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Comment by Kye | Hacker News Reader

Computers always do exactly as they're told. Unfortunately, there are so many people telling them to do so many things at so many layers of abstraction that the operator can't be sure of anything anymore.

edit: The thing is, had I prefaced it with "ASSUMING A PROPERLY FUNCTIONING COMPUTER," someone would still roll in to pick it apart. You can't please pedants and make a worthwhile point at the same time.

Do circuits get weird? Can a stray cosmic ray flip a bit even in a system with ECC RAM?

Sure.

Does this meaningfully affect a bit about the hazards of abstractions on top of abstractions?

No.

The point is that abstractions amplify computer problems whether they're human error or ghosts in the machine.

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They don't - random bit flips are expected over time. ECC memory is a thing because of this, but cosmic rays can strike the processors too.

I know

I was doing a bit

I don't think jokes make sense when they are just entirely wrong though. Instead it just comes across as you being ignorant or perpetuating misinformation, rather than a joke

So far only two of about ten people took it in an overly literal way rather than understanding and going with the core of it so I think I'll keep aligning my bits toward them. Have a nice day.

You’ll align your bits towards falsity and ineptitude?

It is a big deal that computers don’t always do what they’re told in this case. STOP perpetuating lies

There are, broadly speaking, three genres of Misinformed About Computers:

The deeply interested, but informed by charlatans. I cannot affect their beliefs.

The immune to information.

The person who believes computers are scary, arcane objects. I cannot misinform them more than they already are.

Meanwhile, everyone else understood the point is that abstractions amplify computer problems whether they're human error or ghosts in the machine. Your model of misinformation spread needs work.

To the people trying to be pedantic: Yes, computers really always do what they are told. The only complication is that sometimes they are told what to do by a cosmic ray.

They don’t, computers generate faulty results once in a while, even perfectly functioning computers. And on top of that hardware may degrade generating more errors.

Okay

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