ChatGPT -- July 5, 2025

Locator: 48676CHATBOTS.

Going forward, I'm going to be using a lot more ChatGPT. I'm not getting lazy or lazier. Using a chatbot will raise the blog to a new level -- make it much, much better, and it will save me an incredible amount of time. In a sense, ChatGPT could make my site redundant for those who want to follow the Bakken. 

Again, the blog was developed to help me keep track of what was going on in the Bakken. My initial plans were to do it solely as an Apple word document but then realized html was a much better platform. I opened it up for readers simply to let others participate in what I was learning about the Bakken. It did not matter to me what my readers thought of how I developed the blog but I certainly didn't want to turn readers away because they often provided me great information that I would not have found on my own. I say that to push back on folks who would suggest I should not be using a chatbot.

It should be noted that I am using "ChatGPT" as a metonym and it's possible I may use multiple chatpots and/or may quit using ChatGPT, the specific chatbot, entirely. That will certainly happen if Apple's Siri ever gets its act together (I assume that will happen 4Q25).

Chatbots: A simple Google search will provide answers to who, what, when, and where, in the past and the present, but ChatGPT will provide answers to the why (past and present) and what's likely to be in the future. 

ChatGPT is only as good as one's prompts. 

An example of a good prompt that I developed myself:

ChatGPT is exceptional for conversational queries across all genres. Claude/Anthropic is superb for coders/coding/writing software. What would be a good chatbot for high-level musicians, writers/composers of music, for example.

 ChatGPT then provided an incredible reply beginning with this intro:

This is an excellent and nuanced question. You’re absolutely right that different AI models have developed distinct strengths based on their training focus and interface design. Here’s a solid overview based on current (2025) evaluations ....

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Word For The Day

Hamadryads: tree nymphs.

For some, hamadryads refer to the trees themselves, the trees with their "concurrent" nymphs residing therein.

For others, the hamadryads are the nymphs themselves. 

With her love of trees, and her love of climbing trees, as if she wants to be "one" with the trees themselves, one might think of Sophia as a hamadryad. 

Hamadryads: I first saw this word in the wild in Christopher Benfey's Red Brick Black Mountain White Clay, c. 2012 / Penguin, 2013; page 244, in the softcover edition.

Coming from the same source: isinglass. I'm very familiar with isinglass but never knew the name of translucent mica.

Link here.

Every time I come across these "things," I'm reminded of Yuval Noah Harari.

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Tinker, Tailor

The link included a memory of 2001: A Space Odyssey which reminded me of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, which we watched again last night. [Yes, I "own" a copy of the movie through Amazon Prime.] Probably the greatest love story ever. Link here.

Big Story Next Week -- Arbitrators Said To Have Reached A Decision -- Hess, Chevron, Exxon -- July 5, 2025

Locator: 48675OIL.

Tech Headline For The Week? Foxconn Reports A Second Quarter Record -- July 5, 2025

Locator: 48674AAPL.

Synopsis: 

Foxconn's revenue for the second quarter of 2025 increased by 15.82% compared to the same period in 2024, achieving a record for the quarter, and the company expects third-quarter business to also grow on both a quarterly and annual basis.

 Link here.

Taiwan's Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics maker, reported record second-quarter revenue on strong demand for artificial intelligence products but cautioned about geopolitical and exchange rate headwinds.

Revenue for Apple's biggest iPhone assembler jumped 15.82% year-on-year to T$1.797 trillion beating the T$1.7896 trillion LSEG SmartEstimate.

Robust AI demand led to strong revenue growth for its cloud and networking products division whose customers include AI chip firm Nvidia.

Smart consumer electronics, which includes iPhones, posted “flattish” year-on-year revenue growth affected by exchange rates.

June revenue roses 10.09% on year to T$540.237 billion, a record high for that month.

Geo-Political Headline Of The Day (Year?)

Locator: 48673CHINA. 

For me, the top issues facing the United States, right now:

• the US debt
• US Supreme Court fails to get a handle on federal judges overstepping their constitutional bounds
  
• existing immigration laws not enforced; "border security" is lost.
  
• the growing Muslim population in the US: 
• lack of assimilation; a lack of acculturation; lack of cultural integration;
• allowing Sharia law to take hold in jurisdictions below the state level; 
• there are already two fatwas with regard to the US president;
  
• EU regulators wreak havoc on US companies through economic blackmail
  
• California defaults
• Texas turns "blue"
• Trump's tax policies get reversed by future administrations 
• Trump's "green energy policies" get reversed by future administrations
  
• NATO fails to adjust to new world order
  
• US annexes Canada
  

The top three above are the top three in any order. The bottom seven are the bottom seven, again in any order.

