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One In Eight Chance of a Financially Catastrophic Solar Storm By 2020
An anonymous reader writes "A privately employed solar scientist named Pete Riley estimates there's a 12 percent chance of a massive solar storm comparable to the Carrington Event in 1859 which resulted in breathtaking aurorae across the United States and other temperate regions of the globe. The electromagnetic surge from the 1859 event caused failures of telegraph systems across Europe and North America. A similar storm today could knock out power grids, GPS and communication satellites, data centers, transportation systems, and building and plumbing infrastructures and wreak $1 trillion or more of economic damage in the first year alone, according to a 2008 report from the National Academy of Sciences."
Make multiple backups of everything you care about, using a mix of different media types. Store your backups in geographically diverse locations, in hardened containers, preferably some of them subterranean. Of course, you're already doing that anyhow, right? Past that, your PC becomes significantly less useful if major communication grids are down/damaged, at least if you like the Internet.
Write failed: Broken pipe
Yes.
Turn it off when you're not using it and disconnect it from power and communications (eg disconnect the power cord and network cable). Since if something Bad Happened, it's likely going to come in through the AC or in through the DSL/Cable/Sat modem - same as any other power surge.
In these storms, what happens is that long lines (data and power transmission) resonate more or less with the "fun" and so you get powerful AC currents induced into them. The smaller wires in your peripherals and inside the computer are too small (so they resonate too high frequency) and so shouldn't be directly vulnerable. It's those large AC voltages coming in from those long lines that release the magic smoke.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
IIRC there actually is a psychological, medically acknowledged, syndrome that has to do
with giving up on prosperous concepts/enterprises. In layman's terms it describes optimism
in a more elaborate language, though it also describes gambler's addiction at some point.
Can't remember where I have read about it though..
It could have been the 150 year old book "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" which basically cited the many self-induced economic bubbles/busts up to that point in history, and has been a blueprint for every one of them since. What's interesting is how every time the pattern repeats we swear that a) we didn't "really" see it coming with enough foresight to stop it and that b) we are sure as hell never going to let it happen again. Those two complete fallacies are the cornerstone of our tragic existence.