41–50 of 128 posts
Janet Jackson had the power to crash laptop computers (2022) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41534483 - Sept 2024 (79 comments)
Janet Jackson had the power to crash laptop computers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32483211 - Aug 2022 (12 comments)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The platters used to be coated with iron oxide as the magnetic coating. Modern ones use more exotic materials.
Yes but that was like 40 years ago. I think by now the phraseology should reflect reality after about forty years.
> certain models Why the weasel words? Does Raymond Chen not know which models? Or is it actually apocryphal.
He genuinely might not know. I worked on a similar incident when our video encoder caused about 30% of a pretty mainstream mobile handset to hard lock when recieving a stream, requiring the battery to be removed to reboot the device. Neither us nor the OEM ever figured out why. They suspected that it was a weird combination of different bin combinations from different parts, but ultimately we had to change the method…
https://everything2.com/title/7+hertz+-+the+resonant+frequen... Example (for both functions): /* Emits a 7-Hz tone for 10 seconds. True story: 7 Hz is the resonant frequency of a chicken's skull cavity. This was determined empirically in Australia, where a new factory generating 7-Hz tones was located too close to a chicken ranch: When the factory started up, all the chickens died. Your PC may not be able to emit a 7…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
HDDs also lose magnetic charge over time, about 1% per year. So you need to periodically spin up and rewrite the data every few years. CD drives however, can store data indefinitely without needing refreshing.
Having had drives which sat for many years and spun right back up without corruption makes me think 1% is too generous maybe 0.05% per year at most
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The platters used to be coated with iron oxide as the magnetic coating. Modern ones use more exotic materials.
Yes but that was like 40 years ago. I think by now the phraseology should reflect reality after about forty years.
For resonance the external driving force must match the resonance frequency of the system, but wind is rarely/never purely sinusoidal.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
HDDs also lose magnetic charge over time, about 1% per year. So you need to periodically spin up and rewrite the data every few years. CD drives however, can store data indefinitely without needing refreshing.
Having had drives which sat for many years and spun right back up without corruption makes me think 1% is too generous maybe 0.05% per year at most
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The platters used to be coated with iron oxide as the magnetic coating. Modern ones use more exotic materials.
Yes but that was like 40 years ago. I think by now the phraseology should reflect reality after about forty years.
You mean “vocabulary”, “terminology”, possibly “nomenclature”.
Another reason to step away from spinning rust. Thank dog for SSDs
Technically, that magnetic spinning HDD can work even after decades if maintained safely (no dust, no extreme heat) and without stress, even if it is not switched on for years. In fact, if a magnetic HDD crashes, you may still recover some or all of the data by doing something hardcore, such as letting it sit for some hours in the freezer of your refrigerator, or immersing it in a bowl of rice overnight. However, SSD…
The experiment Tom's is reporting on found twelve instances of data corruption on a low-end drive that had been subjected to over two thousand full drive writes, four times its rated write endurance, then left on a shelf for two years. This is a demonstration of a bottom of the barrel SSD wildly exceeding expectations.
It's really important in conversations like this to accurately convey not just the existence of the failure mode, but also the realistic chances of running into this problem, and the extent of the problem when it does manifest. If a deliberate torture test can only produce a few kilobytes of data corruption after twice the duration and four times the abuse the drive is supposed to be able to handle, this problem should be described as extremely minor.