China does not make the top ten list of issues facing the United States.

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CHINA

Geo-Political Headline Of The Day (Year?)

Updates

July 6, 2025: the NYT has had one article on this story, link here. The NYT does not mention that Xi won't be attending the summit in Rio de Janeiro and what that means for BRICS. Other than that, I found it a pretty good article. 

July 5, 2025: Iran is isolated. Looks for BRICS to get help. BRICS won't touch Iran. Link here.

Original Post 

Headline is here (above) but the story will have to be found elsewhere. It will be interesting how The NYT covers this story. 

Woody Allen, or some such wag, once said, 90% of life is showing up." Xi did not even show up at the BRICS summit where he would be "top dog."

Compare that with Trump's visit to the Mideast before the B-2s. He took a dozen billionaires, including the wealthiest man in the world, and brokered dozens of deals across the region. Even had Xi shown up at the BRICS summit he would have had none of Trump's money, tech billionaires, or gravitas. In many ways, Xi would have looked like a small man among other small men (and women).

But this is huge, Xi not even attending the summit. Of course, he had nothing to offer, but it does raise questions:

• short term:
• is Xi ill?
• is Xi's hold on China weakening?
• did Trump re-write the geo-political reality in the Mideast?
• long term:
• is China blowing off talks of a BRICS comeback, or this simply a bump in the road?
• is BRICS dead; if not, is the C in BRICS going to have to be changed to ... let's say ... Canada?
  

If India is the "I" in BRICS, it also suggests the China's Belt and Road Initiative is dying, if not already dead.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), also known as One Belt One Road (OBOR) or the New Silk Road, is a global infrastructure development strategy launched by China in 2013. It aims to connect Asia, Europe, and Africa through land-based and maritime networks (think India), promoting trade, investment, and economic cooperation.

The "One Belt One Road (OBOR)" initiative is not to be confused with the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB).

Time For A Movie Interlude -- July 5, 2025

Locator: 48672MOVIE.

The Coen Brothers film rankings.

Link here.

Ethan Coen (by himself) and Honey Don't -- opens in theaters August 22, 2025; trailer here:

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Iran: From July, 2025 -- The Next Decade

We're going to be overwhelmed by YouTube videos on this subject for the next year. Right, wrong, indifferent. Whether one agrees or disagrees with Trump's policies, these videos are going to be ubiquitous over the next well months. Victor Davis Hanson will probably have the best analysis.

How "the" war in Iran will completely cripple Russia. Link here.

Reminder:

Seven US B-2 bombers were used to strike Iranian nuclear facilities as part of Operation Midnight Hammer.

These bombers were tasked with delivering GBU-57 MOP bunker-busting bombs. The operation targeted the Fordow and Natanz nuclear enrichment facilities.

The U.S. Air Force has 19 B-2 Spirit stealth bombers in service. Initially, the U.S. had 21, but one was lost in a 2008 crash and another in 2022.In the operation against Iranian nuclear facilities, US B-2 bombers dropped a total of 14 GBU-57 "bunker buster" bombs. These bombs were used to target the Fordow enrichment facility and a second nuclear site. The operation, named "Midnight Hammer," also involved other precision-guided weapons like Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from submarines.

The Russian void in Iran will be filled by ... not China ... but Turkey, the US, and Saudi Arabia.

We're going to get a lot of "propaganda" that China will step in to fill the void (they won't). We will also get a lot of "propaganda" that Turkey will step in to fill the void. That's partly true, but Saudi Arabia and the US will be watching closely. The economic potential in the Mideast following the 35-minute US war on Iran will be huge for those countries rushing to fill the void left by Russia, and each will want a piece of that economic pie. My hunch: Saudi Arabia is most "needful" of that potential and won't let China step on the Muslims.

The Hormuz Strait:

• I generally disregard any analyst who raises this canard: Iran can shut down the Hormuz Strait.Fact: the Hormuz Strait has never been shut down and never will be by Iran.
• If, if, if, if --- the Hormuz Strait is shut down, "we" have bigger problems than oil in the Mideast.  
• any media outlet, particularly CNBC, that talks about the risk of the strait closing tells me that CNBC is not serious on this issue.
  

Dallas -- It Keeps Growing -- July 5, 2025 -- IN PROGRESS

Locator: 48671TEXAS.

From The WSJ yesterday, link here. 

