Chatbots Vs The Drudge Report -- May 7, 2026

Locator: 50747CHATBOTS. 

Drudge Report: I haven't looked at The Drudge Report in years.

Query: Are Drudge Report page views dropping because of chatbots?

Reply:  

There Are "Only Three" Companies Of Note That Make Natural Gas Turbines -- May 7, 2026

Locator: 50746NG_TURBINES. 

Query: three companies make NG turbines GE Vernova, CAT and ? 

Reply: 

End-Of-Day Report -- May 7, 2026

Locator: 50745B.  

AI fourth (sixth) industrial revolution, where will you be ten years from now? 

• The cake, a five-layer cake, from the bottom up -- Cramer's (in parentheses I would add):
• Energy: Bloom Energy, GE Vernova, EQT, Vistra, Constellation 
• (west Texas: Pacifico Energy and Chevron; Sempra through Oncor, grid) 
• Chips and semis: NVID, INTC, TSMC, MU, ASML (AMD)
• Infrastructure: AMZN, CoreWeave, Dell, CAT, Lumentum, Coherent, Corning (SCCO)
• Models: GOOG, META, OpenAI, Anthropic, xI (AMZN -- AWS)
• Applications: Crowdstrike, Palo Alto Networks, Palantir, Cloudflare, Databriks

Huge, huge news, local: HEB just down the street from us -- grand opening Wednesday, May 20, 2026. The iconic Texas grocery story will open at 6:00 a.m. I may camp out overnight. LOL. 

CNBC: yes, I'm back to watching CNBC -- Cramer twice a day -- morning and evening. Right, wrong, or indifferent, he seems to be the only one who is reading about AI.  

AAPL: reading the charts -- near term price target -- $315. Trading at $287 now. Apple is a story; it's under-owned and under-appreciated. General consensus among panel members on "Fast Money," CNBC tonight.

Friend: this past month, sold a house in California for $1.4 million. Bought a similar house in Frisco, Texas, north of DFW, on a golf course, for $400K. Leaves a lot of cash to fill the house with new furniture.  

BRKB: up $5.00 today. Wow. Clearly a lot of folks were sucked in my Greg Abel's presentation. I was tempted to buy but didn't; the deal breaker: no dividend despite $400 billion cash horde.

Lana Del Rey!

• Rolling Stone: her 50 best songs; link here;
• how many artists even have 50 songs, much less 50 "best songs" reviewed in Rolling Stone?

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Back to the Bakken

Lost Bridge: a lot of new permits in Lost Bridge oil field. See this post for some incredible wells in Lost Bridge. 

WTI: $94.81. 

Active rigs: 23.

Five new permits, #42909 - #42913, inclusive --

• Operators: Hess (3); EOG, XTO;
• Fields: Wheelock (Williams County); Parshall (Moutrail County); Lost Bridge (Dunn County).
• Comments:
• XTO has yet another permit for a Nautilus Federal well, SWNE 19-148-96, 
• to be sited 2541 FNL and 2279 FEL;
• EOG has a Burke well, SENE 34-155-90, 
• to be sited 1550 FNL and 585 FEL;
• Hess has permits for three more GO-Daniel wells, lot 2, section 3-156-98, 
• to be sited 403 / 502 FNL and 1981 FEL.

New Tax On Super-Wealthy Will Have "Zero" Effect On New York State's Budget Gap -- May 7, 2026

Locator: 50744NYS. 

Do the math.

NY state budget: $268 billion. (Compare with $170 billion for Texas.)

NY state budget deficit: $5.4 billion. (2%)

New tax on super-wealthy: $500 million (incredibly optimistic; the super-wealthy have ways of cutting their taxes). $500 million / $5.4 billion: about 10% -- that means the state still needs to come up with 90% of the projected deficit -- $4.86 billion. 

NY state will solve the problem but it will be mostly through smoke and mirrors.  

Iran Infrastructure -- ZeroHedge -- May 7, 2026

Locator: 50743IRAN. 

One of my least favorite (too much clickbait?) sites is ZeroHedge but having said that this was interesting, link here.

Trump paused "Project Freedom" to soothe Saudi's "hurt feelings," but deep down, he sees Saudi as just one more "fair weather" friend. The pause gives Trump time to evaluate what's going on in the Mideast but until there is unfettered transit through the strait this "thing" is not over. 

AAPL -- Not On My Bingo Card Today -- May 7, 2026

Locator: 50742AAPL. 

AAPL -- at the open: this is absolutely incredible -- the news yesterday drove this -- but I honestly didn't think that "average" investors would have realized this -- 

 

**********************************
What's Driving This?

From yesterday, link here. 

And Apple is serious about this: Apple is spending more than 10% of revenue on R&D for the first time in at least 30 years. 

