Most Powerful Geomagnetic Storm of Solar Cycle 24 Is Happening 86
astroengine writes: The most powerful solar storm of the current solar cycle is currently reverberating around the globe. Initially triggered by the impact of a coronal mass ejection (CME) hitting our planet's magnetosphere, a relatively mild geomagnetic storm erupted at around 04:30 UT (12:30 a.m. EDT), but it has since ramped-up to an impressive G4-class geomagnetic storm, priming high latitudes for some bright auroral displays.
Re:Solar flares? (Score:5, Funny)
It's time to shield your RAM or hope you got EEC.
Nah, nothing bad will ha(%^%^$##*
Re:Solar flares? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, memory effects generally come from proton radiation storms, not geomagnetic storms.
Radiation storms are usually associated with large flares. There need not be an Earth-directed CME, but it does help if a recent event created a stronger magnetic path to Earth. If that was a stream, by the time it gets towards Earth, the end that it's originating from on the sun is near or even beyond the western (rotating away) edge. So most events that cause radiation storms are "near the western limb". (see Parker Spiral)
Most of the time the atmosphere stops any particles, but when the energy is high there can be secondary collisions. An event much more rare, but usually associated with a radiation storm, is a GLE (ground level enhancement). A spike in high energy radiation level can do strange things. Creating an invisible trail, if a particle goes in the right spot, it can cause some smoke detectors to chirp out of the blue. (Usually just once, less often a few times, not at the lower volume or regular interval of a low-battery warning). Since the radiation bursts are seldom and brief, they don't add up to much exposure on Earth.
Those with counters may see a slight increase in background on the leading edge CME and fast solar wind. And since fast events clear away some slower but heavier particles that would collide with the atmosphere, there's often a drop to below normal background after an event passes. When CMEs are more frequent, like this last week, an earlier CME sweeping away some solar wind particles leaves a path when a subsequent fast CME won't get slowed down as much as usual. And if there is a fast stream from a coronal hole nearby, we we also have now), it may be sped up and spread out less. There was also a filament eruption. Those usually spread less than flare CMEs, and tend to be denser. I'm not sure what happened with the filament eruption on the 11th. I think it went west-north-west.
For many people, radon from soil and well water is far more likely to be of concern. Avoid taking long showers during a drought. More ground water is used during droughts, and that's what usually has the most radon.
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It's time to shield your RAM or hope you got EEC.
It's ECC ( Error Correcting Code ) not EEC.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECC_memory
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obviously he wasn't using ECC and the flare had corrupted 2 bits.
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obviously he wasn't using ECC and the flare had corrupted 2 bits.
Or maybe he *was* using ECC. ECC can only correct 1 bit.
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wrong. a simple parity check can only correct one bit, most ECC memory is quite capable of multi bit flip correction through interleaving especially with neighbouring bits.
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wrong. a simple parity check can only correct one bit, most ECC memory is quite capable of multi bit flip correction through interleaving especially with neighbouring bits.
Parity can not correct any bits. It only detects single bit errors. While many ECC codes exist, the Hamming code overwhelmingly used in computer memories can correct one bit in a 64-bit word and detect two bit errors.
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It's time to shield your RAM or hope you got EEC.
Us Europeans have had EEC for ages. Typical American, thinking we're some banana state or something.
Is it something we said? (Score:3)
Although to be fair, I stand in awe of the fact that the earth herself hadn't done more to cull the human population explosion.
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cull the human population explosion.
Meh, it's already starting to level off. As it turns out, raising and educating kids in a non-agrarian society is really expensive. Plus, when women have career options, most choose not to become baby factories.
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women's rights and birth control
give women empowerment over their own bodies and the choice of when to have a child or not, and you get less hungry mouths to feed
less hungry mouths to feed and you think more about taking care of the precious few mouths you have, rather than killing all of the destructive uneducated hungry mouths ruining your society
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As it turns out, raising and educating kids in a non-agrarian society is really expensive.
Let me know when you find one.
The fact that the majority of people live in cities doesn't make them "not agrarian". Our entire population is dependent on the greatest, most productive agriculture in the history of the world.
Re:Is it something we said? (Score:4, Informative)
An "agrarian society" generally means at least half the population is engaged in agriculture [wikipedia.org]. By that definition, all first-world nations are most assuredly "technological" or "industrial" as opposed to "agrarian", and have been for quite some time. That's not discounting the importance of agriculture... it's just an acknowledgement of how mechanization and agricultural science allows farmers to be hundreds of times as productive as they used to be.
