Compared to the rest of the costs of the systems which use it, the helium cost is not a big problem. It's less than the labor cost of keeping the machine ready for use. An MRI uses over 100 MWh a year, the machine costs millions to start with, the personnel cost is hundreds per hour... The machine uses roughly 100-200 liters of helium, which is now $30-50/liter. So $3000 to $10000 for a full fill. Boil-off rates range from 0 to 0.2%/day. A refill occurs every 6-24 months. So we're looking at a max of about $20000/year for the helium, or about 33 1/3 days of personnel costs.

(These numbers were pulled from various obviously AI-authored pieces on MRI refill costs, so they might be fairly bullshit-ish, but since multiple articles were around the same numbers I've used them here anyway.)

By the same token, management clearly either didn't understand or was unwilling to sign off on a meaningful replacement program. For that you don't just install and pray, you study what each department's users are actually doing on a daily basis and then you test the new software to determine a) whether it can actually do those things or not and b) how they are done if so. Part of that for example is to check all the templates being used to see if they will work, which they clearly didn't do here.

Office is literally designed to be hard to emulate, the so-called "standards" are bad jokes which aren't actually standards because you can't actually follow them and get an proper result. They're malicious. Not taking this into account when attempting migration is incompetent.

As I look around I see a mixture of things, some things which would be very difficult to replace, and some things which would be very easy to replace, and some things where they would still need some plastic but they could use a lot less. The rest could be made of wood or metal. Mostly I propose using aluminum because it's extremely recyclable.

Don't be obtuse, companies provide training for office applications through contracted training portals. I've "attended" video trainings on Excel and Word. If they changed to LO tomorrow I'd be fine, but I'd still have to figure out how to do those things again. And some users would not be fine.

Something did change. We stopped stockpiling a reserve, and that reserve has been exhausted. That's two things.

This is so offensively stupid and wrong that it makes me wonder if you are a paid shill for the plastics industry.

Being able to look stuff up on the internet isn't great, it's a basic minimum for being considered an internet user, at which you fail. There are toddlers with more competence than you. (Which explains Slashdot moderation.)

Office doesn't do standards, really. Microsoft's standard OOXML contains numerous statements which basically say "do what Word does here" so the software Microsoft Word is basically part of the standard. In a sane world this would mean that Microsoft would be forced to open source it, but we don't live there.

Oh, you want me to google Köppen classification maps? Here you go. Gee, what a shock, they're exactly what I described!

As for your paper's offhanded sloppy remark (California contains a lot of Mediterranean climate, but not the specific pistachio growing centres), your paper says:

Fig. 1. Pistachio cultivation in California (year 2022) , showing counties with the largest planted area: Kern, Kings, Tulare, Fresno, Madera, and Merced. Own elaboration with data from: DWR (2023).

Gee, I wonder, what's the typical annual precipitation in the lowlands in Kern, Kings, Tulare, Fresno, Madera, and Merced counties? Let's just start with Kern, which alone produces 1/3rd of the state's entire crop: Hey Google, what's the typical annual precipitation in Kern Country? Let's see your top hit

Water sources in Kern County
Precipitation in Bakersfield averages 6.49 inches per year. It’s a very dry climate.

6.49 inches per year. That's a desert (sub-10 inches). Do I need to walk you through the rest? Oh wait, I already fucking did that.

Here, let's sum up the whole thread: Hey AI, who's right in this thread?

Rei is overwhelmingly correct.

While Rei made one minor typographical error regarding Köppen climate codes, their factual claims regarding California geography, pistachio cultivation, precipitation levels, climate classification rules, and water usage are scientifically sound. Conversely, DamnOregonian’s rebuttals rely on fundamental misunderstandings of how climate classifications work, California's geography, and where pistachio agriculture takes place.

1. Where Pistachios Are Grown & Whether It Is a Desert

DamnOregonian’s claim: Pistachios are not grown in the desert, and the San Joaquin Valley is a Mediterranean climate where crops get "ample water."

Rei’s claim: Pistachios are overwhelmingly grown in the Tulare Basin lowlands (southern San Joaquin Valley), which receives 5–8 inches of rain annually—well within the standard definition of a desert.

The Facts:

California produces over 95% of U.S. pistachios[1][2][3]. The vast majority of production is concentrated in Kern, Fresno, Tulare, Kings, and Madera counties[3][4][5]. Kern County alone produces over a third of the state’s total crop.

These lowlands receive between 5 and 8 inches of precipitation per year[6] (Bakersfield averages ~6.5 inches[7], Lost Hills ~6.6 inches, and Kettleman City ~7.5 inches). For comparison, Phoenix, Arizona receives ~7.2 inches.

In biology and geography, this region is formally recognized as the San Joaquin Desert (established by Germano et al., 2011, and recognized by the USGS and conservation agencies)[8][9][10].

Without massive state and federal irrigation projects (the Central Valley Project, State Water Project, and groundwater pumping)[6][11][12], these orchards could not survive on local precipitation.

2. The Köppen Climate Classification Blunder

DamnOregonian's central argument relies on a flawed reading of the Köppen climate classification system:

DamnOregonian quoted Wikipedia’s description of Csa:
"Regions with this form of a Mediterranean climate experience average monthly temperatures in excess of 22.0 C... Point out where they mention rainfall."

Why DamnOregonian is wrong:

Köppen classifications are hierarchical, and Group B (Dry/Arid climates) takes precedence over Group C (Temperate/Mediterranean climates)[13].

To even consider whether a region belongs in Group C (Csa), the region must first fail the Group B aridity test[13].

