You know I was worried about peak oil and water shortages, but if we can't have party balloons what's the point?


No twinkies, no party balloons, bring on the apocalypse

Originally posted by Hawking
You know I was worried about peak oil and water shortages, but if we can't have party balloons what's the point?


No twinkies, no party balloons, bring on the apocalypse

I've never had a twinkie, but no balloons is enough to tip me over the edge. Yes, bring on the apocalypse.

I heard about this years ago, there's tons of it throughout the universe but not here on earth so in the future we might be able to mine it, Jupiter has lots I think...

But as usual people don't care until its nearly run out just like the oil, when will we learn...

It seems like if it 'can't be synthesized' and it's 'non-renewable' that substitutes may be looked for and found when the need arises. For something so potentially valuable, it's still awful cheap.

And am I the only one who ever wonders if helium balloons have ever caused an airplane accident? Has one ever been reported to have been sucked into the air intake of a jet engine? Birds are bad enough...

Is someone seriously suggesting a world wide unsolvable shortage of precious balloon helium exists? Err... Okay... Do people actually get paid to look into stuff like this? I really gotta ask..cause it just strikes me as wayyy too much free time here. Like....WAYYYY too much free time.

if im correct helium is lethal lol. yeas i know about funny balloon voice u do it non stop ur brain will fry. my aunts cousin died from hellium on a dare she died seizuring. but mixed with oxygen i dunno?

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
Is someone seriously suggesting a world wide unsolvable shortage of precious balloon helium exists? Err... Okay... Do people actually get paid to look into stuff like this? I really gotta ask..cause it just strikes me as wayyy too much free time here. Like....WAYYYY too much free time.

No, a shortage of helium exists. Helium has many uses, and will have many more uses outside of parties. It's being wasted on stuff like balloons.

The obvious answer is to start using hydrogen in party balloons....Aaaand to create fire retardant "party suits."

Okay kids it's... PARTY TIME

Originally posted by blownaway
if im correct helium is lethal lol. yeas i know about funny balloon voice u do it non stop ur brain will fry. my aunts cousin died from hellium on a dare she died seizuring. but mixed with oxygen i dunno?

No it's not. People can die from excessively breathing it in, but that's due to lack of oxygen rather than the Helium itself. If you're just breathing in Helium then you have no carbon-dioxide building up to tell your body that you need to breath. Even if it was lethal it doesn't matter, it has uses.

Originally posted by blownaway
if im correct helium is lethal lol. yeas i know about funny balloon voice u do it non stop ur brain will fry. my aunts cousin died from hellium on a dare she died seizuring. but mixed with oxygen i dunno?

It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas

You will probably die, however, from a lack of oxygen if you continually breath things other than air.

I also think the topic is more about the loss of a noble gas, and not so much the loss of party balloons.

Mind you, given some things of late around here, the only way some people would notice there is no Helium left on earth would be because there are no more floaty balloons... that's sad.

If I'm reading the article correctly, he's talking about a shortage possibly being a problem in 30-50 years, correct? 'm kinda hoping the world still has need for advanced cooling in 10 years the way things are going. If we make it 30..I'm thinking they'll have invented things we haven't even imagined yet. Think of what people thought was high tech in 1983. Err.....Miami Vice days with mobile phones roughly the size and near the weight of a garden brick when they weren't wired to the car permanently.

It just seems like everything that brings a smile to anyone's face is under attack by someone on some seemingly good pretense or another. I'll take the possible crisis in 3 decades for the smiles it puts on little kids faces today. Heck..the world is a bad enough place. The balloons seem a safe enough indulgence for a few more years.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
If I'm reading the article correctly, he's talking about a shortage possibly being a problem in 30-50 years, correct? 'm kinda hoping the world still has need for advanced cooling in 10 years the way things are going. If we make it 30..I'm thinking they'll have invented things we haven't even imagined yet. Think of what people thought was high tech in 1983. Err.....Miami Vice days with mobile phones roughly the size and near the weight of a garden brick when they weren't wired to the car permanently.

It just seems like everything that brings a smile to anyone's face is under attack by someone on some seemingly good pretense or another. I'll take the possible crisis in 3 decades for the smiles it puts on little kids faces today. Heck..the world is a bad enough place. The balloons seem a safe enough indulgence for a few more years.

Who's to say we won't have other uses for it in the future? We don't just use it for cooling now. People that think like you are the reason we're facing this problem in the first place.

So, that's what the Mayans meant. Party balloons will be banned on December 21st, 2012. The end of the world as we know it.