Janet Jackson's voice is powerful. According to a delightful Tuesday post by a Microsoft software engineer Raymond Chen, Janet Jackson's 1989 hit "Rhythm Nation" has the power to crash some Windows XP-era laptops, as per an official entry in a database of known vulnerabilities.
A certain 5400 RPM hard drive that was shipped with laptop PCs in 2005 can be used to cause a denial of service by attackers.
The frequencies of a specific laptop hard drive can be found in "Rhythm Nation". Jackson's vocal chops can cause these computers to malfunction. I am an icon.
The "rhythm Nation" phenomenon was discovered by engineers at an unnamed "major computer manufacturer," who realized that playing Jackson's hit not only crashed the computer that the music video was.
Chen wondered if he wouldn't want to listen to "Rhythm Nation" for hours on end. He said that it wasn't an artistic judgement.
The manufacturer skirted the issue by adding a custom filter in the audio line up, which worked to detect and remove the crash-causing frequencies. This isn't a perfect solution because it might allow anyone with these laptops to listen to Janet Jackson on their own devices, but their computer could still crash if someone else plays the song.
Some things, like Janet Jackson's album, are worth taking risks.
When exposed to Janet Jackson music, old laptop hard drives will crash.
There are more on silly hard drives.
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