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Baked Apple

Aaron Steele writes "Okay, I work at an Apple Authorized Retailer and we just had a lady come in to see if we could fix her PowerBook G4. She walks in the store and comes up to me, 'Sir, I've got a baked Apple.' The top of the screen was a little brown and warped. The lady opened up the machine and the screen was all cracked, and there was not a single key left on the keyboard. It turns out she had the machine in the oven for 20 minutes, baking at 400 degrees. No joke. And what's even more amazing. The machine still works. Ethernet, Modem, USB, it all works. Plug in an external monitor and keyboard and it's good as new ... almost." Am I the only one for whom this conjures up images of Shrinky Dinks?

586 comments

  1. Gosh, that was quick by rco3 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Surely, not slashdotted already?

    --

    Ce n'est pas un vrai mouvement de robot!
    1. Re:Gosh, that was quick by rco3 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Hmmm... no, try this link instead; it may contain more suitable content.

      http://homepage.mac.com/aaronsteele/Personal8.ht ml

      --

      Ce n'est pas un vrai mouvement de robot!
    2. Re:Gosh, that was quick by bboombotz · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I just think its cool how the thing was baked and it still works. Apple's PCs might be the fastest on the market, but they do a really good job on the casing! :)

      --

      Rob
      -----
      Got something on your mind?
      Post it.. we want to hear it!
      www.bboombotz.com
    3. Re:Gosh, that was quick by Gehenna_Gehenna · · Score: 2, Funny
      Whoa.

      I've seen some people seriosly overclock their machines before but THIS is ridiculous!!

      --

  2. So did you void her warranty ? by OneInEveryCrowd · · Score: 3, Funny

    Just curious !

    1. Re:So did you void her warranty ? by EggplantMan · · Score: 4, Funny

      That depends on how the warranty deals with 'hot' merchandise.

      --

      ?-|||-----x<*))))><
  3. Marijuana underwear by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Link doesn't work. Bummer. I"ve got a PB ... why the hell did somebody bake it? When I read the headline I thought one of the Froot-of-the-Loom characters was caught toking in the mens' room or something.

    1. Re:Marijuana underwear by frodo+from+middle+ea · · Score: 1

      If they can't have bread [Read PC] they can have a Cake [read mac].

      --
      for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
  4. WTF? by raffe · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    damn, this is a slow day. FTW is this. Just waiting for a doublepost of this. That would be great. ohhh back to code....

    1. Re:WTF? by JCash$ · · Score: 2

      I do not see why you would see this article as a sign of a slow day. I am relatively sure that the hardware fans of the slashdot community feel that the fact the thing still worked after being subjected to such extreme temperatures is rather interesting. I know I do:)

      --
      -Poo will never be unfunny.
    2. Re:WTF? by XPisthenewNT · · Score: 1

      Hi, I used to be a tech, I miss stupid user stories--now I work in networking and never have to actually interact with them anymore. I need to be reminded how dumb they are. Lighten up!

    3. Re:WTF? by LoudMusic · · Score: 0, Troll

      Well yeah, me too. But it's not NEWS. If the shit happens all the time, how is that new? People are idiots 24/7 (:

      --
      No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
    4. Re:WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Well yeah, me too. But it's not NEWS. If the shit happens all the time, how is that new?
      What a stupid comment. First of all, I don't know about you, but where I am from, computers do *not* get baked in ovens all the time. Secondly, even if it has happened before at some point in time, so has pretty much everything else. Don't take the word "news" so literally. And last of all... the very fact that people here are interested justifies its existence on this site!
    5. Re:WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative



      APPLE has a advertisement years back, for a Baked apple. Tey showed an APPLE II that was in a fire, and vollia, with a new keyboard and monitor, it still worked.

      Its good to know that Apple keeps up with the tradition.

    6. Re:WTF? by frunch · · Score: 1

      damn, this is a slow day. FTW is this.

      Yeah, really! Fut the whuck is this??!?

    7. Re:WTF? by Digital11 · · Score: 1

      Nicely done, nicely done.

      --
      I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
    8. Re:WTF? by Alex+Thorpe · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's interesting, but a bit slow. I first saw this on the Mac Observer forums 2 days ago, and I think they got it from Mac Addict or some other site.

      --
      "Common Sense Ain't" -Unknown
  5. As homer would say.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    mmmmm........ baked apple.

  6. Baked? by Kiaser+Zohsay · · Score: 5, Funny

    Methinks the powerbook was not the only thing that was "baked".

    --
    I am not your blowing wind, I am the lightning.
    1. Re:Baked? by Bunji+X · · Score: 1

      I assume you and the article are speaking degrees Farenheit? At 450 degrees celsius a pizza wouldn't be baked, it would be charred. And that goes for iBooks too I'd guess.

      --
      ---
      The combined human population is enough to feed every living tiger for app. 28000 years.
    2. Re:Baked? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      that's bullshit dude. You need to cook a pizza HOT to make it tasty and delicious, holmes. 450 bare minimum, maybe if you were at home. In naples a standard pizza oven runs around 750-850 degs F. In the US, that's illegal, which is one of the reasons our pizza blows compares to theirs. Still a commercial pizza oven will run at like 550F.

    3. Re:Baked? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey, wasn't that Ellen Feiss machine?

    4. Re:Baked? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Illegal? Tell that to the guys who cook in Stone Ovens that get upwards of 800 degrees.
      Cocksmoker!

    5. Re:Baked? by Bunji+X · · Score: 1

      The article doesn't mention Fahrenheit anywhere as far as I can tell. Neither does the discussion.

      --
      ---
      The combined human population is enough to feed every living tiger for app. 28000 years.
    6. Re:Baked? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This proves little more than people who use macs are stupid. The guy didn't even bother to ask why the hell she would do something like that.

    7. Re:Baked? by be-fan · · Score: 1

      Well, lasagna bakes at 325, and apple pie (Mrs. Smith's) bakes at 350.

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
    8. Re:Baked? by Ravendon · · Score: 0
      "The article doesn't mention Fahrenheit anywhere as far as I can tell. Neither does the discussion."

      Why would the article need to? Do you know how hot 400 degrees Celsius really is? You could use a Lindberg Furnace to get temps that high, but most people couldn't afford one. Nor would they have space for one.
      It's safe to say that most intelligent readers of Slashdot can figure out which temperature scale is being referred to in the article.

    9. Re:Baked? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I assume you and the article are speaking degrees Farenheit? At 450 degrees celsius a pizza wouldn't be baked, it would be charred. And that goes for iBooks too I'd guess.

      Of course it's Farenheit dumbass. This woman wouldn't be able to get up to 400 C in her oven unless it was a blast furnace.

    10. Re:Baked? by doooras · · Score: 1

      tasty AND delicious!?

      wow... kinda sucks that at 550F American pizzas are just delicious.

      makes me want to move to naples so i can have redundant tasting pizza.

    11. Re:Baked? by Bunji+X · · Score: 1

      I can give you that 400 degrees celsius is pretty hot, but the owen in my apartment manages 300 degrees celsius, which is 75% of the talked about heat. I am not an expert with white goods, but an owen with the extra 25% capacity required for a 400 degrees celsius temprature might very well exist.

      --
      ---
      The combined human population is enough to feed every living tiger for app. 28000 years.
  7. I didn't know... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...it was possible for something to suck and blow, either.

  8. baked apples by Enahs · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's the oddest pie recipe I've ever seen.

    --
    Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
    1. Re:baked apples by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      That's the oddest pie recipe I've ever seen.
      I'm sorry, but my son has been watching The Wiggles quite a bit lately, and when I read that line, I could hear Captain Feathersword's voice in my mind... Thanks a lot!
    2. Re:baked apples by quacking+duck · · Score: 1

      You mean you DON'T want a recipe that allows a loony lady to throw a bunch of ingredients into the oven and take out a fully functional TiBook after 20 minutes!?

  9. uhhh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It turns out she had the machine in the oven for 20 minutes, baking at 400 degrees.
    ....Why??

    1. Re:uhhh by Znonymous+Coward · · Score: 1

      Indeed, why? No where on his home page does it explain why the Apple was baked.

      WTF?

      --

      Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.

    2. Re:uhhh by nickclarke · · Score: 1

      he doesn't know - at the bottom of the article it says "No, we don't know why she did it, but we are attempting to find out."

  10. 1st post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    well, ibooks are hot

  11. Where's the surprize ? by datadictator · · Score: 1

    Everbody knows that after Woz left, apples don't do anything, so they do it just as well after you bake them....big surprize.

    Move along, nothing to see here.

    P.S. I rather like apples, so I believe I have the right to joke about them a little. This is not intended to be flamebait.

    1. Re:Where's the surprize ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If a scientist can't prove it, that doesn't make it false.

      Does that work for theologists, too, or just scientists?

      Retard.

    2. Re:Where's the surprize ? by Masami+Eiri · · Score: 1

      Read into it a little more, and you'll discover you're the retard. Scientists can't prove there is no higher being, but they can't prove there is either. get it?

    3. Re:Where's the surprize ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry, no. The aim of the sort of scientists to which the original sig referred is to provide answers for questions that go out of their way to exclude God. Some examples of these are the theories of the Big Bang and Evolution.

      Now, I'm not one of those crazy evangelical fuckwits who goes around telling everybody that he or she is headed straight to heeeelllllllll if you don't repent immediately, but I cannot tolerate double-standards. Saying "If a scientist can't prove it, that doesn't make it false," but implying (by omitting the plainly obvious "counterexample") that it doesn't work that way in the field of theology is a double-standard, plain and simple.

    4. Re:Where's the surprize ? by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · · Score: 1

      If a scientist can't prove it, that doesn't make it false.

      Tell that to the UN. Weapons inspectors are not detectives, guys!

      (Ack. Here come the -1, Troll moderators.)

      --

      I write in my journal
    5. Re:Where's the surprize ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, a number of people clung to the steady state model for quite a while explicitly on the grounds that the big bang sounded too much like Genesis.

    6. Re:Where's the surprize ? by LittleBigLui · · Score: 1, Funny

      Weapons inspectors are not detectives, guys!

      But Dubya sure is a clairvoyant.

      --
      Free as in mason.
  12. I'm more amazed.... by Soluxx · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm more amazed that no one asked her why she did it... Do we look down on non-computer people so much that we don't even bother to ask anymore why they do stupid things?

    1. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Sethb · · Score: 1

      I'm going to guess that they spilled some liquid on it, and thought (incorrectly) it would be a good idea to dry it out in the oven.

      That's the only pseudo-logical reason I can think of for toasting a $2500 machine.

      --
      When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein
    2. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      no... I look down on people who do not demonstrate the basic intelligence and reasoning skills necessary to avert this kind of 'disaster'. Everyone makes mistakes, but there are some courses of action that even a 12 year old knows how to avoid.... While part of me would hate to see a user a) deprived of their machine b) soured to a great vendor such as Apple for the rest of his/her life, I really hope that the Apple isn't forced to eat the repair costs for a user's act of gross stupidity.

      if anyone knows who to attribute the following quote to, please let me know.

      "You can't cure 'stupid'." - anon.

    3. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Matey-O · · Score: 5, Funny
      I'm more amazed that no one asked her why she did it... Do we look down on non-computer people so much that we don't even bother to ask anymore why they do stupid things?
      Yes. (You're new here, aren't you?)
      --
      "Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
    4. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When I spill water on the gas burners on my stove, I use a hair-dryer to stop the clicking sounds they make.

      If you just read the above statement, then my goal of wasting some of your precious time has indeed succeeded!

    5. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think it was more like, "You cant patch stupidity"

      Kevin Mitnick said that In his reply a few days back. Man, lay off the Apple Ibong!

