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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

#571

Post by pas »

tokioyoyo wrote: post #411
sillystuff wrote: post #254

The US just finished divesting itself from its strategic helium reserve in 2024 due to the "Helium Stewardship Act of 2013"[1] But, now we have a strategic bitcoin reserve. [1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/527

Financialization of everything is so funny to me, because even I, who is extremely stupid when it comes to big money stuff, can see not having state capacity on important stuff is insane. By that, I mean hard resources, materials, THINGS.

cost-benefit analysis of things is important, eventually putting a number on things (services, risks, infrastructure, stock and flows, health, life, wellbeing, noise, air quality, aesthetics, user experience, fairness, and so on ...)

of course outright securitization, privatization, and other types of not-quite-unintentional ways of responsibility diffusion also should be put to the aforementioned analysis.

(there's, after all, now a (new) label for economically sound, responsible, sustainable, human-centered stewardship: state capacity libertarianism - https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/01/wh... because neoliberal became a swearword)

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

#572

Post by znnajdla »

hedora wrote: post #425
awesomeMilou wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you model your business like this? Like what tools / literature can you recommend?

There was a lot written about this in the 1990s during the rise of globalization and just in time supply chains. Basically, you build a big warehouse and keep it full when prices are below projection. This is equivalent to investing capital at a negative interest rate, so it’s not done anymore. Instead, the system is designed to pass supply shocks on to the consumer when possible. I’ve noticed the local grocery store…

> This is equivalent to investing capital at a negative interest rate, so it’s not done anymore.

Stupidity of financializing everything. There’s no amount of money in the world that can quantify the safety of having critical items like food in supply. You can’t eat money. If everyone builds “just in time” supply chains the world collapses after a single shock.

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

#573

Post by DoctorOetker »

foodevl wrote: post #483
DoctorOetker wrote: post #477

> South Korea is among the most exposed countries, which, according to the Korea International Trade Association, imported 64.7% of its helium from Qatar in 2025. The country relies heavily on helium imports to cool silicon wafers during fabrication and is understood to have no viable substitute. I assume the helium is enclosed in a a chip's hermetically sealed package, if it were just for cooling wafers I don't unde…

It's not enclosed in the final product. It is used during manufacturing. For example, you mechanically compress helium to get liquid helium, then when it depressurizes back to ambient pressure, it's -269 C, which is pretty close to "as cold as possible", and colder than any alternatives.

why can't this happen in a closed loop, using helium as the working fluid?

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

#574

Post by manarth »

energy123 wrote: post #566
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.

We should make different inflation baskets, representative of the bottom quartile, the median person, and the upper quartile. The bottom quartile has a large % of the CPI basket composed of housing rent, for example. The upper quartile has 0% of the CPI basket composed of rents. This should be doable quite easily, it's not like the spending habits of different socioeconomic groups are a secret.

I guess the typical inflation basket doesn't include rental income, which the upper-quartile are rather more likely to have than the lower quartile.

Wonder how that might impact figures if residual/passive income were included?

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

#575

Post by IAmGraydon »

erentz wrote: post #518
rootusrootus wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will dare to admit aloud that I think maybe the founders were making a rational choice when they decided that only certain citizens would have the right to vote. As awful as that sounds, there are halfway decent arguments in favor. Maybe not just restricting to white wealthy landowners, but sometimes I do wonder if we would benefit from a filter that adequately screens for people 1) with real skin in the game and 2…

The founders mistake was creating a presidential system.

I don’t think the founders made a mistake. They understood the weaknesses in their system and were very open about the fact that it wouldn’t always be smooth sailing. Thomas Jefferson famously said: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants”.

Liberty isn’t a constant state, but a dynamic cycle. Even 250 years ago, they knew that a guy like Donald Trump would come along.

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

#576

Post by manarth »

PowerElectronix wrote: post #508
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.

CPI is kept artificially down by claiming that items that increase a lot in value are sudendly "higher quality" so that their price is adjusted down to equalize for "quality". They will just take those items off the basket, put in different ones and claim that those are better quality so the actual price increase is in line with expectations.

I can understand a certain amount of switching in the basket - e.g. a washing machine or dishwasher was once a "luxury good" in a market such as USA, but is now (for the most part) an everyone-appliance.

