I remember hearing somewhere on this site that medical imaging got pretty good at building systems that recycle helium. Does chip manufacturing not do this or are the losses at their scale are still large enough that you need a substantial constant supply?
Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock
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Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's one of the most disappointing things to me. These people have such resources and the limit of their vision is: bang young girls, accumulate bling, push divisive hateful politics, start wars. That's it. That's the best they can do. Even nominally selfish far-sighted things like genuinely funding a deep research program for life extension is not really something they're into. I mean some of them are "into" it in…
It's incredibly distressing, but I think the issue here lies with 'we'. Those at the very top are a very, shall we say, unique group. Those who seek power at such a level are not like the rest of us. There's established research showing that psychopathic and sociopathic traits are vastly more common among the "CEO class". It's not that wealth and power _makes_ them so, it's that relatively few are willing to be compl…
One of the things this does is gets you surrounded by supplicants and yes-men trying to tell you what you want to hear to get your money. It destroys social feedback. Nobody will tell you you're wrong. This is not good for mental health.
Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
crypto-libertarian "government bad" ideology is one hell of a drug.
well it was signed into law by obama, so there's that.
Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock
#134Aren’t there huge stockpiles of helium in the US? I can buy party sized tanks at Target or big tanks at the usual places like welding supply places.
Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock
#135Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock
#136Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock
#137Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock
#138Aren’t there huge stockpiles of helium in the US? I can buy party sized tanks at Target or big tanks at the usual places like welding supply places.
Balloon gas is ~20% oxygen, so your kids don't go unconscious while doing the funny voices.
Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't the main source of helium from oil production? It's not like we have fusion reactors turning H into He.
The main source of helium is natural gas production, not oil
Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock
#140Aren’t there huge stockpiles of helium in the US? I can buy party sized tanks at Target or big tanks at the usual places like welding supply places.
A lot of the balloon use has switched to nitrogen (helium became much, much more expensive after the strategic helium reserve was sold off)