So basically, we have low level neutron radiation coming at us at all times from space. Mostly from our own sun, some other external sources too. It takes a whole lot of concrete or lead or water to stop that completely, so anything that makes it through our atmosphere is harmlessly passing through all of us.

But since things like computer RAM and other electronic storage have gotten so much smaller, this radiation is now capable of energizing or discharging individual bits — 1s or 0s — in that storage. Imagine you’re in the hospital for a back operation and the robot arm is approaching a 1 bit that tells it to stop… but that 1 flips to a 0 because the sun sneezed and now your spine is in two fun-sized pieces.

This is all mostly moot today, though. ECC-enabled RAM (memory with protections against bit flips) is the norm and this is a pretty well-understood problem.

RetroArch is super popular and available across many systems, with a bunch of open source frontends for it. I have it on a Raspberry Pi, a Mac, an OG Oculus Quest, playing everything from MAME to PSX.

A handful of years back, JC Penney made a huge deal about stopping this practice in their stores, where everything is on “sale” all the time. Sales plummeted even though the actual product prices stayed the same. They immediately reversed course.

Hard to blame them. Human brains are weird.

I jumped Fark for Slashdot :(