Nothing About The Bakken -- The Emoji -- London Review Of Books -- May 3, 2016

Hopefully a paywall doesn't prevent you from accessing this article. For those curious about the emoji, everything you ever wanted to know at this link: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n08/nick-richardson/short-cuts. Excerpts:

There are 845 emoji installed on the latest iPhones. The set includes sixty-odd ‘smileys’, not all of them smiley: round, lemon-yellow faces that express different emotions, from joy to grief to affection to terror. A new smiley, coming with the 2017 update, was inspired by Maggie Smith’s character in Downton Abbey and portrays a sort of wrily amused disdain. You can express more emotions in emoji than some people can express with their actual real-life faces.

Emoji didn’t become popular in the West until Apple installed them on the iPhone in 2011, but they first appeared in Japan in the 1990s.

The word ‘emoji’, contrary to popular belief, doesn’t have anything to do with emotion: it’s an amalgamation of the Japanese words for image, e, and character, moji. Emoji’s Japanese origins account for the existence both of a 🍢 (an oden, a Japanese winter stew; the emoji depicts the Shizuoka variation, in which the ingredients are skewered) and a 🍡 (a dango, a dessert of sweet, skewered dumplings).

They also explain why there’s a 👺, a mask representing a tengu (a demon from Japanese folklore) that is used by Japanese people to express conceitedness, by Westerners to express disgruntlement, and by me to express self-conscious hauteur. A new book, The Story of Emoji by Gavin Lucas, traces the creation of emoji to an employee of the Japanese telecommunications company NTT Docomo. In the mid-1990s, Docomo produced the Pocket Bell, a pager which allowed users to attach a small ♥ to their messages; it became very popular with flirty high school kids.

When the company invented i-mode, the world’s first widespread mobile internet platform, a young engineer called Shigetaka Kurita decided to extend the Pocket Bell’s vocabulary of images. He created a set of proto-emoji using a grid of 12 by 12 pixels. The Story of Emoji suggests that the popularity of Kurita’s creation had to do with the specific needs of the Japanese business community, which had been upset by the introduction of email in 1993.

Traditionally, Japanese businessmen and women had sent one another long, verbose letters that were full of seasonal greetings and honorific expressions and included a lot of contextual information: ‘The absence of all of these cues in emails and texts meant that the promise of digital communication … was being offset by an accompanying increase in miscommunication.’

Kurita’s characters helped the sararimen stop accidentally disrespecting each other.

The most important proto-emoji, though, is the smiley itself,😊, which wasn’t invented by Forrest Gump as Hollywood would have you believe, but by a graphic designer called Harvey Ball in 1963 on the occasion of the State Mutual Life Assurance Company of Worcester, Massachusetts’s merger with the Guarantee Mutual Company of Ohio. Ball was hired to produce a cheery design for buttons and posters that could be distributed internally because company morale was low. The State Mutual Life Assurance Company of Worcester, Massachusetts merged with the Guarantee Mutual Company of Ohio, and the world was shaken to its core. The smiley rebelled against corporate culture and became a hippy symbol, then the symbol of acid house.

"Fight's On!" -- May 3, 2016; For Bernie, New Campaign Song: "Stayin' Alive"

Updates

Later, 8:47 p.m. Central Time: last headline before I call it a day -- "DEMS in disarray." Headline by the end of the week: Biden re-thinks his decision. After all, he's not much older than Hillary. And, then, of course, there's always John Kerry. Unlike the others running for president, he actually served in Vietnam. He has medals and ribbons to prove it. Well, he has his medals. He tossed his ribbons decades ago. At 73 -- ....

Original Post

 

Just last night I wrote:

It's very possible the establishment DEMS are getting very, very worried about grandma:

• nobody, and we mean nobody, is showing up to vote
• now, polls show that Trump can actually beat Grandma mano a femano 
• Cruz is about to implode -- it's not just Indiana but his dad is going nuts (calling out to "the body of Christ") and after tonight Cruz' funding dries up
• now it's the DEMS talking a "brokered convention"
• once the Indiana results are in tomorrow night, it's all over for CarlyCruz regardless of what the latter says

When Peggy Noonan wrote a couple of weeks ago that this was a very, very strange presidential primary, she had no idea how accurate she would turn out to be. 

Tonight, I understand CarlyCruz has dropped out. As predicted, one can talk the talk but when the money runs out, the money runs out.

It's Trump vs Hillary. 

It's Mark Levin's worse nightmare against grandma. I wonder how long we will have to listen to Mark Levin -- the "great" Mark Levin -- lament CarlyCruz.