This explains why Apple / AAPL remains something to keep in mind when thinking about investing in the current AI revolution.

This popped up today over at x: link here. I don't think there's anything new here; we've discussed this many times, but this appears to be the first time the general public has seen this.

Query: so what does this mean: Apple remains one of the few companies positioned to capture consumer AI deployment through device-level integration and unmatched distribution?

Reply: 

That's a keeper. This is so incredibly awesome, so brilliant, it cannot be overstated; it cannot be exaggerated. The hard part will be explaining this to the public. Apple probably needs to go an huge advertising campaign to explain what this means. At least a 60-second commercial with a lot of 30-second commercials explaining this as well as the right message. 

So, any articles on this? Yup, link here. 

This is really, really cool. 

Apple just opened its entire platform (iPhone, Mac, MacBook, iPad, etc) to "every" AI / chatbot out there. Think about that. 

Two billion devices ready to accept any chatbot, any AI query. And guess what? Every AI platform / every chatbot will want you to choose their platform; Apple might even charge chatbots to access their system. 

And when I say "ready," I mean ready. Like right now. This is amazing.  Well, not right now but as soon as the next iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27 are pushed out.

But there's another goodie. Apple does this "within their system." Apple uses "Edge" technology. That means it stays within your system, not subject to hacking by not going to the cloud. This is about as good as one can get when it comes to security.

And for the investor, Apple hasn't spent billions trying to train its own chatbots / its own AI system. Simply letting the Apple user choose whichever AI chatbot they want to use. I like ChatGPT and Google Gemini; others like Grok; some like Anthropic. Choose what you want.

 

**********************************
Disclaimer
Briefly

Briefly: 

I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken and I am often well out front of my headlights. I am often appropriately accused of hyperbole when it comes to the Bakken.

I am inappropriately exuberant about the US economy and the US market.

I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple. 

See disclaimer. This is not an investment site. 

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 something appears wrong, it probably is. Feel free to fact check everything.

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. 

Reminder: I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken, US economy, and the US market.

I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple. 

And now, Nvidia, also. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Nvidia. Nvidia is a metonym for AI and/or the sixth industrial revolution. 

I've now added Broadcom to the disclaimer. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Broadcom. Now, I've added Amazon.

Longer version here.   

US LDCs Update -- May 7, 2026

Locator: 50741LDCS. 

The new meme: twenty-five proposed LCDs were cancelled this past year. That's accurate but it's a meaningless data point. It's actually good news for many of the hyperscalers.  LCDs are tracked here. See story here. Currently 4,258 LDCs in the US as of today. Twenty-five represents 0.5% of that total. 

Large data centers are tracked here: LDCs. 

Map: Data Center Map -- link here.

Top states, change from previous update (April 1, 2026 -- link here):

• Virginia: 579 --> 601
• Texas: 411 --> 441
• California: 289 --> 288
  Illinois: 232 --> 228
• Georgia: 214 --> 213
• Ohio: 201-->204
  Arizona: 163 -->157
• New York: 133 --> 132
  Indiana: 89 --> 122
• Iowa: 96 --> 101

We currently have 4258 data centers listed, from 50 states in USA (America). Click on a state below, to explore its data center locations.

Previous update: link here. 

Link here. Previous update: April 1, 2026. 4,088 data centers in the US.

Market Comments -- May 7, 2026

Locator: 50740CRAMER. 

Paul Tudor Jones on CNBC today.

Cramer: one gets the feeling he's the only one actually reading anything.

CNBC's Q and David Faber are out of their depth on AI. Q much worse than Faber. 

Today should have been an incredibly rough day for AI.

AAPL: up another $2.00 in pre-market trading.

GLW: up another 4% in pre-market trading. To invest $3.2 billion in Nvidia.

NVDA: clearly undervalued. 

Anthropic: first quarter; growing at 80x rate; unheard of. Absolutely unheard of. AMD, same thing.  

AAPL -- at the open: this is absolutely incredible -- the news yesterday drove this -- but I honestly didn't think that "average" investors would have realized this -- 

 

*********************************
AI Investing

Like all biological phenomena and revolutions, this current AI revolution will also follow the standard "S" curve.

Point A, about 2023: it had become obvious that one should have began investing heavily in AI by now. Interestingly, the term "Magnificent Seven" (Mag 7) was coined in 2023 by Bank of America analyst Michael Hartnett. He created the nickname to describe a group of seven dominant, high-performing U.S. technology stocks—Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla. 

Point B, about 2028, will be the last opportunity to continue investing aggressively in AI. The Mag 7 will have greatly expanded by then. One might argue we'll see a resurgence of "a" Nifty Fifty. 

Between points A and B aggressive investors need to continue aggressively invest in AI, but transition from the Mag7 to the Towering 20. 

