The Million Dollar Way (The Bakken Oil Blog): 04/11/26

Saturday, April 11, 2026

Personal Electricity Bill -- Texas -- Comparing 2026 With Five Years Ago -- April 11, 2026

Locator: 50506ELECTRICITY.

Our previous electricity bill was $137.33. This was from March, 2026.

Our only utility bill is electricity, for a small one-bedroom-one-bath-one-den/office apartment in north Texas. We have no natural gas. This is our total energy bill for the apartment.

With all fees, taxes, etc., we're paying 20.0 cents / kWh (2026). One year ago we were paying 17.0 cents / kWh (2025).

Today, I was culling some old files, throwing stuff away, and I came across this, a very old utility bill from March 4, 2021.

I find that simply amazing. "Everyone" is telling us that our energy costs are going up.

I can't recall the last time we were paying over $200 / month. It looks like it was back in 2021.

Now we're paying well less than that. January through March are generally our most expensive months.

So, now, five years later we're paying 40% less? Calculations:

(137.33 - 230.67) / 230.67 = 40.5%

(137.33-253.47 / 253.47 = 45.82%

Our electricity use has not changed all these years -- in fact, now that I have the Bat Cave, my electricity needs have actually increased over the years, albeit not much.

Seriously, I can't explain why our monthly electricity bill dropped so much.

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Spectrum
Internet Access

Last year our Spectrum bill was running right at $100 / month.

This year our Spectrum bill is running right at $60 / month.

Absolutely no change in service except Spectrum has actually added faster connection / download / upload speeds.

Wow -- The 2026 Masters -- One For The Ages -- April 11, 2026

Locator: 50505PGA.

NASCAR: Ty Gibbs just won his first NASCAR career race. At Bristol.

Now Back To Our Original Programming

Tickled pink: that Rory won.

This really was a Masters for the ages.

24 years -- 12 years -- 24 years.

Round 4

18th hole:

walking to the hole with his last competitor, Cameron Young, leading by three strokes;
but an incredibly bad tee shot
the good news, Rory does have an opening to get back on the fairway -- but it's awful
don't count Cameron Young out yet!
a double-bogey for Rory and a birdie for Young brings us to a three-way playoff -- Rory, Young, and Scheffler.
Rory can win with a bogey but a double-bogey comes into play.
wow, wow, wow -- a six-inch bogey stroke to win his back-to-back green jacket.
sixth major victory. Defeats Scottie Scheffler by one stroke!

17th hole:

Rory walking to the 17th hole. He leads three other players still playing, by three strokes.

now, two of those three are done.

Scheffler is done, two back from Rory, in second place.
Rory would need to shoot two consecutive bogies to go to a playoff with Scheffler.

15th hole:

Rory put the chip shot right into the water! But like a skipping stone, it skipped to dry land and on the green.

9th hole:

Justin Rose moves into sole lead: -12

7th hole:

McIlroy and Young tied for second: -7
for McIlroy, back-to-back green jackets; fourth in history if he does that;

2nd hole:

Rory drops a hole to Young.
Young, now, sole lead. Rory, pars, but drops a shot behind Young.

Round 3

Rory McIlroy: was heading toward a(n) historic win, leading by three strokes over #2 Cameron Young and six strokes over Scottie Scheffler, PGA's #1 ranked player, when he (Rory) double-bogeyed the eleventh hole (put the ball in the water). Still holding the lead but wow! By one stroke. And not doing much better on the next hole. End of third round: McIlroy and Young tied, -11 strokes.

All of that happened, just as I was checking headlines, and this popped up:

Meanwhile ... back to the tournament ... Cameron Young has now tied Rory.

Rory will par hole #12, and will now trail Cameron by one stroke. Cam Young started the day in 8th place.

This is no fluke for Young. In the Official World Golf Ranking, Cam Young is No. 3 in the world.

Rory has his work cut out for him.

There are now eight golfers that could take this tournament away from Rory.

13th hole. Simply getting worse for Rory. Wow.

Tech -- Saturday, April 11, 2026

Locator: 50504TECH.

Memo to self. This past week.

LDCs.

Why Machines Learn, Anil Ananthaswamy, c. 2024 / 2025. Link here. Words that keep popping up:

neural networks;
pattern recognition;
matrix multiplication;
deep learning.

Apple. Baltra.

Broadcom. Taking on Nvidia.

CoreWeave. In the big leagues, now.

Oracle. Link here.

Intel. Will be the stock of the decade, 2026 - 2036.

Anthropic. The cream will rises to the top.

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Not Tech

USPS. In deep, deep financial trouble.

What's Oracle Been Up To In The Last Six Months? April 11, 2026

Locator: 50503ORACLE.

Reply:

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Ring-Fencing

How Texas Kicks Europe's Ass -- An Essay So Long One Can't Read It In One Day -- April 11, 2026

Locator: 50502TEXAS.

Link here.

And, then, this from President Trump overnight:

Again, this fits the narrative, corroborates my thesis on Trump's method to his madness.

The next move? Heavy oil from Venezuela.

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Coal

Link here.

Baltra: Broadcom And Chip Design -- The Interstate Still Belongs To Nvidia, Of Course, But Broadcom Certainly Has A Lot Of On-Ramps -- April 11, 2026

Locator: 50501BALTRA.

This is completely random. Nothing new. But it needs to be on my radar scope and I often forget about things if I don't blog about them. So, this is for me only, not even for my extended family members, and certainly not for readers in general. As stated, there is nothing new here but if I don't blog about it, I forget about it.

Link here.

First, before we get started, how did Apple choose the name "Baltra"?

I think the chatbot failed me on this one. This is how I will remember "Baltra":

Broadcom-Apple-uLtra --> Baltra. LOL. And I know I'm right. LOL.

Apple uses “ultra” in a lot of its high-end chips so this makes perfect sense.

Baltra could be really, really huge for Apple. It amazes me that I've only mentioned Baltra three times on the blog; this is the fourth.

I think this was the first time: January 5, 2025. At that time, a word search did not reveal "Baltra" over at MacRumors.

I've got too many things to do, so I will get right to the point.

AI query: is Apple's Baltra chip still on track?

AI reply:

Important links:

April 8, 2026: TrendForce, Apple sources glass substrate samples directly, signaling further in-house AI serve chip push (a little too much alliteration -- if TrendForce trying too hard?). Link here.

April 7, 2026: WCCFTech, Apple shows is cards, plans to move the production of its upcoming Baltra ASIC in-house. Link here. This may be the most important link of the links shown.

April 11, 2026: Grokipedia, the Baltra. Link here.

April 9, 2026: LongBridge, Apple's self-designed AI server chip "Baltra" maybe manufactured by TSMC. Link here.

Google, from yesterday, April 10, 2026:

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Baltra and Broadcom Are Joined At The Hip

See this link.

Meta Mango -- First Post -- April 11, 2026

Locator: 50500META.

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The Movie Page

Link here.

No one makes movies like Steven Soderbergh. A director who works as his own cinematographer and editor—the latter two under the pseudonyms Peter Andrews and Mary Ann Bernard—he has so streamlined the filmmaking process that he’s been known to send out a rough cut of the completed feature by the end of the last shooting day.

That process has allowed him to move faster than any major working director, releasing two movies, Presence and Black Box, in theaters in the past year alone, and premiering a third, The Christophers, which is just hitting cinemas now. A ghost story, a sexy spy thriller, and a seriocomic two-hander about the art world, the three films are wildly different, but they share a spirit of freewheeling experimentation and the feeling that, 37 years after Sex, Lies, and Videotape made a splash at Sundance, the 63-year-old director is still as in love with the process as ever.