How Janet Jackson's "Rhythm Nation" music video could crash certain laptops due to resonant frequency interference
By
montalbano
Slow-proofed and worth the wait. Worth its weight in flour.
Summary
The article discusses a technical phenomenon from the late 1990s/early 2000s where Janet Jackson's music video for "Rhythm Nation" was found to contain a specific resonant frequency that could crash certain laptop computers, particularly older Dell models. The issue was traced to a 5400 RPM hard drive model that resonated at the same frequency as a sound in the video, causing the drive to malfunction. Dell and Microsoft engineers collaborated to identify and mitigate the problem by adding a custom filter in the audio pipeline to remove the offending frequency.
Key quotes
· 3 pulledIt was not an artistic judgement. Just a technical one.
The 5400 RPM hard drive had a resonant frequency that matched a sound in the video.
Dell and Microsoft engineers worked together to identify the root cause and implement a fix.
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