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.

I have a lot of hours into this one and I love it. The cord is very light and doesn’t weigh the iron down, digital is great, nice heavy power box that’s not going to slide around on you, good selection of tips, relatively accurate temperature w/ auto-calibration, holder and brass sponge with flux pad is a nice cherry on top too. You have to add $100 to the price to find its equal.

YIHUA 939D+ Digital Soldering Station, 75W Equivalent with Precision Heat Control (392°F to 896°F) and Built-in Transformer. ESD Safe, Lead Free with °C/°F display (Black) https://a.co/d/dFjveUk

It’s so fluffy! But if you must print unattended*, get you a spaghetti detector cam! Your printer will stop printing within seconds to a couple minutes of something going terribly wrong.

*This still doesn’t make unattended printing safe, just slightly less wasteful.