Also, the author of that paper wasn't aware that Google had a stint around that time buying up DRAM chips that had failed manufacturer's QA and sticking them on

Also, the author of that paper wasn't aware that Google had a stint around that time buying up DRAM chips that had failed manufacturer's QA and sticking them on DIMMs themselves, trying to clock them slow and use ECC to get cheaper, mostly working memory. It was a poor choice and Google stopped the process AFAIK.