Roundup Ready

#SerfsUp. Hedonically maladjusted. Philomath.

[Tracy Shuchart (𝒞𝒽𝒾 ) @chigrl]

Texas Gas Drillers Shut Out of Oil Price Rally Turn to Shutting Off Wells

Two extremes are currently playing out in the Permian Basin. Drillers are reaping the benefits of a historic price rally due to the Iran war. But when it comes to natural gas, they’re having to pay customers to take it away.

It’s now been 124 days of negative gas prices at the Waha Hub, a key indicator for Permian gas prices, and some producers have thrown in the towel, shutting in some wells to limit their losses. Their number includes large Permian operators such as Permian Resources Corp. and Devon Energy Corp., both of which have shut wells with high gas-to-oil ratios. (Bloomberg)

[Ethan Levins 🇺🇸 @EthanLevins2]

Exactly 59 years ago today, Israel attacked the USS Liberty, killing 34 Americans and wounding 171.

Never Forget.

[Andrew Curran @AndrewCurran_]

Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, Demis Hassabis and many others have signed a letter urging Congress to increase security on orders of synthetic nucleic acids - and the equipment needed to make them - as models continue to become increasingly bio-capable.

[JustDario @DarioCpx]

To go out publicly and say what he is saying, @edzitron has balls the size of the Las Vegas sphere

[JP Sears @AwakenWithJP]

Let me reframe this for you. This is the government questioning the government to see if the government covered up for the government in the Epstein files. Shockingly, the government told the government that the government did nothing wrong.

[Marhelm @MarhelmData]

Update on the barnacle crisis:

"Owners know that you really don't want ten days of idle time in the Gulf. Fuel bill will go up without hull cleaning. Antifouling producers have clauses in their performance guarantees excluding idle time in waters above certain temperatures."

[Roger @rdd147]

$18.7 Billion Data Center in Sulphuric Springs Texas by MSB has reportedly been halted after the developers failed to get funding and left construction companies, engineers, and surveyors on the hook for >$2 million in early site work according to liens filed against the property and shared by local sources.

The site was to host GB300 $NVDA cards.

[Dudes Posting Their W’s @DudespostingWs]

This is what the older generations should try and do more often

[Yoshik @AskYoshik]

The AI numbers are starting to look very ugly.

Even under "best case" assumptions, FT's own data shows Microsoft AI ROI at -9%, Google at -15%, Meta at -28%, Oracle at -35%. Only Amazon barely comes out positive.

This is exactly why I keep comparing this to the dot-com era. Incredible technology does not automatically mean sustainable economics. The internet survived. Most internet companies didn't.

Right now hyperscalers are spending trillions hoping future demand catches up to present capex. That's not certainty. That's a leveraged bet.

[Edward Dowd @DowdEdward]

Economic rent extraction on human knowledge.

[Christian Keil @pronounced_kyle]

This is wild... Russia seems to be threatening a *commercial* satellite that provides imaging services to Ukraine:

▸ starting about two weeks ago, Russia started maneuvering five (!) of their classified satellites to the same orbital inclination as the ICEYE satellite

▸ these burns were big, on the order of 100 m/s, clearly using chemical propulsion given the speed of the burns — very expensive and deliberate maneuvers

▸ as of last Friday, all five Russian satellites are now co-planar, at ~97.8° inclination, with three of ICEYE's satellites, and aligned in other orbital elements (e.g. RAAN) that make it clear they're specifically targeting this set

▸ I am a little skeptical that Russia is specifically targeting -X36 — there are two other satellites at the same inclination/RAAN (-X37 and -X38) — but the Russian sats are now all within striking distance of -X36, which is why people are concerned about it specifically; the closest cross-track distance is an estimated 500 meters (!!), all while the satellites are orbit 550 kilometers above Earth

▸ Russia has unleashed a cyberattack on a commercial satellite before (Viasat), and it is official Russian policy that commercially-owned infrastructure that aids in military efforts "may be legitimate target[s] for a retaliatory strike.”

▸ there's speculation that this could be a precursor to an RPO mission (meaning: physically grabbing the satellite or some other kind of non-kinetic attack like blinding/jamming)

Worth tracking closely. And unfortunately more evidence that space is militarizing, fast.

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

Finnish scientists trucked in real forest dirt and grass and laid it over the gravel at four daycare yards. They let the kids dig around in it for a month. The blood tests came back with changes the researchers hadn’t expected to see so fast or so clear.

The study ran at ten daycares in two Finnish cities with 75 kids aged three to five. Four of the yards got the forest treatment: about a tennis court worth of soil and grass laid over the gravel, plus planters and peat blocks the kids could dig and climb on. Three others stuck with their normal gravel yards. The last three were daycares where the kids were already visiting real forests every day.

