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.
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.
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?
Can someone explain why helium is used for these purposes, as opposed to some other noble gas? I think there's more argon (it's about 1% of the atmosphere) than helium so is helium somehow special, or is it just cheaper, despite being rarer and non-renewable?
This situation would be laughable if the consequences weren't so dire.
I have problems adequately stating just how incompetent and ill-thought out this entire misadventure was. I say this because everything that's happened has been completely foreseeable and foreseen, including the ability of Iran to retaliate by closing the Strait of Hormuz.
This has been something many militaries around the world have planned scenarios for. Word has it any warnings from allies, the NSC and the Joint Chiefs were just completely ignored. And those estimates probably underestimated how numerous and effective Iranian SRBMs and Shahed drones are.
Beyond direct impacts on crude oil, refined oil products and natural gas, there are secondary effects such as ~30 of the world's fertilizer goes through the Strait. Helium from Qatar is an issue but at least there are other sources for Helium, being pretty much any natural gas well so equipped to capture helium.
I feel like people in these comments and commentators in general are just kind of ignoring the fact that the US produces more helium than Qatar, and in fact more helium than the entire Middle East combined, nearly 50% of the global total. The sale of the "helium reserve" is (mostly) irrelevant as well, because there's massive domestic helium production.
https://www.wmi.badw.de/the-institute/helium-liquefaction-pl...
I get that the current situation is stupid, but can we at least be accurate? Qatar is FAR from the only source of helium. (And yes, helium of any type can be purified to high levels. That's also not just a Qatar thing.)
> 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 understand why it can't reuse the helium?
The people trump relies on to make his decisions (if he's making them) include tons of far right accelerationists; so they'd be happy to watch modern society fall.
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But, now we have a strategic bitcoin reserve.
[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/527
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.
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/nitrogen-ammonia-a...
There you go, solved it.
My PC was due for an upgrade this year (still using a video card from 2019)… so I really hope this keeps working for another … 5 ?! years
I have problems adequately stating just how incompetent and ill-thought out this entire misadventure was. I say this because everything that's happened has been completely foreseeable and foreseen, including the ability of Iran to retaliate by closing the Strait of Hormuz.
This has been something many militaries around the world have planned scenarios for. Word has it any warnings from allies, the NSC and the Joint Chiefs were just completely ignored. And those estimates probably underestimated how numerous and effective Iranian SRBMs and Shahed drones are.
Beyond direct impacts on crude oil, refined oil products and natural gas, there are secondary effects such as ~30 of the world's fertilizer goes through the Strait. Helium from Qatar is an issue but at least there are other sources for Helium, being pretty much any natural gas well so equipped to capture helium.
We are the bad guys.
I get that the current situation is stupid, but can we at least be accurate? Qatar is FAR from the only source of helium. (And yes, helium of any type can be purified to high levels. That's also not just a Qatar thing.)
> 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 understand why it can't reuse the helium?