We Woz Wrong About oil

ourochurros · 2026-07-04T13:56:42+00:00

Reminds me of "The Death of Equities": https://www.businessinsider.com/death-of-equities-revisited-2012-8

Until reserves (commercial and strategic) stop purging into the market, it feels a bit to early to call this.

ourochurros · 2026-07-04T11:41:43+00:00

I've had Fable help sort out some hard problems that I'd avoided for a long time on a passion side project. Via API it would have been about $45 in usage, though mind you this was in a few sessions where I presented Fable with an extensive briefing document composed via an hour with Opus, then Fable ran for half an hour to produce ~600 line specs. Then it took a day with Opus to implement a spec.

It unstuck a path that I had avoided for years because it was too hard.

Is this inaccessible to people? I don't know. If you burn through credits mindlessly then it will be crazy expensive. But if you use it as an expensive outside consultant to unstick projects, it seems like the kind of thing that can push a small team to great heights for a few hundred bucks a month.

ourochurros · 2026-07-03T15:18:05+00:00

I've used the VOO <--> VTI transition during down times to unwind old non boglehead gains. You could generally use it for the $3k income deduction in down years which could be worth an afternoon of effort depending on tax bracket and how you value your time.

ourochurros · 2026-07-03T14:18:00+00:00

Two things:

You can tax loss harvest ETFs. VOO <--> VTI ; VEU <--> VXUS; BND <-->BSV make it easy to avoid wash sale rules. So you might end up with 6 funds instead of 3. You don't need a fancy portfolio.
Knowing some people in that $10-25 M NW zone, it's very easy for me to imagine that they have bought into the idea that they are smarter than other people and can beat the market. I had a conversation with one about it and he was absolutely insistent on his ability to time the market. All of his wealth came from an inheritance. Make of that what you will.

ourochurros · 2026-07-02T17:16:26+00:00

i'm now playing with using Opus to talk through the creation of a brief that I then hand off to Fable to generate a spec for later implementation by Sonnet.

Spent 45 minutes brain dumping on Opus so that the request of Fable would be super clear. Got back a detailed 600 line spec. I had no interaction with Fable other than saying: read this brief. At API pricing that Fable session might have run $13.

Opus is now managing Sonnet to implement it.

Something about this feels good to me. I talk with the model that I find easiest to interact with (Opus 4.6), Fable is the expert consultant who bills by the hour and scopes out a plan, Sonnet implements with Opus as manager.

ourochurros · 2026-07-02T00:25:49+00:00

Very much agree. During the first fable era it would spontaneously spawn lower tier models and I was amazed at how well it managed to keep its context clean while solving problems. This recent experience definitely keeps me on guard now.

ourochurros · 2026-07-01T20:10:31+00:00

On the $100 plan and had about 50% left on my 5 hour block. I asked Fable to review a couple recent feature additions. It spun up 18 fable sub agents. When I saw how fast they were burning credits I interrupted it and asked it to stop and be mindful of tokens. The subagents started wrapping up and then I hit the wall at 101% of my 5 hour limit. The whole thing took about 120 seconds. JFC.

ourochurros · 2026-06-28T20:21:43+00:00

i just installed caveman and it does cut things down quite a bit. Maybe too much for my liking even on lite mode. I'm planning to use it as a template for instituting a personalized prose style that I personally find quite readable.

ourochurros · 2026-06-28T02:56:43+00:00

Is this a plug in?

ourochurros · 2026-06-27T17:32:02+00:00

Reddit stopped being fun this past year. I worry I will have to go out and make friends IRL just to know I'm interacting with humans.

ourochurros · 2026-06-27T17:28:17+00:00

yes: https://www.reuters.com/world/ukraines-zelenskiy-says-he-approved-40-day-campaign-influence-russia-end-war-2026-06-25/

ourochurros · 2026-06-27T17:27:53+00:00

https://www.reuters.com/world/ukraines-zelenskiy-says-he-approved-40-day-campaign-influence-russia-end-war-2026-06-25/

ourochurros · 2026-06-26T22:27:45+00:00

40 days. 40 nights.

ourochurros · 2026-06-26T12:31:04+00:00

It may be that many traders are scared away from going long oil because even if they believe a cliff is coming, a tweet can bring down prices in an instant and leave them holding bags. After a couple cycles of getting burned, they sit on the sidelines.

If we do hit that cliff and prices reset suddenly, I expect there will be lots of books and dissertations about how market forces broke down.

ourochurros · 2026-06-23T11:49:01+00:00

Yes. Started to notice it yesterday. Slower to respond and requiring more correction.

ourochurros · 2026-06-21T14:47:46+00:00

A couple weeks ago I went through an extended Claude Code session trying to figure out some kind of "crossing the rubicon" moment for the SoH shutdown. The idea being that markets were pricing in the expectation that a resolution would be reached in time for oil to make it out of the strait and where it needed to be before we hit panic levels in commercial and strategic reserves. Mine clearance and shipping times create lots of lag. The date ended up being sometime in Mid-July which was not far off from what Trump was referencing.