Rush is lookin' good. 

By the way, the big story for the past few weeks is how well organized CarlyCruz campaign was. This speaks volumes for the way he imploded. I wonder if Kasich stays in?

By the way, did Bernie win Indiana? See above: now it's the DEMS talking a "brokered convention." It's not going to be a brokered convention but the attention Hillary gets is going to be lukewarm. At best.

How bad is it for the establishment DEMS and the media? With 59% 69% of the vote in, Bernie has 53% of the vote, and the media is afraid to "call" the race. LOL. [Update: CNN calls it for Bernie, but LA Times has not.] [Update: with 73% of the vote in, the LA Times finally calls it for Bernie. Stayin' alive. Only in America.]

Mark Levin goes nuts.

This is a win-win for the GOP establishment. If Trump wins, Hillary loses; if Trump wins, the establishment GOP will be able to say: "We told you so." But at least Americans have a real choice this fall. Two rich New Yorkers.

Stayin' Alive, Bee Gees

No New Permits In North Dakota Today -- May 3, 2016; Three More DUCs

Wells coming off confidential list Wednesday:

• 29735, SI/NC, WPX, Wells 32-29HZ, Reunion Bay, no production data,
• 30574, SI/NC, XTO, Rink 12X-4H, Garden, no production data,
• 31598, SI/NC, Hess, EN-Cvancara-155-93-1522H-6, Alger, no production data,

No new permits.

Hess renewed two permits, both were LK-Hay Draw permits in Dunn County.

Corinthian Exploration transferred about 83 wells to Legacy Oil:

• earliest permit: 00884
• oldest permit: 29202
• two SWD wells

Corinthian and Legacy have a long history together. Back in June, 2014, there was a post: "Legacy buys Corinthian."

I've never been able to keep track of Corinthian, Legacy, and Surge. I track North Dakota operators here. In addition, one can search any of the names here at the blog.

******************************

Tell Me This Isn't Happening

The Atlantic (Monthly) Magazine used to be one of my favorite magazines. I would subscribe off and on over the years. I had not subscribed in quite some time but then began subscribing again about two years ago, and for the most part have been very happy.

Then the May, 2016, issue arrived today (May 3, 2016). Very, very disappointing.

It did not have any of the in-depth articles with demographics of the US that I find most compelling and most unique with regard to The Atlantic (Monthly) Magazine. It was simply a "bunch" of articles that I could have found almost any place else. I have read very little of the three articles that caught my eye but the little I have read confirmed that somehow things have changed -- and not for the better at The Atlantic (Monthly) Magazine. The articles:

• "The Secret Shame of the Middle Class: nearly half of Americans would have trouble fining $400 in a crisis. I'm one of them." And I have a monthly $200 cable television bill (to watch Rachel Maddow); a $200 smartphone data plan (to be able to post on Facebook while on the move); and $80 dinner bills  (per meal) when taking the family out to eat because it takes too long to prepare meals at home.
• "Warren Buffett's Son Steps Up." I had hoped to escape all the Buffett stories on CNBC, Yahoo!Finance, Bloomberg, Reuters, etc, only to find that Warren has an extended family and The Atlantic (Monthly) Magazine is reporting on one of them.
• "How Islam Created Europe." And other myths, I suppose. Dan Jones would most heartily disagree, I would imagine. As would JRR Tolkien and a gazillion other thinkers.

*****************************

Sometimes You Just Want To Play The Music Loud And Drown Out The World

Storms Never Last , Jessi Colter & Waylon Jennings

*******************************

A Note For The Granddaughters

It took a long time -- 40 years? -- but I'm really excited.

For now, just a few links:

• Mission Furniture, a style
• Gustav Stickley, wiki
• Stickley Furniture
• Arts and Crafts Movement, wiki

Rigs At 29 Yesterday; 27 This Morning; Now Ticks Down To 26 -- May 3, 2016; Gasoline Consumption Hit An-All Time "Seasonal" Record -- EIA

Active rigs:

	5/3/2016	05/03/2015	05/03/2014	05/03/2013	05/03/2012
Active Rigs	26	86	185	192	209

Gasoline demand: I assume this has been posted before, but if so, I forget and/or I missed it. Whatever. John Kemp noted it today in his tweets: US GASOLINE CONSUMPTION hit a seasonal record 9.2 million b/d in February according to EIA monthly data released on Friday, April 29, 2016.

