Janet Jackson had the power to crash laptop computers (2022)

Post by jdiff » Sat, Sep 14, 2024, 12:53 AM UTC

necovek wrote: post #26

jdiff wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a footnote indicated by the superscript 1 in your quote: > ¹ Follow-up 2: Yes, I know that the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse was not the result of resonance, but I felt I had to drop the reference to forestall the “You forgot to mention the Tacoma Narrows Bridge!” comments. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, and damned if you do both, even.

Considering "follow-up" wording, it might have been added later, and might not really be true — but the important thing is that there is a correction now. So it's good a commenter here posted about it, because this might have led to the clarification being put in in the first place.

Post by hunter2_ » Sat, Sep 14, 2024, 1:52 AM UTC

anyfoo wrote: post #17

segasaturn wrote: post #2

This is a fun article but seriously lacking in details... musical frequencies crashing hard drives, including hard drives of laptops within earshot? That's a pretty extraordinary bug so I hoped there would be more elaboration. I also wonder if that patch to block those frequencies is still in effect.

I wouldn't call it a "bug", more "unfortunate physics". Still possible to guard against that, specifically. (There will always be more "unfortunate physics", for example I bet that the hard disk also fails if I smash it against a wall at 100mph, but nobody's going do care designing a consumer HD that stops exhibiting that specific behavior.)

Post by dhosek » Sat, Sep 14, 2024, 2:25 AM UTC

sahmeepee wrote: post #27

jasoneckert wrote: post #10

5400rpm laptop hard drives were notoriously sensitive to external force because of their thin metal construction and low power motor. I remember having a MacBook Pro with a Toshiba 5400rpm hard drive that failed shortly after I rested it on an HVAC unit in our server closet (the HVAC unit happened to be the perfect height off the floor for doing work while standing). Just to be sure that was the cause, I had the driv…

Not hard drive related AFAIK, but I used to work in a media lab with about 30 mac desktops of around the powermac g4 vintage. We noticed that the macs were rebooting unexpectedly when certain people were in the room. After a bit of observation we worked out that the call button on our walkie talkies could trigger a reboot from a couple of feet away, which turned out to be an awesome superpower if you'd had a gobful f…

Post by wodenokoto » Sat, Sep 14, 2024, 4:58 AM UTC

pclmulqdq wrote: post #5

Adam Neely has a good video on this effect, explaining why it is specifically the Janet Jackson song in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y3RGeaxksY

Post by WilTimSon » Sat, Sep 14, 2024, 5:56 AM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #44

ruthmarx wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so someone won't ignore the sign thinking "It'll be fine". If they do whatever happens is on them for assuming that.

Presumably the goal is the avoid broken laptops, not to worry about who it's on.