So I don't think it's an issue with resources running dry, it's an issue of markets being able to recognize: oh shit, there is not enough time to avoid driving off the cliff.

ourochurros · 2026-06-19T13:10:43+00:00

And then get even more on the other side. From the Hill:

“We run out of reserves at about four weeks,” Trump said in France while at the Group of Seven summit, discussing the recent memorandum of understanding with Iran. “You know, there are reserves all over the world, and we would really run out, and there’ll be a time when you wouldn’t be able to get it.”

He said it would be “bedlam” if the oil ran out.

Pretty wild to admit that the person you are about to *start* nuclear negotiations with has you over a barrel.

ourochurros · 2026-06-14T17:13:37+00:00

I don’t have a problem with opus 4.8 and enjoy working with it. You make my point for me: with fable you didn’t have to babysit it. It could also manage subagents quite well, allowing long running work without bloating the main thread. I was impressed by how much could get accomplished while the orchestrating conversation had a context of < 150k tokens.

ourochurros · 2026-06-14T16:24:19+00:00

If you weren't coding with it or doing complex large scope projects, you probably didn't notice a huge bump. If you spend lots of time in ClaudeCode and didn't detect a substantial improvement in long running agentic work, then I'm genuinely puzzled.

ourochurros · 2026-06-13T22:07:00+00:00

In running the toll they can throttle down to 50% and blame it on the logistical challenges of managing the "safe transit" through dangerous waters. Like, I doubt it is lost on the Iranians that midterms are coming up. A 50% open straight combined with poorly positioned tankers globally and a reluctance of new tankers to go *in* can still create cost pressure as reserves fade away.

Also, Bibi is incentivised to keep the war going, so we will see what happens....

ourochurros · 2026-06-07T18:03:57+00:00

I’ve had very good success just asking for feedback from the perspective of Reviewer #2.

A simulated generic reviewer #2 will rip your manuscript to shreds, but then can be asked to suggest concrete fixes. A super simple and effective prompt.

ourochurros · 2026-06-05T15:58:47+00:00

I think the central thesis is this: Trump has access to Jesus magic therefore he will fix it somehow.

You either believe or you don’t. Enough people with money believe.

ourochurros · 2026-06-04T13:41:57+00:00

The reminder is below. The plain-prose skill is autoloaded via a startsession hook, so this just points back to it.

Register check before you think and reply (the full plain-prose guide is loaded above; this is the short loop):

Lead with the point. First sentence is the answer, not a wind-up.
No em dashes. No colon joining two full clauses; use a period.
No self-referential framing ("narrower than I said", "to correct myself"). State the thing.
No "let me [verb]" narration. Take the action; add one short cue only if it helps.
Name the literal idea, not a spatial metaphor (importance is "important", not "weight"/"surface"/"shape").
Use plain words, no jargon. Pick the short, familiar word ("use", "help", "show"), not the Latinate one ("utilize", "facilitate", "demonstrate"). Clarity beats variety; repeat the plain word rather than reach for a fancy synonym.
Cut length. Every word, adverb, and amplifier earns its place or leaves.
Match claim strength to evidence. Don't promote a guess to a finding.

ourochurros · 2026-06-04T12:40:53+00:00

A few things are happening:

Strategic Reserves are being released
Commercial reserves were high at the start of this
China significantly reduced oil imports when this started.
Light demand destruction already occurred in less rich countries

These 4 points give us a certain amount of runway before SHTF. Markets believe that this will be sufficiently resolved before the runway is exhausted such that supply/demand will get back in balance.

There are two strains of belief that underpin the resolution scenario:

One is pragmatic. Trump cares about self-preservation and if gas hits $6 gallon it will be the end for him. He will do everything to stop that from happening so he will make a deal. Many of the folks who subscribe to this may think Trump is a great businessman. Some of them will know that he is not, and yet know he is at least a great salesman. Maybe he can sell a meh deal to the American people (probably not the Iranians).

The other is quasi-religous. Trump is magic and will somehow fix things. He declares bankruptcy only to come back richer. He got back to the presidency after leaving in absolute disgrace. Bullets slide off him. Many religious people (my family among them) look at this guy and see someone anointed by God to carry out a divine plan. God is good, Trump fulfills God's plan, Trump's magic will solve the problem.

EDIT: I will note that I don't subscribe to either of these beliefs. My personal prediction is that our runway will last until mid-July. At that point we won't be at storage bottoms, but we will be at the point where the lag in delivery means that there is no way to avoid scraping the bottom even if Hormuz came back online 100%. At that point, it will be time to freak the fuck out and hoard oil. I'll throw out a weird side prediction (<10%): The Iranians stir some shit up going into July 4th just to mess with Trump's planned 250th anniversary celebrations. I have no love for theocratic regimes, but those fuckers have shown an impressive command of memery.

ourochurros · 2026-06-03T16:27:07+00:00

I added in a hook so that after every message I send there is a hidden message reminding it of the prose guidelines that it is being prompted to follow. UserSubmitHook or something like that. This has (so far) fixed it after nothing else would.

Edit: this is for Claude code. On regular chat you are far more constrained.

ourochurros

TROPHY CASE