    6. Re:I'm more amazed.... by grub · · Score: 4, Funny


      Do we look down on non-computer people so much that we don't even bother to ask anymore why they do stupid things?

      Yes. Do you think the submitter's thoughts were:

      "Man, this woman is a retard? I better ask her why she did this.."

      or was it more along the lines of:

      "Bahaha, stupid twat! I can't wait to submit this to slashdot!"

      My money is on the latter.

      --
      Trolling is a art,
    7. Re:I'm more amazed.... by derch · · Score: 2

      Perhaps she works for the guy who runs a small local eatery in my town. He (supposedly) puts his laptop in the oven every night because he things the gov't is spying on him.

    8. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Flavio · · Score: 2, Insightful

      He's being paid to fix it, not to ask questions.

      As long as she's willing to pay money for the job, it's none of his business.

    9. Re:I'm more amazed.... by patter · · Score: 1

      Apparently, she's also an oven 'newb' too. You can dry things out at temperatures MUCH lower than 400 degrees .. ;)

      --
      -- If at first you do succeed, try to hide your astonishment. -- Harry F. Banks
    10. Re:I'm more amazed.... by lordcorusa · · Score: 3, Insightful

      He's being paid to fix it, not to ask questions.
      As long as she's willing to pay money for the job, it's none of his business.

      Who thinks like that? How can you train your brain not to function? How can you train yourself not to be curious? "Why?" would have been the first thing out of my mouth.
      --
      The preceding comments reflect the author's personal opinion and are public domain, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
    11. Re:I'm more amazed.... by 91degrees · · Score: 1

      I remember some time ago reading about someone who did this with a palmpilot, which others had reported was succesful. He was intending to leave it in there at the minimum temperature, but someone baked a pizza without noticing.

    12. Re:I'm more amazed.... by dev_sda · · Score: 4, Funny

      Who thinks like that? How can you train your brain not to function? How can you train yourself not to be curious? you've obviously not had the pleasure of working in retail.

    13. Re:I'm more amazed.... by i_m_sane · · Score: 1

      Doesnt anyone here have kids? I wouldnt be supprised if her (grand)kid decided to "hide" the mac in the oven, then accedently turn up the heat.

      Ill belive that..

      - A ex-child who fed pb&j sandwitches to the VCR.

      --
      Adam Sane sanity is a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.
    14. Re:I'm more amazed.... by cyclist1200 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Maybe she was trying to reproduce PC Computing's old laptop trials - where they would freeze, bake, spill sugary coffee on, and drop laptops.

      Or maybe she's just dumber than the average rock, and thought she would get a pie out of the attempt.

    15. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      It's clear that slashdot readers are not up to date on housekeeping techniques.
      It is widely known among those of us who value domestic cleanlieness (not slashdot readers) that a quick way to "clean up" the house when company drops by is to just put stuff in the oven. It's a large empty space that's always available for temporary storage.
      Of course, once it's out of sight in the oven, it's forgotten. Do you ever check inside the oven before you turn it on to preheat?

    16. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Elvis+Maximus · · Score: 1, Funny

      Who thinks like that? How can you train your brain not to function? How can you train yourself not to be curious?

      I wonder the same thing every time I hear George W. Bush speak.

      --

      -
      Give me liberty or give me something of equal or lesser value from your glossy 32-page catalog.

    17. Re:I'm more amazed.... by killmenow · · Score: 3, Insightful

      or government...

    18. Re:I'm more amazed.... by NeuroKoan · · Score: 1

      I remember reading this story somewhere else, and I believe the answer was "Let sleeping dogs lie"

      --

      "However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation."
    19. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why has no one considered the obvious reason for baking the laptop.

      Baker lady answers the door bell.
      "Hi I'm Suedenne. I'm a lap dancer at Laptoppers All Booty review. When your husband was enjoying my services at lunch, he left his laptop under the table. Since he's such a regular big tipper, I wanted to return it right away."

      Baker lady slaps TiBook in the oven. End story.

    20. Re:I'm more amazed.... by bushwahd · · Score: 1

      Seems like an excellent place to hide an expensive portable from a burglar. Did you ever see a movie where the burglar checked the oven for valuables?

    21. Re:I'm more amazed.... by coke_dite · · Score: 1
      Who thinks like that? How can you train your brain not to function?

      Two words: tech support.

      --
      Visit us at http://www.iblist.com!
    22. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      She didn't do it. This is just an Apple hype machine. How could the platters in the hard drive survive such heat? It's ridiculous. Oh well, it got 300,000 slashdot readers (or whatever the score is so far) reading the article. Ker-ching!

    23. Re:I'm more amazed.... by sykesm · · Score: 1

      yes in bangalore

    24. Re:I'm more amazed.... by RadioTV · · Score: 1

      I always check the oven before I turn it on. When I was growing up my mom would put frying pans in there to cool down. I only had to bake a couple of pans before I started checking every time I wanted to use the oven.

      --
      I have great faith in fools - self confidence my friends call it. - Edgar Allan Poe
    25. Re:I'm more amazed.... by iocat · · Score: 1
      Yeah, that was my thought. I can easily see a kid hiding the Mac, a mom or whoever pre-heating the over for dinner, and then discovering, to her horror...

      My son has all these (non-working) computers at his preschool that he wails on all day; then he gets upset when I freak out when he starts trying to "check email" by slamming his fists on my keyboard...

      --

      Dude, I think I can see my house from here.

    26. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My mom used to hide stuff fom us in the oven.

      I couldn't find the Girl Scout cookies.

      then oneday our house ws filled with burnt plastic smell. My mom wsa extremely embarassed/upset. She had started to pre-heat the oven for something that night, and ruined like six boxes of cookies.

    27. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Masami+Eiri · · Score: 1

      I have to agree...
      you learn that knowledge can be a bad thing after Mr. Joe Bob comes into the store looking for previewed soft-core pr0n to buy every week...
      then when you don't have any, he asks when you plan to pull "Sorority House 2" or something.

    28. Re:I'm more amazed.... by meatspray · · Score: 1

      prolly got so excited something out of the ordinary happened, they forgot at question why :)

    29. Re:I'm more amazed.... by carlos_benj · · Score: 1

      You don't know that the woman is the culprit, yet you choose to look down on her anyway. She could have chosen to allow her teenage son to remain an anonymous coward after blowing jolt cola through his nose into the laptop after reading some of the adolescent tripe on /. and deciding that baking the moisture out was a good idea. Perhaps I should look down on you for not reasoning out the possibility that this was an accident not of her making before posting your ill-formed opinion. She may be a ditz and deserving of blame, but without the proper info you seek to judge a person on the basis of sheer speculation?

      --

      --

      As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.

    30. Re:I'm more amazed.... by edunbar93 · · Score: 1

      I very highly doubt that Apple will be forced to eat the repair costs of this. It's certainly not their policy to do warranty work on anything that can't be classified as "manufacturer defects."

      Unfortunately, I know quite well the uphill battle you'd be facing if the customer were to insist on it being fixed under warranty. Plenty of people really don't get it in this respect.

      --
      "No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
    31. Re:I'm more amazed.... by denladeside · · Score: 1

      I guess it's common in the US ;-)

      --
      ...what e-mail program should I use?...let me consult my magic 8ball! *slosh slosh* hmmm... "outlook not so good"
    32. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ain't no such word as allways dude... it's always. you crazy yanks, inventing your own language

    33. Re:I'm more amazed.... by namespan · · Score: 2, Interesting

      This story ran on Metafilter yesterday, and most of the speculations on "why" seemed to run along the same lines as here... except I got the impression from some posts that it's possible the monitor was busted before the baking. At that point, it's pretty much equally cost effective to use the thing as a frisbee or silicon pastry as it is to fix it. (Of course, using it as a desktop might be much more cost effective, even now).

      Other potential reasons: powerbook belonged to a disgruntled SO, thieves never look in the oven for valuables, schizophrenia, and just plain insatiable curiosity.

      --
      Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
    34. Re:I'm more amazed.... by dbrutus · · Score: 1

      Well that's why I got a keyboard with an extended warranty. I expect to get my money's worth in the next two years.

    35. Re:I'm more amazed.... by evilviper · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Do we look down on non-computer people so much that we don't even bother to ask anymore why they do stupid things?

      I would suspect that he was too stunned to think to ask.

      Personally, if I was to ask for an explanation for every stupid thing I heard or saw, I would be listening to morons 18 hours a day, for the rest of my life.

      Someone (who I'm ashamed to say I'm related to) called me up to tell me about the code red bug... Yes, I still have the recoreded message telling me that there is "some sort of a bug" going from computer to computer, "killing people".

      If it wasn't so very real, it might have been funny.

      There's no reason with most people. How many people do you know that move their bodies in the direction they want a videogame character to go? How many people think dogs get "worms" from sugar? How many people do you know that have lucky charms (not the cereal)?
      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    36. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      HEAR THE ROAR of the mighty british empire.

      speak up, you, can't hear you.

    37. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ah another clueless liberal who misunderestimates the President. Keep at it, after his second term is over the rest of us will let you in on the secret.

    38. Re:I'm more amazed.... by cmallinson · · Score: 1
      I'm more amazed that no one asked her why she did it...

      I know a couple of people that will hide things in the oven. They think a thief will not look in there. My guess is that someone hid the notebook in the oven one day, and someone else turned on the stove to preheat. 20 minutes later, when the oven was hot, the discovery was made.

      just a theory...

    39. Re:I'm more amazed.... by rehannan · · Score: 1

      Actually, she's not going to fix it since it would cost too much.

      http://www.macaddict.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=67 98

    40. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As for myself, I've ever misunderestimated anybody.

    41. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh please, the man's a puppet. And if that's not true then all the more reason to get him out of office.

    42. Re:I'm more amazed.... by racermd · · Score: 1

      Actually, if he's required to fix it, even if he's being paid for the job out of this (admittedtly stupid) woman's own pockets, he really needs to know what happened to it so he can determine if he's even able to make a repair.

      Think about it for a minute. If you went to the doctor and asked him/her to "repair" your body (or mind, in some cases) without giving a description of what's wrong and how it happened, how can s/he do their jobs properly? The same situation applies with an automotive mechanic or a computer repair technician. If we fix only what we're able to see without any other information, the things that are hidden get missed.

      I think your intentions were good but a little misguided, however. Her privacy needs to be extended beyond the repair technician. Sharing this story was slightly inappropriate (even though it is extremely funny just thinking about "Why?"). However, because the identity of this woman has been kept secret, her privacy has been retained. This is similar to doctors discuss their patients' issues amongst their peers without divulging names in order to get a different perspective, except that we're discussing the issue for purely entertaining reasons.

      [Rant]
      On the flip-side, people stupid enough to put their $2500 laptop into a hot oven shouldn't be sheltered and protected. She deserves to be mocked and humiliated in the hopes that she'll stop being so stupid in the future. I can only wonder why so many stupid people have flourished in today's society and what we can do to resolve this situation.
      [/Rant]

      --
      My sources are unreliable, but their information is fascinating. -- Ashleigh Brilliant
    43. Re:I'm more amazed.... by smetnoc · · Score: 1

      >I'm more amazed that no one asked her why she did it... Do we look down on non-computer people so much that we don't even bother to ask anymore why they do stupid things?

      I have an explanation

      She's retarded

    44. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Cruciform · · Score: 2, Informative
    45. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Cruciform · · Score: 1

      Same here.
      Once that burning plastic smell fills the house it just becomes second nature to check the oven every time you turn it on.

    46. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Redundant is Allways metamodded as unfair. Check your timestamps people!

