More good stuff on the open frontiers – 6/6

Just like the wild west and homesteading days in the late 1800s, the frontiers of publishing, technology and space are wide open. Here’s a few of the articles that stretched my understanding of this amazing world we live in.

Publishing

6/5 – Daily Beast – Amazon is NOT the Vladimir Putin of the Publishing World – Until now, I’ve not tried to sort out the spat between Amazon and Hachette. Who is Hachette, I hear you ask? They are one of the big publishing house. They are not an issue in my life because they would never, ever talk to a little bitty author with sub-microscopic level of sales like me.

The visible part of the dispute is Amazon posting a higher price on Hachette books, allegedly removing the ‘you can order weeks in advance’ button, shipping slower than arrive-first-thing-tomorrow-morning, and suggesting someone else on the ‘net may have a better price.

Article above explains Hachette wants you and me to pay more and Amazon wants you and me to pay less. What Amazon is doing as a negotiating strategy is offering books at the terms, availability, and prices Hachette wants.

The horrible, cruel, cut-throatedness of Amazon is amusingly described: Continue reading “More good stuff on the open frontiers – 6/6”

Appeals court says devastation from New Deal is still okay; We lost a hero who also suffered at the hands of the New Deal

Did you know the enlightened wizards of the New Deal worked out a plan that raisin producers had to turn over a percentage of their crop to the government and not get paid for the raisins?

Yes, that was actually a plan developed back in the ‘30s.

Did you know that plan is still in place? Eighty years later?

I discussed that a year ago – Economic destruction from the New Deal just keeps rolling on.

The lawsuit I mentioned back then involved farmers who were told to give 47% of their ’02 crop and 30% of their ’03 crop to the government without compensation.  The case went to the Supreme Court, which ruled the farmers did actually have standing to sue the government. The case went to the 9th Circuit Court for consideration of their claims.

Guess what?

Continue reading “Appeals court says devastation from New Deal is still okay; We lost a hero who also suffered at the hands of the New Deal”

I’m not the only one who thinks there is danger of major inflation – chairman of the Philadelphia Fed thinks so too

There is a huge amount of excess reserves just sitting in bank vaults (actually on deposit at the Fed). By huge, I’m talking around $2.5 trillion. That amount is from Charles Plosser, chairman of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank.

Marketwatch reports on 5/20: Chalres Plosser thinks there’s a ticking time bomb at the Fed.

Look at it a different way. Here is the M1 money stock, which I pulled from the Fed’s database:

money supply 5-14

See that huge increase in M1 from the start of the latest recession? Continue reading “I’m not the only one who thinks there is danger of major inflation – chairman of the Philadelphia Fed thinks so too”

The shale revolution shown in a graph

If you want to see what a radical change is underway in the energy field, check out this graph of combined oil production from the three biggest plays, Bakken, Eagle Ford, and Permian:

 

combined production 3 fields 6-14

 

That’s from America’s Amazing Shale Revolution in one chart by Carpe Diem and is used with permission.

Continue reading “The shale revolution shown in a graph”

“Luck is probability taken personally”

Philosiblog ponders that comment from Penn Jillette.

Do we assume that when something happens to us it was good luck? Or was it random, haphazard chance that helped us? Or was it our preparation applied to an opportunity?

Be careful of the assumption that the world is in your favor: Continue reading ““Luck is probability taken personally””

Dry holes in Bakken? Oh, wait. Look at the completion dates.

I read most of the posts from Million Dollar Way but just browse the production reports. Check out this one: Random Updates on Privratsky Wells: Different Fields; Different Operators

I dropped my jaw on first glance. Dry holes!

In my minimal understanding, historically getting a dry hole when looking for oil is a serious risk. You pour a bunch of time and money into drilling a spot and you get……nothing. I’ve read that in Bakken over the last five years there aren’t any dry holes.

Imagine my shock when I browsed the linked article glancing at the initial production rates in barrels per day and saw DRY.

Continue reading “Dry holes in Bakken? Oh, wait. Look at the completion dates.”

More good stuff on the open frontiers – 5/28

A few articles on technology, education, energy, and publishing that are worth a read. The frontier is wide open in those areas. Just a brief comment from me.

Innovation, inside the box

7/1/13 – Wharton – How LEGO Stopped Thinking Outside the Box and Innovated Inside the Brick – LEGO started losing money when their innovations needed a completely new set of parts for every innovation. They regained their 20%+ growth curve and 40% profit increase when they innovated new toys using existing pieces. Their outside-the-box innovation almost sank them. Staying inside the box returned them to growth and profits. Hat tip: Emproprise-BI: Structured innovation, via LEGO.

Lesson from my grad school classes: stay inside your competencies. LEGO makes bricks, not video games, TV shows, or bendable action figures. They thrive when they do what they do best.

Education

4/30 – Wall Street Journal – With Free Web Courses, Wharton Seeks Edge in Traditional Programs – Continue reading “More good stuff on the open frontiers – 5/28”

Increased number of toasted wings found at wing-toasting facility in the California desert (solar #20)

The count of toasted birds at the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System doubled in April. Two possibilities for the accelerating death count.

