4 ms·

Why didn't they mute the volume to see if it was the video or audio stream causing problems?

wanderingstan 10mo ago
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.
- theologic 10mo ago
  I won't repeat it here, but I posted What I saw as an insider. I think that not all of the facts were quite right. However, some of the overtones definitely are.
k3vinw 10mo ago
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?
- firesteelrain 10mo ago
  What is claimed in TFA is that the hard drive resonate frequency reacts to the Janet Jackson video in bad ways because that music video puts out music that interferes with what the hard drive expects. TFA was lacking details so this is merely a retelling.
  - vlovich123 10mo ago
    Obviously not the video but the accompanying audio track. Could also just be a made up apocryphal engineering story that never actually happened exactly as described. Engineering as a profession is chock full of them but they do tend to be memorable parables of things to keep in mind when working on a relevant piece of tech. What is definitely well documented is Brendan Gregg’s related discovery of performance degradation in servers from vibration of sibling servers / clapping nearby that caused spinning disks to pause their heads.
- trehalose 10mo ago
  I doubt it could, but when you run into a problem that defies your understanding of reality, you might try out responses that also defy your understanding of reality, in the hopes you might gain the missing insight somewhere along the way, yeah?
- raisedbyninjas 10mo ago
  Also not an expert, it would have to be EMI or maybe the bright light was causing LEDs on the nearby laptop to generate voltage. LEDs can poorly work in reverse.
- geor9e 10mo ago
  If this is just a fiction novel world‑building question: The video pixels create a bitstream to bitbang the gpu bus into emitting a 2.4‑gigahertz EMF signal to exploit a flaw in the Wi‑Fi driver.

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.

theologic 10mo ago
I won't repeat it here, but I posted What I saw as an insider. I think that not all of the facts were quite right. However, some of the overtones definitely are.

k3vinw 10mo ago

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?

firesteelrain 10mo ago
What is claimed in TFA is that the hard drive resonate frequency reacts to the Janet Jackson video in bad ways because that music video puts out music that interferes with what the hard drive expects. TFA was lacking details so this is merely a retelling.
- vlovich123 10mo ago
  Obviously not the video but the accompanying audio track. Could also just be a made up apocryphal engineering story that never actually happened exactly as described. Engineering as a profession is chock full of them but they do tend to be memorable parables of things to keep in mind when working on a relevant piece of tech. What is definitely well documented is Brendan Gregg’s related discovery of performance degradation in servers from vibration of sibling servers / clapping nearby that caused spinning disks to pause their heads.
trehalose 10mo ago
I doubt it could, but when you run into a problem that defies your understanding of reality, you might try out responses that also defy your understanding of reality, in the hopes you might gain the missing insight somewhere along the way, yeah?
raisedbyninjas 10mo ago
Also not an expert, it would have to be EMI or maybe the bright light was causing LEDs on the nearby laptop to generate voltage. LEDs can poorly work in reverse.
geor9e 10mo ago
If this is just a fiction novel world‑building question: The video pixels create a bitstream to bitbang the gpu bus into emitting a 2.4‑gigahertz EMF signal to exploit a flaw in the Wi‑Fi driver.