Prompt Cast
Car Stereo Malfunction Caused by Combination of Special Characters
TLDR A listener's car stereo freezes and restarts when trying to play the podcast 99% Invisible, leading the team to discover that the issue is caused by the combination of the percent sign followed by an uppercase I in the podcast's name. The car stereo restarts because it does not receive a regular message from the radio indicating that it is working.
Timestamped Summary
00:00
A listener named Ben is experiencing a strange problem where his new car's Bluetooth refuses to play the podcast 99% Invisible, causing the car's display screen to freeze and malfunction.
04:18
Some listeners have reported that when they try to play the podcast 99% Invisible in their cars, the car stereo freezes and restarts, and Roman Mars, the host of the podcast, believes it may be because the podcast's name includes the percent sign, which causes a symbol error in the stereo system.
08:43
The team created a podcast called "carrot space carrot" to test if special characters in podcast names would break Ben's car stereo, but it did not, so they decided to test other special characters.
13:00
The team tested various special characters in podcast names, including the carrot, tilde, less than sign, greater than sign, plus sign, equal sign, curly brackets, and percent sign, but none of them replicated the problem with Ben's car stereo.
16:44
Despite testing various special characters in podcast names, including the percent sign, it was found that the problem with Ben's car stereo was not replicated, leading to the theory that the issue may lie within the file itself or some sonic frequency that is breaking the car.
20:40
The CTO of PRX, Andrew Kukluwitz, believed that the issue with Ben's car stereo was caused by the percent sign, but after conducting tests, it was discovered that it was actually the combination of the percent sign followed by an uppercase I that caused the car stereo to shut down.
24:48
The combination of the percent sign followed by an uppercase I is what caused the car stereo to shut down, but they still don't know why.
29:03
The command that can possess a car stereo is the combination of the percent sign followed by an uppercase I, but they still don't know why.
33:19
The car stereo restarts because it is not receiving a regular message from the radio indicating that it is working, causing the stereo to assume that there is a problem and restart to a known quit state.
Categories:
Technology
Society & Culture
