If this hadn’t been published in 2015, you’d all call it AI slop:

> When the German engineer Karl Benz invented the first petroleum-powered automobile, he did not just create an engine with wheels; he set in motion an industry that revolutionized the way society was structured.

Not very likely

https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/54400

You're not generating a 7 hz tone on any sort of conventional audio gear, and definitely not a pc speaker.

So classic. For those weary of random links, it’s Cantrill and Gregg screaming at Thumpers and affecting IOPS.

That was such a great machine. We rearchitected our systems around it.

I was reminded of this MythBusters episode: Tesla's Earthquake Machine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHsHiKtjoag

Old man yells at the cloud.

The article covers this:

> 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.

https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/18-03-differential-equations-spr...

Is flutter a derivative like jerk?

Ask me how I know you didn’t read the whole article!

I remember reading that the bassline in LFO’s self titled broke the cutting needle when they were pressing it. Wonder if that had a similar explanation.

Wouldn’t a multiple of the resonance frequency also be problematic then? Why doesn’t the axle disintegrate at 4800 rpm?

This is someone retelling a story they were told by a co-worker of an event over 20 years prior. It’s not surprising that he doesn’t go into the details of exactly what was tried, beyond the key parts of the story.

Not an expert here, so I’m genuinely curious how could a video stream (edit: with muted audio stream) possibly cause another laptop in close proximity to crash?

Could be; after ~3 years, my Samsung Galaxy S7 would reset if I tried to make a call with battery below ~20%. I immediately knew it was the battery, because I still remember noticing it as a kid on Nokia 3410 - calling would sometimes drop the battery indicator by one bar, which would come back moments after call ended. That's how I learned about internal resistance and how battery capacity is measured :).

As for fixes in software, it's either treating it as WAI, or secretly throttling down the phone, like Apple did, for which they got accused of planned obsolescence. Neither choice is good (though actually informing the users would go a long way).

It wasn't exactly disappointing. I loved to read The Old New Thing back in the day, Raymond's blog was full of stuff like this.

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.

Apparently pro tools came out in 1989, makes me think this may or may not be true. This article has some info about the mixture of analog and digital tools use to record:

> The main event was a brand-new mixing console called the Harrison Series 10, which was the first analog console to feature a digital control surface, with full automation of all parameters. Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis were the first studio to have it, according to Jam. This meant that they could cut down the time it took to switch songs to about 10 minutes because complex mixes now required little-to-no cross-patching.

https://reverb.com/news/the-making-of-janet-jacksons-rhythm-...

They probably didn't use laptops in which the disk and the speaker are next to each other.

I am not a huge fan of joke-y replies like this, but bravo. Perfect.

Analog devices pretending to be digital

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.

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story. That's my motto. Now let me tell you about the time that we dug up this dinosaur egg and hatched it.

I believe it because it's a plausible variant of what I call the "Fus Ro Data Loss" vulnerability: shouting at hard drives causes them to resonate in a way that affects their ability to access data.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tDacjrSCeq4

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, SSDs (and other flash storage devices) need to be switched on once in few months, otherwise there's a chance that some data stored in them may be permanently lost, as some cells may loose their power.

"As a reminder, an SSD's endurance rating is calculated based on how long it can store data if left unplugged after a certain amount of data has been written": https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/storage/unpowered...

Spinning rust may be defeated by Janet Jackson, but your chip storage is defeated by just sitting undisturbed in a drawer or a closet for too long...

It's a reason not to use a hard drive from over 20 years ago.

But if you're stuck with hardware that old, an SSD isn't an option.

Platters are not made of iron (or even steel) and neither is the surface, so I’m not sure why rust comes into the picture.

> 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...

He might not since it comes via a friend. Or he's forgotten since.

Also seems not unreasonable for an employee like him not to specifically name and shame hardware partners. Maybe it'd all be fine, but I wouldn't blame him at all for not wanting to risk it.

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 of delivering video to stop it happening.