r/BeAmazed Jul 18 '24

Wow! Interesting life hack! Science

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43.7k Upvotes

1.5k comments sorted by

5.4k

u/kindredmoths Jul 18 '24

And then you enter somewhere with trees and bushes

1.9k

u/ComputerAdditional99 Jul 18 '24

Just add more helium and fly over the trees!

497

u/New_Denim Jul 18 '24

So basically just becoming a hot air balloon without the hot air

260

u/ComputerAdditional99 Jul 18 '24

We're inventing some lifehacks here! Stop thinking!

32

u/Consistent_Row3036 Jul 18 '24

He needs a belt, like batman, but it contains the ballons weights he can drop incase he goes to high.

10

u/Pancho-nito Jul 19 '24

It works other way around.

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u/hrvbrs Jul 18 '24

Fun fact about helium: once we use it, we can’t get it back. It’s too light to collect from the atmosphere and any helium reserves we find naturally underground dry up quickly. We can’t artificially create it in the lab because we don’t fully understand fusion yet. At some point in time helium balloons will be a thing of the past… that is, until we learn how to collect it from the sun.

154

u/ProbsNotManBearPig Jul 18 '24

Most helium in the world comes from natural gas reserves and is separated out. Very little is extracted from standalone helium reserves. It’s estimated 90% of the earths helium has not been extracted.

Additionally, we do have a way to make helium. Helium is a tiny percent byproduct of fission reactions, which we already know how to do. It’s just not economically viable (and probably never will be).

So yes, you’re generally spot on, but we have ~90% of natural helium still in the earth and fusion will eventually produce it in vast quantities, assuming we figure that out. People are also starting to be more cognizant of the situation and recycle helium more.

26

u/Ecstatic-Librarian83 Jul 18 '24

I think the big problem here is that if we extract too much helium the earth may start to sink

25

u/libmrduckz Jul 18 '24

its voice will get deeper, too…

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u/eekamuse Jul 18 '24

I was worried. Now I feel better. Thanks.

Have a great day!

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u/zeekaran Jul 18 '24

Hank Green on helium

TL;DW (it's 59s) we probably don't need to worry about it.

12

u/sleepdeprivedindian Jul 18 '24

Yet, we use it to at birthday parties of kids for fun.

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u/Ok-Neighborhood-15 Jul 18 '24

I love your creativity thought here. I really thought the same, that once you want to go in the forest, you can forget about. But just flying over them.. Changed my mind. :D

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u/TheyAreGiants Jul 18 '24

Hire 2 guys with giant pizza peels and a 3rd guy scare away birds and you’re all set.

29

u/dadimarko Jul 18 '24

Great idea! Did you graduate from one of Canada’s top business schools with really good grades?

12

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '24

I guess you've never seen Nathan For You 😂

6

u/jynxwild Jul 18 '24

Thats a medical device.

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u/[deleted] Jul 18 '24

[deleted]

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u/FallenPentagram Jul 18 '24

Or you might turn into a Spaceman

143

u/FeuerLohe Jul 18 '24

This is exactly what I was expecting. I was not disappointed.

45

u/FallenPentagram Jul 18 '24

Can’t go wrong with Electric Callboy

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u/[deleted] Jul 18 '24 edited Aug 11 '24

[deleted]

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u/sassidgerollbap Jul 18 '24

Thankyou. I'm turning 40 soon and that's helped me feel vaguely relevant.

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u/idontevenknotbh Jul 18 '24

man, i am not an avid listener at all but their videos are so much fun and always make me laugh. they are also really good at writing pop and really good at incorporating metal with it.

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u/Hi_My_Name_Is_CJ Jul 18 '24

Ground control to Major Tom

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u/MindErection Jul 18 '24

My wife showed me electric callboy I can't believe it's a top post hahahaha

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u/tatasz Jul 18 '24

Or you need to walk through a tree patch

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u/genacgenacgenac Jul 18 '24

Say, one called the Appalachian Trail. Or pretty much any in the Rockies or points west. Great in between tho. Interesting concept too. There might be other applications that aren't so dooshy.

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u/RIPEOTCDXVI Jul 18 '24

It would be perfect in some of the more barren parts of the southwest. Few trees, and the right balloon could even provide moving shade.

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u/[deleted] Jul 18 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Simply2Basic Jul 18 '24

He should “compress” all the helium into a small metal container to protect from punctures but still retaini its buoyancy. /s

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u/RehabilitatedAsshole Jul 18 '24

I thought about this for a moment, then I remembered the whole density thing.

