Dirk, should we be scared?

[TFOGGuys]

Do we need to break out the tinfoil hats, and learn to send texts via smoke signals?

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/12/081217-solar-breaches.html

[MetaLord 9]

Well the Mayans said the jig is up in 2012, maybe we're all gonna get cooked, solar wind style.

[DevilsTonic]

I'm bringin the BBQ sauce

[dirkterrell]

Do we need to break out the tinfoil hats, and learn to send texts via smoke signals?


It could get nasty. Power grids can also be affected by solar storms (e.g. the Spring 1989 storm and subsequent blackouts). At one point we were working on a solar weather center in my section here at SwRI but personnel changes led us in other directions. The Universe can be a nasty place at times.

Dirk

[TFOGGuys]

I remember cellphones and pagers not working then....Hmm.... this might not be a bad thing....

[McVaaahhh]

The end is nigh. :lol:

[Devaclis]

There will be a pretty sweet Areola Borealis.

[SaShWhO]

bring it!!!
bring the road warrior days!!:alien:

[DevilsTonic]

There will be a pretty sweet Areola Borealis.it would be cool to see one right before our faces are melted off with million mile an hour solar winds. :)

[rforsythe]

A Cisco support rep actually told us once that the cause for repeated failures in one of our routers was solar flares, since he couldn't come up with any actually useful answers.

[MetaLord 9]

Ralph, why you gotta hate science?

[TFOGGuys]

A Cisco support rep actually told us once that the cause for repeated failures in one of our routers was solar flares, since he couldn't come up with any actually useful answers.

I actually read an article a couple of months back that said the cause of some "soft"(seemingly random) failures in computer systems was caused by charged particles "flipping" transistors in microchips. Supposedly this is 10 times more likely in Denver than at sea level and 40 times more likely in an airplane at 36,000 feet. Apparently, as the circuits get denser, this is more prevalent, so NASA uses 486 based computers on the Shuttle and ISS, because they are more tolerant of the radiation. The "solar flare" explanation MAY still be :bs: though......

[~Barn~]

Clever, dana. :applause:

[Nick_Ninja]

Clever, dana. :applause:

Old material. See what another birthday under the belt does to you? :roll:

[~Barn~]

Old material. <snip...>

Perhaps, but there's really never a bad time for "boob" dust-offs, is there?
:D

[Nick_Ninja]

Perhaps, but there's really never a bad time for "boob" dust-offs, is there?
:D

Not at all ~Barnicle~ :up:

[CYCLE_MONKEY]

I actually read an article a couple of months back that said the cause of some "soft"(seemingly random) failures in computer systems was caused by charged particles "flipping" transistors in microchips. Supposedly this is 10 times more likely in Denver than at sea level and 40 times more likely in an airplane at 36,000 feet. Apparently, as the circuits get denser, this is more prevalent, so NASA uses 486 based computers on the Shuttle and ISS, because they are more tolerant of the radiation. The "solar flare" explanation MAY still be :bs: though......
A complete, grounded, Faraday cage should eliminate that. And, funny as it sounds, a complete, grounded, tinfoil enclosure would work. An F-cage is really simply a grounded, continuous metal shield around electronic equipment. Most cells, from my understanding, have die-cast magnesium cases for this reason. Also, the V1 detectors use mag cases to be undetectible to radar-detector dectectors in areas where they're illegal (some states and Kanada). the cheaper detectors do not. If the cases are plastic, you can have a metallic coating applied on the inside and it will achieve the same thing.

I can see some of the "flipping" occurring, although it might not be as bad as the article claims. We do testing for emissivity (sp?) and susceptability to outside EMI/RFI radiation at work on everything we do. I think, though, if this was really an issue with PC's, the box itself would be an F-cage. In addition, since most PC's are used indoors, if you can't get cell reception (as in our building), then you're IN an additional F-cage.

[rforsythe]

Yeah I've heard of it happening and know it's worse in airplanes (though being inside a large metal tube does help), but this case was complete and utter bullshit. It wasn't Denver (I think CA somewhere), and one switch out of dozens keeps breaking? Riiiiight. They swapped the hardware and all was good.

[asp_125]

There will be a pretty sweet Areola Borealis.

:eyebrows: Northern bewbs? :boobies: Sweet! :pointlaugh: (I think you meant aurora borealis .. or did you?)

[Snowman]

The worst possible out come would be the loss of satellite communications and the power grid.

The fragile state of the power grid would make it more likely that this kind of thing could blackout large parts of this country, Canada and Mexico. The worst case would mean blowing transformers, which would take months to replace.

As for satellite, remember how bad it was last time when we lost the use of pagers. Since then we have become much more dependant on them for everything from GPS units in your car to cell phone traffic.

I don’t see road warrior and I do see us getting blown back to the 60’s.

[Devaclis]

:eyebrows: Northern bewbs? :boobies: Sweet! :pointlaugh: (I think you meant aurora borealis .. or did you?)

I know what I meant :)

[TFOGGuys]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_error

[rforsythe]

As for satellite, remember how bad it was last time when we lost the use of pagers. Since then we have become much more dependant on them for everything from GPS units in your car to cell phone traffic.

Yeah but that incident was not related to solar flares FWIW. I was an engineer for a paging company when that went down, we had fun that day. Got to go 4-wheel up several mountains and visit a bunch of urban sites re-aiming the receive dishes, after the sat (SBS-4 I think?) lost nav control and committed seppuku. Our company, along with many others, installed redundant sat feeds after that happened. One of our guys even invented some cool little switches that we could toggle remotely to flip our entire transmitter network to a new satellite. Best phone call we got during that was some frustrated lady wondering why I (being the engineer) wasn't "on my way up there" to fix the satellite. The CS rep responded with something about my space suit being broken. Classic.

[TFOGGuys]

http://laughterhouse.org/content/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/areola_borealis.jpg

[Nick_Ninja]

SWEET!!


http://laughterhouse.org/content/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/areola_borealis.jpg

[64BonnieLass]

:shocked: Yea, I would faint. :lol:


http://laughterhouse.org/content/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/areola_borealis.jpg

[InlineSIX24]

Well the Mayans said the jig is up in 2012, maybe we're all gonna get cooked, solar wind style.

http://www.disastercountdown.com/event/mayan/

If they are right I am totally calling in sick to work that day.

[CYCLE_MONKEY]

The worst possible out come would be the loss of satellite communications and the power grid.

The fragile state of the power grid would make it more likely that this kind of thing could blackout large parts of this country, Canada and Mexico. The worst case would mean blowing transformers, which would take months to replace.

As for satellite, remember how bad it was last time when we lost the use of pagers. Since then we have become much more dependant on them for everything from GPS units in your car to cell phone traffic.

I don’t see road warrior and I do see us getting blown back to the 60’s.
Well, I don't really see the power grid being too affected. What's usually more affected are more low-power, more sensitive small PCB components, not big power transformers. HOWEVER, the transmission lines themsselves are antennas due to their length and shape, the frequencies they're susceptable to being a function of the length/diameter/shape of the lines themselves. This then will feed the EMI/RFI energy into the substations etc.

Planes are relatively shielded, but the windows in the plane break the integrity of the F-cage. It's better than NO F-cage at all, but if it's not continuous, it's not a real affective F-cage.