Sheesh, this is veering way off-topic.
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Sheesh, this is veering way off-topic.
Since when are /. discussions on topic?
So... systemd or stupid apple fan boys?
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I'll take "stupid apple fanboys" for 5 points.
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An "agrarian society" generally means at least half the population is engaged in agriculture. By that definition, all first-world nations are most assuredly "technological" or "industrial" as opposed to "agrarian", and have been for quite some time.
Okay, but that contradicts their initial definition, at the top of the page:
An agrarian society (or agricultural society) is any society whose economy is based on producing and maintaining crops and farmland.
For many decades, we were the #1 food producing country in the world. I don't know if that's still true, but I believe it is.
In any case, if you go by that definition further down the page, I agree that the U.S. would not be considered agrarian.
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An agrarian society is not one whose agriculture is really productive, but one where agriculture is the most important thing in the economy. The US has been an industrial powerhouse for a long time (and continues to be one), and hasn't been agrarian since industry became the most important thing in the economy, which would be late 19th Century or early 20th.
Yellow Alert (Score:5, Funny)
Shields up, take warp drive offline, give maneuvering thrusters and brace for impact!
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Now I call _THIS_ a colossal negative space wedgie!
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I think we should go straight to brown - and don't say I didn't alert you!
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+1 funny Red Dwarf, at first glance I thought it was a reference to "Closet cases of the nerd kind", but that's really obscure!
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I think if we simply reverse the polarity of the neutrons, all will be well.
Otherwise, just call Voyager Ex-Borg 36 of D up on the bridge, and at least we will enjoy our demise with a bit of amusement . . .
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I believe they make a special cream ... (Score:1)
... for coronal mass ejection. Clears it right up.
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Well, you don't necessarily need to use something to contain the ejection if you're using coronacidal cream properly, but the cream doesn't protect you from coronally-transmitted diseases.
There goes Cisco routers! (Score:2)
Better prepare for Cisco routers crashes (and everything else using non shielded, non ECC RAM)
Awesome site... (Score:2)
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"Space Yeast" ... I wonder if the loaf of bread made from it will be stretchy, invisible, turn into rock, or catch on fire?
Sentient.
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But for some reason, all it thought was, "not again" before falling to its doom.....
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How to know if there's a chance of an aurora? (Score:1)
I've seen any number of websites that purport to let you know if there's going to be an aurora sighting, but where I live they're rare enough that I don't see the point of signing up for a notification that I'm not sure will ever come but will assuredly get me lots of spam. At the same time I'm definitely not in the habit of just going out and looking because that's so rare it's like winning the lottery (maybe once in every 2000 nights?)
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Try here: Softserve News [softservenews.com]
By the way, this storm is already almost over. It's real peak was early Tuesday morning when the Bz hit 8.33. I snapped almost 500 pics during the early morning hours.
Here's the album [flickr.com] for anyone who's interested.
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I snapped almost 500 pics during the early morning hours.
And ruined every single one with a watermark which doesn't even look good, well done.
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And if someone wants a print or to use one for other purposes, a simple message will get rid of it. The ones on flickr aren't full res either.
I live in Seattle (Score:4, Funny)
You insensitive clod!
Seriously, the clouds have moved in right on cue...
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And that cue is....
Someone in seattle sneezed?
Aurora Saurus (Score:5, Informative)
Reporting auraras from the ground up, contribute http://aurorasaurus.org/ [aurorasaurus.org]
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http://www.kaleva.fi/uutiset/g... [kaleva.fi]
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Funny how discovery.com didn't accept my comment with the aurorasaurus link. Oh well, thank you /. :-)
I, for one (Score:2)
/ may the non-Chinese sourced electrolytic caps capture your glory
Hehehehehe... (Score:2)
Brilliant display tonight (Score:3)
Webcam links? (Score:1)
Anyone care to share links to live webcams showing the aurora? Its too cloudy here to get a firsthand view :(
The Power Grid Yawns (Score:5, Interesting)
Once again the power grid shrugs off this magnetic storm with a yawn.
But as soon as this storm has passed, a fresh set of scare stories will begin.
"The Power Grid Will Melt When the Next Magnetic Storm Hits."
We are not worried here... (Score:2)
aurora observed at 48.000N (Score:2)