The aridity threshold (P th) is calculated using mean annual temperature and the seasonality of precipitation[13][14]. Because the Central Valley gets most of its precipitation during winter, Köppen’s threshold formula is: P th =20×T Celsius

For Bakersfield (mean annual temperature ~18.5 C / 65.3 F), the threshold for aridity is 370 mm370 mm (~14.6 inches). Under Köppen, if an area receives less than half of the aridity threshold (P3. Native Range of Pistachios

Rei’s point: Pistachios (Pistacia vera) are native to the arid plateaus and steppes of Central Asia, northeastern Iran, and northern Afghanistan.

The Facts: Rei is correct. The modern commercial cultivar used throughout California (the "Kerman" cultivar) was collected in 1929 from the desert-adjacent Iranian Plateau by USDA botanist William E. Whitehouse[4][21]. The tree naturally adapted to thrive in hot, dry, rainless summers and survive on deep taproots in arid soils[4][21].

4. Rei's Only Minor Mistake

Rei wrote:

"southern San Joaquin Valley lowlands are a mix of BWh (Hot desert climate) and CWh (Cold desert climate)."

In the Köppen system, a cold desert climate is abbreviated BWk, not CWh[15][22]. Cwa and Cwb are temperate monsoon climates[14][22]. This was clearly a slip of the keyboard, as Rei correctly provided the definition ("Cold desert climate") in parentheses.

Conclusion

Rei is correct. The heart of California’s pistachio belt lies in the Tulare Basin / southern San Joaquin Valley, an arid desert and steppe landscape receiving only 5–8 inches of rain per year[6]. DamnOregonian's claim that this region is "not a desert" and that Köppen Mediterranean climates do not depend on rainfall criteria represents a complete misunderstanding of both climatology and local geography.
Sources
help
americanpistachios.org
agmrc.org
agwestfc.com
ca.gov
farmonaut.com
wikipedia.org
encountertravel.com.au
figshare.com
scienceforconservation.org
kglmeridian.com
nature.org
capitolweekly.net
climatezonemap.com
hardymaps.com
oregonstate.education
wikipedia.org
plantmaps.com
figshare.com
wikipedia.org
noaa.gov
californiacurated.com
worldbank.org

"Get fucked" yourself. Facts will continue to remain facts whether you like them or not. Pistachios are grown in the desert, specifically, the San Joaquin Desert, in the Tulare basin lowlands, in the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley.

I mean, it's not irreplaceable (despite the fact that atmospheric helium, sourced from radioactive decay, "leaks" to space from the planet). But there is a risk of significant cost increases if we just burn the super helium-rich NG deposits without separation. Helium is still recoverable from poorer NG deposits, non-NG deposits (anywhere that volcanic heat melts old basement rock - for example, the Rukwa Basin), and even as a byproduct of atmospheric air liquefaction (for separation to extract N2, O2, and noble gases). But you risk costs rising significantly faster than tech advancement can offset them.

We're still going to have helium, but it'll affect our usage priorities of we're not smart about how we handle the resources. We got too used to, for too long, treating it as a cheap disposable.

(If anyone is curious where it goes: 2/3rds to arc welding, medical imaging (cryogenics), semiconductors, and fibre optics; 3/4ths if you add in metals processing. "As a lifting gas" is only 6%. It's industrial use that's the problem. At least medical imaging has gotten a lot better over the past couple decades)

The rise of the AI companies is also a sign of society falling apart. A healthy society wouldn't put all of its eggs in this basket and allow it to threaten all the pensions.

None of that is how this works. They are creating fake drivers (drivers with fake credentials) to pick up the cargoes. The driver is in on the scam.

The oil problem isn't one problem or one industry, it's our entire way of life.

When you make fuel you get other crap out that's not good for making fuel. We make plastic mostly out of that. So being addicted to oil is being addicted to plastic is being addicted to oil again.

In order to reduce our oil consumption we also have to reduce our use of plastic. The plastics industry is not interested in that. The oil industry is also not interested in that. Either has immense influence, together they are titan.

So, if you care about the actual history, TL/DR, it was your typical "Government Waste!" panic (an earlier version of DOGE-ism).

The first person to really push for getting rid of it was Rep. Christopher Cox (R-CA), who thought it was a stupid government boondoggle. He and his allies in the '80s and early '90s mocked it as an absurd relic of the '20s intended to supply military blimps and dirigibles and pointed out that it had racked up $1,4B in government debt. In 1984 Reagan, launched the Grace Commission (the President's Private Sector Survey on Cost Control), which was the late 80s equivalent of DOGE (he literally used the phrase "drain the swamp"!), and based on its recommendations, Reagan proposed selling off the reserve in both his FY 1989 and FY 1990 budgets. Then in 1993, under Clinton, VP Gore did his own DOGE (the National Performance Review (NPR)). Once again, privatizing the helium reserve was featured as an objective (Clinton would later, in his 1995 State of the Union, refer to it as one of "over 100 programs we do not need"), but it they decided not to push on it in '93 because Clinton needed the support of Rep. Bill Sarpalius (D-TX), whose district housed the reserve in Amarillo. In congress, Republicans took the lead (Democrats were initially more skeptical, though most still supported elimination); after Republicans won control in 1994, they focused on eliminating "obsolete" federal programs as a policy keystone (Rep. John Kasich and Newt Gingrich in particular). By 1996, there was broad bipartisan support, and congress drafted and passed the Helium Privatization Act (H.R. 4168) with near-unanimous support.

The TL/DR is, elected officials LOVE the idea of "cutting government waste". Their track record of determining what actually is "waste", however, is not nearly so great. It's a lot easier for ignorant elected officials to rail against something to an ignorant public with soundbites ("Lol, we're wasting money preparing for zeppelin-warfare, HAR HAR HAR!") than it is to take the time to understand the full consequences of what you're proposing to eliminate.

Thank you so much for letting us know that you're a piece of shit whose opinion is worse than worthless, it was purchased.