First, the wing-toasting solar tower was in operation a higher number of hours in the month. Second, staff from the U.S. Geological Survey were on site a lot during the month giving a more accurate count.

Check out April Was Bad Month for Birds at Ivanpah Solar, by Chris Clarke at ReWire.

Mr. Clarke says the Ivanpah monthly compliance report lists 100 birds as either killed, mortally wounded, or injured during April. That consists of 40 that were scorched, singed, or had melted feathers and 12 showing signs of collision with heliostats. That is 52, so that leaves 48 decomposed enough that the cause of death couldn’t be determined. By biologists. Who know what they are looking for.

Actual deaths are a large multiple of the reported number

Continue reading “Increased number of toasted wings found at wing-toasting facility in the California desert (solar #20)”

14 hour delivery from Amazon

Wow.

I ordered two items from Amazon at 8:11 Thursday evening. They promised Saturday delivery. Sounds fine to me.

Shipped out of the San Bernardino warehouse at 3:59 a.m. on Friday. Delivered by UPS at 10:07 a.m. Friday.

Next day delivery. Fourteen hours.

No extra charge with a Prime subscription.

Very cool.

Mind bending tidbits from ’14 Bakken conference

Check out these astounding pieces of info from the 2014 Williston Basin Petroleum Conference, as reported by Amy Dalrymple (who else would it be from?): Hamm sees 2 million barrels per day potential for North Dakota: Continue reading “Mind bending tidbits from ’14 Bakken conference”

How ‘bout some perspective on how much water is used for fracking compared to other uses?

Does fracking a well to generate huge amounts of crude oil and natural gas so we can drive our cars and heat our homes take a lot of water?

You bet.

Add up all the water we use across the country for fracking. It’s a lot. However, we use more than that for irrigating golf courses or watering the lawns at our homes.

Compared to what?

Continue reading “How ‘bout some perspective on how much water is used for fracking compared to other uses?”

Shale oil revolution drives surge in domestic production – Peak oil #34

Brace yourself for this chart, used with permission from Carpe Diem: Energy chart of the day: America’s shale oil revolution will reverse a 40-year decline in crude oil output in just 5.5 years.

 

carpe diem oil prod 20 to 15

 

US energy production grew from around 1 million barrels of oil per day (1M bopd) in 1920 to a high point of 10.04M bopd in November 1970. A 40 year decline dropped production to around 5M or 5.5M bopd in 2010.

The shale boom has skyrocketed production to 8.3M bopd in April 2014. The EIA projects production will be pushing 10M bopd at the end of 2015.

Astounding.

What Peak Oil?

Continue reading “Shale oil revolution drives surge in domestic production – Peak oil #34”

Cost to build a 1,000 turbine wind farm and associated transmission line

Here’s another data point for the cost to build out a large wind farm along with the 700 mile transmission line. Can’t have a huge slice-and-dice operation without a way to move the electricity to a buyer.

The Denver Business Journal reports Anschutz-backed Wyoming wind far, biggest in North America, files for permit.

Here is one key paragraph with lots of data:

The Chokecherry and Sierra Madre Wind Energy Program wind farm is being developed by the Power Company of Wyoming LLC, a subsidiary of The Anschutz Corp. It involves 1,000 wind turbines capable of generating up to 3,000 megawatts of power — enough to support the electricity demands of about 900,000 homes.

Cost of the constructing the turbines is $6B per the article, and is based on 2008 plans.

In addition, a 725 mile transmission line will carry the power across Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and end up in southern Nevada. Cost of building that line is $3B per the article.

Key info for future reference: Continue reading “Cost to build a 1,000 turbine wind farm and associated transmission line”

How to summarize half a dozen developmental economics books in one sentence

You want to boil down hundreds of pages from several books? I came across one sentence that does a good job:

…poverty is a symptom— of the absence of a workable economy built on credible political, social, and legal institutions.

I’ve been reading a lot of economics books lately. (Okay, okay, you can pray for me – a CPA reading economics books for relaxation and learning and growth.)

(Cross-post from my other blog, Nonprofit Update.)

If we can figure out how we on this planet have gotten to the place where we have the highest wealth, best health, and longest life expectancy in history, we can keep going on the same path. Likewise, we can maybe figure out how to bring along those people groups that don’t share in the abundant bounty.

Here is the ache in many hearts:  How do we ‘solve’ poverty and suffering?

Continue reading “How to summarize half a dozen developmental economics books in one sentence”

More good stuff on the Bakken – 5/19/14

Here’s a few quick notes on interesting news that I won’t cover in a separate post: infrastructure starting to catch up, regs won’t fix flaring, growth continues strong, interpreting the high count of wells awaiting completion.

5/3 – Million Dollar Way – Women in the Bakken – Just a Casual Observation – Bruce Oksol has a number of observations comparing Williston in 4/13 to his visit in 2011.

Continue reading “More good stuff on the Bakken – 5/19/14”