A prank circulating 4chan has exposed the public to a little-known and bizarre feature of the iPhone: setting it to a certain date can completely brick the thing.

There's a whole lotta computer nerdery going on here, so if you just want to know what date to avoid on your phone, here you go: January 1, 1970.

Now, here's a little info about the how and why this happens:

If you’ve bricked your phone, the good news is it isn’t gone forever: you need to either let the battery run entirely down (slow), pry the phone open and disconnect the battery (scary), or perform a Device Firmware Update (hard). Or, take it to an Apple Store, and ask them nicely not to laugh at you.

It's a weird reminder that computers, smart phones, and the internet, actually have tangible limitations; it sometimes feels like they do all of the amazing things they do because... well, because they just do.

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