from the hard-drives-that-are-part-of-the-rhythm-nation dept.
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20220816-00/?p=106994
A colleague of mine shared a story from Windows XP product support. A major computer manufacturer discovered that playing the music video for Janet Jackson's "Rhythm Nation" would crash certain models of laptops. I would not have wanted to be in the laboratory that they must have set up to investigate this problem.
[...] One discovery during the investigation is that playing the music video also crashed some of their competitors' laptops.
And then they discovered something extremely weird: Playing the music video on one laptop caused a laptop sitting nearby to crash, even though that other laptop wasn't playing the video!
It turns out that the song contained one of the natural resonant frequencies for the model of 5400 rpm laptop hard drives that they and other manufacturers used.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2022, @04:21AM (1 child)
Some things never change.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2022, @12:39PM
But galloping Gertie was an aero-elastic failure, not simple resonance. See von Karman's story, https://www.ias.ac.in/article/fulltext/reso/010/08/0097-0102 [ias.ac.in]
Or read the final report of the Board of Engineers at https://authors.library.caltech.edu/45680/1/The%20Failure%20of%20the%20Tacoma%20Narrows%20Bridge.pdf [caltech.edu]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2022, @07:25AM
Janet stole some of that funk from Sly's tune, Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin), as noted here [whosampled.com].
--
"Thank you for the party, I could never stay. Many thangs is on my mind, Words in the way." -Sly Stone
(Score: 4, Funny) by Gaaark on Sunday August 21 2022, @10:35AM
"And of course, no story about natural resonant frequencies can pass without a reference to the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in 1940."
Windows did THAT!?!? Dat shit be powerful!
---Tacoma Narrows Bridge: "You shall not pass!"
---Windows: "Yeah yeah yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah...Bass, bass, bass, bass"
---Tacoma Narrows Bridge: "Oh my dog, Janet Jackson? Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrffffffffffffffff!!!!!!!!!"
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Interesting) by anubi on Sunday August 21 2022, @01:40PM (1 child)
Any Apollo guys still here?
Remember the problems we had with resonant phenomena?
Languages may change, but the laws of physics do not.
About the only way that seemed to work for us was to use empirical data. We used actual acceleration/vibration data from a real launch.
We recreated to the best of our ability conditions of launch on huge transducers.
This was what we were doing in the 60's.
https://maker.pro/forums/threads/shake-and-bake-machines.25074/ [maker.pro]
Tacoma Narrows bridge showed us the perils of overlooking buildup of resonant energy.
We still do that same thing to simulate earthquakes on skyscrapers ( ummm, here's hoping the models are good! ).
Remember the Memorex recording tape ad? Is it live or is it Memorex? Where Ella Fitzgerald shattered a wine goblet by her voice?
I guess today, we use Janet Jackson?
Resonance. Really unexpected things happen.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by aafcac on Sunday August 21 2022, @05:18PM
Well, at least we're not using Michael Jackson...
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by turgid on Sunday August 21 2022, @02:04PM (3 children)
Did anyone ever see Michael and Janet Jackson in the same place at the same time?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2022, @03:22PM (2 children)
https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=michael+and+janet+jackson+pictures [letmegooglethat.com]
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday August 21 2022, @03:46PM (1 child)
Who was the body double?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2022, @04:02PM
If I didn't know better, I'd say you were doubling down!
(Score: 1) by MonkeypoxBugChaser on Sunday August 21 2022, @10:19PM (1 child)
Are there examples of it on video anywhere? Sounds far fetched.
(Score: 1) by aafcac on Sunday August 21 2022, @11:28PM
Yes, I'm definitely skeptical. I remember conducting a physics lab in college to measure the velocity of sound using a hollow glass tube, oscilloscope and function generator. We moved the end back and forth until we found the length of the wave. Getting and keeping a sound at the right frequency for this to even be possible is rather remote. Between the angles involved, the case and needing to have it loud enough to rattle the laptop enough to make it happen, it's highly unlikely that this is even possible. Even just a small amount of distance can significantly impact the amount of the sound wave even reaching the computer. It's one of the reasons why we needed the tube, without the tube, you wouldn't get a standing wave as you'd lose a ton of the power having to make the trip twice.
Plus, HDD for laptops are supposed to be in some sort of vibration damping mount because hard drives don't like being jiggled, which presumably would take some of this energy out.
I'm not saying that it definitely didn't happen, but I do find it to be incredibly implausible. The conditions would have to be so utterly specific that you'd pretty much have to be doing it on purpose. Even then, it would be rather hit or miss. But, then again, there were those discs that got launched out of certain slot based CDROM drives due to broken DRM, so who knows.