; autism
• oxytocin + serotonin = love
• area in the brain: the nucleur accumbens
• started her own lab at Johns Hopkins, 2014
• that's when she went down the psychedelic rabbit hole
• octopus studies; MDMA mimics serotonin; changed the behavior of octopi -- landmark study
• partner: French neuroscientist, Romain Nardou
• Dölen discovers a "critical period" -- publication-worthy on its own
• first drug tried on mice: cocaine
• then MDMA; results similar to oxytocin
  
• 2019: published those results; thought that this was all done, then decided to try LSD
• that's when things really got weird
• switch to drug pioneers Alexander and Ann Shulgin and the lab off Ted Sawyer
• LSD worked as well as MDMA for re-opening critical periods 
• also worked with
• ketamine (a dissociative; anesthetic)
• psilocybin (aka magic mushrooms)
• ibogaine (a psychedelic derived rom an African plant)
• cocaine did not work
• 2021: Austria; inadvertently discovered; ketamine re-opens a vision-related critical period 
• Dölen felt something must "connect" all the psychedelics
• and that connection? Genetic.
• her lab has pinpointed 65 genes that seem to be involved in the process
• current study: critical period to re-open what is lost during a stroke
  

Monday -- WTI Up Nicely -- Six Wells Coming Off Confidential List -- August 21, 2023

Locator: 45435B. 

The "market crash" will have to wait: 

NVDA: up almost $20 at the open; up over 4.0%. Earnings out later this week (Wednesday). One can “get” 4% in bonds but it will take a year. Not a recommendation; just an observation for the blog. [Later: at close, NVDA closed up almost 8.5%; up almost $40; trading at $470.]

Millennials: amazing how similar these three lists are --

• one;
• two; and,
• three.

Cargo: largest global airports ranked by cargo moved -- link here.

• one in each of five countries (5) -- if Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Taiwan separate
  
• China (2), Taiwan,
  
• South Korea
• Japan
  
• five in the US (5) -- Memphis is #2 behind Hong Kong
• pretty easy to remember
• Miami, LAX, and Anchorage
• Louisville and Memphis

Investing: seven energy stocks -- one week ago -- the usual suspects.

• add HAL and RIG

Investing: index funds.

Trump history: now available on Facebook.

************************************
Back to the Bakken

Focus on fracking: link here.

• US oil production at a 40-month high
• gasoline supplies at an 8-month low
• DUC backlog at 5 months

WTI: $82.17. Hard to believe, but the first time WTI was up on a Monday in a long time.

Monday, August 21, 2023: 41 for the month; 243 for the quarter, 488 for the year
39449, conf, CLR, Edward 9-23H1, 
37931, conf, BR, Parrish 3B MBH,
35467, conf, Oasis, MHA 6-27-26H-150-92,

Sunday, August 20, 2023: 38 for the month; 240 for the quarter, 485 for the year
39450, conf, CLR, Edward 10-23H,
38995, conf, Hess, TI-Stenback-158-95-2526H-10,
38904, conf, Enerplus, MC-Kudrna 144-95-10-3-3H,

RBN Energy: US refiners stand to benefit from longer reliance on liquid fuels, limited global capacity additions.

The world consumes about 100 MMb/d of liquid fuels, which are critically important to every segment of the global economy and to nearly every aspect of our daily lives. The size and scope of this market means it’s impacted by all kinds of short-term forces — economic ups and downs, geopolitics, domestic developments and major weather events, just to name a few — some of which are difficult, if not impossible, to foresee. But while these events can sometimes come out of nowhere, there are some long-term forces on the horizon that will shape markets in the decades to come, even if the magnitude of these changes might be up for debate. One is a move to prioritize alternative fuel sources rather than crude oil, but a meaningful shift won’t happen as quickly as many forecasts would indicate — and that has big implications for liquid fuel demand and the outlook for U.S. refiners.