      Small, pedantic suggestion: "Allways" is spelled "always".

    47. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Angst+Badger · · Score: 1

      I'm more amazed that no one asked her why she did it... Do we look down on non-computer people so much that we don't even bother to ask anymore why they do stupid things?

      Yes.

      --
      Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
    48. Re:I'm more amazed.... by governorx · · Score: 1

      To clarify, You dont ask stupid people why they do stupid things.

    49. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      "then he gets upset when I freak out when he starts trying to "check email" by slamming his fists on my keyboard..."

      I can't believe you freak out when he slams his fists on the keyboard. I'm still typing on my '86 AST keyboard and it survived the great orange pop incodent of '89.

      Note: Do not rest a can of pop on someones head while they are typing.

    50. Re:I'm more amazed.... by gravelpup · · Score: 1
      Do we look down on non-computer people so much that we don't even bother to ask anymore why they do stupid things?

      Apple users, being on a higher plane than us poor IBM-bound sods, are exempt from such criticism.

      --

      Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.

    51. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Menkhaf · · Score: 1

      Then you're more lucky than me. It only took a glass of Coca Cola to make my keyboard go crazy. Okay, it was fun for a while. When you pressed Q it would write 7 characters on the screen. And that was even my favorite Olivetti keyboard.

      --
      A proud member of the Onion-in-Hand alliance
    52. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      There's no reason with most people

      This is offtopic, but too funny not to mention: I once mentioned Kenya (the country) in a large meeting. The guy sitting next to me, completely serious, whispered:

      "Hmm, Kenya... don't they speak Pig Latin there?"

    53. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm amazed you can hear anything over your loud, uneducated bleating.

    54. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      He's being paid to fix it, not to ask questions.

      Just like we're all being paid to produce code, not to surf slashdot? :)

    55. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Jucius+Maximus · · Score: 1
      "He's being paid to fix it, not to ask questions. As long as she's willing to pay money for the job, it's none of his business."

      Um, no he's not. According to the article, he told her it would be $1k alone for the screen so she left the product with him for disposal. Then he tried to power it up for fun and amazingly it worked and he got OS 10.2 up and running. RTFA.

    56. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Jucius+Maximus · · Score: 1
      "Of course, once it's out of sight in the oven, it's forgotten. Do you ever check inside the oven before you turn it on to preheat?"

      I always check. I mean, we sometimes store cloths and such in there. But I would never put a computer, even a notebook, in the oven. Those things are small enough to hide elsewhere.

    57. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not the yanks, man. It's the idiots.

      Rob

    58. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Shanep · · Score: 1

      I can only wonder why so many stupid people have flourished in today's society and what we can do to resolve this situation.

      Oh man, tell me about it.

      I see some real dickheads in the IT industry, who are there because they basically just have the "gift of the gab". Guys that could just as easily be used car salesmen or real estate agents.

      Providing more problems than solutions. What's it called? Consulting?

      --
      War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
    59. Re:I'm more amazed.... by xScruffx · · Score: 1
      "You can't cure 'stupid'." - anon


      I want to say that it was either Carlin or Gallagher. Has a bit of the Dice man's sentiment, but not quite his style.

      xScruffx
    60. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Im sorry, couldnt hear anything because those stupid gringos won't shut up!

      Besides your country doesnt even have a proper name! (What the Heck is United States of America?? America is a friggin' CONTINENT! and most countries in America have a federal goverment of some sort, dividing its territories in states/provinces/departments)

    61. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Abreu · · Score: 1

      or telephone sales/support!

      --
      No sig for the moment.
    62. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Abreu · · Score: 1

      Ah another clueless liberal who misunderestimates the President...

      Ah, another clueless right-wing nut who doesn't have a working grasp of the English language... Just like Dubya!

      --
      No sig for the moment.
    63. Re:I'm more amazed.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If there was Cola spilled on the keyboard, there would be some remnants or sticky residue left on the keys....its not like it would totally evaporate from the oven, as if water was spilled on it. Also....if her kid did do all this, she would've explained to the guy the story and what happened. Every adult who brings in a product for return or repair always tries to explain what happened. She obviously knew she was stupid for what she did, which is why she didnt try explaining what happened...she must've been blonde.

  13. Why? by Megane · · Score: 2, Redundant
    So did you think to ask her why she did it?

    P.S. The picture seems to be slashdotted into oblivion now.

    --
    #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
    1. Re:Why? by sammy+baby · · Score: 1

      According to the story, "No, we don't know why she did it, but we are attempting to find out." Tune in next time, I suppose.

    2. Re:Why? by Midnight+Thunder · · Score: 1

      According to this link they are trying to find out.

      --
      Jumpstart the tartan drive.
    3. Re:Why? by dr_dank · · Score: 2, Funny

      Perhaps she thought that overclock and overcook were synonymous.

      --
      Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
    4. Re:Why? by ndogg · · Score: 1

      She really likes baked apple pie...

      --
      // file: mice.h
      #include "frickin_lasers.h"
    5. Re:Why? by Dutchmaan · · Score: 2, Funny

      Isn't it obvious? She's an Apple employee trying to get a story on slashdot to get more hits for her .mac website!

      Now where did I put my tinfoil hat!?

    6. Re:Why? by Anonymous+Cowtard · · Score: 1

      Maybe she misunderstood her recipe for Apple pie?

      Predicted moderation: -3 GROAN

    7. Re:Why? by gspeare · · Score: 4, Funny

      Obviously, she was attempting to ascertain the accuracy of the manufacturer's mathematics libraries, especially as pertains to well-known irrational and transcendental constants, when subjected to thermodynamic stresses.

      In other words, she was making Apple Pi.

    8. Re:Why? by Graspee_Leemoor · · Score: 1

      This is classic! Notice this post managed to get +5 despite asking a question which would have been answered by RTFA, or reading the other comments since it has been already asked multiple times!

      Basically Megane just read the slashdot story bit, then added a post, and got modded up to 5! Incredible!

      graspee

    9. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Did she say what she was trying to accomplish by doing this? I'm really curious."

      Hint- read the article- read the other posts.

    10. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Perhaps she thought that overclock and overcook were synonymous."
      With certain AMD processors, it is, so I can see where the confusion might come from...

  14. Bad Link by graphicartist82 · · Score: 0, Redundant
  15. And now the non-broken link by Zepalesque · · Score: 1

    homepage.mac.com/aaronsteele/PhotoAlbum9.html

  16. Working URL by chabotc · · Score: 0, Redundant

    It could be worth pointing out that the correct URL is http://homepage.mac.com/aaronsteele/PhotoAlbum6.ht ml here.

  17. Sure, why not? by dzym · · Score: 1
    Those Apple machines are fruity enough.

    Did she also add some pie crust and cinnamon?

  18. I still wanna know by unterderbrucke · · Score: 1

    Why the heck would she do that in the first place?

    Sounds just like a bored techie coming up with a story to post on the front page of Slashdot...

    1. Re:I still wanna know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My guess is that she was trying to get even with someone, probably her husband, and tried to simulate the computer overheating by sticking it in the oven. When the dumb broad realized that it would be obvious that something abnormal had happened to the laptop she decided maybe her plan wasn't such a good idea and tried to get it fixed.

    2. Re:I still wanna know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Obvious explanation :

      She just got the machine and didn't know how to hide her pr0n on it yet, so to physically secure the machine she put it in the oven thinking no one would look there.

      Then, when she went to do some woman-work, (baking a cake or pie etc.) she ends up preheating the oven. 400 degrees F is probably the most common preheating temperature. Some ovens take 20 minutes to preheat.

      Simple!

    3. Re:I still wanna know by Cappy+Red · · Score: 0

      Maybe she was looking for something hot and steamy on the computer, but had to resort to drastic measures.

      I can't speak to the steamy part though though...

      --
      This is my sig. It's prescription, I swear. I need it for reading things... on the other side of things
  19. baked apple? he he by xao+gypsie · · Score: 1

    for some reason, i got the idea that this was a new model.....except this one was made entirely of hemp. now thats an apple i'd buy..

    xao

    --


    xao
    http://TheHillforum.hopto.org
  20. How on earth? by A+Swing+Dancing+Dork · · Score: 5, Funny

    Was this woman real old? Did she put it in with cookies, or brownies? What was in those brownies? And do you think she has anymore?

    1. Re:How on earth? by xao+gypsie · · Score: 1

      What was in those brownies?
      im guessing that since she baked her comp, whatever is in those brownies is prolly some good stuff..... now, it would be a crime not to share..

      xao

      --


      xao
      http://TheHillforum.hopto.org
  21. ..and here's the real url by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you, for some obscure reason, want to see a baked apple, here's the real url.

  22. maybe she fixed it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    i have this theory that 98% of consumer electronic
    problems can be fixed by taking the device out of the plastic, and throwing it in an oven. it's more of a joke, but it does have truth, as the problems are usually cold solder joints finally failing. (most of the time, you can simply fix things by going over the solder joints that are high stress, such as the terminals mounted right on the board).

    perhaps her laptop was broken and she fixed it, but forgot that plastic melts?

    this is really probably a bad idea, once lead vapor gets in an oven, it doesn't really come out.. unless it's going into your food

  23. What's next. . . . by mastahstinkah · · Score: 0

    somebody shoving an iMac in the JuiceMaster to make some apple juice?

  24. Why oh why.... by crumbz · · Score: 1

    ...was it IN THE OVEN in the first place????

    Was she hungry? Grandkids coming over for a snack?

    1. Re:Why oh why.... by ENOENT · · Score: 5, Funny

      She was hired to babysit for a young couple's infant daughter. They did not know of her three-doobie-a-day habit. When the couple returned home, she told them that everything went OK and that the pie was almost done. Alarmed, the couple ran into the kitchen, opened the oven door, and discovered that THE BABYSITTER HAD BAKED THEIR POWERBOOK!!!!

      Damn, I've got to stop reading alt.folklore.urban.

      --
      That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
    2. Re:Why oh why.... by xombo · · Score: 1

      Yeah, it was so thin and shiney, she must have thought it was a cookie pan.

  25. Bad link in article by nucal · · Score: 3, Informative

    Try this one for baked apple

  26. Like warm apple pie... by indros13 · · Score: 0, Troll
    Hmm, so what would warm Apple Powerbook feel like?

    --
    Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
  27. Disgusting! by Peter_Pork · · Score: 1

    How can someone be so hungry to try to eat a laptop??? This is almost as disgusting as eating cats ...

    1. Re:Disgusting! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is almost as disgusting as eating cats

      But not as cuddly as Bonsai Kitten

    2. Re:Disgusting! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thats just sick eating all thost poor and completly defenseless plants! You should be ashamed of yourself!!!

  28. golly by mrtroy · · Score: 1

    several questions come to mind.
    why. why would you put a laptop into an oven.
    was she sober.
    and why didnt you tell her it wasnt done yet?

    oh golly. ignorance is bliss...give me the red pill

    --
    [I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
    1. Re:golly by MarkGriz · · Score: 1

      "oh golly. ignorance is bliss...give me the red pill"

      Not to nitpick, but don't you mean, "Give me the BLUE pill"

      --
      Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
    2. Re:golly by mrtroy · · Score: 1

      sorry let me reword
      "oh golly. [HERE IS THE SARCASM]ignorance is bliss[end of sarcasm]...give me the red pill"

      sorry...i do see how it could be confusing but i would really prefer the red :P

      --
      [I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
  29. I melted an Atari ST once by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Whole box was quite warped, and had to switch many of the keys around to make them depressable, but it still functioned.

    Moral of the story is: don't ever leave your computer in front of a fan heater for 30 mins.

    Yes.

