Janet Jackson’s ‘Rhythm Nation’ apparently vibed too hard for some laptops - The Verge
Microsoft’s Raymond Chen has shared a story about Windows XP-era computers that would crash when trying to play a specific song, thanks to some basic physics.
While it’s normal for friends to judge our music tastes and take away your aux privileges, our devices usually won’t complain about our listening habits (even if we ask them to repeatedly play a song that most humans would find insufferable). However, according to a story shared by Microsoft principal software engineer Raymond Chen on his blog The Old New Thing, some Windows XP-era laptops did end up taking exception to the music video for Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation” because it contained a sound that crashed their hard drives.
According to Chen, an unnamed “major computer manufacturer” discovered that some of their computers were crashing when trying to play the song and that playing the song on one laptop could even crash another computer nearby that was just minding its own business. The manufacturer also discovered that the issue cropped up on other companies’ laptops as well.
Here's our first video from our new series with Raymond Chen, @ChenCravat. We asked him to tell us about the mystery wherein some music would crash a laptop!!?? pic.twitter.com/BRgfsWEaaC
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