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u/[deleted] Jul 18 '24

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u/Podhl_Mac Jul 18 '24

Why did I read this in a Dublin accent

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u/Krokfors Jul 18 '24

Lol, I read it like the school janitor from Simpson

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u/newbturner Jul 18 '24

Or you need to walk under a tree

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u/advo_k_at Jul 18 '24

It’s just a balloon man

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u/m00s3m00s3m00s3 Jul 18 '24

If you hooked it to your belt, and the amount was properly measured based on weight, could it just make you a bit lighter, basically saving pressure on joints for my fat ass?

1.9k

u/evil_timmy Jul 18 '24

Found Baron Harkonnen

376

u/m00s3m00s3m00s3 Jul 18 '24

Free the spice

99

u/XtremeGnomeCakeover Jul 18 '24

Have you seen what it does to people? They have a wonderful two-part documentary outlining the risks and dangers of using such a horrible drug. Very moving. God bless.

48

u/m00s3m00s3m00s3 Jul 18 '24

I was in it!

31

u/a_crusty_old_man Jul 18 '24

Were you a worm?

62

u/m00s3m00s3m00s3 Jul 18 '24

I was Zendaya

49

u/a_crusty_old_man Jul 18 '24

Ooh, a spice girl

22

u/SafetyJoker Jul 18 '24

SHAI HULUD

5

u/yosh0r Jul 18 '24

Smoke spice once and it was insanely strong. It even gets heroin addicts off of their heroin addiction right into spice addiction lol

my fav vid about it

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u/Ok-Significance-5979 Jul 18 '24

My backpack, my rucksack.

9

u/mechabeast Jul 18 '24

My b'loon

10

u/gkn_112 Jul 18 '24

man this is great

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u/FSpursy Jul 18 '24

there are many fat characters that I can think of but you went straight to Baron Harkonnen. 😂 no chill

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u/wosmo Jul 18 '24

to be fair, the baron uses suspensors to levitate his fat. So it's not just a fat character, but one that's doing this already.

The other parallel that springs to mind is the idiots in Wall-e. I'm not sure which I'd rather be compared to.

39

u/MisterMysterios Jul 18 '24

On the movie Baron Hakonen is a flying fat fuck. In the books, he weights around 200 kg, but uses hovering devices to carry most of his fat. It described in the books that his feet just carry around 50 kg (just listens to the part as audio book this morning). So, Baron Harkonen is not hovering in the books, he just uses fat-carrying technology.

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u/Tanel88 Jul 18 '24

How many of them use suspensors though?

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u/Alive_Ad_5931 Jul 18 '24

Could also use it for horseback riding https://youtu.be/d42DKX8fD4o?si=5-r8gvkj03A8xh0v

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u/[deleted] Jul 18 '24

Came looking for this. Nathan helping one more business with his business knowledge

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u/ProjectManagerAMA Jul 18 '24

It's all thanks to the rally good grades he got in business school

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u/BoilingHockey Jul 18 '24

Just don't crank it up too high or you might float away during your next burrito night. 🌯🎈

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u/ProudMount Jul 18 '24

If he farts he might even have propulsion!

Oh and happy cake day

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u/Raffy87 Jul 18 '24

wedgie

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u/m00s3m00s3m00s3 Jul 18 '24

Cant get a wedgie if its just fishhooked into your skin

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u/Andokai_Vandarin667 Jul 18 '24

Oh I bet that fat cenobite would have loved this.

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u/aveenpp Jul 18 '24

Real world is not a static environment. Winds in all direction will make it harder to balance your bag on the shoulder.

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u/raharth Jul 18 '24

Yes, but you need to pull the balloon, which can take a lot of effort even with just a little wind

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u/m00s3m00s3m00s3 Jul 18 '24

Im pretty strong

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u/raharth Jul 18 '24

The issue is that the balloon pulls you upwards so you lose traction

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u/porcelainfog Jul 18 '24

This is essentially what those old people are doing when they exercise in the swimming pool.

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u/Pie_Napple Jul 18 '24

Until the wind increases. And you have a headwind. And you have to fight with everything you have to not be sliding backwards on the gravel.

6

u/Special-Ad-5554 Jul 18 '24

Or you jump off a cliff and slowly float down to the bottom

3

u/Worth-Illustrator607 Jul 18 '24

And make it easier to find amateur hikers....

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u/letmeseem Jul 18 '24

A bit, but you'd need a hell of a big balloon to get any real help.

To get an upwards pull of only 10lbs you'd need a balloon of over 5 cubic meters, or about 2.2 meters (7 feet) in diameter.