Top three metro-areas, ranked by growth raw numbers:

By percentage, 2023 - 2024, July to July -- something tells me the growth rate in DFW has increased since then::

• NYC: 213,400 / 19.94 million = 1.06%
• Houston: 198,171 / 7.80 million = 2.5%
• DFW: 177,922 / 8.34 million = 2.1%

Blue: This also means, the state of Texas will swing "blue" by 2032, if not by 2028.

• and it doesn't matter if the new "blue" reps stay "true to Texas," the fact remains that at the Federal level, the US Congress and US Senate will have an easier time going forward to control by the Democrats.

From the link:

FRISCO, Texas — The growth north of Dallas has been so dizzying that people talk about it as if it were a storm, or some other force of nature. 

That’s how Heather Cowan describes it. She came to the area in 1995 to raise a family after graduating from college in South Dakota. Six months ago, she and her husband moved farther north to the quiet of Gunter, 50 miles from Dallas, “to get ahead of the curve,” as she put it. Even in rural Gunter, though, Cowan said she was starting to “feel” the growth.

She was right: The next day, Centurion American Development Group announced it had closed on a thousand-acre parcel in Gunter that would form part of a new development, Platinum Ranch, with 4,200 homes.  

The corridor north of Dallas is capping a decade as one of America’s fastest-growing regions, pulling in droves of newcomers from California to India and turning them into newly minted Texans. The companies are coming, too. Among them are Toyota, Amazon Web Services, State Farm and others.

Where cattle once outnumbered people, new shopping malls, housing developments and office towers now reign, and a region that was once overwhelmingly white and country is now increasingly South Asian and techie.

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Sprawling

What does this mean for investors as folks keep moving farther north, eventually moving to the state line along Oklahoma? We'll get to that later. I think it's quite interesting. Stay tuned.

 

Inflation Watch -- July 5, 2025

Locator: 48670INFLATION.

Coke, 2-liter, at high end grocer in our area: generally $2.77 - $3.49; on sale today, 2-liter for $2.00 if one buys two bottles

Walgreen's:

• Charmin 2-ply; mega 6 = 36; at Amazon: $20; at Walgreen's, regular, $13.99; on-sale for $12.99;
• Paper towels, Bounty, 6 = 12, at Amazon, $22.75; $12.99
• Kleenex: one three-carton package, regularly $6.99; on sale today $5.99 or $5 / package if one buys two packages, so instead of $14, it cost me $10
• and, finally, a coupon worth $10

Savings at Walgreens based on Amazon's posted on-line price:

• $7 + $10 + $4 = $21
• Amazon price: $56.76
• Walgreen's price incl coupon: $22.99
• 22.99 / 56.75 = 41%

My wife says: "truly amazing." 

And yet Steve Liesman will tell me how bad inflation in the US is right now.

That's A Lot Of Blades -- July 5, 2025

Locator: 48669BLADES.

Before I get started, a pet peeve of mine: 

• AI is not artificial intelligence
• there is nothing artificial about the "stuff" I'm getting from AI
• it is not artificial, it is real
• the industry is already trying to correct that by calling it generative AI
• so that's a start
• but worse, it's not even "intelligent" yet -- the information I'm getting (and what I'm hearing from every user) is that this is simply "stuff" "scraped" from the internet -- stuff that already exists -- don't take that out of context
• so, it's neither "artificial" or "intelligent"
• so, it brings me to the question that others are already asking:
• what is the definition of intelligence (we'll skp over "artificial" for now"
  
• how will we know when we see it, i.e., intelligence?
  
• some of the prompts I provide ChatGPT seem to produce a reply that has not been "scraped" from the internet, but could be an "original" reply -- but is it original? My hunch: those AI "original replies" have been already posted by real human beings somewhere on the net -- meaning these AI replies are not "intelligence."
  
• so, the artificial part is easy; the "stuff" I'm getting is "real," it's not artificial; and, 
• so far, it's not "intelligent," it's simply the same stuff that's already on the internet but is now being collected for me, organized, and regurgitated in a conversational style.

So,

• AI, artificial intelligence: nope
• a better name, still using AI as the acronym? augmented information.

This is for folks who question whether Nvidia is for real.

And, along the way, a few investors might get some useful information. Though, remember, this is not an investment site. It's an entertainment site.

First, AI is an energy story. That's why I keep writing about it on the blog (LOL).

Second, AI is a Nvidia story.

Third, eyeballs, link here: 

Google, #1, and google-owned #2, Youtube, are already using a lot of blades. Together, 20 billion daily views.

