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Biggest solar flare since 2017 erupts from sun and Earth is in the firing line

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Re: Biggest solar flare since 2017 erupts from sun and Earth is in the firing line

#41

Post by shiroiushi »

tzs wrote: post #36
lemme_tell_ya wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That you know about... ;-)

For 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…

Memory 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.

Re: Biggest solar flare since 2017 erupts from sun and Earth is in the firing line

#42

Post by Jtsummers »

grugagag wrote: post #25

Does this have any effect on the human body? Is this exposure measurably damaging for people?

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/noaa-scales-explanation

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/

More serious answer: No risk for people, not even astronauts based on the current projections for the associated solar radiation storm (beyond the normal increased exposure they get up there). We'll almost certainly all have some trouble with GPS this weekend, and the folks maintaining satellites will have their hands full. Other RF systems will be disrupted at times this weekend.

Re: Biggest solar flare since 2017 erupts from sun and Earth is in the firing line

#43

Post by JackMorgan »

prox wrote: post #33
Jtsummers wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As 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.

I would not be surprised if some space folk frequent this site.

I work on space weather stuff... but only on it's impact to satellite orbits, not impact to humans, sorry!

Re: Biggest solar flare since 2017 erupts from sun and Earth is in the firing line

#44

Post by partomniscient »

dylan604 wrote: post #6
pfdietz wrote: post #3

Track the impacts on https://www.spaceweather.com/

Holy 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.

My 'local' page is [1] which is fairly simple but likely has only the information you're interested in, nothing else and none of that side-scrolling bullshit you need to do to see the forecasts on the https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ page.

[1] https://www.sws.bom.gov.au/

Re: Biggest solar flare since 2017 erupts from sun and Earth is in the firing line

#45

Post by ithkuil »

dylan604 wrote: post #17
drmpeg wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks good to me even on Netscape 4.7. https://www.w6rz.net/netscape.png

Best viewed at 640x480. That way, there's no extra space to place those ads

Any constraint is a driving force for art. I'd love to see creative pixel-art ads.

How do we call the equivalent of steam-pubk aesthetics but where tech has stopped on pixel art instead of steam?

Re: Biggest solar flare since 2017 erupts from sun and Earth is in the firing line

#46

Post by taskforcegemini »

Jtsummers wrote: post #42
grugagag wrote: post #25

Does this have any effect on the human body? Is this exposure measurably damaging for people?

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/noaa-scales-explanation https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ More serious answer: No risk for people, not even astronauts based on the current projections for the associated solar radiation storm (beyond the normal increased exposure they get up there). We'll almost certainly all have some trouble with GPS this weekend, and the folks maintaining satellites will have their hands full. Other RF systems…

> us randos on HN won't be able to help you much.

and then he did it anyway

Re: Biggest solar flare since 2017 erupts from sun and Earth is in the firing line

#47

Post by arrowsmith »

elashri wrote: post #27
grugagag wrote: post #25

Does this have any effect on the human body? Is this exposure measurably damaging for people?

Yes 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 dis…

If we ever colonise Mars, will the colonies be more or less vulnerable to solar flares than Earth? Not that I know anything this subject, but my understanding is that Mars has a much thinner atmosphere than Earth, and no magnetosphere. Would that make solar flares more dangerous? Or would the colonists be protected by whatever habitat is protecting them from everything else on Mars?

What about electronic equipment that sits outside the human-habitable zones? Could it be fried by a solar flare that would be relatively harmless on Earth?

Re: Biggest solar flare since 2017 erupts from sun and Earth is in the firing line

#48

Post by adrian_b »

tzs wrote: post #36
lemme_tell_ya wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That you know about... ;-)

For 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…

A 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.

Re: Biggest solar flare since 2017 erupts from sun and Earth is in the firing line

#49

Post by pfdietz »

hattmall wrote: post #38
dylan604 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy 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.

That site design is awesome. That level of information density is exactly what makes a good site. The information is right in the front, ads are off to the side. It's basically like a newspaper. Which is great for information.

And it loads really fast. Slow-ass loading (and things jumping around as the ads load) are what really drives me to ad blockers.

Re: Biggest solar flare since 2017 erupts from sun and Earth is in the firing line

#50

Post by sevensor »

Gare wrote: post #34
buescher wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but they probably mean "the next 72 hours from right now given in UTC".

Or maybe they mean "day" as starting from UTC midnight.

Maybe they’re contrasting with sidereal days?
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