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

devblogs.microsoft.com

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

#51

Post by bryanrasmussen »

teiferer wrote: post #29

I'd love to know whether that story is actually true. Some dude hears somebody tell a story about sth 20 years ago, puts it in a blog, and here we are on HN, nobody questioning whether it's actually accurate. Of course Raymond Chen isn't just any random person, but the more important it would be to actually check? I mean, who hasn't heard people tell stories from decades ago, including colleagues reminiscing about th…

It's like Mark Twain and the rules for reselling a slave in Missouri https://medium.com/p/fe48ea07ad20 "the free black man in Missouri could only remain in the state for 6 months before being taken and put on auction as a slave." only it turned out to be false, and evidently made up by Twain for reasons of fiction.

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

#52

Post by echelon »

elteto wrote: post #47

Just a small nitpick: the Tacoma Narrows bridge didn’t collapse because of resonance but because of flutter. It’s a common misconception. For resonance the external driving force must match the resonance frequency of the system, but wind is rarely/never purely sinusoidal.

Is flutter a derivative like jerk?

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

#55

Post by arcanemachiner »

mc32 wrote: post #24
onraglanroad wrote: post #15

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.

Ironically, I only started hearing the term being used in the past decade, as a colloquial alternative to solid-state storage.

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

#56

Post by wtallis »

brk wrote: post #54

Weird. Digital recording and mastering was definitely a thing at that time. You’d think they would have been crashing the HDDs of PCs in the recording studios.

Not weird at all. This problem manifested only with some model of 5400RPM laptop hard drive (2.5"), but a recording studio would likely have been using 7200RPM 3.5" desktop drives. Different resonant frequencies, more sturdy mounting, more distance between the speakers and the hard drives.

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

#57

Post by shkkmo »

echelon wrote: post #52
elteto wrote: post #47

Just a small nitpick: the Tacoma Narrows bridge didn’t collapse because of resonance but because of flutter. It’s a common misconception. For resonance the external driving force must match the resonance frequency of the system, but wind is rarely/never purely sinusoidal.

Is flutter a derivative like jerk?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroelasticity#Flutter

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

#58

Post by bjackman »

I've had a similar case before but for a much more boring reason: a certain YouTube video somehow triggered a spike in power draw and caused my Google Pixel to reset.

Google's response after looking at the crash dumps: "WAI, your battery is degraded" (IIRC my phone was less than 3 years old).

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

#59

Post by wtallis »

Ysx wrote: post #20
ninalanyon wrote: post #6

> certain models Why the weasel words? Does Raymond Chen not know which models? Or is it actually apocryphal.

> Yes, I know which “major computer manufacturer” it is, and no, I’m not telling. This is consistent with longstanding blog policy that companies are not identified in stories, because the point of the story to teach something, not to call out companies for derision. From the follow-up post: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20220920-00/?p=10...

That's kind of a pathetic excuse, because it means that the "something" the story teaches is highly limited and there's nothing concrete for the reader to use as the basis for a deeper investigation.
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