Ants Invade iBook

xkranda writes "Seriously ... this is off the Apple Discussions site. Apparently some poor sap's iBook became infested with ants. All I have to say is ew! Ew! Ew! Ew!!!"

Comments

The original post

[DarkSkiesAhead]

from the apple discussion board:

Has anyone had this problem? I hope not . . . After the first rain of the year, the ants outside were restless (and homeless). My wife had left her ibook on the mantle charging overnight. The next morning we noticed a large number of ants milling around it. Upon inspection we discovered ants crawling in and out of every hole in the computer. I grabbed my can of compressed air and started blowing! To my horror hundreds of ants started pouring out carrying eggs! I knew this was bad. I took the computer out to the garage and completely disassembled the thing layer by layer . My stomach turned when I exposed the main circuit board and saw thousand of ant and eggs (and a queen or two), writhing across every inch! Argh! After several hours with a vacuum and a can of air I finally got the thing clean. I put it back together (only a few extra screws) and luckily it works fine. Any theories on why ants would decide to move an entire colony into an ibook? Warmth? Sweet circuit boards? I think they were attempting to colonize the ultimate frontier: cyberspace.

Re:Ants and electronics

[NeuroManson]

Not to mention that to some insects, the materials used to laminate circuit boards and some plastics that compose the electronics, are amazingly tasty... There was/is a lot of problems, for example, with cockroaches eating the plastic in wiring and circuitry...

Reminds me of a movie

[cuteduo]

Anybody see the independent movie PI? The mathematician's "super computer" gets infested with ants in the beginning and prompts him to make a deal with someone for the best chip out there in return for research into the magic number (sort of like the unified theory but different).

you obviously don't live in southern CA

[geek]

The ants outside my house measure in inches, they're red and they bite like a mother fucker. Did I mention they number in the trillions? On a hot day in september you can't see the ground.

Hippies in the 60's and 70's often recal tripping quite hard on the "moving ground" that happened to take their picnic away with them.

Mybe you like an ant farm. Sure they are cool to look at when they are a little 12x12 inch plastic picture frame type farm. However it's a very different thing when your entire 10 acres of land are swarmed by the fuckers who eat your horses alive.

for anybody wondering who ellen feiss is

[klparrot]

Take a look at her switch ad. The second I read the parent, I was LMAO. Oh, if only I had points to mod it (+5,Funny).

hacker and the ants

[e**(i pi)-1]

there is an easy explanation:

read Ruckers Book: "The Hacker and the ants"
see also http://www.fourmilab.ch

Re:Plastics?

[TrinSF]

Oooo! I know the answer to this one, because it happens to some kinds of dolls, too.

The answer many common plastics make use of "food" components, including corn solids and syrup. Here's a listof things made with corn, including plastics.

Plastics "separate" over time, with components migrating to the surface. It's the organic parts of plastic that cause problems like mold/fungus on plastics, as well as make them tasty for bugs.

Re:Ants and electronics

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure that should be modded as funny, more like disturbing (though I suppose there's no moderation for that...). I remember when someone took a picture of rats walking over the doughnuts in a DunkinDonuts in NYC.

Caption was something to the effect of "don't eat the chocolate sprinkles."

Hmmm...

[Squidgee]

There are actually some other stories on this, Here and here.

Now, I'm off to get some of those ant cups for my iBook; do you think plastic will do well on top of my processor?

Re:Plastics?

[Reziac]

Mice are also attracted to aging plastics, probably for the same reason -- after a certain stage, the plastic smells like "food" again.

One guy on the Apple forum was wondering if he should remove the ants or just kill 'em in place (by freezing or whatever) -- definitely remove them. Ants are quite acidic, and a pile of dead decomposing ants WILL corrode susceptible components. I've also seen computer cases pretty well rusted from accumulations of dead cockroaches.

Ant prevention

[Reziac]

For those being invaded by streams of ants (who most often enter a building looking for water):

Ants will NOT cross a swath of diazinon granules (corncob-base *only* -- the newsprint-base type like Ortho doesn't work) and the few that try it won't survive the attempt. Also, two tablespoons of diazinon granules dribbled around the entrance to a hill is enough to kill the ENTIRE colony overnight -- and this even works with those aggressive mound-building fire ants. You can also use it to block their path thru cracks in concrete floors, etc. (Not recommended for any unventilated spaces where warmblooded creatures sleep, tho the weird smell goes away after a day or two.)

Borax is also reported to work, tho I can't attest to that one personally.

I like ants.. fried or in chocolate or anywhere OUTDOORS!!

FoxTrot did a spoof of Ellen Feiss

[knightf0x]

You can find it here

Harrison Ford gets ant named after him

[AndroidCat]

Here.

A US scientist has named an ant after Harrison Ford.

Edward Wilson has called a Central American ant, Peidole harrisonfordi, to honour the actor's conservation work.

Ford is Vice Chairman of the American society Conservation International.

Wilson, a Harvard University scientist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, has also named a shiny brown ant from Mexico, Pheidole mooreorum, after Intel Corporation co-founder Gordon Moore and his wife Betty.

The Moores are leading environmental philanthropists.