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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

#161
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Balloon gas is ~20% oxygen, so your kids don't go unconscious while doing the funny voices.

You sure about that? Everything I've ever heard says that balloon gas is generally grade 4, which is 99.99% pure. Not good enough for MRI, but quite a lot better than 80%.

Economically I expect it wouldn't be that pure, since it doesn't have to be that pure to provide lift, and party balloons are not trying to maximize lift.

Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock

#162
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> too far left wing > biden uhm...

His admin was by far the most left wing in history, only the actual far left think otherwise

Please don't call everyone names for not agreeing with you.

There are billions of people in the world, and you are one, and you have your one set of opinions out of billions.

Nobody endowed you or your opinions with any sort of infallibility or superiority over others.

Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock

#163
post #51

Aren’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.

People commit suicide with it because it's supposedly painless and quick.

Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock

#164
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Balloon gas is ~20% oxygen, so your kids don't go unconscious while doing the funny voices.

https://www.bocgases.ie/files/balloon_grade_helium_factsheet... says 95% helium and 1% oxygen while https://dan.org/alert-diver/article/helium-gas-purity-what-i... says 97.5% helium but very unlikely for it to be as low as 80%

"An overview of the different common grades of helium" - https://zephyrsolutions.com/what-are-the-different-grades-of...

Grade 6 (6.0 helium = 99.9999% purity) The closest to 100% pure helium, 6.0 helium is used in the manufacturing of semiconductor chips – Grade 5.5 (5.5 helium = (99.9995% purity) Like 6.0 helium, 5.5 ultra pure helium gas is typically considered “research grade,” also used in chromatography and semiconductor processing

Grade 5 (5.0 helium = 99.999% purity) This high purity grade helium is also widely used for gas chromatography, mass spectrometry, and specific laboratory research when higher purity gases are not necessary, as well as for weather balloons and blimps.

Grade 4.8 (4.8 helium = 99.998% purity) The highest of the “industrial grade” heliums, 4.8 grade helium is often used by the military. The rest is classified...

Grade 4.7 (4.7 helium = 99.997% purity) A “Grade-A” industrial helium, 99.997% helium is mostly used in cryogenic applications and for pressurizing and purging

Grade 4.6 (4.6 helium = 99.996% purity) Grade 4.6 industrial helium is used for weather balloons, blimps, in leak detection

Grade 4.5 (4.5 helium = 99.995% purity) Often the grade most commonly referred to when people say “industrial grade,” 99.995% helium is most commonly used in the balloon industry

Grade 4 (4.0 helium and lower = 99.99% purity) Any helium that is 99.99% and down into the high 80 percents is within the range of purities referred to collectively as “balloon grade helium.”

Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock

#165

Remember all the e/acc people telling us to vote for Trump? Some mea-culpas are in order.

Could you define the acronym "e/acc"? DDG seems to think it means: "What Does E/Acc Stand For, And What Does It Mean? E/acc stands for the phrase effective accelerationism, and it basically indicates one's personal ideological belief that artificial intelligence will one day become an all-powerful being that can fix the vast majority of humanity's problems." I don't think I have ever heard a MAGA talk about AI.

> I don't think I have ever heard a MAGA talk about AI.

Lots of ex-Bitcoin-bros turned AI hypemen went all-in on maga for Trump II. Even the silicon valley C-Suites and VC-class went mask-off around February 2025. Some have tried to walk it back since then, after realizing the administration they had hitched their wagons to didn't have the mandate or levels of public support they had hoped for - thankfully, the internet never forgets.

Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock

#167

Aren’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.

Good old JIT stock management for essential materials, right?

One’d think that they’d keep more than a couple of weeks’s supply of critical materials —too bad many copied Cook’s and others’s JIT inventory management for everything.

Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock

#168

I've developed a new fear of my 2025 desktop PC being damaged by a power surge or something, because it would cost at least $2K more to replace than I paid for it, assuming I can even find parts now. Compared to the rest of my adult life when I used to secretly pray for something to fail so I would have a reason to upgrade.

We used those Tripp Lite LC1200 to knock down the noise floor (14dB) on remote equipment.

These line-conditioners actually perform well given the cost, but never buy used surge-arresters given the finite spike hit-count. Best of luck =3

Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sure about that? Everything I've ever heard says that balloon gas is generally grade 4, which is 99.99% pure. Not good enough for MRI, but quite a lot better than 80%.

Economically I expect it wouldn't be that pure, since it doesn't have to be that pure to provide lift, and party balloons are not trying to maximize lift.

Out of curiosity I did a minor amount of research to get an idea.

Turns out that you are right, some balloon gas is 80%. Specifically, the "Balloon Time" tanks you can buy at places like Target say "not less than 80%" helium.

On the other hand, I went to AirGas and a few other suppliers and they seemed to have 95%-97.0% helium gas as their definition for balloon grade.

Re: Qatar helium shutdown puts chip supply chain on a two-week clock

#170
post #135

[flagged]

This is a bot/shill account

Are AIs actually participating in public discourse to… protect themselves!?

Isn’t this the future sci-fi nerds were predicting? It’s just that instead of “unplugging SkyNet” we have “supply chain disruption”?

Maybe instead of triggering WWIII the AIs will force a peaceful resolution to major conflicts that disrupt the supply of their substrate.

The accelerators must flow.

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