190

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

submitted 8 months ago by WayeeCool@hexbear.net to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net

150 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] emizeko@hexbear.net 65 points 7 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 7 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 7 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 7 months ago

thus accusing the reader of being a complete imbecile.

wonder-who-thats-for

[-] CyborgMarx@hexbear.net 30 points 7 months ago

wtf is "the Captial"???

[-] alcoholicorn@hexbear.net 15 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

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

[-] HiImThomasPynchon@hexbear.net 13 points 7 months ago

This needs to be a tagline.

[-] CyborgMarx@hexbear.net 27 points 7 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 7 months ago

Never read any Marx

[-] TheGenderWitch@hexbear.net 12 points 7 months ago

LOTR is childish lol

[-] GalaxyBrain@hexbear.net 16 points 7 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 7 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 7 months ago

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

[-] booty@hexbear.net 15 points 7 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.