  30. I've heard this story before. by n1ywb · · Score: 1

    http://homepage.mac.com/aaronsteele/PhotoAlbum6.ht ml

    Are you the same individual who took those pictures, or a worthless ripoff?

    --
    -73, de n1ywb
    www.n1ywb.com
    1. Re:I've heard this story before. by n1ywb · · Score: 1

      YOU IDIOT! READ THE URL! Oh wait _I AM_ that idiot. /me quietly goes away

      --
      -73, de n1ywb
      www.n1ywb.com
  31. Wow by slashuzer · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    The top of the screen was a little brown and warped. The lady opened up the machine and the screen was all cracked, and there was not a single key left on the keyboard. It turns out she had the machine in the oven for 20 minutes, baking at 400 degrees. No joke. And what's even more amazing. The machine still works. Ethernet, Modem, USB, it all works. Plug in an external monitor and keyboard and it's good as new ... almost."

    OMG OMG lololol!!!111
    Wow dude, like, this is totally cool!!1 Like wow man.

    Dude, catch my reference! I said cool, OMG lolol!!!!11

    .

    Fucking retard.

  32. probably cleaning... by Creepy · · Score: 2, Funny

    She was probably cleaning and shoved the powerbook into the oven to wipe a counter or something.

    Don't laugh - my wife did this to a tray full of tupperware (so she could clean the sink and counters) and it ruined her oven.

    Ok, now laugh :)

    1. Re:probably cleaning... by joshsisk · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Perhaps she did it before they were married.

    2. Re:probably cleaning... by carlos_benj · · Score: 1

      Or maybe he has his own oven....

      --

      --

      As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.

  33. Somebody had to ask: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why?

  34. Baked a SUN server once by Mothra+the+III · · Score: 4, Funny

    Evidently if you don't make sure the little switch is in the right position in the back and plug it into high voltage, the things tend to be a little tempermental. Loud pop, a little smoke and no more SUN.

    --
    Worst. Sig. Ever.
    1. Re:Baked a SUN server once by sg3235 · · Score: 1

      I would think that if you bake apples, you should attempt to make tea with the SUN.

    2. Re:Baked a SUN server once by jandrese · · Score: 1

      I baked an SGI Origin 2000 once. I had to replace some of the CPU boards and apparently I tigtened that funky connecter a little too tight. One of the components (I'm not sure what it was) exploded when I powered the machine back up. It wasn't loud (I didn't hear it in the loud server room), but it took me about 1 second to smell the thing after I walked around to the back. I've never hit that breaker so fast in my life. The fried component apparently had something to do with the power to the machine because it created a plasma stream in the case that burnt straight through the backplane and scored the support beam behind it. There was even backwash on the two CPU boards (partially burnt off surface components) and they had to be replaced. There's nothing quite as sobering as looking at one of those backplanes (which are unusually thick for circut boards) and seeing a 1cm hole burned straight through it.

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
    3. Re:Baked a SUN server once by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You did not let the smoke out did you? Did they not tell you in CS 101 that all computers run on smoke? If you let the smoke out of a chip it will not work anymore.
      My company is currently developing a "smoke inserter" tool. Still some work to make is useful for more than just the few chips it works on in our lab.

      Our first version of the "Smoke Inserter" is only usefull for interoffice relations. GOod for blowing smoke up someone's ... never mind.

    4. Re:Baked a SUN server once by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      if its something decent like an e4500, i'll take it off your hands.. most likely it's the power supply, but you don't know how to fix those, do you?

    5. Re:Baked a SUN server once by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Did you see any Sparcs?

    6. Re:Baked a SUN server once by andrewski · · Score: 1

      Once the smoke gets let out of a computer, you are screwed. Unless you figure out a way to put the smoke back in.

      On a similar note, I accidentally left the ethernet cable that I use at work for my TiG4 unplugged. When I got back, there was ether all over everything. Sticky little pools of it. It kinda smells.

    7. Re:Baked a SUN server once by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What Sun was that? Any Sun I've seen since the IPX days would happily take 110 or 220. I know because we took some Sun's with us to another country , but were mislead by the hotel that it had 110...they didn't say only enough to run a razor, so we didn't bring anything to convert the power. We cut the ends off our powerstrips, wired around the fuse and plugged everything in. Amazingly it all worked and we were happy campers for the month we were there. We did have one failure, a pos PC monitor failed on the initial test...sounded like a shotgot went off.

      The Suns even seemed to run a bit faster.

  35. boy, that sure turned ugly! by timothy · · Score: 1

    Dear Powerbook owner:

    In an effort to clear some of the junk out of your house, now that your TiBook is not as attractive as it should be, I can for a small fee collect it from you and get that eyesore out of your life.

    Contact me when you decide to move on.

    timothy

    --
    jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
  36. wow... by betamaxV2.1 · · Score: 1

    well this certainly is a chance for apple to get some good press out of this. i mean they can surely boast that their machines can take a superior beating and still perform. its very impressive that a processor could with stand that much heat and still function. i thought that procs would melt into nice little worthless blobs of silicon at temps much less than that. really though what was that woman thinking when she put her laptop in the oven?!?!

    1. Re:wow... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am not sure how this is anything for Apple unless they go and take Pentium based laptop and stick in the oven. You should also learn something about thermodynamics. It is highly unlikely that the internals even came close to 400 degrees since the plastic would have acted as an insulator much like a baked alaska.

    2. Re:wow... by homer_ca · · Score: 1

      I saw this in an Apple magazine ad about 20 years ago. Some guy's house burned down and his Apple II was inside. The case was all charred and melted, but when they plugged it in, it still worked.

    3. Re:wow... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There was a design shop in Spain about 3 years ago that burned up, and when they went inside after the fire was out, they salvaged all the computers, a few G4s and a few Compaqs.

      All the G4s booted like they had been sitting in your bedroom overnight, while the Compaqs zippped and zapped and sparked and caught on fire, never booting.

      LOL!

  37. Why? by sql*kitten · · Score: 1, Redundant

    . It turns out she had the machine in the oven for 20 minutes, baking at 400 degrees.

    Did she say what she was trying to accomplish by doing this? I'm really curious.

  38. what a waste... by hatrisc · · Score: 1

    what a waste of a perfectly good apple. everyone knows you don't bake apples without cinnamon and suger!

    --
    I write code.
  39. I knew Powerbooks were tough... by alispguru · · Score: 1

    ... but baking at 400 degrees for 20 minutes?

    EEEEEK!

    And I thought I abused my iBook by pushing it off my desk a few times (once open and running) - it looks a little scratched and the hinge mount on the screen is a little bent, but no damage.

    --

    To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
  40. Theory- by Omkar · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Joke - She mistook the shiny laptop for a baking pan. And removed the stains with peroxide.

    Serious-Her young kids/any young kids in the house put it in the oven and she turned it on for something else.

    1. Re:Theory- by moominpapa · · Score: 1

      I'll bet your "serious" suggestion has it right - ten to one a toddler put it in the oven and she later turned it on to pre-heat it (hence not opening the door and finding it until too late).

    2. Re:Theory- by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have a hard time believing kids would do that, though I suppose it's possible. More likely it got wet and someone put it in the oven on a very low setting to dry it out, then someone else came along and turned it on to preheat.

  41. Apple Crisp by Root+Down · · Score: 1, Troll

    Was there a crumb topping?

  42. You think the powerbook is baked?!? by quantaman · · Score: 1

    Humph, Just check out the server when we're done with it, we'll show you baked!!!

    Gentlemen start your browsers...
    Commence slashdotting!!!

    --
    I stole this Sig
  43. Just to finish the job by chabotc · · Score: 4, Informative
    1. Re:Just to finish the job by inerte · · Score: 1

      Hehehe, there's a counter at the bottom of the page.

      We all can see the server heating up...

    2. Re:Just to finish the job by EricWright · · Score: 1

      It's a mac.com address. I seriously doubt it will (can?) be slashdotted.

    3. Re:Just to finish the job by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah me too. I guess that's why I didn't say that it will be slashdotted.

  44. palm baked by Kircle · · Score: 2, Insightful

    kind of reminds me of this /. story about someone baking a palm. apparently, he was trying to dry off his palm from the rain. kind of amazing what these things can go through, or what people think they can go through...

    but in the case of the palm, someone else didn't notice the palm in the oven and baked a pizza over it. :)

    --

    -- Kircle

    1. Re:palm baked by Kircle · · Score: 1

      silly me for replying to myself. but found the link:

      http://slashdot.org/articles/02/02/09/1533220.shtm l?tid=133

      --

      -- Kircle

  45. Wohoi. by termos · · Score: 1

    The new saying it not "how fast is your machine?", its
    "How many degrees can your machine handle?".

    --
    Note to self: get smarter troll to guard door.
  46. Shrinky Dicks!?! by Tar-Palantir · · Score: 1

    Oh... shrinky dinks. That's OK then.

  47. What this reminds me of... by sqlrob · · Score: 2, Informative

    Is those old Apple ][ advertisements, where one was toasted in a house fire, keyboard melted and it still worked after a transplant.

    1. Re:What this reminds me of... by Erbo · · Score: 1
      Yeah, I thought of the same thing...the headline for that old ad was even "Baked Apple."

      And, as you say, a new case and keyboard, and the thing was just fine...

      --
      Be who you are...and be it in style!
  48. Evidence?? by Lispy · · Score: 1

    I only see pictures of a baked apple. I see not a single one proving that it still works. So wheres the evidence? Show me the thing booting and this might be news. Otherwise its just plain dumb.

    Cu,
    Lispy

    1. Re:Evidence?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Did you look at any of the links on the main page?

      http://homepage.mac.com/aaronsteele/Personal8.ht ml

      Follow the Working screen link. Or maybe the More Baked Apple Picture (ext. Monitor) link.

  49. Maybe she had just switched from an x86 laptop... by alispguru · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... and thought it wasn't getting hot enough when it ran.

    --

    To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
  50. Powerbook Flambe a la mode? by MamasGun · · Score: 1

    I thought this was going to be an article about another flaming PowerBook model. This one should be filed under "It's funny. Laugh!"

    --
    "But you've already got a DVD. It lasts forever....In the digital world, we don't need back-ups..."
    -- Jack Valenti
    1. Re:Powerbook Flambe a la mode? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wonder if the fan came on?

  51. LCD -- GCD? by giantsfan89 · · Score: 1

    What about the LCD? At that temp, would it boil the liquid crystal? Would that turn it into a gas crystal display?

    Serously, that was a joke.

    --
    Don't ping my cheese with your bandwidth!
    1. Re:LCD -- GCD? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just shut the fuck up.

  52. Reflow by seanadams.com · · Score: 2, Insightful

    No big surprise... every one of the PCBs in there has already been fed through an oven once, WHEN IT WAS SOLDERED!!!

    1. Re:Reflow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually the PCB would have gone through the oven twice - secondary side components first and primary side components.

  53. Apple crisp recipe by Joey+Patterson · · Score: 0, Redundant
    Ingredients:
    One Apple PowerBook G4
    One "dumb user"
    One computer store employee
    Thousands of Slashdotters

    Preparation instructions:
    1. Bake Apple at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.
    2. Post the baking of the Apple on Slashdot.
    3. Have Slashdotters attempt to bring down mac.com.
    4. Profit?

  54. Old News by sulli · · Score: 1

    Apples have been heat resistant since the days of the Apple II Plus!

    --

    sulli
    RTFJ.
  55. Microwave her cat, too? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    I bet it's the same lady that microwaved her cat after washing him...

