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

tomshardware.com

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

#441

Post by dang »

vablings wrote: post #196
dang wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please make your substantive points thoughtfully and don't cross into personal attack on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I fail to see how British sarcasm qualifies as a personal attack. Specifically in reference to plain English that is the specification of the NRC as cited

I'm a fan of British wit, but these things don't necessarily translate across contexts. On a broad and shallow internet forum like HN, a line like "if you can read and understand plain English how about you go make yourself a couple billion dollars" pattern-matches to boxed wine sarcasm, not ripping port sarcasm.

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

#442

Post by largbae »

hedora wrote: post #417

In related news, diesel is $7/gallon, and peets coffee is $25/lb, and computers (hardware and cloud) are up 25-50%. The official numbers claim 3% inflation. Does anyone actually believe that? We were seeing 30% YoY before Iran here in California. The discrepancy is so large, I’m wondering if there’s an official explanation or some reasonable explanation, or if they’re just not bothering anymore.

Diesel is $5 in the Southeast, what kind of supply chain issue could cause 40% diff? Should we hire some tanker trucks and arb this?

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

#443

Post by sgc »

JanisErdmanis wrote: post #430
tempaccount5050 wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you in an area with a bad electrical grid or something? In 40+ years I've never had a single device get fried from a surge/storm. My "surge protector" power strips are from the 90s and probably don't even work.

If your close neighbours have surge protectors then you benefit little from installing your own.

Another perspective: we should install whole house surge protectors if we can afford them, not only for ourselves, but to help our neighbors - even if in reality the help is minimal and they need their own as well. In the best case scenario, if everybody in a neighborhood has them, each individual house will be more resistant to surges than if they were the only house with one (five houses with surge protectors nearby is a lot better than one) - everybody wins.

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

#444

Post by SauntSolaire »

markdown wrote: post #420
jltsiren wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lightning damage is mostly an issue if the last-mile power lines are above ground. In my experience, power surges in urban areas with a decent grid are so rare that people generally don't bother protecting their devices.

> Lightning damage is mostly an issue if the last-mile power lines are above ground. So 99.99999% of the world.

But not where 99.99999% of the population lives.

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

#445

Post by pseudohadamard »

david_allison wrote: post #318
schiffern wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commercial uses layered surge protectors (Type I, II, and III), which is also recommended for other users but rarely followed. In surge prone areas, at a minimum I would have good quality whole-house surge protector (eg Siemens 140 or Eaton 108), and a good quality surge protector strip for any computer/TV/phone charger. I also put surge protectors in front of expensive white goods like the fridge, washer/dryer, dish…

> Nothing (reasonable) can protect against direct lightning strikes Belkin make a number of surge protectors which offer a connected equipment warranty in the UK. Admittedly: financial protection, not data protection, but I felt it was worthwhile for the peace of mind. https://www.belkin.com/id/p/6-outlet-surge-protection-strip-...

Have they ever paid out on one of those, or is it like CAs who offer liability protection for their certificates carefully set up in such a way that they never have to pay out.

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

#446

Post by nradov »

hedora wrote: post #414
gruez wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In surge prone areas What areas are surge prone?

The California bay area, at least all the sides of it I’ve lived on. We currently have a whole house battery, whole house surge protector, a second surge protector, and a UPS between the router/nas/etc and PG&E. It’s not good enough. At least the power stays on once the grid stops bouncing (or once I manage to log into the rebooting battery gateway computer to have it flip the “off grid” breaker, or go outside and fl…

Color me skeptical. I've lived in several different Bay Area cities for decades. There are usually a couple power outages per year but I've never experienced a surge strong enough to cause equipment damage.

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

#448

Post by deceptionatd »

inaros wrote: post #164
icwtyjj wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sem…

Interesting bit from that article wrt to transport infrastructure:

"most distributors simply stick to the industry standard transport of Grade 5. That is why for and [sic] end user of helium, a lower grade can cost more than the higher grades."

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

#449

Post by nradov »

idiotsecant wrote: post #436
mcv wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard that before, that the US apparently loves above ground power lines. In NL it's only the long distance ones that are above ground. Even in most rural areas, I think everything is below ground.

Yes, we love them on account of our country having approximately 230 times the surface area and the Netherlands having approximately 13x the population density. We not only have vastly more line to run, but also many, many fewer people per square mile to absorb the costs. Underground line is expensive .

It turns out that the fires caused by above ground power lines are also quite expensive, at least in certain areas.

https://www.firevictimtrust.com/

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

#450

Post by pseudohadamard »

idiotsecant wrote: post #436
mcv wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard that before, that the US apparently loves above ground power lines. In NL it's only the long distance ones that are above ground. Even in most rural areas, I think everything is below ground.

Yes, we love them on account of our country having approximately 230 times the surface area and the Netherlands having approximately 13x the population density. We not only have vastly more line to run, but also many, many fewer people per square mile to absorb the costs. Underground line is expensive .

That explains rural areas but not urban areas. We've got above-ground in rural areas but pretty much all urban stuff is underground. We get maybe one power cut a year, usually for scheduled maintenance work, and no problems with surges and whatnot.
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