Lead Dome
Computer Manufacturers do not want you to know that their cheap plastic cases do not protect the delicate electronics inside against cosmic ray bit flips (CRBF's), EMP or Solar Flares. CRBF's are to blame for documented instances of system instability, frozen systems, data loss, wildly wrong computing results, frequent need for rebooting and much worse.
Cosmic rays are constantly bombarding the earth. Generally, they go right through us and our electronics, harmlessly. You can even see them with your own eyes under certain conditions: (See Cosmic Ray Cloud Chamber on YouTube). However, they frequently hit our ever more susceptible (due to miniaturization) Random Access Memory (RAM) and flip a bit from 0 to 1 or vice-versa. This is enough to cause all of the issues above. IBM has done extensive research on this phenomenon (Ziegler and Lanford, 1979). NPR has published in depth reporting on the matter available here: https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/bit-flip
See also:
- Ziegler, J.F. (Jan 1996). "Terrestrial cosmic rays" (PDF). IBM Journal of Research and Development.
- Cosmic Ray Showers Crash Supercomputers. Wired.com
- Yoongu Kim; Ross Daly; Jeremie Kim; Chris Fallin; Ji Hye Lee; Donghyuk Lee; Chris Wilkerson; Konrad Lai; Onur Mutlu (2014-06-24). "Flipping Bits in Memory Without Accessing Them: An Experimental Study of DRAM Disturbance Errors" (PDF). ece.cmu.edu. IEEE. Retrieved 2015-03-10.
SSLI has created a line of sealed heavy metal pads that absorb cosmic rays and protect your electronics. Soon to be available on Amazon. These pads are covered in velvet, shock absorbent, and can be deployed atop any laptop (with external keyboard or touch-screen) or desktop computer, thus protecting your RAM from CRBF's. Prototype pictures below.
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