An Mozilla engineer has shared survey data and calculations suggesting that up to 15% of Firefox crashes are due to a bit flip. These bit flips can be caused by electrical issues, thermal effects, manufacturing defects, aging, crosstalk, or even ionizing cosmic rays. Mozilla received nearly half a million auto-submitted crash reports last week and determined that around 15% of crashes were due to bit flips, with half of those caused by genuine hardware issues. The engineer notes that the memory test used only checks up to 1 GiB of memory for 3 seconds, so the actual number could be higher. Every device with memory is susceptible to bit flips, not just PCs.
Analysis of 15 years of Fermi LAT data reveals a statistically significant halo-like excess in gamma rays around 20 GeV, potentially originating from dark matter annihilation. The study examines systematic uncertainties and explores implications for WIMP parameters.
