Locator: 48693TECH.
Locator: 48693IRELAND.
Locator: 48693AMAZON.
Tag: Amazon AWS Ireland
Saturday, July 26, 2025
Katie Ledecky -- July 26, 2025
Locator: 48692LEDECKY.
Updates
Sunday, July 27, 2025: Ledecky clocked the fastest time in the qualifying heats to advance to the finals, but Ledecky took third in the 800-yard freestyle, behind Summer McIntosh and the Chinese swimmer, Li Bingjei.
Original Post
From the linked article:
One year to the day after the 2024 Olympic swimming competition began in Paris, the first major international competition of the 2028 Olympic cycle is set to begin.
The swimming program at the 2025 World Aquatics Championships starts Sunday (Saturday night Eastern time) in Singapore as Katie Ledecky, Summer McIntosh, Léon Marchand and more stars from the Paris Games kick off their runs to Los Angeles.
The year after a Games is typically one of transition. Some athletes are taking time off after the Olympic grind. Some have retired. Some new faces are emerging, and some familiar ones are plowing ahead.
“It’s going to be a unique world championships, because you don’t know what you’re going to get,” longtime NBC swimming analyst Rowdy Gaines said by phone from Singapore. “You know, in two years, we will kind of know what’s gonna happen, but this is always a strange one, the one after the Games.”
The rivalry between McIntosh, the 18-year-old rising Canadian who won three golds and a silver in Paris, and Ledecky, the 28-year-old American with more swimming medals than any woman in history, will be one of the top storylines over the next week. As will Marchand’s pursuit of more hardware. The 23-year-old French star won four golds in his home Olympics to stamp his place as the new force of men’s swimming.
AI Is An Energy Story -- CNP -- July 26, 2025
Locator: 48691CNP.
I've written about CNP off and on over the years but have generally lost interest in the company.
Then, today, I see that oilprice has a piece on CNP.
CenterPoint Energy (CNP) reported solid second-quarter 2025 financial results, reaffirmed its full-year guidance, and raised its 10-year capital investment plan by another $500 million to $53 billion, the third upward revision this year.
The Houston-based utility reported GAAP earnings of $0.30 per diluted share and non-GAAP EPS of $0.29 for Q2 2025, down from $0.36 in the same quarter last year.
The decline was largely attributed to the timing of rate recoveries and higher financing and maintenance costs. However, favorable weather and usage partially offset these impacts.
CenterPoint reiterated its 2025 non-GAAP EPS guidance range of $1.74 to $1.76 (which averages out to $0.44 per share), which implies 8% growth over 2024 and supports the company’s longer-term annual growth target of 6%–8% through 2030.
Today’s $500 million increase in long-term capital spending follows previous boosts totaling $5 billion earlier this year, bringing the full 10-year plan to $53 billion.
Importantly, the company noted it expects to fund the expanded investment plan without issuing incremental equity.
President and CEO Jason Wells said the expansion reflects both confidence in demand growth—particularly in Texas—and a “conservative approach” that leaves room for additional investment opportunities not yet factored into current projections.
A refreshed 10-year plan is expected to be released by the end of September.
The company reported a 6 GW increase in its interconnection queue since its Q1 earnings call, further validating its forecast of 50% load growth by 2031. This surge is fueled by rapid industrial, data center, and electrification growth across its territories, especially in Texas.
CNP: a utility. A simple utility. A simple, boring utility. It forecasts a load growth of 50% by 2031. That's about five years from now.
Does a 50% increase in load growth by a simple, boring electric utility seem unusual over the next few years seem unusual?
Three things are going on in Texas right now:
- phenomenal population growth;
- a Permian that keeps producing more and more natural gas, though the rate of rise has flattened; and,
- AI data centers.
Look at share price for CNP. Most unusual schematic for a simple, boring electric utility.
And then at that multiple for CNP. In the same ballpark as the P/E for AAPL.
For comparison: MDU's multiple is 13. SRE, 17. OTTR, 11.
If CNP grows into its P/E, a. year from now, CNP could be trading for $80.
U-Haul: I don't know if folks remember the number of U-Haul trailers stacking up in Williston in 2009 during the boom. I stopped by our local U-Haul location today, here in the DFW area, north Texas, northwest of the city that won't keep growing, according to The WSJ. I've never seen it so busy. It looked like Williston at the height of the boom. I mentioned that to the assistant manager at U-Haul today and they said they're getting slammed every day, weekdays and weekends. It's been going on like this for quite some time.