Interesting to consider the alternative case though, an "everyone basket item" becoming a "luxury good".

Democracy, maybe? But I don't think they've put that in the CPI basket - yet! :-P

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

#577

Post by xandrius »

whyenot wrote: post #309
xandrius wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: how does WoW still appeal to players except for habit social connections to keep them locked into the game? I used to spend nights and love the game, now, even with all these expansions it feels exactly like it was in 2006 but without what happened to the gaming world in the past 20 years.

It's still fun. The social connections are also hugely important to me. One of my characters is in the same active guild that I joined in 2006. It's hard to put into words how meaningful that is to me. The game has improved, the newly re-done Silvermoon City is beautiful and richly detailed, but you are right, in many ways it's the same game as 20+ years ago, except made more casual-friendly in a lot of ways. I like…

Alright so I 100% understand you, and now I know I'm not totally crazy.

I think because I used to play on private servers, I don't have that long-standing connection to a group, which is probably what keeps many people still there. But yeah, I'd jump on a WoW 2 but the gameplay and quest system is so outdated that just doesn't give me good vibes anymore.

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

#578

Post by xandrius »

JSR_FDED wrote: post #332
xandrius wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still loving my M1 to be honest!

It’s super annoying. I’m salivating over all the new announcements but my M1 16GB 1TB will likely last another 5 years.

As a side note, I absolutely cannot imagine being upset of having a machine lasting long.

Sure it's nice the shiny new thing but has capitalism infiltrated people's mind that much? All my previous laptops died on me several times and became frankestein's monsters before I let them rest for a final time (to be often repurposed to other family/friends' machines).

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

#579

Post by mschuster91 »

burnt-resistor wrote: post #540
tharkun__ wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Same timeframe and I've lived through both lots of lightning storms and in areas with lots of power failures. Some of them intermittent and essentially caused by transformers blowing up. Like earlier this winter, we had multiple storms where you'd hear a transformer blow up, in many cases even seeing the sky light up as well from it, power going out, couple seconds, power coming back, next transformer blowing o…

Definitely use quality surge protectors on expensive equipment connected to generators. PSA: UPSes and GFCI/GFI extension cords won't work properly when connected to a stand-alone generator with a bonded neutral. I've tried using enterprise UPSes on such generators, but they absolutely won't work. In such scenarios, debond the generator's ground from neutral, apply a very large warning label to it being debonded, and…

> In such scenarios, debond the generator's ground from neutral

eeeeep. Please for the love of all that is holy, CONTACT AN ELECTRICIAN before messing around with that - or before creating a ground bond where none should be (i.e. TT grid [1]). You may end up endangering yourself if you do not exactly know what you are doing - in the case of TT, you get ground potential difference current from other parts of the grid flowing to ground via your generator's bond. Best case you're getting problems with electrochemical corrosion (including in your foundation), worst case enough current flows to turn your bond wire into a thermal fuse.

Also, take great care if your grounding is provided via municipal water service, or if your original grounding rod has dried out to the point it's ineffective.

Let me repeat: LET ELECTRICIANS DEAL WITH GROUNDING AND SURGE PROTECTION. Floating grounds and improper ground connections CAN BE LETHAL OR POSE A SERIOUS FIRE RISK.

AND YES THAT INCLUDES "ISLAND" SCENARIOS OR EMERGENCY POWER INPUTS (e.g. via CEE plugs and transfer switches).

[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/TT-System

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

#580

Post by HenryMulligan »

ngcazz wrote: post #502
throwup238 wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aluminum smelters use the Hall-Heroult process, where alumina is dissolved in molten cryolite and reduced in massive “pots” which are large electrolytic cells. Each pot contains a carbon cathode lining that must be kept at around 950C during operation. If the pot cools down, the frozen electrolyte and solidified aluminum contract at different rates than the carbon and steel shell, cracking the lining. Once it’s crack…

Fascinating, and what about the discarded hardware? Is it recyclable in any way?

I'm sure, like any metal at an industrial scale, it is profitably recyclable. But that is beside the point. This is akin to asking: "My car's engine just threw a rod and is seized. Is it recyclable?" Hopefully you see in this analogy that the car (engine) costs way, way more than the sum of its parts (the constituent metals).
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