After one month, the variety of bacteria living on the kids’ skin shot up, and the kind that helps train the skin’s immune defenses jumped the most. Their gut bacteria started to look like the gut bacteria of the forest-visiting kids. Their blood showed more of the immune cells whose job is to keep the body from freaking out at harmless stuff like pollen and peanuts, and overall inflammation dropped. The kids on the plain gravel yards showed none of this.

Childhood asthma in the US doubled between 1980 and 1995. Food allergies in kids jumped 50 percent between 1997 and 2011, then jumped another 50 percent between 2007 and 2021. And peanut allergies in one-year-olds tripled between 2001 and 2017.

The Finnish researchers think one of the reasons is simple: kids today don’t get dirty enough. 37 percent of American preschoolers now spend an hour or less outside on a normal weekday. Their immune systems are getting trained in environments stripped of the bacteria humans have always lived around.

Aki Sinkkonen, who led the study, put it in plain words: “It would be best if children could play in puddles and everyone could dig organic soil.” The Finnish government is now helping pay for daycares across the country to make the same changes.

[Thomas Massie @RepThomasMassie]

If Israel insists on destroying civilian targets in Lebanon, let them buy and build their own weapons. American taxpayers should not be funding this.

[Qasim Rashid, Esq. @QasimRashid]

BREAKING: Adam Hoffman has been released from jail for "good behavior."

Hoffman is the 49-year-old Waco, TX attorney who faced life without parole for repeatedly raping a young boy, until Texas AG Ken Paxton offered him 1 day in jail and no need to register as a sex offender. A judge increased his sentence to a whopping 60 days. He got out in 30 days.

This is MAGA's vision for the USA. Full story: https://t.co/cU1WnZKAfr

[Heidi @blockchainchick]

The SpaceX IPO is the most brazen retail fleecing in modern market history.

NASDAQ has REWRITTEN the index rules specifically for this listing. The 10% minimum free float requirement: gone. The 3 to 12 month seasoning period before index inclusion: cut to 15 trading days. Companies with small floats can now be weighted at 3x their actual float.

Translation: every passive index fund, every 401k, every pension is about to be force-fed SPCX whether they want it or not.

And what exactly are they buying?

Class A shares carrying ONE vote each, while Musk holds 93.6% of the Class B super voting shares at TEN votes each. That gives him 85.1% of voting power on a 42% economic interest. He cannot be outvoted. He cannot be removed. CEO, CTO and board chairman simultaneously.

For reference: Zuckerberg controls 61% of Meta. Buffett 35% of Berkshire. Musk: 85.1%.

SpaceX is also claiming "controlled company" status, exempting it from needing a majority of independent directors. Shareholders waive the right to a jury trial. They waive the right to class actions. Mandatory arbitration only, courtesy of an SEC rule change pushed through on a party line vote last September.

$1.75 trillion valuation. $80 billion raise. Largest IPO in history.

The rules of the game were quietly rewritten so one man could extract maximum capital from retail while answering to no one.

[Uzi @UziCryptoo]

This man robbed a bank for $1, sat down and waited for the police, just to get free healthcare in prison

In 2011 a man named Richard James Verone walked into a RBC Bank in Gastonia, North Carolina

Handed the teller a note demanding $1

One dollar

Then sat down in the lobby and waited calmly for police to arrive

He was 59. No job. No insurance. A growth on his chest. Two ruptured discs.

Calculated that a federal conviction would guarantee him full medical coverage inside prison

The judge sentenced him to 3 years

He got the surgery

He got the treatment

He told reporters on the way out he had no regrets

A 59 year old American man robbed a bank for $1 because it was cheaper than seeing a doctor

[Sense Receptor @SenseReceptor]

Interesting take on the Massie election from James Corbett:

"If voting changed anything, they wouldn't let you do it"

"If you go against the Epstein Class, they will come down on you like a sack of hammers"

"People are realizing the ballot box is a slave suggestion box"

"[It] is meant to placate you. And once people realize that, I think we will start to see real revolutionary energy"

"If you want something to change, I'm going to say it's probably not going to happen by voting even harder in 2028"

[KKGB @INArteCarloDoss]

We live on a fucking dystopian totalitarian oppressive anti free speech ani freedom continent.

Europe can claim to be many things but it will still amount to nothing more than an open air fucking gulag.

The level of restrictions and regulations is just fucking absurd.

[David__Osland @David__Osland]

Trump says he wants to 'take' Cuba because he objects to one family using the state as a vehicle for personal enrichment. Let's just leave it there, shall we.

[Lawrence Lepard, "fix the money, fix the world" @LawrenceLepard]

@Megatron_ron How is this possible? Legal scholars please tell me there is a remedy to prevent this. Stunning corruption.