Geekonomicon

"Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible." - Dalai Lama

You cannot buy a new gas turbine until 2030. Order books at GE, Siemens, and Mitsubishi stretch to 2029. Turbine prices have nearly tripled since 2019. Every AI data center needs power and every gas plant needs a turbine. And every turbine has one part that bottlenecks the entire industry: The blade. It has to survive in gas 500°C above the melting point of the metal it's made from and spin at up to 20,000 RPM under 10,000 g of centrifugal force. Each blade is grown as a single crystal of nickel superalloy, pulled through a vacuum furnace at 3 mm per minute. A set of blades costs $600,000 and takes 90 weeks to grow. The same metallurgy powers modern jet engines. Only 3 companies on Earth can build one. China spent $42 billion trying to catch up. They bought a Russian fighter engine, took it apart, and copied every part. Their copy ran 30 hours between overhauls versus 400 for the original. Modern Western engines run 4,000. You can reverse engineer the shape of a turbine blade. You cannot reverse engineer 60 years of metallurgy.

The last two weeks in Reform UK's world: ⇒ They fixed a competition for their friends to win. ⇒ Richard Tice was found to have avoided a SHED LOAD of tax. ⇒ Robert Jenrick illegally accepted £37,000 from a US Ponzi scheme. ⇒Farage has failed to declare £5,000,000. This is aside from myriad local election candidates being embroiled in scandals from gay porn, to being previously removed from a Zimbabwean government role over corruption [story tomorrow]. Where are our journalists and their wall-to-wall coverage of these bona fide scandals? PS. I wrote about Harborne chucking £millions at Farage, as far back as 2019, in September of last year. donmcgowan333.substack.com/p/farage-coins…

PETE HEGSETH: “We took out Iran’s nuclear capabilities last year. This war wasn’t started because they were close to getting nuclear weapons, it started because they still had nuclear ambitions.” Hegseth accidentally tells congress that Iran posed no imminent threat to America.

A medieval palace in the English countryside has a small bell mounted by a window, with a rope hanging down to the moat below. Since the 1850s, the resident swans have been pulling the rope to ring the bell when they want to be fed. The tradition began when one of the bishop’s daughters taught it to a single swan in the 1850s, and the swans have been passing it on ever since. The current pair, Grace and Gabriel, are the latest in the line. Each year, after their cygnets hatch, Gabriel walks them up to the bell and teaches them to pull the rope before they leave the moat to start their own lives. The tradition is now 170 years old.

I went a Tesco store last year, and the women behind the tobacco counter were marking those parking in the disability bays on their disability so customers could overhear. I asked to see the manager, and put in a formal complaint about them. theguardian.com/world/2026/apr…

Waves of anger and alarm over ‘punitive’ and ‘discriminatory’ Motability changes disabilitynewsservice.com/waves-of-anger… via @johnpringdns

@cem_uk_ Digital ID is a global establishment aim. See 100 ways to resist here ↓ massnoncompliance.com/resist-guide

Most people see the #NHS as caring. I did too, once. But in 2024, I saw something I can’t unsee. I watched an NHS psychologist harm my autistic daughter. And I watched it be allowed. When I raised concerns, I wasn’t heard. I was silenced. 🧵

Being anti genocide and pro Palestine is not antiemetic. 🤦‍♀️

“I personally think you want to have all your best players on the field" Transport Secretary @Heidi_Labour hints that she would like to see Andy Burnham make a return to frontline politics #Peston

Angela Rayner's allies say Starmer has 'got to go': Friends insist Mandy's friendship with Epstein made Labour look like 'paedo protectors' party' trib.al/tSniAjT

Nigel Farage has specific security issues. But £5 million is a massive amount of money. It doesn’t seem credible to me personal security expenditure can account for this level of donation. Or the failure to register. There are serious questions to answer here.

PMQs You have to question whether she just misled the house - twice - by omission. Firstly her Universal Credit comment - stated 1.5million more claimants under Labour BUT omitted that half of those are transfers from legacy benefits, a process continuing from the Tory Government. Then she stated the welfare bill is more than the tax take - with the obvious inference this is benefit claimants - except of course for the fact that the Tories moved pensions under the umbrella of welfare and £177billion or more than half the total amount is pension spend not 'benefit' spend

Flock Cameras 📷 a major privacy concern

People don't realize this photo is a time machine. The Pillars of Creation are 6,500 light-years away. The light in this image left them when humans were still building the first cities, before writing, before the pyramids, before recorded history. By the time it reached our telescope, civilizations had risen and fallen. You are not seeing the universe. You are seeing the past.

@mglsite @Jvnior Guess they should’ve sunk that ship and shoot any j*w coming in their country to prevent all this Jews are vile parasite that should be dealt with

🚨🇮🇱 IDF soldiers drew numbers on hands of displaced Palestinian women from Jenin. They did this to prevent women from gathering with women of a different number. We are literally witnessing the Holocaust.

@Goof_McGoof @Republicans All they pass is wind.

@Republicans Where you at? Did someone ask you guys to actually pass something?

brb

Counteroffer: Don't come back.