Ask Sanpaku

Seriously, this dude seems to know everything.

Sanpaku, do you have any one area in which you consider yourself the most expert?

Sanpaku, you have so much good food advice! You recommend flaxseed as a belly-filler, and I also know fiber is good bcz it expands a ton when wet. What are some other things you recommend for feeling the most full on the least amount of $$?

Sanpaku, I always enjoy reading your posts.

what do you think of the hype about israel's shale reserves

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/01/31/why-israel-will-rule-new-middle-east/

i'd be interested hearing your opinion on that too...

I enjoyed some bits of the NY Post version of that post that didn't make it to Fox News, including

Fracking could open the way for Israelis and Palestinians to find a mutual stake in a booming energy sector — a stake on which a lasting peace could be founded.

and

The fact is, the anti-frackers are running against the tide of technology, not to mention history. According to the Bible, ...

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/fracking_means_new_middle_east_I6atCmSIyxg6PBCaebBH2L

Anti-fackers are running against the tide of economics. As conventional oil becomes more expensive to extract, fracking will become more and more economically viable.

he never answers

Mostly just background, as I don't really know the details of this discovery.

Shale is ubiquitous globally (anywhere silt has settled off a river delta), and when subsequently buried to between roughly 7500 and 15000 feet some included organic detritus will be cooked to liquid petroleum (deeper and it gets cooked all the way to methane/natural gas). So its an important source rock for petroleum systems, and because of low porosity of the tiny grains, can also form a trap/seal for oil seeping from lower source rocks if the geometry is favorable. The likelihood that any given crustal shale has 1) initially held high levels of organic material, 2) was buried in the oil window and no deeper, and 3) underneath a structural trap that's held for millions of years, is pretty small (neighborhood of 1%), so oil deposits are much rarer and dearer than black shale.

While "undercooked" shale can itself be burnt as a very poor substitute for coal, all attempts to convert this common rock (and there have been many over the past century) to liquid fuel have required much more energy than the output. The majors spent billions trying to crack the problem in the early 80s, and left behind ghost towns in Western Colorado now occupied by retirees.

The shale gas revolution of the past decade isn't about that undercooked so-called oil shale. Its about overcooked shale that still contains a lot of methane trapped in its matrix, which can given an escape through fracturing. The shale oil revolution of the past decade, seen in places like the Bakken shale of North Dakota and the Eagle Ford ahale of South Dakota, is about drilling directly into Goldilocks window source rocks (rather than porous structural traps) and stimulating them with fracturing etc. Its expensive, the daily production per well is poor, and we wouldn't be doing it if we weren't sort of running out of the easy oil.

The Israeli oil-shale in this WSJ story appears to be of the undercooked variety discussed above, and insofar as I can decipher this presentation, so are most Israeli "oil shales". They're comparable to the immature oil shales of Western Colorado rather than the prospective shales like the Bakken.

The line about a mine being a hole with a liar on top may hold here. There are many wildcatters whose livelihood depends less on finding the next gusher than finding the next financier - pay attention to whether the person claiming the discovery has a track record and is associated with a proven company.

Offshore Israel is another story entirely. The Leviathan prospect drilled by US Noble Drilling is a conventional gas reservoir (porous sand, traps and all), and the biggest single gas discovery of 2010, some 17 trillion cubic feet originally in place. Worth $51 billion at U.S. wellhead prices, more in the Meditteranean market, and will cost a substantial fraction of that to develop.

BUT...Qatar has 896 Tcf gas. Add up all the Israeli gas discoveries to date, and it amounts to 0.05 Qatars. Useful to fuel all the desalinators they have to build, but there will be no natural gas fund World Cups.

that is rather how i suspected

uk government has recently issued permits for exploratory shale drilling, anything to revive memories of 80s north sea oil propping up shitty economy

And the $US 1.12 commemorative stamp:

http://www.jpost.com/HttpHandlers/ShowImage.ashx?ID=209575

Sorry bout typos above, written in haste as I'm more worried about Jessie Ware's placement.

how come you're such a thorough explainer?

or how did you become ...

why do you think i'm agnostic?

covenant , god go fuck yourself, seriously, fuck you

so ready to slam some aa motherfucker ass

Maybe you were watching a Pence victory speech. I'm too sickened to want to watch video at yet.

sanpaku, any way you can offer us some background info? is what you're posting related to what you do professionally or are you just obsessed with numbers and a malthusian outlook?

also, do you own a fedora?