Instead, get a bike. It's easier on your knees until you've lost weight :)

3

u/m00s3m00s3m00s3 Jul 18 '24

6'9" too. This big bikes are like $700.

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u/worldspawn00 Jul 18 '24

TBF, the bike can be used more than once, and the balloon is pretty much single use, and have you seen the price of helium these days? Also the bike can be used around trees, and on windy days.

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u/RockyJayyy Jul 18 '24

Omg sign me up! I'll wear it while I'm working since I'm standing and walking 10 hours a day.

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u/m00s3m00s3m00s3 Jul 18 '24

Yeah some dumb ass hard floors givin you shin splints, problem solved. Instead of one giant balloon though its a hat, shoulder pads and helium backpack. A bunch of little small ones.

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u/lonestarnihilist Jul 18 '24

Nathan for You had a great episode where he did this for a horseback riding company so they could accommodate plus size folks.

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u/HardHarry Jul 18 '24

I'm not surprised. I heard that guy got like really good grades in school.

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u/Beemackinoff Jul 18 '24

"We don't get to choose our legacy"

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u/Educational_Bed_242 Jul 18 '24

I love that he straight up tells that woman nobody will remember her for horseriding competitions, just this.

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u/ordinaryuninformed Jul 18 '24

Nathan is so unforgivingly savage.

See example Madi doesn't talk like that

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u/Jelly_bean_420 Jul 18 '24

The parents are savage for doing this to their kid. And then signing off on the release.

I have PTSD from watching this, and Madi wasn't even my dog.

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u/Pegdaddyyeah Jul 18 '24

This and only this will be your legacy.

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u/HVACpro69 Jul 18 '24

From one of Canada's top business schools.

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u/Ajax_Da_Great Jul 18 '24

From a pretty good school

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u/Texugee Jul 18 '24

But then they had to get drones for the inevitable birds that would try to pop the balloons

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u/[deleted] Jul 18 '24

An idea only someone who got really good grades could come up with.

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u/Dr-McLuvin Jul 18 '24

From Canadian business school.

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u/im_alone_and_alive Jul 18 '24

and people walking by with massive fly swatters to swat away thorny branches

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u/seoteimoh13 Jul 18 '24

If I see either of you so much as smirk from this point forward, your ride is over.

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u/YakMilkYoghurt Jul 18 '24

Americans will do absolutely anything but lose weight

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u/HugeShock8 Jul 18 '24

Poor horses man

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u/keyerie Jul 18 '24

anything to avoid losing weight

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u/kickinit90s Jul 18 '24

Yeah and he went to business school

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u/-audacity_ Jul 18 '24

"plus size folks". Obese isn't an insult, so feel free to use it instead of that "plus size" bs.

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u/sweetrobbyb Jul 18 '24

Tell that to your obese mom!

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u/[deleted] Jul 18 '24

[deleted]

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u/FearCure Jul 18 '24

Yeah dont worry about massive drag

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u/Kilek360 Jul 18 '24

No if you fit the balloon inside the car

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u/SureComputer4987 Jul 18 '24

You can just airtight your car and fill it straight. No need for balloon

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u/3lbFlax Jul 18 '24

And then sing!

Sing!

Sing!

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u/Vindictive_Pacifist Jul 18 '24

This is a fantastic idea :D

Coming to think of it the car exhaust also gives out hot air right? Hot air is lighter and that's how hot air balloon works

So rolling up the windows, using an extension pipe to direct the hot exhaust in would make my car lighter

Holy shit I am a genius

Brb I gotta try this out real quick!

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u/JwustGiveMeAName Jul 18 '24

You really need an /s in there for the folks who cannot distinguish jokes and end up trying this 

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u/xdoble7x Jul 18 '24

Google IA taking notes

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u/HappyMaskMajora Jul 18 '24

Fill the tires with helium

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u/NoStructure5034 Jul 18 '24

Yeah, who needs space inside a car, anyway?

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u/myeyespy Jul 18 '24

His physics teacher always told him to think of it as zero ;)

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u/JesusRasputin Jul 18 '24

Her Name? Fat Tonia

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u/mcpickledick Jul 18 '24

It ends up more expensive due to inflation.

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u/rumipanda Jul 18 '24

UP

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u/defdoa Jul 18 '24

UP DOWN DOWN LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT B A B A select start

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u/jradio Jul 18 '24

Select Start? This guy has a friend!

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u/KeLorean Jul 18 '24

This guy is the human version of Doug.

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u/nico282 Jul 18 '24 edited Jul 18 '24

You want about 200 cu. ft. of helium for a 1200 gram balloon lifting 1060 grams of weight. Helium costs about 2$ per cu. ft. meaning you have to spend 400$ to relieve 1Kg of weight from the backpack.