Some people say AI is a bubble. I don't recall "things" looking like this during the dot.com bubble. I do remember things looking like this during the Bakken boom.
Oilprice is an energy site. I don't recall the last time I saw oilprice posting a story about CNP. I don't think oilprice is all that interested in data centers. LOL. Wow, what a story. Absolutely fascinating.
Dividend Increase? SCCO -- July 26, 2025
Locator: 48689SCCO.
Updates
Later, 9:13 p.m. CT: link here.
Original Post
Mistake? This would be nice but I'm sure this has to be a mistake. Link here.
I think the increase is from 70 cents to 80 cents.
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Meanwhile: Caitlin
AI Is An Energy Story -- Bloom Energy -- In The News This Past Week -- July 26, 2025
Locator: 48688FUELCELLS.
Locator: 48688STARGATE.
Tag: Oracle, Stargate, OpenAI
It will be awhile for nuclear.
It's natural gas now, but all of a sudden fuel cells are back in the news:
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The Next Big Thing
In an unrelated note, Bloomberg is reporting that Bloom Energy may have hit a tipping point:
Exelon Corp., largest U.S. producer of nuclear power, agreed to buy fuel-cell power plants with 21 megawatts of capacity that Bloom Energy Corp. plans to install at 75 corporate sites in four states.
Commercial customers including AT&T Inc. will purchase the electricity, often at a premium to a utility's grid price, for each plant's ability to provide power locally with less pollution and more reliability than the grid, said KR Sridhar, Bloom's co-founder and CEO.
The deal shows the growing interest in fuel cell generators, which produce electricity where it's consumed from natural gas through a chemical reaction that produces fewer carbon emissions than plants that burn fuel. It's Exelon's first investment in systems from Bloom, which will operate and maintain them, the Chicago-based utility owner said.
Bloom and gloom: I used to follow Bloom Energy fairly closely
years ago, then lost interest when it appeared to be going nowhere. I
happened to speak with an engineer who was acquainted with the
technology and had actually toured the plant. For some reason, out of
the blue he asked if I had ever heard of Bloom. Of course, I had. Later,
I googled Bloom to see if there were any updates. Wow, jackpot! Forbes investigation, published just a couple of months ago; one of the longer articles I've seen in Forbes. Link here. Archived. And what Motley Fool thinks.
So, I've followed Bloom Enery off and on in the past. Not so much recently.
Intel -- July 26, 2025
Locator: 48687INTEL.
I may flesh this blog out later, but for now, just a memo for myself.
After reading the history of Intel, I really, really, really hope Intel can recover and become the successful company and American icon it once was. I have no plans to invest in INTC but that's fine.
Intel was first founded in Mountain View, California. The company was incorporated there on July 18, 1968. Initially, they operated out of a conference room in the old Union Carbide building.
Intel Corporation was founded on July 18, 1968, by semiconductor pioneers Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, along with investor Arthur Rock. Robert Noyce was an American physicist and entrepreneur known for co-founding Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957 and Intel in 1968. He is also credited with developing the first monolithic integrated circuit, or microchip. Gordon Moore, an American businessman and engineer, also co-founded Intel and is famous for proposing Moore's Law.
A lot of incredible history.
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The Book Page
This will probably be short-lived but limiting one's library to just three best books on any one subject is one way to cull a library or improve one's understanding of a given subject.
For me, once I got the "bug" with regard to semiconductors, I have benefited greatly by reading these three books simultaneously:
- The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created The Modern World, Simo Winchester, c. 2018.
- The Innovators: How A Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution, Walter Isaacson, c. 2015.
- The Story of Semiconductors, John Orton, Oxford Press, c. 2004.
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The Movie Page
Last night, on a whim, I watched The Conversation with Gene Hackman. I can't recall if I had seen that movie in its entirety but something, I don't know what, something suggested to me this past week I had to watch the movie. So, last night, the move was "free" on Amazon Prime and watched it. I can't recommend the movie to my extended family members, but I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. Would I watch it again? Maybe once every year. I might watch it again before I ever watch Apocalypse Now again, and Apocalpse Now is on my list of fifteen favorite movies.
Well, lo and behold, after watching The Conversation last night, it appears in a book review on this weekend's WSJ section on books. Wow, such a coincidence.
From the link above:
When it comes to making a movie, directors have the big ideas, stars have the oversize salaries and studio executives have the loudly expressed opinions, but film editors know the most about process. They have to. In their often unheralded roles, editors are tasked not only with fashioning a story but discerning (and determining) a movie’s rhythm, mood and emotion.And, yes, I'll buy the book sight unseen. I think I have two books on Hollywood; this will be my third.
