63 ms·
Biggest solar flare since 2017 erupts from sun and Earth is in the firing line
- herpderperator 2y agoI hope you have ECC memory! :-)
- vardump 2y agoH've never hAd any issues wiphout ECC.
- lemme_tell_ya 2y agoThat you know about... ;-)
- tzs 2y agoFor a couple years I had a process running on a PC without ECC that simply filled a large buffer with a bit pattern that was 50% ones and 50% zeros, and then periodically scanned the buffer for changes. It never found a changed bit. I used a 2008 Mac Pro at work and a 2009 Mac Pro at home for several years. They had ECC memory. I would periodically check the RAM status and I never saw anything that said an error had been corrected. For that test with the big buffer I don't remember how big a buffer I used, but I remember my calculations based on the error rate data I could find said that with the size buffer I was using I should have seen a few errors per year. But I think all the error rate data I found was from servers with a lot of RAM and located in data centers. I wonder if that environment is more prone to RAM errors than the environment of the typical home computer?
- shiroiushi 2y agoMemory sizes are constantly growing, as semiconductor feature sizes continue to shrink. It stands to reason that random energetic photons (gamma rays, etc.) have a higher chance of flipping a bit on modern memory than on stuff from 15 years ago.
- adrian_b 2y agoA buffer is much too small to catch any errors, unless you dedicate more than half of your installed memory to it. Typical memory rates for a computer with only 8 to 32 GB of DRAM might be of at most a few errors per year when new. For some aged memory modules, after several years of use, the error rate can increase a lot and it can become noticeable. For myself this has been the main benefit of ECC, the ability to detect early the memory modules that must be replaced to avoid data corruption. Besides the errors from cosmic radiation, which depend mainly on the altitude of the location, there are also errors caused by electrical noise from the environment. The latter may be more frequent in data centers and in industrial computers.
- tzs 2y agoI found my code, and it looks like I was using 128 MB. This was around 2005. A study done [1] at Google based on 2.5 years of observations of their servers, first published in 2009, found error rates from 25000-70000 errors per billion device hours per Mb. That would put the time Google was doing the study in the right era for when I did my test. Based on that I would expect to see about 1 error per 40 hours in a 128 MB buffer if the buffer was on a Google server. I suppose that supports the theory that the data center environment is a lot more error prone than my home environment was. [1] https://cacm.acm.org/research/dram-errors-in-the-wild/ https://cacm.acm.org/research/dram-errors-in-the-wild/
- djbusby 2y agoRecent/relevant XKCD about these kinds of things https://xkcd.com/2979/ https://xkcd.com/2979/
- chuckledog 2y ago[flagged]
- pfdietz 2y agoTrack the impacts on https://www.spaceweather.com/ https://www.spaceweather.com/
- dylan604 2y agoHoly cow that's an insane website design. So, where exactly do I see the tracking? Is it below the grift of a 3D printed moon? Is it near the ads for casinos. Or maybe the mood rings? This isn't a bitch about ads. It's I honestly cannot easily find the actual information the site is supposedly hosting.
- mystified5016 2y agoWoah, they must be doing something weird to get past ad blockers. This is an outrageous monstrosity of a website
- dylan604 2y agoWeird as in self-hosting? This is what ads should be like instead of 3rd party auction data harvesting non-sense. It's just some people have no concept of couth, or less is more, or self control. There's no stopping bad taste.
- damiankennedy 2y agoThey're not using an automated ad service of any kind they have manually put these ads in the source code of their web page. We all see the same ads. I prefer it, these ads mean something to the people that run the site, they put some effort into putting them there and presumably purchasing the products benefits the organisation in some way. They also have a no AI disclaimer at the top.
- dylan604 2y ago> these ads mean something to the people that run the site I wouldn't go that far. They mean something as in somebody was willing to spend money, so this is what they get in return. Just look at the randomness of the types of ads. I doubt there was any "qualifying" of the ads other than did the check clear.
- Animats 2y agoNo warnings at NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center.[1] No warnings on PJM grid dashboard. Probably not going to be a problem. [1] https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/
- cryptoegorophy 2y agoAny new auroras?
- dgacmu 2y agoPerhaps you checked a few minutes too soon? > SWPC Forecasters have issued G3 (Strong) Geomagnetic Storm Watches for 04-06 October due to a pair of coronal mass ejections that are anticipated to arrive over the course of the next three UTC days. Stay tuned for updates as we monitor this activity!
- chgs 2y agoIs a UTC day a different length to a common solar day? At this level of pre soon leap seconds and even sidereal day difference makes no difference
- bamboozled 2y agoPrediction: Absolutely nothing significant will happen here.
- hn72774 2y agoThe aurora forecast is looking good https://www.gi.alaska.edu/monitors/aurora-forecast https://www.gi.alaska.edu/monitors/aurora-forecast
- grugagag 2y agoDoes this have any effect on the human body? Is this exposure measurably damaging for people?
- Jtsummers 2y agoAs long as you're not in space you should be fine. If you are on the ISS, then you have some other experts you can consult, us randos on HN won't be able to help you much.
- prox 2y agoI would not be surprised if some space folk frequent this site.
- JackMorgan 2y agoI work on space weather stuff... but only on it's impact to satellite orbits, not impact to humans, sorry!
- beepboopboop 2y agoThis guy edge-cases
- elashri 2y agoYes but you have to be an astronout in the outer space without enough added protection for the increase of radiation. Or maybe some increased exposure for high altitude flights near the poles. Other than that earth's atmosphere would make it that not enough exposure will reach the surface of the earth. Well things would be different for indirect harm because of satellite and signal failures. They could even cause disruption for power grid. But I think most of the protection for these systems in place take solar flares into account. So probably the effects will be minimal.
- hattmall 2y agoIt's my understanding that a Carrington event would destroy the bulk of the electrical grid on the side of earth facing the sun at the time. But would be pleased to hear how I'm wrong!
- elihu 2y ago> The solar flare emanated from the sunspot group AR3842, which has made headlines before. On Oct. 1, the same sunspot region fired off a powerful X7.1 solar flare and unleashed a coronal mass ejection (CME) — a plume of plasma and magnetic field — which is currently barreling toward Earth. That incoming CME is expected to hit Earth between Oct. 3 and Oct. 5, possibly triggering widespread auroras. I actually just saw an aurora for the first time in my life a few months ago in Oregon, where they're hardly ever visible. It was quite a sight. Maybe I'll get to see them again.