  56. Why did she do it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A couple of quotes from
    http://homepage.mac.com/aaronsteele/Personal8.ht ml :

    I finally had to ask the lady how all of this had happened. As it turns out, she baked the PowerBook in the oven for 20 minutes. I kid you not. She said it with a straight face, and I could hardly keep from laughing. She wasn't joking. The thing was baked.

    So that's all she said... apparently they didn't press any further at that moment:

    No, we don't know why she did it, but we are attempting to find out.

    She probably mixed her Apple Crisp and Apple iTunes recipes. I'd be willing to bet her CD player is filled with applesauce.

    1. Re:Why did she do it? by Large+Green+Mallard · · Score: 1

      If it was an Apple seed, I doubt they would be using the really old Tibooks..

      but good point ;)

  57. Since the story is slashdotted. by Zapdos · · Score: 1

    I would like to know how the batteries faired. Since the machine works it is obvious that it was shut down.

  58. Ellen Feiss by InterruptDescriptorT · · Score: 5, Funny

    I suspect she was trying to be like Ellen Feiss but misinterpreted something.

    She was probably trying to get baked and then talk about Apple, but instead baked the Apple.

    Simple mistake, really. Anyone could have made it.

    --
    Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
    1. Re:Ellen Feiss by flagstone · · Score: 1, Funny

      So I put my PowerBook in the microwave, and it was, like, beep beep beep beep beep beep beep....

      --
      These people have looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined.
    2. Re:Ellen Feiss by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow. Another lame weed joke. Your parents must be really proud of you.

    3. Re:Ellen Feiss by Theaetetus · · Score: 3, Funny
      "So, one night, I was baking a pie, and then the oven went like ding,ding,ding, and I was like Omigod!"

      -T

    4. Re:Ellen Feiss by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      sounds like you lost a tile

  59. Apple Coverage by moankey · · Score: 1

    I havent done Apple Service in some years but wow, has AppleCare extended to covering the Im a dumbass area?
    In the past if you sneezed weird on your powerbook the warranty would be void and need to be sent to Apple at the customers expense for warranty inspection.

    1. Re:Apple Coverage by kruczkowski · · Score: 1

      Nope. I droped by ibook and bent it a little. called them up and asked them in if the $300 extrended waranty covered it. Nope.

      --
      hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
  60. I wonder by xombo · · Score: 1

    if my plastic sony vaio would be able to withstand the oven? Another reason why Apple rox0rs, you can cook your laptop and it still works. I hate WinTel laptops, and now I love mac ones more.

    1. Re:I wonder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are a loser and a troll. Go stick a vaio in an office an test it. Vaio's suck anyway. Try it with a Thinkpad, a Dell or something else and then post you stupid troll trash.

  61. So can it be fixed? by ReadParse · · Score: 1

    You said that she brought it in to be fixed, but you didn't say that you then proceeded to laugh in her face. Can you actually fix this? How much would it run? Is it worth it?

    I say this because my PowerBook G4 is probably the most valuable uninsured thing that I own (I wonder if homeowner's insurance would pay for it) and I shudder to imagine something like this happening to mine.

    Well, not something like THIS, for crying out loud. I can't imagine the logic that would result in even temporary storage of my PowerBook in the OVEN. But I often think about how I'm just a drop or a crush away from being REALLY pissed off and out the $2000 that I spent on my PowerBook.

    John

    1. Re:So can it be fixed? by EricWright · · Score: 2, Informative

      My homeowner's insurance covers (I think) 25% of the value of the house in possessions. I specifically asked if a laptop computer that got damaged while out of the house was covered. My agent said yes. YMMV with your own insurance company, though.

      I doubt baking it in an oven would be covered, though.

    2. Re:So can it be fixed? by kraksmoka · · Score: 1
      A) I would never ever bake my TiBook! omg. just got it last week.

      B) before i became addicted to /. i used to work at pizza joints. people become utterly stupid when allowed to be near ovens or think about things that come from them

      i can't explain it, but a typical phone call for a pizza went like this. . . .. "is this the pizza place" " yes, whaddya want?" "does your cheese pizza come with cheese or is that extra?" (bangs head on counter) "yes, cheese pizza comes with cheese, even has bread and red tomato sauce too, would you like fries on that??"

      then there's the WHAT EMPLOYEES THREW IN THE OVEN thing that was funny. people would drop entire trays of food into the bottom, car keys, watches, necklaces and bracelets, glasses, pie paddles (something 4 feet long and idiots can't grab on the way in).

      this one takes the cake, better yet, takes the apple fritter.

      --
      "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel
    3. Re:So can it be fixed? by Elvisisdead · · Score: 1

      Most homeowners or renter's policies require a seperate computer rider to ensure full coverage. Extra coverage is totally cheap and allows for full replacement value. Read your policy to figure out if it's covered.

      However, it only covers due to accidental loss. I don't think baking your laptop counts. She'd be hard pressed to convince anyone that it was an accident.

      --

      "Want in one hand and spit in the other and see which one fills up first." - My Dad
    4. Re:So can it be fixed? by Capt.+DrunkenBum · · Score: 1

      Replacement of the 12.1" LCD panel is just over $1000 CDN
      Not including the plastic parts to go around the LCD.

      --

      Not everyone deserves a 320i

    5. Re:So can it be fixed? by Klaruz · · Score: 1

      Things like normal house related stuff, theft, fire, flood, etc. Is covered under your homeowners usually. There is usually a limit though. For pricier stuff you can usually get an add on to your policy to cover it. I pay an extra $40 a year to have $3000 of coverage on my powerbook. It pretty much covers anything. I really made sure of that when I bought the policy. "So if a kid runs into me at the airport in Mexico, and the laptop flies out of my hands, under the wheels of one of those airport golf carts, gets crushed, and then confiscated by the men in black and eaten by a dog, am I covered?" And he said yes.

      So it would be a good idea to check with your insurance company about coverage, especially if you have a laptop.

    6. Re:So can it be fixed? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I gotta feel bad for that dog when he tries to shit out that titanium casing.

  62. Obligatory... by mckwant · · Score: 1

    So THAT's what happened to Ellen Feiss's Powerbook.

    --
    ceci n'est pas un sig.
  63. She was probably trying to make this by kevcol · · Score: 5, Funny

    Grandma's Olde Fashioned G4 Pie Recipie

    Apple Filling:

    1 large tart Apple Powerbook G4
    40 grams / 1 1/2 oz of butter
    1/2 cup of castor sugar
    1 cup of water
    1 cinnamon stick or 1/2 a teaspoon of ground cinnamon
    4 whole cloves or a pinch of ground cloves
    2 large strips of the rind of 1/2 a lemon (zest)
    1 teaspoon of cornflour

    Peel the Powerbook and cut into quarters. Remove the core and dice each quarter. In a large saucepan melt the butter over a medium low heat, add the diced Powerbook, sugar, water, lemon rind, cinnamon and cloves and combine. Cover and sweat for 5 to 10 minutes, or until the Powerbook is just tender but still retains its shape. Remove from the heat. Discard the lemon rind, cinnamon stick and cloves. Drain most of the excess liquid off and mix in the cornflour. Set aside to cool.

    Sweet Shortcrust Pastry
    2 cups of flour
    A pinch of salt
    125 grams / 4 1/2 oz of butter
    1/4 cup of castor sugar
    1 egg
    1 to 2 tablespoons of milk

    Preheat the oven to 180C, 350F or gas mark 4. Grease a large deep pie dish or a round springform tin. Shake two cups of flour into the tin to dust the sides. Pour the flour out into a large bowl or food processor and add the sugar. Cut the butter into small cubes and rub into the flour with your hands or process until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the egg and mix or process for another 5 to 10 seconds until the mixture comes together, adding the milk if necessary. Turn out the mixture on a lightly floured bench or board and knead until the mixture forms a smooth ball. Handle as little as possible to prevent the pastry from becoming hard when baked. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 20 minutes.
    On a lightly floured bench or board roll out two-thirds of the pastry, 5 mm (1/8 inch) thick. Place inside the greased and dusted tin to form the base and sides of the pie. Carefully spoon the cooled Powerbook filling into the pie shell. Roll out the remaining pastry into a circle, 5 mm (1/8 inch) thick and large enough to cover the Powerbook and form the lid of the pie. Wrap the lid over a rolling pin and carefully unroll over the top of the pie. Trim off the excess pastry, seal the edge by crimping the pastry sides using a fork or pinching between your forefinger and thumb. Make small slits or holes in the lid with a small knife for air to escape. With a pastry brush, lightly coat the top with a little extra beaten egg. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes or until the pastry is golden. Serve hot or cold with ice cream, whipped cream or custard.
    To form a lattice top cut 1 cm (½ inch) strips out of the pastry lid. Lay them across the pie, 5 mm (1/4 inch) apart. Fold back every second vertical strip and lay a new horizontal strip across the strips that have not been folded. Lay the folded back strips back down. Then repeat folding back the vertical strips that were not folded in the previous round. Cover the rest of the pie in a similar fashion.

    (Serves 6 to 8)

    1. Re:She was probably trying to make this by TheTomcat · · Score: 1

      If you make it with 120lbs of vintage dumbass, it turns out much better.

      S

    2. Re:She was probably trying to make this by spaceport · · Score: 0

      Adendum

      If you don't have a powerbook on hand, or they are out of season, substitute with 1.25 iBooks. You may also use an inspiron or an armada, but the filling will not retain the same texture, and may even be downright revolting.

      Also consider a sprinkling of fresh iPod for that orchard-fresh taste!

      --
      It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety. Isaac Asimov
  64. Maybe I'm missing something... by goldspider · · Score: 1
    ...but I don't see anything in those pictures that indicates the machine still works.

    And this sounds more likely to be a silly experiment some geek ran at home, and figured would make a great Slashdot story if he invented a more interesting story around it.

    --
    "Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
    1. Re:Maybe I'm missing something... by CrazyJoel · · Score: 1

      If you follow the links to the working screen pictures, you see screens where through the warped screen you can see the desktop.

      --

      Such is the infinite Grace of Popeye.
  65. Take your best vote here... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Check out this Apple forum.

    There's a poll... I'm not sure if this is serious or not, but take your pick:
    • She found her husband surfing the net for porn, and he's still in the oven...
    • She spilled water on the machine and was attempting to dry it off.
    • She was keeping it safe while she was on vacation and forgot about it when she returned home.
    • Her son was playing, "Find the $2500 computer" with her daughter.
    • She wanted to see what would happen.
    • She mistook it for a cookie sheet.
  66. A great testimony to Apple Computers. by nlinecomputers · · Score: 0, Troll

    Only Apple could combine the best hardware and most stupid end users.

    Baked Apple? Now I've seen everything. And I thought most Windows users were stupid.

    --
    Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
    1. Re:A great testimony to Apple Computers. by luzrek · · Score: 1

      I'm not so sure. If the computer was off at the time there is no reason to think that any of the transistors/diodes would breakdown at the still relatively low temperature of that oven. There also isn't a reason to think that the circuitboard would have melted because it is made out of glass. Obviously the inside wasn't that hot since the external case was still more or less intact (and pastic _burns_). This was probably no worse that leaving a notebook computer in a black care on a sunny day in Miami.

      --

      Galium Arsenide is the material of the future, and always will be.

    2. Re:A great testimony to Apple Computers. by nlinecomputers · · Score: 1

      Agreed. I said "the best hardware". I your users are going to shove the thing in an oven you'll NEED good hardware.

      This is just a friendly jab at Apple users. Windows users are just as stupid. I've been repairing computers for years. Somethings are just plain strange and many people don't have any common sense.

      --
      Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
  67. Bad customer service by doggo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So, if it still works, why doesn't the guy call the lady up and tell her. She could buy an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse (that's less than $1000), and still have a computer that works. Instead of wasting the thousands of dollars that she spent on it completely.

