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Sirhc978 t1_isxtlc0 wrote

There was a Mario 64 speedrun where a bit flip happened and saved the runner a few seconds.

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Hrspwrz t1_it0dija wrote

Is this because of neutrinos randomly exciting an electron or is my memory off

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gopher65 t1_it12ra2 wrote

High energy charged particles, mostly coming from the sun (solar cosmic rays), or very high energy particles, often the striped cores of iron atoms accelerated to within spitting distance of the speed of light, usually by neutron stars, black holes, or supernovae (galactic cosmic rays).

The highest energy GCR recorded thus far carried the same energy as a fast pitched baseball. Except it was an atomic nuclei. Imagine an atom sized baseball smashing into your ram or worse, your motherboard firmware storage. Stuff will break. Sometimes permanently.

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Hrspwrz t1_it12zdx wrote

Makes you wonder about cases like spontaneous combustion 🤔

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gopher65 t1_it26yzc wrote

That's not a mystery. There is plenty of evidence that those people were smoking cigarettes when they died. They got unlucky and their body's fat caught on fire. Body fat fires are quite hot and fierce, but usually burn themselves out without much damage to the surrounding objects.

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LongStrangeTrips t1_it3imfb wrote

How exactly does your body’s fat catch fire from a cigarette, but yet it doesn’t from direct flame? Also, in what situation would your fat be ever exposed to a flame unless you have a gaping, deep wound?

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gopher65 t1_it3xw11 wrote

People fall asleep with a lit cigarette in their mouth. It falls from their mouth, lands in an extremely unlikely way, and burns through an especially vulnerable spot. Human fat is highly flammable, so it lights on fire.

It's not a hypothesis, it's a confirmed thing that has happened. Thankfully everything has to go wrong before it happens, so it's rare.

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