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Comment by jasoneckert | Hacker News Reader

5400rpm laptop hard drives were notoriously sensitive to external force because of their thin metal construction and low power motor.

I remember having a MacBook Pro with a Toshiba 5400rpm hard drive that failed shortly after I rested it on an HVAC unit in our server closet (the HVAC unit happened to be the perfect height off the floor for doing work while standing). Just to be sure that was the cause, I had the drive replaced under warranty, did the same thing again and it died again after only a short while of using it on that HVAC unit.

After Apple replaced the drive a second time, I instead used a crash cart as a laptop desk and put a sign on the HVAC unit that read "Don't put laptops on here."

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Not hard drive related AFAIK, but I used to work in a media lab with about 30 mac desktops of around the powermac g4 vintage.

We noticed that the macs were rebooting unexpectedly when certain people were in the room. After a bit of observation we worked out that the call button on our walkie talkies could trigger a reboot from a couple of feet away, which turned out to be an awesome superpower if you'd had a gobful from an especially obnoxious student.

I used to enjoy the fact that Intel iMacs came with a remote control that could be used to put the mac into “media mode” but that wasn’t paired to a specific Mac to mess with co-workers in the room by putting them in media mode inexplicably.

I used to work for the point of sale provider for various golf events in the US. We were having circuit breakers on UPS battery backup units trip, seemingly randomly. We soon realized that we couldn’t key up our walkie talkies when standing near one.

We had that problem with computers when having the metal shielding off the cases. Every time someone in the vicinity got a phonecall on their Motorola 2880 (random model number, can't remember but one of the really old ones) the computers would bluescreen. This was at hackernights with all sorts of different computers running windows 95. If they had the metal shields off, many of them would bluescreen on phonecalls. Shields were off for having more cooling from external sources or friends helping with installing stuff or whatever, and the problems would go away when the shield was on again.

> "Don't put laptops on here."

With an explanation why not? I feel like having that, instead of a "Here Be Dragons" note would be more helpful, so someone won't ignore the sign thinking "It'll be fine".

Also it'd be funny if the sign is still there even though all* laptops have SSDs now...

> so someone won't ignore the sign thinking "It'll be fine".

If they do whatever happens is on them for assuming that.

Presumably the goal is the avoid broken laptops, not to worry about who it's on.

I wonder if there is a name for the phenomenon where people do something that leads to negative consequences but they technically "did everything right". I have a friend who crosses the street without looking both ways and his argument is that if a car hits him "they're in the wrong", as if an accident doesn't occur that way.

>I have a friend who crosses the street without looking both ways and his argument is that if a car hits him "they're in the wrong"

in the U.S there seems to be a hatred of pedestrians among the driver class, and a tendency for police to let even the most egregious drivers off the hook when a pedestrian gets killed (as long as it's not a hit and run), therefore this does not seem a good strategy.

However, and this is if they are in the U.S, perhaps they are mildly suicidal and thinking that if they get run over and killed it lets them off the hook for suicide and whoever ran them over gets a few problems which just serves those jerks right. The misanthrope's answer on how to ease out of life.

I worked with a group of other Americans in a part of Switzerland for a bit and we noticed that, even on relatively busy roads, if we even approached the curb from the sidewalk, cars would all come to a stop. Even if no formal cross walk area was nearby.

This is the old "I may be dead, but at least I'm right" argument.

Agreed. Commands without a hint of explanation are typically a sign of organizational dysfunction.

Disagree. Just follow what the sign says.

Do you use the same logic when approaching a "stop" sign while driving?

I remember being told why we stop at stop signs when I was learning to drive.

Regarding the sign about laptops: do you want to be right, out do you want people to not put their laptops on there? If your goal truly is to stop people putting laptops on there, then account for people who may not follow the directions if they don’t know why.

There are just as many people who will be more likely to disobey a warning if they hear the rationale. They might think "naw that HVAC unit couldn't do that. this sign is wrong"

Sometimes simple commands are better than explanations.

> If your goal truly is to stop people putting laptops on there, then account for people who may not follow the directions if they don’t know why.

Why? If they decide to ignore the sign, and they fuck their laptops up, that's on them.

A note of direction doesn't need to justify itself. People that think they are owed an explanation so they can decide whether or not to follow a note are the problem here.

Yeah, it’s on them. But that doesn’t fix things.

Because there's no problem to fix?

Not a stop sign. But as a general rule for living, Question authority.

Because it's funny?

Life would be pretty boring if everything were explicit.

Also, sometimes explaining the rationale for a warning can backfire.

An "absolutely no smoking" sign at a fuel depot doesnt tell you _why_ you shouldn't smoke there... If it did, dumb people might think "We'll I'm not refueling at the moment so it will be fine."

"Here be dragons" is vague for a reason.

I've lived in the US and UK and noticed what I think is a tiny cultural difference -- that signs giving instructions in the US tend to be brief and contain the instruction only; whereas in the UK I thought I saw more that add some text for a brief explanation or reason, if it wasn't obvious.

In the UK they love their safety labels. Only country where I’ve been where there’s a safety label on everything. It’s ridiculous.

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