But they say ChatGPT could very well catch up with Google. 

Say what.

Read that again, ChatGPT (750 million) could "soon" catch up with Google search  (16 billion).

ChatGPT right now: less than a billion (750 million). 

Average monthly visitors:

That's a lot of blades, any way you think about it.

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Most Recent Figures

Some of the numbers below don't seem to "add up," but one gets the idea. If the chart above suggests 750 million monthly users, the the numbers below are even more staggering.

And remember, ChatGPT is just one of several (dozens?) of generative AI sites.

ChatGPT: daily active users

• approximately 122.6 million unique daily users as of early 2025
• 30 x 125 million daily users = 3.75 billion monthly user
  
• other estimates range between 100–160 million DAUs depending on the source
• total daily visits
• around 177 million visits per day, based on ~5.5 billion monthly visits
• weekly activity
• over 400 million weekly active users (WAUs) in early 2025
• some reports even suggest as many as 800 million WAUs, though figures vary 

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But It Gets Even Better

So far, AI seems to be all about "search," and specifically search engines, like Google. 

Now, what happens when Fortune 500 companies start installing their own AI data centers? 

Oh, yes, a lot more blades.

North Dakota Wheat -- July 5, 2025

Locator: 48668WHEAT.

Link here. 

If this is a "thing" and not just a "one-off" this will revolutionize farming in North Dakota. The technique is not new; it's been around for a long, long time. It works particularly well in drier areas that need irrigation, or at least I'm told. That may or may not be any longer true. I don't know. ChatGPT, at least at the first level, has not been particularly helpful.

So, is 115+ bushels / acre anything to write home about?

Well, from the blog:

• 2019: 50 - 55 bushels / acre, winter wheat; link here.
• 2012: 55 bushels / acre -- an all-time record at th time; link here.

ChatGPT today:

• North Dakota’s average wheat yield
• according to the ND Wheat Commission, the state’s average yield is now around 45 bushels per acre (approximately 3 tons/ha)
• Record-Breaking 2024 Crop
• as of July 2024, the USDA estimated North Dakota spring wheat yields at 56 bushels per acre, marking a new record average
• USDA quick stats for 2024 report 56.9 bu/acre overall wheat, including:
• spring (non-durum): 59 bu/acre
• durum: 47 bu/acre
• winter wheat: 54 bu/acre 

Production, North Dakota, by state:

So, depending on the county in North Dakota, 115 bbls / acre represents anywhere from 2x to 5x the average yield. Yeah, not too shabby.

By the way, an analogy. Fracking has been around "forever," since at least 1946, I think. Have to look that up. But with the "Bakken Revolution," fracking revolutioned the oil and natural gas industry.

Likewise, diamond planting has been around for years, but all of a sudden it's having a breakout moment ..... in North Dakota again. 

Wow.

July 4, 2025

Locator: 48667FIRE.

California wildfires:

• first six months, 2025: 3,290 fires; 96,994 acres across all of California; does not include the Madre fire which broke out in July
  
• currently, Madre fire, first full day: 52,000 acres; 5% contained
  
• full year, 2024: 8,024 fires; 1,050,012 acres; slightly less than five-year average, but still significant
• full year, 2021: 7,396 fires; 2,569,386 acres
• full year, 2020, the worst year in modern history for wildfires: around 10,000 fires; 4.2 to 4.3 million acres;
  
• the August Complex fire was the largest single fire in California history, burning over a million acres. Historical Context: CalMatters notes that 2020 was on a scale not seen in at least 100 years. 
• full year, 2018: 8,527 fires; 1,975,086 acres; largest on record at the time, but now third, after 2020 and 2021; not the worst year in terms of number of acres burned, but the 2018 fire season is considered the deadliest and most destructive due to the Camp Fire in Paradise, which resulted in 86 deaths and 18,804 structures destroyed

Hamas: signs cease-fire; temporary.

SRP: add this book to my summer reading program, Your Inner Fish: A Journey Into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body, Neil Shubin, c. 2008, 2009. See below.

Barnes and Noble: Lego store masquerading as a bookstore, at least here in north Texas.

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ZPAs

The short version: The Zone of Polarizing Activity (ZPA) is a critical signaling center in developing vertebrate limbs, specifically during the formation of the anterior-posterior (thumb to little finger) axis. It's a group of cells located in the posterior mesenchyme of the limb bud that plays a key role in limb development by directing the formation of digits. The ZPA achieves this by producing a signaling molecule called Sonic hedgehog (Shh), which creates a concentration gradient across the limb bud.