    1. Re:Bad customer service by jakobk · · Score: 1, Insightful

      She bought a laptop, not a fucking desktop computer.

    2. Re:Bad customer service by doggo · · Score: 1

      What's your point? She bought a computer. It WAS a notebook computer, but now it'll need to be a desktop if she wants to use it without laying out the grand for repairs.

  68. powerbooks by syle · · Score: 1
    Man... that's some hot hardware.

    Smokin....

    --

    /syle

  69. My 8500 survived a house fire by coinreturn · · Score: 1

    My 8500 was present when my house burned (thanks to idiot neighbor). After the fire, heat, and dirty firehose water it looked like hell. The keyboard, mouse and monitor were shot (none were Apple products anyway). The CPU booted up and ALL data was intact - I had three drives in there, too!

  70. Re-play of old Apple ad? by mahler3 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Back in the early 1980s, I remember seeing a magazine ad for Apple showing the remains of some guy's 12" Sony TV that a house fire had melted all over the top of an Apple-II-- one that he had brought home from the office. Oops! According to the accompanying narrative, he thought his goose would be cooked when he informed his boss, but lo and behold, the computer still worked; it just needed a new keyboard and maybe a little more. Anyone see the makings of a re-hashing of this ad?

    In all seriousness, although the par-baked PowerBook might still work now, I'm guessing that the chance of a latent part failure in the near future has been significantly increased.

  71. Baked furby by Merlin42 · · Score: 2, Funny

    A similar situation happen to my younger sister. She got a furby for christmas several years ago and had a lot of fun with it until one day it wouldn't shut up while she was trying to do some homework at the kitchen table. So she decided to put it in a dark quiet place ... THE OVEN! That did a wonderful job of quieting it down, so good that she promptly forgot about it. Later that evening my mother preheated the oven for dinner. A few minutes later she smelled burning plastic ... the poor furby had its fur singed, was severly deformed, and never worked again.

    And there was much rejoicing

    YAY!

    1. Re:Baked furby by Arcturax · · Score: 2, Funny

      Reminds me of a great furby story I have!

      When I was visiting a friends place, another mutual friend also came over and brought her two little monsters along, two girls ages 3 and 5. These kids got into everything and so of course they found my friends furby. All us adults were upstairs and the kids were downstairs playing with some toys, and the furby. I went down to get a drink of water at some point and was greeted with a rather bizarre sight as I was coming down the steps.

      The furby was laying on its back and thrashing about wildly. It was emitting this horrible scream like "AAAAaaaaAAAAAaaaaaAAAAAaaaaAAAAAaaaa" and just flopping like a fish. It was like some bizarre horror movie and I was expecting some sadist to come around the corner, having tortured the furby to the point of insanity.

      I have no idea what those two little monsters did to that thing, but they really scarred that damn thing bad. It never was the same again.

      --

      --Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
  72. No wonder Apple can't make any money. by blair1q · · Score: 1

    Anyone who makes a product to tolerate this sort of egregious unforeseen abuse is overbuilding it. This adds significant cost without adding value for 99.99999% of the users. If it wasn't for the general insanity of Mac users, who pay an extra slug of pure cash profit just to spite Microsoft and Intel, there's no way Apple would still be in business.

    1. Re:No wonder Apple can't make any money. by finkployd · · Score: 1

      yes, they should find componants that melt at much lower temperatures, that should make soldering the componants together lots of fun.

      Finkployd

  73. urban legend? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    dude... ive heard this story several times over the past few years...with slight changes of course like (dude my roomate has a friends who sister...)

    1. Re:urban legend? by AngryPuppy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      With photos? Did they supply photos? Most urban legends don't come with photo evidence.

  74. Keeping customers informed? by gormanly · · Score: 2, Insightful

    From the article:

    Before we tossed it in the trash, I decided to try and power it up just for kicks, and it worked! The machine booted just fine! The screen is cracked and broken, but if you plug in an external monitor and keyboard it works like a charm. Ethernet, Modem, USB, Optical Drive, and HD all work just fine. I have already reformatted the HD and installed Mac OS 10.2.

    Did no one at the store think to call this lady and tell her? Don't you think she might have wanted her machine back if she knew it still booted? At least so she could get her data off...

  75. But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did it scratch the paint?

  76. Let the Non-Apple Pie Jokes Begin? by immanis · · Score: 5, Funny

    Ok, ok, enough with the Pie jokes. There is plenty of good material here without them:

    Are you sure this machine wasn't stolen? From the pictures, it looks kinda hot.

    Are you sure she wasn't just trying to burn her first CD?

    Insert OB Overclocking Joke Here

    "Ma'am, I feally think you are missing the point of FireWire."

    1. Re:Let the Non-Apple Pie Jokes Begin? by sharkey · · Score: 1
      Insert OB Overclocking Joke Here

      Just curious. How do you overclock an Obstetrician?

      --

      --
      "Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
  77. Maybe because she likes to "Think Different" by fmaxwell · · Score: 4, Funny

    So did you think to ask her why she did it?

    Another example of a Mac user inspired by the "Think Different" campaign. What other kind of half-baked reason could she have?

    1. Re:Maybe because she likes to "Think Different" by Drakonian · · Score: 1

      Ahaha, beautiful pun.

      --
      Random is the New Order.
    2. Re:Maybe because she likes to "Think Different" by Capt.+DrunkenBum · · Score: 1

      I would say it is a fully baked idea.

      --

      Not everyone deserves a 320i

    3. Re:Maybe because she likes to "Think Different" by Mysticalfruit · · Score: 1

      actually, looking at the pictures, I'd say it was a fully baked reason...

      Though I bet she caught her husband surfing porn or she got a penis enlargment email so she wanted to "burn" the evil out of it (or at least simmer on medium heat...)

      --
      Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
    4. Re:Maybe because she likes to "Think Different" by AssFace · · Score: 1

      "Think Retarded"

      I think that should be their new ad campaign.

      --

      There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
    5. Re:Maybe because she likes to "Think Different" by Leto2 · · Score: 5, Funny

      hell, i'll give your advise in your sig a try...

      --
      <grub> Reading /. at -1 is like driving through Cracktown in a convertible that is stuck in 1st
    6. Re:Maybe because she likes to "Think Different" by SUB7IME · · Score: 1

      I think that the "Think Different" campaign encouraged people to stop thinking entirely!

    7. Re:Maybe because she likes to "Think Different" by agent+oranje · · Score: 1

      Hmm... I don't care about the result, I just want to see what happens ;)

      --
      -agent oranje.
    8. Re:Maybe because she likes to "Think Different" by Drakonian · · Score: 1

      See? hehe

      --
      Random is the New Order.
  78. New TV-ads? by snoopey · · Score: 1, Funny

    I wonder if this will make it into "Real Stories" :)

  79. Shrinky Dink by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Am I the only one for whom this conjures up images of Shrinky Dinks?

    My dink gets real shrinky in warm bathwater

  80. "Am I the only one for whom this conjures up..." by objekt · · Score: 1

    "...images of Shrinky Dinks?"

    Yes.

    Yes you are.

    --
    -- Boycott Shell
  81. Should have used OSX by buckminster · · Score: 1

    The second page of photos is here:

    http://homepage.mac.com/aaronsteele/PhotoAlbum7. ht ml

    You can clearly see OS9 has booted. I think there might have been less damage if she were running OSX.

    1. Re:Should have used OSX by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thanks, I didn't see the link to that second page.

  82. I still don't see why? by Mustang+Matt · · Score: 1

    Is there any explanation to why she baked it?

    --
    The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
  83. The recipe was wrong by dauvis · · Score: 1

    She forgot to add the cinnamon and marshmallows.

  84. lightning by zogger · · Score: 5, Interesting

    -some weird story. Glad I got to see the pics with the correct URL. WHY did this lady do this?

    --here's my tough as nails apple story. We run on solar here. The first year though I didn't have a proper buried power cable, my AC feed from the inverters was literally just an extension cord on top of the ground. Was running a mac 6400 tower at the time, through a surge protector/power strip (no, too dumb to send in warranty card when I got the surge, duh on me). Anywho, one day there's a thunderstorm, being reasonably cautious I unplugged everything. Storm goes away, cool, plug all the stuff back in. About 5 minutes later ZAP! Rogue lightning bolt hits I guess the ground nearby or the cord directly. Pooter goes POP, everything shuts down. I mean it was loud, a very close by hit.

    I am steamed, think oh crap no pooter. Reset breaker, hit power button, CHIME, that nice boot up chord! Amazing! thing boots but ran sorta screwy. Just-screwy. surfing was a tad slower, would get occassional screen freezes, etc, but as it was at the time my "best" computer I just kept using it. Next day I open the case, WOW, the mobo is all crispy! I mean fried city, and the thing is still working. Hard to describe except it looked -lightning hit. there's burnt stuff all over. I cleaned it as good as possible and put it back together. Used it for a few more months in crippled mode, then upgraded an old quadra to use instead, then I bought a used pb 1400, then I just parted the 6400 out, kept the drives and those great built in speakers.

    tough boxes for sure

    1. Re:lightning by Tim+Doran · · Score: 2, Funny

      Great story! Seriously.

      But: Moderation (-1 Called Computer "Pooter")

    2. Re:lightning by PetWolverine · · Score: 1

      I have a PowerMac G4, an early one, one of the first AGP ones. Once when we hadn't had broadband for very long and didn't yet have a router between the cable modem and the computer, a surge came through the cable line. It fried the cable modem and the computer's Ethernet port, but the computer still worked. It took a long time to figure out that it really wasn't working properly, though, and by that time our insurance company wouldn't cover the replacement.

      Oh well. We got a cheapo Ethernet card and lived with an occasional crash. Not too long afterward we got a Linksys router, so now a surge would only fry a $150 router, not a $2000 computer (replacement cost).

      --
      I found the meaning of life the other day, but I had write-only access.
    3. Re:lightning by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      no no. he called a MAC a "pooter"

      that is acceptable behavior for a MACite, cuz they think all different-like.

  85. You would think by mrleemrlee · · Score: 1

    that after 20 minutes, the OSX kernel would have popped!

  86. IQ of MAC Users by haikvr · · Score: 1

    well this just proves the IQ level of mac users..:) hope this makes the anti macers smile !! ps : am a 5 month old switcher so dont flame me :)

  87. Since the dot mac page is down..... by greymond · · Score: 1

    I'm baffled as to why this was posted. So if for some strange reason I decided to become the worlds biggest idiot and put a computer in an oven to see how long it takes before it breaks completely this is somehow news worthy or at least slashdot worthy? In that case let me put my old Palm III in the microwave for 10 minutes and see wht happens - take some pictures and post it on slashdot - maybe it will get posted and my dot mac page will get a gazzilion hits and then my boss will think i'm cool because lots of people come to my page to learn the facts about microwaves and Palm III's. NOT

  88. New ad campaign by KludgeGrrl · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm more amazed that no one asked her why she did it

    Clearly this is the start of a new Mac ad campaign. You remember "It takes a licking, and keeps on ticking!"

    Soon we will be deluged with pictures of powerbooks that were dropped from great heights, run over by buses...

    You get the drift.

    1. Re:New ad campaign by carlos_benj · · Score: 3, Funny

      Takes a cookin' and keeps on bookin' (or iBookin')?

      Who's gonna play the part of John Cameron Swayze(sp)? I want see the one where they strap a laptop to a boat prop....

      --

      --

      As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.

    2. Re:New ad campaign by AndroidCat · · Score: 1

      Perhaps they'll just adopt a new slogan: "Cook Different"?