I was curious. Was that really accurate? No, I wasn't doubting EIA or John Kemp, I just wanted to see for myself. And what I saw was huge: the "record set" in February appears to be an absolute new record for February. Go back to any February, as far back as you want to go, and I don't think there is any February in which gasoline demand was as high as it was two months ago (and that takes into account an extra February day this year).

On the other hand although we have had record-breaking months "year-over-year" in the past twelve months, none of them have hit an all-time record. For example, a year-over-year record was set in December, 2015, but that number was lower than the demand set in four Decembers earlier in the century (2004, 005, 2006, and 2007).

And note that automakers are struggling selling "cars" but doing very, very well selling SUVs and pick-up trucks. There could be a connection.

To the best of my knowledge, "we've" never hit a daily average of 10 million bopd gasoline demand in this country, though we have come close (in the data above, 9.64 million bopd in July, 2007). It looks like the increase in gasoline demand year-over-year in this country could approach 6% this summer based on a reading of the tea leaves. If so, for August, 2016, 1.06 x 293,479,000 = 311,087,740 / 31 = 10,035,088 bopd -- just slightly over the 10 million bopd. So we will see. 

*******************************

April EV Sales Numbers Starting To Be Reported

Link here (March, 2016 --> April, 2016 sales):

• Tesla Model S: 3,900 --> 800 (the company delivered 850 in January, 2016)
• Tesla Model X: 1,850 --> 850 (the company delivered 270 in January, 2016)
• Chevrolet Volt: 1,865 -->1,983
• Nissan Leaf: 1,246 --> 787 (that's more than a stall)
• VW e-Golf: 86 --> 326 (recovering)
• Chevrolet Spark: 252 --> 419 (gaining traction)
• Cadillac ELR: 104 --> 95 (in a rut)
• BMW i8: 89 --> 130 (whatever) 

Tesla reports 325,000 preorders for the Model 3. On an annualized basis, based on April sales, annualized sales for:

• Tesla Model S: 9,600; on March sales: 46,800
• Tesla Model X: 10,200; on March sales: 22,200

To meet the demands for pre-orders in the first six months after the new Model 3 is released, Tesla will have to ramp up from 20,000 autos/year to 54,000 Tesla Model 3 deliveries/month to satisfy current demand (in the first six months after the first Model 3 is released).

See Tesla's 1Q16 earnings here. Both the vice president for production and the vice president for manufacturing are leaving Tesla. 

Worth A Read: Where US Non-Latino Whites Live -- AEI -- May 3, 2016

I enjoyed the post, but not sure I would have posted it had it not included the paragraph on Boston and Belmont. We "lived in" Belmont, MA, for four years.

From AEI:

If you’re asking about the median population of the places where white Americans live, the answer is 45,200. That’s not Tampa. That’s the size of Wallingford, Connecticut, a town between New Haven and Hartford and home to Choate, the famous prep school.
Let’s be clear about what that median represents, because it’s a pretty astonishing result: Fully half of white Americans live in places smaller than 45,200 people.

t’s so astonishing low that you should be suspicious. Specifically, a place can be called a “city” with its own mayor and city council, but for practical purposes it is part of a dense urban area. Cambridge, Massachusetts, for example, is technically a city of 107,000 people, but it is contiguous to Boston, and you definitely feel like you’re in an urban area. Belmont, only three miles to the west, is listed at 24,700. It is a residential community with a small-town shopping center and doesn’t have the feel of a city, but it is a suburb of Boston.

I had to worry about such issues a few years ago when I was working on a study of American diversity.

To deal with it, I defined a “Greater X”—e.g., a “Greater Colorado Springs”—for each of the fifty largest cities, based on contiguous high-density census tracts rather than the official city limits. For cities of 500,000 or more, I also identified satellites such as Belmont that were not connected by high-density census tracts, but were suburbs of an urban area. So the median of 45,200 is based on a treatment of the problem in which the population of Cambridge is classified as part of the city of Boston and Belmont is defined as a satellite. A town of 45,200 as I am classifying it is a stand-alone community.

Now let’s see if I can give you a more intuitive sense of how many white Americans live outside the great urban centers. I’ll use my home town of Newton, Iowa, population of a little over 15,000, as the first break point. If you live in a place smaller than Newton, you’re definitely in a small town or living in rural America. Wallingford is the next break point, demarcating populations of 15,000–45,000 as the gray area between “town” and “small city.”

I’ll use Des Moines, Iowa, to mark the break between small cities of more than 45,000 and major cities. Greater Des Moines has a population of about 370,000. You can drive from one end of the downtown area to the other in about seven minutes, including stops at red lights along the way. It is a city, yes. It is not “urban America” in any meaningful sense of the term.