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 the good old times "before y'all were born" only to realize later that it was vastly exaggerated or even outright made up.

Anybody around here with some actual first-hand info or at least another source besides this blog entry? I'd love to hear!

There's a really good video here that shows that it likely happened. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y3RGeaxksY Rhythm Nation is unique because it uses a nonstandard tuning that shifts the notes to less-used frequencies. The video creator found a paper that studied the resonant frequency of various 2.5 inch laptop hard drives, and found that it matched up with the frequency of the low E note used in Rhythm Nation.

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