      --
      One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
    3. Re:New ad campaign by LordWoody · · Score: 1

      Fujitsu used to advertise just that. You could destroy most of the outer casing (keyboard, mouse, display etc and just plug in the external equivelents and keep on running. Their example though was "a sharp heavy object pierces the upper casing and takes out the display"

      I had an old Fujitsu Lifebook (Pent133MMX) and short of the battery it took every bit of the beating they said it would and in some case, then some.

      --
      Never meddle in the affairs of dragons,
      for you are crunchy and good with catsup.
    4. Re:New ad campaign by Erik+K.+Veland · · Score: 1

      Before the Titanium-books, Apple used to test the strength of their designs by running over the powerbooks with a truck.

      When demonstrating AirPort for the first time, Phil Schiller jumped with a powerbook from the 2nd floor. The reception didn't flinch.

      --
      "I tend to think of OS X as Linux with QA and Taste", James Gosling, creator of Java
    5. Re:New ad campaign by packeteer · · Score: 1

      Actually computers are pretty good at taking heat. IC chips are often baked at sever hundred degrees in the manufacturing process to prevent water from getting in them. A standard circuit board will withstand heat quite well. The problem with heat and computers comes in with plastic parts such as LCD's. This story sounds like she was trying to dry it out a bit but maybe she should have put it into the microwave :) just kidding.

      --
      unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
  89. Half Baked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This story surely is.

  90. That explains the new 12" Powerbook by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    [b]Am I the only one for whom this conjures up images of Shrinky Dinks?[/b]

    Step 1. Place 17" Powerbook in 350 degree oven

    Step 2. Watch in amazement as it curls up and shrinks

    Step 3. Remove. Allow 12" Powerbook to cool before booting. ...or...

    Step 3. Profit!!!

  91. Two Questions... by skribble · · Score: 1

    1. Are you sueing Apple too?

    2. Is this covered under APP (Apple protenction plan)?

    --
    --- Nothing To See Here ---
    1. Re:Two Questions... by Shishio · · Score: 1

      As I remember, the APP does NOT cover cases of "abuse". I remember a discussion on dealmac about someone stepping on her powerbook (and cracking the screen) and not being reimbursed by Apple. I would guess the same would happen here.

      --
      Twelve fingers or one, its how you play. ~Gattaca (Vincent)
    2. Re:Two Questions... by skribble · · Score: 1

      LOL... you know, when I read my above post aloud to myself I could hear the sarcasim in my voice. Guess I should pay more attention to my own advice and remember that what works in speech doesn't alway work as well in writing. Arghhh, and think I was learned wrong in skool.

      --
      --- Nothing To See Here ---
    3. Re:Two Questions... by Shishio · · Score: 1

      Hehe. Well I probably should have picked up on it, but my brain doesn't function this soon after waking up.

      On a more serious note though, I've seen people try to use their own stupidity for gain, over and over again. I guess the most cliché example I can think of is the woman who sued Starbucks because they made her coffee too hot, and I'm sure people try to cheat Apple all the time.

      --
      Twelve fingers or one, its how you play. ~Gattaca (Vincent)
  92. Too bad it wasn't Jeff Goldblum by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe if you stick Yao Ming in the oven, you'd get Verne Troyer?

  93. Big Deal by NoRefill · · Score: 1

    All of the boards in there were reflowed when they were created and probably got much hotter than that to solder all of the parts in place. It had coolled off considerably before being turned back on.

    What might have been interesting is to find it in the oven at 400 degrees _and_ it running!

  94. Oh come on people! by Greyfox · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Obviously there aren't many people posting who spent any time at all in tech support. After a while you become so immune to this sort of thing that it doesn't even raise an eyebrow anymore. Much less warrant a story on slashdot. People do stupid things with their computers. Move along, nothing to see here!


    On a side note, it's kind of hard to say much to the customer about it at all. Management frowns on pretty much any question you would be inclined to ask them. They like to steer you away from phrases like "Are you on drugs?" "What, are you retarded?" and "What the FUCK is WRONG with you?" So you just sigh, shake your head and fix their machine.

    --

    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

  95. WTF? by LoudMusic · · Score: 1, Funny

    Why the fuck is this on slashdot? This is ridiculous. Some idiot cooked their laptop and it gets posted on technology news site. You guys really need to evaluate standards.

    --
    No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
  96. Obviously Heavily Drugged by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What kind of mind altering drugs would a person have to be in order to place their laptop in the oven and set it on bake?

    Seriously, this person is defintely ill in some form or another?

    They should not be allowed to own a computer.

    Next we will be hearing of people who have placed laptops under the wheels when their cars that are stuck in order to gain some traction on the snow and ice.

    This shouldn't be covered under any kind of warranty nor should home owners insurance be responsible for such a stupid mistake.

    -handybundler

  97. Baked by TheJesusCandle · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Methinks the powerbook was not the only thing that was "baked"

    1. Re:Baked by dubba-dumb · · Score: 1

      Methinks TheJesusCandle has "baked" his candle 1 too many times

  98. I'm not surprised it still works by stratjakt · · Score: 1

    I'm sure the outer shell of the laptop insulated it somewhat from the heat for the 20 minutes it was in there.

    And 400 F isnt enough probably to destroy any of the stuff inside that isnt plastic. Paper doesnt even burn until 420. Perhaps if it was on at the time, some chips would fry.

    As to why it happened, my guess is a kid did it. Some kids are just stupid brats. Once I had a PC up on my desk, case open as I was fiddling around with some upgrades. Some of the family came to visit, it was christmas eve. So I left it there and went to be social.

    One of my nephews (on their mothers side) came into the room (when I wasnt there) and picked up a pair of wire cutters, and just started cutting wires inside. IDE cables, power wires, CD-rom audio cables. Pissed me off because he pretty much killed a good $99 PSU.

    I asked him why he did it? Just looks at his shoes and goes "i dunno". But I know. He's a stupid little brat and did it to get attention.

    The joke was on him. The PC was for his father to give him for christmas.

    --
    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
    1. Re:I'm not surprised it still works by Capt.+DrunkenBum · · Score: 1

      Paper ignights at 451 Deg F.

      --

      Not everyone deserves a 320i

  99. so like... by grub · · Score: 4, Funny


    so like I was working on a paper for school and I thought it'd. be.. like.. cool.. to put my PC laptop in... the oven... for like.. 20 minutes and it was like.. bleep bloop bleep and it died. I lost my paper.. it was.. a.. really good paper.

    Then I bought a Mac laptop. I was working on another.. like.. paper.. and thought it'd be cool to put.. this Mac.. in the.. like.. oven for 20 minutes. and I did.. and it still booted up..

    it was a really good paper.

    --
    Trolling is a art,
  100. Apple engineering by thatguywhoiam · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Apple has always built really, really tough machines, esp. under the aegis of Jonathan Ives. There are a lot of stories floating around about Apple employees dragging prototypes around the parking lot behind their cars, dropping off rooftops, etc. O'Grady's Powerpage used to have an 'Extreme mac' section with pics of people who had parked on their PowerBooks, shot at them, been soaking in an aquarium for a week, nailed with an Argon laser, etc.

    Remember the Space Clam iBook? The corners were double-shod rubber wrapped around the two frontmost corners, which (on this model) were the likeliest impact points in the event of a drop. The newer iBooks have an HD that is encased in a brick of rubber. Aluminum/titanium frames. This is the stuff you want in a laptop.

    --
    If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
    1. Re:Apple engineering by forau · · Score: 1

      Or you could get like 2 Intel machines for about the same price and not beat the crap outta 'em. I mean, yeah it's pretty respectible that a computer still runs after dropping it off a roof, but how often is that going to happen?

    2. Re:Apple engineering by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      It's not about being abusive, it's about having durable equipment in case of unforeseen accidents. Sure, you can save a few bucks in the short term by buying something delicate, but when you're on a business trip meeting an important client, you could end up losing far more money if your computer dies from a small drop than you saved by not buying something durable.

    3. Re:Apple engineering by mabs · · Score: 1

      I have one of these original iBooks (the SE, graphite colour), and it was in a fairly serious (for the car) car accident with me, wrote the car off against a tree. The iBook went from the left hand back seat to be jammed between the side of the drivers seat (right hand hear) and the side wall. I was actually bored just after the accident, so I decided to give it a quick boot, she work straight off. Just as a comparasion, there were 6 cans in a cooler bag in the boot, 2 of which split in a circular fashion on the side of the can (the boot was carpeted on that side).

      I love my apple, and the darn thing still works like the day I bought it!

      --
      VK3TST
      -- "People aren't stupid. Usually." -- jd
  101. It is obvioulsy.. by olethrosdc · · Score: 1

    ... all a publicity stunt by Apple. :P

    --

    I miss my rubber keyboard.(Homepage)

  102. WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is the stupidest smelly-clown-fart-dumbass-idio-moronic-pea-brain idea. Wow!

  103. Re:Proof? by Alan+Partridge · · Score: 0

    I think this serves to show what type of person posts on Slashdot. One who has no computer knowledge and thinks posting a comment is like belching up Budweiser and has more time on their hands than sense.

    --
    That was classic intercourse!
  104. tsk tsk... by teh*fink · · Score: 1

    it's actually kind of sad, if you look at those photos.
    twas once a thing of beauty...now a $3k failed baking experiment.

    --
    "I DARE you to make less sense!"
  105. Baked Apple Redux by The+Gline · · Score: 1

    There was an ad that Apple published back in the days of the Apple ][ that carried this exact headline, and it was the true story of a man's Apple ][ that had survived a housefire. A new case and keyboard was all it needed.

    Sometimes history repeats itself in good ways.

    --
    Honorary Member of Jackie Chan's Kung Fu Process Servers
  106. Who checks the inside of the oven? by XPisthenewNT · · Score: 1

    Do you check the inside of the oven everytime you turn it on? I came home late one night when I was living at home and preheated the oven to make a pizza. My friends and I went upstairs, 10 minutes later we smelled the most aweful thing: cooking cat food! My mother, it seems, stores cat food in the oven overnight (is it just me or is that really gross regardless). I found every fan in the house and plugged them in the kitchen, opened the windows wide in the middle of winter. I'll agree with the sentiment that some kids probably shoved it in there. POSSIBLY an adult wanting to hide it from children. We may never know.

  107. 400 F = 205 C by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  108. Lockeed Skunkworks ... by grunherz · · Score: 1

    When the boys at Lockheed designed the SR-71 they used a lot of Titanium around the spots that would get a little warm when the aircraft was going Mach 3 or so.

    Somehow I doubt this is what the industrial designers at Apple had in mind when they used it though.

    --
    Four weeks, Twenty papers, that's two dollars ... plus tip.
  109. Re:help by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Obviously because the Mac 8600 is some sort of TIME MACHINE!

  110. Goes to show ...... by Ex-MislTech · · Score: 1

    There is a VAST need for training of ppl before they get involved with computers . Or from another perspective IQ tests to tell ppl they really need to stay away from the complex machines above lets say .... The over used to cook the G4 ....

    --
    google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
  111. Baked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Seems to me that the Powerbook must not have been the only thing baked. If she was on the ganja, it would make a great addition to the ads that say pot makes you pregnant and causes you to shoot your friends!

    She was high on marijuana and baked her laptop... I guess pot is more dangerous than we all thought.

  112. Old Apple ][ Ads... by podperson · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Used to feature an Apple ][ recovered from a fire -- totally melted and still working.

    There was also a story about a library in a village in Papua New Guinea that was flooded, and the Macs in the library were filled with mud. They hosed em off, dried them out, and they worked.