Few editors have practiced the art as skillfully or intelligently as Walter Murch, whose work includes Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Conversation” (1974) and “Apocalypse Now” (1979), Fred Zinnemann’s “Julia” (1977) and Anthony Minghella’s “The English Patient” (1996). He has also lent his ears to numerous productions as a widely acclaimed sound mixer and designer. For his efforts, he has been honored three times with Oscar wins.
Mr. Murch, 82, is very articulate on his thoughts and theories about his trade. I have interviewed him on several occasions, including for a 2012 dual-profile of him and the director Philip Kaufman. He is the author or contributor to several books, the latest and best of which is “Suddenly Something Clicked.”
The author-editor’s thoughtfulness, candor and wonkish attention to detail is on abundant display in the present volume, which is split into two sections—one on film editing, the other on sound design—but which is governed, throughout, by a rich, multidisciplinary density that at times feels free-associational. “Theory mixes with experience, and practical tips jostle between metaphysics and neurology,” Mr. Murch writes. He offers extended exegeses on everything from the concept of “persistence of vision” to the merits of standing up, rather than sitting down, at an editing machine.
It is a joy to encounter someone who has thought so deeply about his vocation, up to and including defining his preferred terms. To wit, Mr. Murch finds “montage” more apropos than “editing.” He explains that “a plumber will monte together the pipes of a house, just as a film editor will plumb together the shots of a film, and this construction—this montage—of a first assembly is the primary foundation of all the editor’s subsequent work.” He stresses the difference between what a book or periodical editor does and what a film editor does. Instead of refining an already extant product, as do those in the former professions, a film editor “produces the first version, painstakingly constructing it over many weeks (or months!) from thousands of shots, guided by the screenplay and the director’s notes.”
Mr. Murch points out, for instance, that his work with Mr. Coppola—who tended to shoot long, plotless “chains of events” like the wedding scene in “The Godfather” (1972)—led the editor to tackle other scenes as though they were documentaries. “I am following the story in the script, of course, but a certain dash of this documentary way of thinking seems to open up the potential in the material, even (and especially) in the accidental parts.” He describes as eye-opening a cut made by an assistant editor on “The Conversation” that skipped a step in the on-camera action to arrive at an important moment more quickly. “I can think of no cut that better captures the essence of cinema editing, its ability to compress time, its storytelling efficiency, its metaphorical poetry,” writes Mr. Murch.
Committed cinephiles will have a similar feeling throughout this book, which both describes in great depth the assembly of “The Conversation,” in the absence of certain scenes that were planned but were never shot, and includes assertions of striking, almost aphoristic simplicity, including this insight about complex soundtracks: “It is just about possible to follow two conversations simultaneously, but not three.”
Flathead Lake -- Augusta -- Rodeos -- July 26, 2025
Locator: 48686MONTANA.
Distance from Lakeside, MT (Flathead Lake) to Augusta, MT: 200 miles, 3 1/2 hours.
Olivia's Team At The Chavín Site In Peru Made The Reuter's News Earlier This Month -- July 26, 2025
Locator: 48685PERU.
In early 2025, Olivia saw a request for an engineering student to join this team on a message board. She wrote to John W. Rick and was selected to be the only engineer (needs to be fact-checked) on his team this year.
Background:
For a look at what these Stanford engineers were doing on their days off, link here:
Saturday Morning -- July 26, 2025
Locator: 48684ARCHIVES.
Travel: for someone who no longer likes to travel, my plans for August, September, October have "exploded."
Paywalls: have become irrelevant. See a headline? Want to cut to the chase without ads. A chatbot. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what was going on with MKT and DPP in Taiwan. A chatbot sorted it out for me in mere seconds. I can now move on. No longer interested. Wikipedia is always good but it often takes a lot of reading to find out an answer to a specific question. A chatbot is poised to provide a specific answer to a specific question. The better the prompt, the better the reply.
For ChatGPT prompt, example: compare Marvel's / TSMC's 2-nm process with Intel's 14A. It's a long, long answer and I understand very little of the difference, but it appears that the 14A might be the better process/chip. But, it seems to be a close call, and there's no certainty Intel will go forward with the 14A. TSMC's 2-nm process has already ramped up and is now becoming available; Intel's 14A won't be available until 2027 / 2028.
From Beth, link here.