Many of these new twenty companies will be the results of IPOs between now (2026 and 2028).  

Unless there are indications that the growth/excitement of the current AI revolution continues beyond 2030, the investor needs to pivot. And pivot quickly. The market -- certainly the AI market -- could plummet 20 to 25 percent once the average investor sees what is going on. One may already need to consider pivoting from the current Mag 7 to something new.

Between now and then, keep reading everything you can on societal and geo-political changes. The trick will be to anticipate the next Mag 7. My own hunch: pharmaceutical companies that focus on "healthspan expansion" and even, perhaps, "biological age reversal." Beware charlatans.

It's not too late to invest in the current AI revolution, but by next year this time -- maybe sooner --  investing in the current Mag 7 will be challenging -- the real winners (investors) will be those who correctly anticipate the Towering 20 in 2030. Maybe we will see thirty such tickers by 2030 ... "thirty for 2030" --- "30 for 30."

**********************************
Disclaimer
Briefly

Briefly: 

I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken and I am often well out front of my headlights. I am often appropriately accused of hyperbole when it comes to the Bakken.

I am inappropriately exuberant about the US economy and the US market.

I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple. 

See disclaimer. This is not an investment site. 

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 something appears wrong, it probably is. Feel free to fact check everything.

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. 

Reminder: I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken, US economy, and the US market.

I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple. 

And now, Nvidia, also. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Nvidia. Nvidia is a metonym for AI and/or the sixth industrial revolution. 

I've now added Broadcom to the disclaimer. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Broadcom. Now, I've added Amazon.

Longer version here.   

Development Of Machine Learning -- Since 1943 -- Perceptrons -- Rosenblatt -- Machine Learning -- For The Archives -- May 7, 2026

Locator: 50739MACHINELEARNING. 

Probably the most difficult book I've read in the past several years and yet the most interesting:  

Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Math Behind Modern AI, Anil Ananthaswamy, c. 2024/2025. 

One of many concepts new to me in that book: perceptrons. Wiki. 

Did aliens visit the earth under the cover of WWII?

This is simply so incredible, defies explanation and understanding. Again, it's like an alien dropped in from another universe jump-starting humans' "invention" of machine learning. From the linked wiki entry.

The artificial neuron and artificial neural network were invented in 1943 by Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts in their seminal paper "A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity."

In 1957, Frank Rosenblatt was at the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory. He simulated the perceptron on an IBM 704. 

Later, he obtained funding by the Information Systems Branch of the United States Office of Naval Research and the Rome Air Development Center, to build a custom-made computer, the Mark I Perceptron. 

It was first publicly demonstrated on 23 June 1960. The machine was "part of a previously secret four-year NPIC [the US' National Photographic Interpretation Center] effort from 1963 through 1966 to develop this algorithm into a useful tool for photo-interpreters." 

Rosenblatt described the details of the perceptron in a 1958 paper. 

His organization of a perceptron is constructed of three kinds of cells ("units"): AI, AII, R, which stand for "projection", "association" and "response." He presented at the first international symposium on AI, Mechanisation of Thought Processes, which took place in 1958 November. 

"Attention Is All You Need," a 2017 research paper that has its own wiki entry. 

"Attention Is All You Need" is a 2017 research paper in machine learning authored by eight scientists and engineers working at Google. 

The paper introduced a new deep learning architecture known as the transformer, based on the attention mechanism proposed in 2014 by Bahdanau et al. The transformer approach it describes has become the main architecture of a wide variety of artificial intelligence, including large language models. At the time, the focus of the research was on improving Seq2seq techniques for machine translation, but the authors go further in the paper, foreseeing the technique's potential for other tasks like question answering and what is now known as multimodal generative AI.

And then look at this:

As of 2025, the paper has been cited more than 173,000 times, placing it among the top ten most-cited papers of the 21st century. 

After the paper was published by Google, each of the authors left the company to join other companies or to found startups.

And that brings us to this. From Medium, January 21, 2026 -- just a few months ago, an overview, link here. 

Autonomous Trucks Across Texas -- May 7, 2026

Locator: 50738TRUCKS. 

Tag: BRK Texas 

Link here. 

*************************************
Meanwhile, Out In Portland
Dad Brought Home A Western Star

Devon's Finn Wells -- Southwest Williams County -- Briar Creek -- Near Buford -- May 7, 2026

Locator: 50737B.

*********************************
Well In Focus

The wells: these all appear to be 1920-acre spacing in a relatively new area of activity; near Montana; very nice wells -- but again, three section spacing.

