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

i would never recommend it to someone who otherwise has a capable computer, of course, but it really isnt that bad. i gave it a pretty thorough test out of curiosity, and when they sponsored a few streamers i watch, it was totally fine. with the caveat that you have a decent internet connection and its probably not good for twitchy games like counter strike.

and, as far as i know, there is limited support for modding and some unsupported workarounds.

I've used geforce now on my mac before and didn't have latency issues. I wasn't using it for any competitive games where you need ultrafast twitchy response, but I did use if for plenty of FPSes and never had any issues. And I don't have super fast internet, just the basic package from Spectrum. So I wouldn't say it's bad, though admittedly it might not be the best latency achievable in the gaming world.

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 But yeah, I'd jump on a WoW 2 but the gameplay and quest system is so outdated that just doesn't give me good vibes anymore.

Not saying you're lying, but I do wonder if your experience is typical.

I had far more power outages during my late teenage years in suburban Dallas than I've ever had in the bay. That was due to a bad transformer in the neighborhood which took years to replace, but once it was replaced everything was perfect. The moral of the story being: if your power is bad, it's probably because some piece of mains infrastructure near you is broken.

I had a string of annoying outages in 2023-2024, but it was all due to main service upgrades on my street, can't really complain about that.

Instead, it's usually just overhead wires that are too close or literally touching, often from influences like wind and ice. The electricity arcs between the wires, creating bright blue-white flashes that can be seen from far away, sometimes with instantaneous heat that makes hunks of metal wire evaporate explosively. It can be violent and loud, and repetitious as different parts of even a single run fail.

Transformers can certainly blow up, but that's less common. They're (generally) filled with oil for cooling purposes, and they're massive things that tend to take time to get hot. A failed transformer can produce arcing and blue-white light, but if things are that hot then the oil is also ready to burn.

And when the oil burns it isn't blue-white -- it burns with about the same yellow-orange color we saw the last time we accidentally flambéed dinner on the kitchen stove, or a Hollywood fireball.

A bright flash without a fire is probably not a transformer.

Here's a video of a transformer actually-exploding (note the prominent fireball): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFkfd31Wpng

And here's a video of what someone describes as a transformer exploding, even though there are no transformers in the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHVh0KwG_0k

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 drive a massive ground rod electrode into the ground as close to the generator as possible and ground the neutral there. This does work and is much safer because there's a stable voltage reference source. It's more of a hassle but can be necessary for some off grid and temporary scenarios.

We live in a society. Everybody chips in. And each surge protector adds to the robustness of the grid.

Edit: wait, maybe I figured it out: those devices must be consuming the excess rather than blocking it. Is that it?

It's a 10 cent component that would require a $10k machine (this is old data) to do a non-destructive test.

Are they not a fire hazard even when new? MOVs do tend to degrade with use (especially after they've gone conductive to snuff one or more surges). But AFAICT we can't really know, without potentially-destructive testing, whether a given MOV is in good shape -- whether installed last week, last year, or 30 years ago.

> Also, do not accidentally plug surge protectors into each other, metal oxide varistors can star fires _without_ meaningful surge conditions when you do so.

What is the mechanism that increases risk for MOV-sourced fires in this arrangement?

I've also noticed that many of the power supplies I've taken apart (for very pedestrian consumer goods) have internal MOVs on their line input. Whatever the mechanism is that increases risk, isn't using one external surge protector already doing that in these instances?

> I prefer to buy products without MOVs entirely due to the risk, with the exception of one, Tripp Lite Isobars; but I prefer to use series mode protectors such as Brickwall or SurgeX.

I prefer to avoid MOVs, too. Broadly-speaking, diodes seem like a better way to do it. (Transtector is another reputable brand that uses diodes.)

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That all said, I've noticed over the years that problems with dead (presumed-to-be-hit-by-a-power-surge) electronics tend to follow particular structures. And the reason for this seems related to grounding more than it is anything else.

So when I find someone (a friend, a client, maybe someone online that I'm trying to help) complaining about repeated damage, I often ask about grounding. Almost always, it turns out that they've got multiple grounding points for the electronics: The electric service has one ground rod, and the telephone/cable feet/satellite/whatever is connected to some other ground.

This might be a dedicated rod, maybe a metal pipe; whatever it is, it is distinct from the main service ground. It happens all the time. (It is worth noting that the NEC prohibits this kind of configuration unless extraordinary effort is put forth. See 800.100(d), for example.)

The way that MOVs -- and avalanche diodes alike -- behave combines with the fact that the earth is an imperfect conductor, such that having multiple ground points promotes dynamic ground loops that can provide quite large potential -through- the electronics that we seek to protect.

The problem appears suddenly, and repetitiously. Everything is fine, and then ZANG: The cable modem gets smoked along with the router it is connected to. So the modem goes back to Spectrum or wherever to get swapped, and the router gets replaced again, until the next time: ZANG.

TV connected to satellite receiver, with coax incorrectly grounded? ZANG. Over and over again.

I'd see it all the time when I was a kid back in the BBS days: The phone line was grounded improperly, and computer was the only thing that connected to both electricity and the telephone line. Some folks would go through several modems over the course of a summer, which was very expensive -- while most people had no problems at all. Next-door neighbors would have completely different failure rates.

Structures with correct grounding tend to do very well at avoiding these issues, and I've fixed these conditions in subsequent years more times than I can count.