Investing: the biggest story last week, not well told by the mainstream media, the S&P 500 notched five record highs in as many trading days last week, capping off what's now a 28% rally since reaching this year's lows on April 8. This V-shaped recovery in the benchmark index marks the second-fastest rebound from a drawdown of at least 19% in the last 75 years. A massive move in the index from a low to Friday's closing price of 6,389 has formed a large V shape in the S&P 500 2025 chart. One wouldn't know it by watching "Fast Money" on CNBC.
From Beth, link here. Comparing five big tech companies (magnificent 7 --> fantastic 5), Oracle took the gold: Oracle went from spending the least capex-to-revenue at just 9% in early 2022, to now 37% of revenue in fiscal 2025. Well, I don't know, "took" the gold, or "spent" the gold. LOL.
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The Book Page
This will probably be short-lived but limiting one's library to just three best books on any one subject is one way to cull a library or improve one's understanding of a given subject.
For me, once I got the "bug" with regard to semiconductors, I have benefited greatly by reading these three books simultaneously:
- The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created The Modern World, Simo Winchester, c. 2018.
- The Innovators: How A Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution, Walter Isaacson, c. 2015.
- The Story of Semiconductors, John Orton, Oxford Press, c. 2004.
It's going to be hard to cull my Virginia Woolf library to just three books. LOL.
Same with Anaïs Nin.
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The Book Page -- A Bonus
Link here. So British. Think of the special gadgets introduced by Ian Fleming's James Bond.
During World War II, a few imaginative, skilled and very discreet printers, designers and executives turned a beloved board game into a get-out-of-jail device for prisoners of war. The idea was so good, and so well executed, that at the conclusion of the war almost all records of the plan were either shredded or buried by the various official-secrets acts in Britain and America. Only at the end of the 1980s, when the prospect of armed conflict with the Soviet Union disappeared (followed by the U.S.S.R. itself) did some aspects of the wartime scheme begin to be acknowledged publicly. In “Monopoly X,” Philip E. Orbanes, a former executive at Parker Bros. and an author of several books about Monopoly, has produced the fullest version of the role that a familiar board game played in the war.
Parker Bros. introduced Monopoly in the U.S. in 1935. But it was Waddingtons, the British licensee of the game, that turned the game into a wartime secret weapon. Waddingtons was a printing firm led by a man named Victor Watson, whose son, Norman, had convinced him to take on the Monopoly license the same year. A version of the game was produced that used London streets and proved very lucrative.
Waddingtons was already very involved in the war effort: It contributed cartridges needed for explosives production and quietly took to printing British and European banknotes when the better known printer, De La Rue, was bombed during the Blitz. And in a subbasement, “the room we never speak of,” a group of designers and printers doctored sets of Monopoly at the request of MI9, a wartime division dedicated to getting the POWs back home.
Waddingtons, clearly, wasn’t just a game maker but a game changer. The company produced specially adapted sets, indistinguishable from the standard ones, in which falsified documents and vital pieces of escape equipment were embedded. In Mr. Orbanes’s telling, Norman Watson’s meeting with his MI9 contact, “Clutty,” reads like a comic moment in a John le Carré novel: “I want you to alter a Monopoly game by hiding certain items inside its board. Include a map . . . and these .... a tiny compass, not more than a half inch in diameter, along with a flat saw blade six inches in length."
The doctored boards were sent to Allied prison camps in Germany, shipped alongside unaltered sets via charities like the Red Cross or by other, innocent-sounding organizations such as the Sussex Ladies Benevolent Society (which didn’t exist). A deliberately placed dot on the Free Parking square was the only clue that a board held secret items and needed to be handed over to the ranking intelligence officer among the POWs.
The first beneficiary of the Monopoly gambit was Airey Neave, who broke out of Oflag IV-C, better known as Colditz, thanks to a lock pick, local currency, a compass and a map. After his return to London he was recruited into MI9 so he could assist other escapees. In later life he became a Conservative member of Parliament and one of Margaret Thatcher’s most devoted supporters.
So much more at the link.
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The Movie Page
After watching a short segment on YouTube, Coppola's 15 favorite films, I tried to do the same. Not in any particular order (*: on Coppola's list):
- Citizen Kane*
- Pulp Fiction*
- Sunset Boulevard*
- Mulholland Drive
- [insert a Hitchcock movie here]
- [insert a Wes Anderson movie here]
- Casablanca/Maltese Falcon
- Apocalypse Now*
- Lawrence of Arabia*
- [insert a Coen Bros movie here]
- [insert The Third Man or something similar here]
- Dr Zhivago
- No Way Out
- Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
- The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
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