• 41860, conf, Devon Energy, Finn 13-25F 2H, Briar Creek, far southwest corner of Williams County; 1920-acre spacing; standup;

Date	Oil Runs	MCF Sold
3-2026	24790	25120
2-2026	30003	25453
1-2026	23720	21732
12-2025	21906	18419
11-2025	45937	24385

• There are actually five wells on that pad:
• 41862, drl/A, Devon Energy, Finn 13-25F 4H, Briar Creek, very nice well; t11/25; cum 122K 3/26;
• 41861, drl/A, Devon Energy, Finn 13-25F 3H, Briar Creek, very nice well; t11/25; cum 134K 3/26;
• 41860, conf/producing, Devon Energy, Finn 13-25F 2H, Briar Creek, very nice well; 
• 41859, conf/producing, Devon Energy, Finn 13-25F 1H, Briar Creek; very nice well;
• 41858, conf/producing, Devon Energy, Finn 13-25F XW 1H, Briar Creek; nice well;

McDonalds Earnings; Saudi; Projec Freedom; Bakken Update -- May 7, 2026

Locator: 50736B. 

Iran:WTI continues to drop but not much news coming out of thte Mideast. 

Some strange note about Saudi Arabia very upset with Trump's "Project Freedom." Has denied US anti-Iran activities out of its air bases. I have no idea what this is all about. Saudi says they weren't contacted about "Project Freedom" before it was put in place. 

Saudi -- another "fair weather" friend: 

McDonalds (MCD):

Earnings: net income for the quarter came in at $1.98 billion, or $2.78 per share, while total revenue jumped 9% to $6.52 billion. Stripping out restructuring charges, per-share earnings landed at $2.83 — topping the $2.74 Wall Street had penciled in, with revenue also clearing the $6.47 billion consensus estimate.

Pre-market: up 3%; up about $10.00. 

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

WTI: continues to drop -- now around $91. 

New wells reporting:

• Friday, May 8, 2026: 16 for the month, 116 for the quarter, 273 for the year, 
• 41860, conf, Devon Energy, Finn 13-25F 2H, 
• Thursday, May 7, 2026: 15 for the month, 115 for the quarter, 272 for the year,  
• None.

*********************************
Well In Focus

The wells:

• 41860, conf, Devon Energy, Finn 13-25F 2H, Briar Creek, far southwest corner of Williams County; 1920-acre spacing; standup;

Date	Oil Runs	MCF Sold
3-2026	24790	25120
2-2026	30003	25453
1-2026	23720	21732
12-2025	21906	18419
11-2025	45937	24385

• There are actually five wells on that pad:
• 41862, drl/A, Devon Energy, Finn 13-25F 4H, Briar Creek, very nice well; t11/25; cum 122K 3/26;
• 41861, drl/A, Devon Energy, Finn 13-25F 3H, Briar Creek, very nice well; t11/25; cum 134K 3/26;
• 41860, conf/producing, Devon Energy, Finn 13-25F 2H, Briar Creek, very nice well; 
• 41859, conf/producing, Devon Energy, Finn 13-25F 1H, Briar Creek; very nice well;
• 41858, conf/producing, Devon Energy, Finn 13-25F XW 1H, Briar Creek; nice well;

**************************************
RBN Energy 

RBN Energy: E&Ps face a new capital allocation cycle -- will debt reduction stay front and center? Link here. Archived.

After several years of aggressive balance-sheet repair, U.S. E&Ps are entering a new phase — one defined not by constraint, but by opportunity. A surge in oil prices tied to the Iran conflict and a sharp rise in natural gas prices driven by an unusually cold winter have combined to generate a fresh wave of excess cash flow across the sector. Oil markets have been pushed higher by supply disruptions and geopolitical tensions, while natural gas prices have strengthened on weather-driven demand, reinforcing a powerful near-term earnings tailwind. The question posed in today’s RBN blog is a familiar one: What will companies do with these additional cash flows?

The 35 E&Ps that we monitor held total debt essentially flat at just under $150 billion (blue bars and left axis in Figure 1 below) in 2025, while their collective debt-to-capital ratio (orange line and right axis) declined by 1 percentage point to 24%. Debt trended steadily lower from its 2019 peak through 2022 as companies shifted toward a cash-return model that prioritized free cash flow over reinvestment, enabling meaningful debt reduction alongside increased dividends and share repurchases. Debt moved sharply higher in 2024, driven by a surge in M&A activity (see Try Some, Buy Some), with our universe of E&Ps completing nearly $120 billion of asset and corporate transactions. Despite the increase in total debt, the debt-to-capital ratio remained stable, as companies funded acquisitions with a mix of debt and equity to preserve target leverage levels. In 2025, debt levels held steady, while the debt-to-capital ratio declined to 24%, supported by an expanding capital base.

Figure 1. E&P Debt Metrics, 2014-25. 
Source: Oil & Gas Financial Analytics LLC