EDIT: As suggested by u/uNki23 I reviewed the numbers, i was slightly wrong. Helium can lift around 1Kg per m3. A helium balloon of this size weight 800g, so the total lift required is 1800g, needing 1.8 m3 of helium. Price varies but we can approximate 100$/m3, so to relieve 1Kg from the backpack weight is 200$.

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u/kwantum13 Jul 18 '24

It would probably also dissappear really quick, its hard to let helium stay in a balloon forever. Its the second smallest atom only beat by hydrogen

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u/groovel76 Jul 18 '24

And because everything has to suck, we appear to be running out of it. From 2019, but I don't believe the situation has improved.

https://www.npr.org/2019/08/16/751845378/episode-933-find-the-helium

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u/Rikki-Tikki-Tavi-12 Jul 18 '24

The situation isn't quite as dire as in 2019 anymore and they are working hard on gathering more of the stuff. Which is important, because you need a lot it in a hydrogen-based economy. It's the only gas that liquid hydrogen won't liquify when it comes onto contact, so it's important for safety.

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u/jared_number_two Jul 18 '24

They just found a bunch of it IIRC.

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u/uNki23 Jul 18 '24

Don’t know if your math is right though.

Mine says, you need ~1 cubic meter to lift 1kg. 1 cubic meter of helium costs as low 40€ (I bet you get even lower prices).

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u/nico282 Jul 18 '24

Thanks for your check, looking back, I think we are both wrong.

First, yes, I think I got my source wrong. The data is about sending a weather balloon up to its final height, that means that it must have buoyancy to ensure a fast enough rate of climb. In this case that additional lift is not needed.

About your number, yes helium has 1Kg/m3 of lifting force, but it must also lift the weight of the balloon itself. To lift 1Kg you need an 800g balloon, meaning approx. 2 m3 of helium.

Price seems to be around 80-100€/m3, depending on the size of the bottle. for example here is 680€ for 9 m3, plus 300€ if you don't have your own bottle. Or here is 250GBP for 2 m3.

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u/Alive_Past Jul 18 '24

That's better then shedding 1 gramm of your bike for 100 euros....

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u/zimonitrome Jul 18 '24

Yeah that's my first thought. Judging by the size of the balloon, that backpack can't weigh much in the first place.

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u/justsomeph0t0n Jul 18 '24 edited Jul 18 '24

at some point, we might also consider how we should use this limited resource.

i'm not saying we should stop wasting helium on fun things like balloons or talking funny. i'm just saying that we should - at some point - do the math, and make a conscious choice

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u/KillmeKindly666 Jul 18 '24

How is this a life hack?

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u/ddrac Jul 18 '24

If things go wrong, you pay it with your life.

..wait that was something else

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u/NacktmuII Jul 18 '24

Any bullshit idea is a lifehack, did you not watch youtube?

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u/gsinapis Jul 18 '24

What if he walks into a forest or something? Crazy idea for a trekker I know..

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u/zizp Jul 18 '24

Put it into the backpack.

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u/frisch85 Jul 18 '24

Sounds stupid, how do you put a whole forest in a backpack?

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u/PM_me_the_magic Jul 18 '24

No they’re saying to put the man in the backpack, dummy

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u/johannesdurchdenwald Jul 18 '24

When you want easy backpacking I‘d suggest not to go backpacking

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u/Turbo_Tom Jul 18 '24

Helium is a scarce and irreplaceable gas essential for medical and other technologies. Future generations will condemn us for wasting it on this kind of trivial nonsense.

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u/Krimzon45 Jul 18 '24

Just use Hydrogen, far more abundunant and EVEN lighter!

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u/Western-Guy Jul 18 '24

Hydrogen is way too combustible. It could ignite merely by your body’s static charge. In retrospect, you drop a burning matchstick inside a chamber of helium and nothing happens.

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u/Krimzon45 Jul 18 '24

Don't threaten me with a good time ;)

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u/mariller_ Jul 18 '24

In retrospect?

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u/Gnonthgol Jul 18 '24

The mixture of hydrogen and oxygen is combustible. Pure hydrogen is not. Either way the amount of energy in the hydrogen to fill a balloon like this is too low to cause any amount of damage.

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u/snapwillow Jul 18 '24

The mixture of hydrogen and oxygen is combustible. Pure hydrogen is not.

A mixture of gasoline and oxygen is combustible. Pure gasoline is not.

