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The U.S. just sold its helium stockpile. Here’s why the medical world is worried. (www.nbcnews.com)

submitted 10 months ago by WayeeCool@hexbear.net to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net

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Privatizing the US national helium reserve. Gonna laugh when in a few years the government of another nation ends up owning it. Helium is dwindling finite resource that key technological infrastructure relies upon.

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[-] emizeko@hexbear.net 65 points 10 months ago

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

—John Rogers

[-] HiImThomasPynchon@hexbear.net 17 points 10 months ago

Literally what happened to a friend of mine. He was in a bookshop and only had enough money to buy Fellowship or Atlas Shrugged and chose Fellowship because he'd be able to buy a soda with the change.

[-] rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 4 points 10 months ago

Atlas Shrugged and the Capital are mutually interchangeable in that quote.

I don't like the quote also because it implies that the reader would consider LOTR childish, thus accusing the reader of being a complete imbecile.

[-] panopticon@hexbear.net 45 points 10 months ago

thus accusing the reader of being a complete imbecile.

wonder-who-thats-for

[-] CyborgMarx@hexbear.net 30 points 10 months ago

wtf is "the Captial"???

[-] alcoholicorn@hexbear.net 15 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Das is german for "The", Kapital is german for "Capital"

[-] HiImThomasPynchon@hexbear.net 13 points 10 months ago

This needs to be a tagline.

[-] CyborgMarx@hexbear.net 27 points 10 months ago

Hey lib, who are the mutual unbelievable heroes in THE Capital? You know since you clearly read it and aren't just talking out your ass

[-] Mokey@hexbear.net 21 points 10 months ago

Never read any Marx

[-] TheGenderWitch@hexbear.net 12 points 10 months ago

LOTR is childish lol

[-] GalaxyBrain@hexbear.net 16 points 10 months ago

In the broad strokes absolutely, in the detail hell no. I had to learn linguistic theories and botany to get to the bottom of everything going on in the books

[-] TheGenderWitch@hexbear.net 17 points 10 months ago

no the detail is insane, the dude made up languages and then created LOTR just to put them inside

[-] GalaxyBrain@hexbear.net 11 points 10 months ago

Sorta kinda but regardless, it's a solid 50 years or so of work

[-] booty@hexbear.net 15 points 10 months ago

The Hobbit is a kids' book, but I'm not sure I'd say Lord of the Rings is childish. There are childish things about it, for sure. The black-and-white Christian morality and "good monarch" stuff, for example. But it's a serious work of literature at the same time.