qichael t1_jcigsz4 wrote on March 17, 2023 at 1:37 AM

Reply to Open-source tool from MIT’s Senseable City Lab lets people check air quality, cheaply. by chrisdh79

i would actually rather they be working on an AI model that starts a nuclear conflict

qichael t1_iszfdit wrote on October 19, 2022 at 8:35 PM

Reply to comment by jonathanrdt in The Earth is subjected to a hail of subatomic particles from the Sun and beyond our solar system which could be the cause of glitches that afflict our phones and computers. And the risk is growing as microchip technology shrinks. by Sariel007

that's true, it totally could have been software. however, researchers spent hours combing through the source code of the voting machines and didn't find anything that could be a possible cause for a bit flip at position 13.

either all of them were wrong, or it was a single event upset, and the most probable cause for a single event upset is, you guessed it, a cosmic ray bit flip.

so no, odds are not far greater.

qichael t1_isy2r93 wrote on October 19, 2022 at 3:22 PM

Reply to comment by xariant in The Earth is subjected to a hail of subatomic particles from the Sun and beyond our solar system which could be the cause of glitches that afflict our phones and computers. And the risk is growing as microchip technology shrinks. by Sariel007

a bit flip due to cosmic subatomic particles changing the outcome of an election has actually happened before (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voting_in_Belgium, Reported Problems section)

not all computers (or voting machines, even) use ECC RAM because it is expensive, so this phenomenon is still something we have to account for.