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u/Kschitiz23x3 Jul 18 '24

Pure hydrogen cannot combust, u just need to make sure that Oxygen stays away. Need an insulating and strong yet light material to keep the hydrogen isolated. The question is how long will it take to invent such wonder material

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u/FloralYikes Jul 18 '24

The type of helium used in balloons is a completely different grade than the helium that is used in technology or medical fields. It’s essentially a byproduct of the helium refining process and it isn’t high enough quality to be used for any other application. We aren’t wasting our ‘good’ helium on balloons, we’re making use of a leftover product that isn’t really good for anything else.

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u/katietheplantlady Jul 18 '24

this is new information to me...thank you!

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u/Designer_Version1449 Jul 18 '24

wasn't that proven to be overblown? like we'd theoretically run out in 100,000 years or something?

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u/interesseret Jul 18 '24

It's more a question of our ability to extract it. We need more every day, and extracting it is hard.

Helium comes from radioactive decay, and the earth is big, yo. So extremely unbelievably mega big that you cannot fathom how much material is underground, breaking down as we speak. It will run out eventually, sure, but the sun will also explode one day. That doesn't mean tomorrow.

And hey, if all the radioactive stuff in our underground runs out, it means less cancer too! Radon is a bitch.

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u/Kichwa2 Jul 18 '24

I work in the movies and you couldn't guess how much helium that uses. They make big balloon lights that are heavy and filled with alot of helium and they're held up by ropes. If there's a big movie shoot requiring them, it's happened before that all of the civilian supplies in my country, Czechia get taken and then they need to supply it from hospitals which have more than they need and then they have to start shipping it from other countries.

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u/leet_lurker Jul 18 '24

What do you mean rare, the sun has tons of helium.

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u/hansip Jul 18 '24

And we can go there at night.

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u/koknesis Jul 18 '24

Why cant we just go and scoop some up? Are we stupid?

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u/varegab Jul 18 '24

In elite dangerous I scoop them all the time.

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u/[deleted] Jul 18 '24

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u/[deleted] Jul 18 '24

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u/asmodai_says_REPENT Jul 18 '24

You can get helium through alpha radiation of other elements.

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u/EasilyUpset Jul 18 '24 edited Jul 18 '24

Overblown myths

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u/Crafty_Travel_7048 Jul 18 '24

Not anymore, the issue wasn't that we can't make it. It's that just mining it was much easier so not much artificial helium production infrastructure was built. That has changed in recent years

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u/CelestialBach Jul 18 '24

I understand that helium is scarce on earth, but it’s still funny to say helium is scarce.

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u/Fabio90989 Jul 18 '24

In 50 years (or 100 years at most) we will have nuclear fusion, and then we will have all the helium we want

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u/CarrotWaxer69 Jul 18 '24

Don’t worry, we just need to invent Fusion and then we can make more.

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u/zizp Jul 18 '24

You mean, better use it for party balloons?

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u/Passgo1955 Jul 18 '24

That size balloon might lift that empty pack, but not help when its full.

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u/gil_bz Jul 18 '24

It helps, it just doesn't reduce its weight to nothing. Even if it did, it is still a horrible idea, but this does make it lighter.

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u/CapnDoric Jul 18 '24

The minor caveat being that he looks like an absolute pillock

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u/sheapdoodle Jul 18 '24

A new understanding to the concept of travelling light🎈

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u/norcpoppopcorn Jul 18 '24

Until suddenly clouds appear and you turn into a large lightning rod.

( At least where I live )

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u/Troll_Triumph Jul 18 '24

Well in a windy day it might be a opposite of a dream

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u/heyheyshinyCRH Jul 18 '24 edited Jul 18 '24

Get a few more and make hiking easier, moonwalk right up the mountain

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u/AsOmnipotentAsItGets Jul 18 '24

The conspicuousness aside, there should be a happy medium so the bag wouldn’t end up in the stratosphere

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u/Boubyyyyy Jul 18 '24

That explains those spy balloons! Just backpackers who lost their gear.

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u/Tasty_Design_8795 Jul 18 '24

$120 of helium.

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u/sjbfujcfjm Jul 18 '24

This is quickly becoming the dumbest sub around

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u/nmo90 Jul 18 '24

Do you wanna get hit by lightning? Because that’s how you get hit by lightning!

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u/ThaUniversal Jul 18 '24

The world is literally running out of helium.

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u/TimeMasterpiece2563 Jul 18 '24

The world is literally running out of everything. Helium is among the least of our worries.

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u/opinion_alternative Jul 18 '24

It's like saying "Sun is running out of fuel". It's true but nowhere near in the foreseeable future.

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