I don't own a fedora. I bought a straw panama hat in Havana that is similar, but I haven't worn it out. There's a banknote for Vietnamese Dong (colorful but worthless) where a feather should be in the hat band.

The only hat I wear with any regularity is a beret made by Boinas Elosegui of Tolosa, Spain, which strikes me as ideal minimalist headwear for colder seasons. Bitter cold: pull it down past one's earlobes. Walking towards the rising sun? Pull it the ample fabric forward to shield eyes.

I code professionally. I've degrees in biochemistry, history and computer science. But most of my income has come from investments, which keeps me apprised of global news.

Malthus had some silly ideas about arithmetic growth, but I think everyone should read his Essay. Not just because Malthus + Lyell = Darwin, but because its well written, and he should be remembered as a realist humanitarian of his day.

I don't particularly enjoy TV. I'd much prefer spend my evenings digging into primary research literature. Most of the time, its things around the nexus of nutrition/biosciences/experimental gerontology. I could talk your ear of about postprandial metabolic endotoxemia.

However, the literature on variations of neomalthianism is vast, interesting, and has investment implications. Climate change, to be sure, but the average punter has no idea how critical phosphorus is to their life, or how and why liquid hydrocarbon production will peak around 2021.

I have been pondering a beret recently. I don't have a great relationship with hats and need to try something new. There's a woman on my bus who wears one quite well. Any considerations about style or fit?

Occasionally wearing a beret - a txapela in my case, a Basque beret - has significantly improved the quality of my flânerie. It's a loose, nonchalant fit, perfect for wearing it in different ways, as Sanpaku too describes.

The only downside is it pretty much ruins my hairdo for remainder of the day, but there are enough days where wearing a beret outdoes that negative.

since i became a bald i find that my headwear choice is no longer restricted by having to consider my hair, and it's it's v liberating tbh

it's only a matter of time before i start wearing a stovepipe or a ten-gallon recreationally

I have no hairdo to ruin.

xp lol

I have no hairdo to ruin either but I still have a head to keep warm/dry.

I can honestly appreciate the notion of having no hairdo being liberating in this sense tbh.

Get thee some headwear, baldies!

My kid likes wearing a big fedora, some people take the piss out of him but he looks cool imo. With his autism - big hats help him self-regulate when he's getting stressed and he has permission to wear it in lessons at school if needed.

That's wonderful. I think it can be very helpful as part of a routine, esp when routine is of itself a very important thing. Plus, and I mean this, nearly everyone looks cool with a beret or fedora!

Controversial opinion

putting it down to lbi's life of limitless european glamour

I was thinking 'almost no-one' myself.

Since I've started wearing a beret I have learned to appreciate the effort all the more. Though it might be a self-defense mechanism thinking it looks good on most people, reassuring myself I too look good in it.

VG DN BG <3

jeez way to rub our noses in it ffs

I'd go as far as claiming that a weathered fedora as part of a decades-old rumpled thrift store two sizes too big business suit ensemble is a good look, but I'd be wary of going much further than that.

(And I'm mostly only going that far because that's the daily look I plan to adopt in my dotage.)

(I call it 'the Smackless Burroughs'.)

(Smack optional, obvs.)

jeez way to rub our noses in it ffs

― sir chesley bonestell, qc (bizarro gazzara), Wednesday, March 28, 2018 2:19 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Watch it buddy...

mods i'm being threatened, please ban lbi

Berets look good on girls but I've always found it takes the right guy to wear it and not look like a Rushmore reject. More power to you. I like newsie style caps (got a sky blue one and a grey cross cross line one) as well as toques. I'm bald fwiw

I'm more concerned about looking like a Mythbusters stunt double, tbh.

I just have a serious incompatibility with every hat I've ever tried on, but as a bald person, my dermatologist has emphasized that I really should be wearing one.

bg is a snitch

how's life, have you worn a toque, those seem to work for the shape of any head. why did your derm advise wearing a hat if you don't mind me asking?

Toques are ok, but can be somewhat unsatisfying. It's like a head sock. I should be wearing a hat if I'm spending a lot of time outdoors and want to avoid skin cancer, he says.

mods neanderthal is attempting to intimidate me, pls ban

luv2fp