(A coworker installed a phone system at a business once, wherein he made extensive use of Ditek surge suppressors -- on the incoming POTS lines, and on the power inputs. It blew up one day. So he called Ditek to try to get at least the cost of the phone system hardware covered. They asked him to draw up a map of how the building was grounded and send that over, so that's exactly what he did. When they saw his map, they very quickly identified a ground loop and denied the claim.)

You also can’t fully drain a pot. You can siphon most of the aluminum and cryolite off but at those temperatures they behave like a proper liquid with surface tension and the metal wicks into the pot like solder instead of flowing with gravity.

To keep it running at reduced capacity will likely be less expensive unless the war goes on for a very long time.

The smelting process I described above is actually the more expensive process to used to produce aluminum from raw bauxite. Recycling aluminum is cheaper and a significant fraction of the world’s aluminum produced every year is from recycled feedstock (over two thirds in the US, last I checked). Same goes for steel and most other metals.

or I guess one could say it's the bottom side getting more compressive load from air than the topside, given the observable effect, whatever floats our zep...

In the 1980s, I assume getting rid of the "strategic reserve" of anything would have met more pushback, because of primal fear overriding greed.

It's been coopted, not necessarily capitalism means "everything should be private", the current flavour of capitalist ideology wants that but other versions of capitalism don't put that as a foundational Ideological tenet.

The gas inside a standard party balloon is generally compressed 3% to inflate the balloon. This wipes out even the theoretical buoyancy of nitrogen. And trust me, there was never any practical buoyancy to begin with. You’d need a ridiculously large balloon in a room with impossibly still air and impossibly null thermal gradients to even measure the buoyancy of nitrogen vs air. The buoyancy of nitrogen vs air would never be perceptible to human senses in any real-world setting.

It would be the same as just filling the balloon with air.

In this case it would be reasonable to inquire about the basis of the original remark, or to reject based on personal knowledge, or to reject based on a concrete citation. But an arbitrary non-technical vibes based rejection doesn't fit with how things generally work here.

High thermal conductivity, inertness, and low absorption of the EUV wavelength used are the primary characteristics needed, and purity is needed to eliminate contamination of numerous ultrasensitive stages. AI summarized it as follows:

EUV tools require ultra‑high‑purity helium, typically grade 9N (99.9999999%) or better, with strict ppb‑level limits on: Nitrogen, Oxygen, Moisture, Hydrocarbons, Refractory compounds, Particulates.

How helium is used: - Cooling the EUV plasma source - Purging and protecting optics - Maintaining inert, ultra‑clean environments - Leak detection

I've heard it claimed that it was a massive oversight to sell that much helium at such a low price. Helium is a non-renewable resource. When it escapes, it just floats off into space.

And it's an absolutely critical resource for MRIs, advanced science and research, and industry. And we are selling it at a price that's attractive as an amusement for children.

A horrendously misinformed take. Strategic reserves have broadly one of two primary purposes. First, providing the government with the ability to stabilize market prices in the short term when volatility strikes. Second, providing a supply of an essential resource to an essential industry in the event that external supplies are unexpectedly cut off temporarily.

Supply shocks are bad. The economy grinding to a halt at the whim of a geopolitical adversary or natural disaster is also bad. Ensuring a stable market is one of the most fundamental purposes of having a government at all.

So frustrating when every conversation leads to R vs D. Doubly so in this situation since both bills that got us to where we are today had overwhelming BIPARTISAN support and were signed into law by presidents Clinton and Obama…

Helium extraction doesn't pose a notable environmental issue on its own.

But the point is they're less likely to get there if they're part of the power structure.

A presumed but frequently not mentioned component of democracy is the peaceful transition of power once a decision is made.

A start that would not require big changes to our existing system would be open primaries. That would incentivize moderate candidates. Or perhaps eliminate primaries altogether and go with a two-stage general election like some places have for their local elections. Everybody runs, then the top two run against each other (unless one got an outright majority in the first run). Skip the more elaborate instant-runoff styles of voting because that is too advanced for average people.

The unregulated, unlimited money situation we have now is a big part of the problem.

Obviously it's not going to be as extreme and as simple as 'go shoot people house-to-house until you're powerful :D', but repression is much more often than not effective. Think of the Arab Spring, the 2018 color coup attempt in Nicaragua, etc.

Hell, even if the incentives are completely misaligned, you can get away with it as long as you're strong and ruthless enough. The whole world thought Myanmar's military junta would implode and break under the weight of all the freedom fighters… and it's still hanging around, not the worse for wear. If you're willing to burn everything to the ground before you lose power, you can often raise the stakes to a level the other party simply can't afford.

> Unless you aspire to the way of life in places like North Korea

Here's the thing: the right-wingers already aspire to that way of life. They will implement it. At this point, it's not about whether I aspire to live like that, but about who's going to take the reins of power of that type of political structure.

Better us than them.

Or let's make the analogy clearer: if your Uber driver cancels the ride because there's an active shooter on the only road between him and you, it's their fault not the shooter's?

--- Hegseth: “The only thing prohibiting transit in [Hormuz] right now is Iran shooting at shipping.”

“It is open for transit should Iran not do that” ---

Oh really? I thought it was because Mercury was in retrograde.

I guess if even Mr. Hegseth is admitting that transit is effectively prohibited in the Strait, he must actually be lying and part of the deep state.

Self deactivating land mines exist - and sometimes fail to do this (3/100 was the rate I heard a few years ago).

Same problem with cluster munitions: it's not how they work. It's that a bunch of the bomblets fail to work, then leave UXO around which explodes a child's hand later.