3mo ago

Turns out Janet Jackson's laptop-crashing cursed bassline was the scourge of notebook makers for at least half a decade

www.pcgamer.com

13 comments

Tldr: The song had a strong 5400 Hz bass tone that would resonate with 5400 rpm hard drives, causing read errors which led to windows crashing.
- Slight correction. It wasn't a 5400hz note. It was a lower bass note (<200hz) that happened to be a resonant frequency of hard drive platters.
- Oh, man! A 5400 Hz bass tone is legit! Just listen to this:
  https://youtu.be/TUpPZ8R-1aY
  Imagine that thumping it in your subwoofer!
  
  My favorite tinnitus jam.
So, once upon a time you could have driven around with Rhythm Nation blaring from a car with a decent sound system and reeked havoc?
- Just FYI something "reeks" if it smells bad; "wreak" is pretty much only used with "havoc" and means to cause (generally harm). English is weird.
  
  Also "wreak vengeance,"
  Again to cause (harm, generally in a violent and uncontrolled manner).
  From a different root than wreck, which I found odd.
  
  Thanks, I kept looking at thinking it didn’t look right and even initially changed it to “reak”, but saw that wasn’t a proper spelling. Can’t say it’s a word I’ve written out before.
- Yes really stinky havoc.
  
  Well, their username checks out. (Cannedtuna)
She could have been the best Bond villain. Evil dastardly planned to broadcast it over the world this crashing computer systems worldwide. I mean I'd I've watched that.
With a non pc sound system this track could be used to crash nearby PCs.
The article says they implemented code to stop the PCs playing frequencies that could crash themselves or others nearby.
Also I can infer from this that there's a frequency for 7200 and 10000 rpm drives. I wonder what tracks would disrupt those ones?

13 comments