Flathead Lake -- Augusta -- Rodeos -- July 26, 2025

Locator: 48686MONTANA.

Distance from Lakeside, MT (Flathead Lake) to Augusta, MT: 200 miles, 3 1/2 hours.

Link here.

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. 

Link here.

Link here.

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 
  

Quick Connects -- Geoff Simon -- Alison Ritter -- Juy 25, 2025

Locator: 48683B.

• North Dakota's oil boom powering its economy, creating jobs, funding schools -- MSN

• Landowners appeal state decision on major power line project -- Bismarck Tribune

• North Dakota is leading a feasibility study to develop geothermal energy -- E&E News

• Production dips in May; more consolidation with Chevron-Hess deal -- Bismarck Tribune

• Wellspring Hydro, Volt Lithium propel ND to supply domestic lithium -- North Dakota Commerce

• Company behind wind farm project near Wishek discusses need for waiver from PSC -- KFYR - TV

• AI data centers are using more power. Regular customers are footing the bill -- North Dakota Monitor

• US Rep. Julie Fedorchak faces frustration in first forum after 'big, beautiful bill' -- Bismarck Tribune

• Governor Armstrong requests presidential disaster declaration for June storms -- North Dakota Monitor

• Digital driver's licenses are on track to be introduced in North Dakota in the fall -- Dickinson Press

• How is North Dakota preparing for sweeping changes to property taxation? -- Dickinson Press

• Pilot makes sharp turn to avoid a B-52 bomber over ND, then takes to the mic -- Bismarck Tribune

• Dept of Commerce announces grants for tourism and community enhancement -- Grand Forks Herald

• US Supreme Court to keep district map in place until voting rights case wraps up -- North Dakota Monitor

• Medora braces for boom ahead of Theodore Roosevelt Library's grand opening -- Dickinson Press

• $211M budget proposed to Minot City Council; reflects decline in overall spending -- Minot Daily News

• Watford City launches branding effort to reflect the community's growth and character -- Dickinson Press

• McKenzie Health, Chord Energy celebrate expansion of services in Watford -- McKenzie County Farmer

• McKenzie County sees drilling growth amid housing, workforce challenges -- McKenzie County Farmer

• Long-awaited Theodore Roosevelt Expressway expansion set for fall bidding -- McKenzie County Farmer

• Projects demonstrate carbon capture North Dakota ranchers may get behind -- Dickinson Press

• Large fire breaks out Wednesday morning at a fertilizer storage facility in Deering -- KFYR - TV

• Five-year strategic priorities plan has been adopted by Williston City Commissioners -- Williston Herald

• Dept. of Education reinstates $1.3B for after-school programs after senators' plea -- Dickinson Press

• Applicants sought for Ray school board; vacancy intended to be filled by August meeting -- The Journal

• Child care centers grow own food with North Dakota Agriculture Department grant -- Dickinson Press

• Tardy federal school funding has North Dakota schools working on alternatives -- North Dakota Monitor

• Baesler celebrates four finalists for ND 2026 Teacher of the Year award -- The Center Republican

• Several North Dakota high school seniors awarded $46,000 in scholarships at state fair -- KX News

• What the media still won't tell you about the energy transition - it's not happening -- Robert Bryce

• BP agrees to sell U.S. onshore wind business, continuing efforts to pivot back to oil and gas -- World Oil

• Coal making comeback under Trump; halting plant closures and supporting mining projects -- Oil Price

• House GOP's CRAs free up millions of acres for American energy independence -- Washington Reporter

• Interior advances energy dominance through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act -- BLM News Release

• Group of eight oil and gas trade associations call on U.S. Congress to push permitting reform -- World Oil

• Trump EPA will propose repealing a 2009 finding that climate change endangers public health -- The Hill

• Trump admin on verge of nixing endangerment finding, the left's favorite climate tool -- Daily Caller

• Burgum to give personal approval of any energy projects on federal lands -- Oklahoma Energy Today

• America's energy mother lode is more vital than ever as the world enters the AI era -- Townhall

• Interior Secretary Doug Burgum urges House GOP to roll back Biden-era energy policies -- E&E News

• Power output from fossil fuels rises in Europe, US despite soaring clean energy generation -- Oil Price

• Watchdog Group: Biden EPA rushed billions to Democrat-tied green groups in final months -- Daily Caller

• NBC pushes climate alarmism on hailstorms, ignoring science and IPCC data -- Issues and Insights

• Real-world data shreds the warming narrative pushed by activists and the media -- I & I Editorial Board

• The great "zero-carbon renewables" deception; Green energy claims are half truths -- California Globe

• Wyoming's new mine extracting critical minerals from coal powers America's future -- Patriot Newswire

Four New Permits; Fifteen Permits Canceled; Three DUCs Reported As Completed -- July 25, 2025

Locator: 48682B.

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Back to the Bakken

WTI: $65.16.

Active rigs: 31

Four new permits, #42157 - #42160, inclusive.

• Operator: Formentera Operations

• Field: Larson oil field
• Comments:
• 
Formentera Operations has permits for four The Great wells, NENW 25-162-94, 
• to be sited 400 FNL and 2279 / 2384 FWL.

Fifteen permits canceled:


• Burlington Resources (9):

• Abercrombie (3), McKenzie County
• Aberlid, McKenzie County
• Omlid (5), McKenzie County
  
• WPX Energy (5):

• five Syw wells
• Syw 22-27HE, Syw 22-27HY, Syw 22-27HA, Sy2 22-27HX, Syw 22-27HIL
  
• Kraken:
• a Cass permit, Williams County

Three DUCs reported as completed:

• 
41178, 2,705, CLR, Helen 5-8H, Williams County;
• 41311, 2,164, CLR, Kenneth 6-17H, Williams County;
• 41312, 2,160, CLR, Helen 7-8H, Williams County;