    Finally there's an old BMUG article about "hanging your disks out to dry" after their shareware library was flooded. They opened the floppy disks, washed the disks gently with detergent, air dried them, and put them back in new cases. Voila they were readable.

    I used the same trick on a floppy disk soaked with spilled coffee (far worse than flood water I imagine). No data loss.

    1. Re:Old Apple ][ Ads... by Klaruz · · Score: 1

      I used to work at a non-profit computer center in southeast ohio, in the ohio river flood plain. We had a flood one year that got a couple LCIIIs wet. After it was over, they dried out for a couple days, and fired right up. The RFI sheild actually had a bit of rust on it. I can't remember if I had to use any contact cleaner on the connectors, but overall they were back in action very quickly.

      My first linux machine was built out of old parts gathered from wherever. The 20 meg hard drive needed a slap on the side to get it going... Fun stuff.

    2. Re:Old Apple ][ Ads... by Reziac · · Score: 1

      I knew someone whose old Mac caught on fire while she was using it (big honkin' flames, not just a little smoke -- it set the curtain and wall behind it on fire too). After they got the fire out, they transplanted the hard disk into another machine -- and it still worked, with all data intact.

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    3. Re:Old Apple ][ Ads... by swb · · Score: 1

      Finally there's an old BMUG article about "hanging your disks out to dry" after their shareware library was flooded. They opened the floppy disks, washed the disks gently with detergent, air dried them, and put them back in new cases. Voila they were readable.

      Apple ][ 5.25 floppies were industructable. We used to pull them out of the jackets, play frisbee in the physics lab and then put them into the drives and they'd work just fine. The only problems occured when they got bent and couldn't integrate mechanically with the drive.

    4. Re:Old Apple ][ Ads... by dfj225 · · Score: 1

      As far as electronics getting wet, I once read a test about a GameBoy Advance where it was flushed down a toilet and then allowed to dry out. It still worked after a thorough drying, so (this along with other posts that talk about electronics getting wet) makes it seems like most electronic devices still work after you let them dry.

      --
      SIGFAULT
  113. so what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I had a pc that had been thru the same thing, only this was a house fire, the whole house burned down. The pc's metal case was fine, though charred, and the plastic was all melted, but it booted and worked perfectly, save for the melted plastic preventing the cdrom from ejecting. Who cares about someone burning their mac?

  114. And yet my TiBook... by psyconaut · · Score: 1

    ....has a major crack near one of the hinges and paint thats coming off FROM NORMAL USE! :-o

    Kinda sucks for a machine 9 months old that cost US$3000.

  115. 400 degrees... by stienman · · Score: 1

    Well, 400 degrees is right around solder melting temperature. I'm not surprised the case plastic didn't melt - tough plastic typically has a high melting point. If she shook the machine violently while it was still 400 F then she could have shaken components off the board.

    Otherwise, from an electronics standpoint, I'm not surprised that it still worked. I wouldn't do it, but hey, to each her own.

    -Adam

  116. Waste of money? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    It's too bad these machines are so expensive and well made. I'd much rather "read" the absence of a story about a cheaper PC laptop that failed to work after being cooked, perhaps because its capacitors ruptured.

    As someone pointed out in the capacitor story, low cost correlates pretty strongly to low quality but high cost only correlates weakly to high quality. That's why I've stuck with Apple--since they have control of the hardware and through their policies, I've learned that the quality of their products is high, and I have had success counting on that in the past.

  117. been there, done that... by Thud457 · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Brings to mind this oldie.

    (Sorry about the crappy link, the only other hit google gave me was a tripod site.)

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  118. How did this happened... by LinuxTek · · Score: 1

    I'm not sure where I read this (maybe I dreamed it), but I knew a very similar story. It turns out that the user in question was going away for a trip, so she decided to hide her laptop inside the oven (who'd have thought of looking for a laptop there, huh?).

    The problem was that when she returned from her trip, she wanted to bake something, so she turned her oven on (for preheating), and when she opened the door to put the food in, she found her laptop.

    I swear I read it somewhere. An urban legend, maybe?

    --
    Signatures are supposed to be funny?
    1. Re:How did this happened... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh. I can beleive that. I did the same thing with tupperware stashed away in the oven to rush-clean my house for a party...

  119. Revenge? by alikat · · Score: 1

    From the description that the repair guy gave, it sounds like she wasn't in a panic about it, which I think I would be if it had been an accident. "She also kept every single key. She told us that they popped off while it was in the oven and she dug through to save every one." Sounds pretty "pre-meditated" to me. I am surprised that no one has posted this scenario to explain her actions: perhaps it's a revenge thing? Picture this: Wife finds out that her husband is cheating so she decides to take it out on his prized possession? Maybe he's cheating with someone he met online (hence taking it out on the "source" of the problem)? Sounds an awful lot like a variation on the "selling hubby's super-expensive sports car for $1" story to me!

  120. only 400 hundred degrees? by themeistre · · Score: 1

    Of course it still works, thats nothing compared to how hot most PC laptops get...

    --
    Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity" -MLK
  121. Fully baked? by PetWolverine · · Score: 1

    The Apple may have been baked, but the customer was obviously only half-baked...

    --
    I found the meaning of life the other day, but I had write-only access.
  122. The voices told her to... by wowbagger · · Score: 1

    Are the voices in this gal's head so loud they disturb her co-workers?

    Because that is about the ONLY reason I can come up with for this behavior.

    If this gal is a mother, I would report her to SRS before she does the same to one of her kids!

  123. WTF?!?!? by fudgefactor7 · · Score: 0

    Ok, I know this will cost me a bit of Karma, but I gotta ask: What kind of crack was this lady smoking? I would have told her "No!" She violated her warranty and we would not even attempt to fix it? I don't give a rat's shit about it, this is fucked in the head in a major way. This lady doesn't have a brain cell that operates. ... she put the goddamned thing in the fucking oven!... CHRIST!

    Just as R. Lee says: "What is your major malfunction, numbnuts?!"

  124. Re:help by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You have to realize that most Mac users are really just Windows haters. Throughout the 90's Apple put out some of the worst computers and OSs ever. They finally have started getting things right recently and all of sudden they are forgiven for the years of torment they gave to their once loyal customers. I personally think that Apple was far more negligent than Microsoft ever was.

  125. Also at Macworld by Tokerat · · Score: 2, Interesting


    Apple also did a demo similar to what you describe with the iBook, I forget if it was the initial introduction of the toilet-seat iBook or the Macworld directly after but they had a guy climb a ladder and toss the iBook on the floor, where Jobs proceeded to pick it up and boot it.

    Anyone remember this?

    --
    CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
    1. Re:Also at Macworld by Textbook+Error · · Score: 2, Informative

      That was Macworld 1998. He (Schiller) didn't actually throw it onto the floor, he jumped off a scaffold onto a bean bag while holding the iBook.

      The demo was more about showing how AirPort kept working even if you shoogled it around, not really about bounce-testing an iBook^Wexecutive.

      --

      Nae bother
    2. Re:Also at Macworld by Tokerat · · Score: 1

      That's it? GRRRRR

      Sometimes I hate being a mac guy.. It' sno fun being lied to by your own zealotous kind then making an ass of yourself as you state incorrect facts.

      I say it amongst my own kind: Mac people, get a clue.

      --
      CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
    3. Re:Also at Macworld by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, it's all our fault because you failed to check sources.

    4. Re:Also at Macworld by Tokerat · · Score: 1


      I'd like to be able to think of you as a reliable source.

      --
      CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
  126. Probably little kids that did that. by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is something that I could see a 3 year old doing. Thinking that he could play a joke the kid will hide the Computer in the over because that is somewhere no one would look for it. Not knowing this the mother is about to cook something and preheats the oven at 400. after 20 minutes she opens the door to see her expensive laptop in the stove with the white apple starting to brown and the keys fizzling. Using potholder she quickly gets the computer out of the oven. This is just a possible story on what possibly could of happend where the lady was of average intelegance. when little kids are involved random things can happen to people that seem compleatly irationail otherwise.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    1. Re:Probably little kids that did that. by DAQ42 · · Score: 1

      I used to work at an Apple Specialist shop. We had a customer bring in an iMac with a mysterious brown fluid in the casing. Turns out his son, a 2 year old, decided that the iMac needed to have maple syrup poured into the vents on the top of the machine. 2 Quarts of maple syrup. Ever smelled burnt electonics and maple syrup? Made all us technicians hungry (Mmmmm, pancakes and silicon). So anyway. We took the machine apart, down do it's bare bones. Washed and rinsed all the components with isopropyl alcohol and dried it off with compressed air. Let it sit for a day. Reassembled and, viola (damn alto violins), we had a working Mac again. No damage. In fact, as far as I know, the machine is still in use. Amazing.
      Had another friend who worked in a PC shop come to me with a story about pretty much the same thing, only this time with Cayro syrup on a Compaq. No compaq, no more.

      --
      Don't Ask Questions. I don't know the answers and even if I did I wouldn't tell you.
    2. Re:Probably little kids that did that. by Reziac · · Score: 1

      There was a guy here whose house was FILLED with books, to the point that they occupied every possible free space. Including the oven. One day someone turned the oven on without looking inside first. Did I mention that the fire department frowns on keeping books in your oven??

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    3. Re:Probably little kids that did that. by dasmegabyte · · Score: 2, Funny

      Guess they turned it up to 451 F.

      --
      Hey freaks: now you're ju
    4. Re:Probably little kids that did that. by Reziac · · Score: 1

      LOL!! I didn't think of that, but it must be true!

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
    5. Re:Probably little kids that did that. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's entirely possible that the glue or something else with a lower combustion point caught fire and raised the temperature of the paper to combustion levels without the oven being set that high.

    6. Re:Probably little kids that did that. by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Definitely a good reason not to have kids. My cats would never do such a thing.

    7. Re:Probably little kids that did that. by Theaetetus · · Score: 1
      Not necessarily kids, though... Years back, for my brother's birthday, my mother hid the cake in the oven so that he wouldn't see it. My father, preparing to make fries to go along with dinner, preheated the oven. 450 degrees later, just a melty pile of carmelized frosting.

      -T

    8. Re:Probably little kids that did that. by dasmegabyte · · Score: 1

      Nerd! You may be right, but my answer was more literary.

      Truth is beauty, unless you have a really flashy lie.

      --
      Hey freaks: now you're ju
  127. meow! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Here, try this.

  128. Not a big deal by mj01nir · · Score: 4, Informative

    A few months ago, one of my clients suffered a house fire. His Dell notebook suffered similar damage, but booted with an external keyboard and monitor. We were able to transfer the data from it, and stored it on our server until the replacement arrived.

    So this is a big deal? Wish I'd know. I could have had a story on Slashdot!

    --
    the no .sig .sig
    1. Re:Not a big deal by ziriyab · · Score: 1
      So this is a big deal? Wish I'd know. I could have had a story on Slashdot!

      Seems apple people like to make a big deal out of what other computers normally do. Remember those "made with apple" icons we used to see on web sites? How many "made with Unix" icons were there? :)

    2. Re:Not a big deal by Saurentine · · Score: 1

      A few months ago, one of my clients suffered a house fire. His Dell notebook suffered similar damage, but booted with an external keyboard and monitor. We were able to transfer the data from it, and stored it on our server until the replacement arrived.

      So this is a big deal? Wish I'd know. I could have had a story on Slashdot!


      The difference is that people don't bake "Dell pies" in their ovens.

  129. Another solar powered 6400 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There's rarely ever lightning in Hawaii but damned if a HD doesn't die fast if you repeatedly overload the inverter while the thing's running!

    Cost us $500 for a 2 gig drive. It's a wonder we never adapted the thing straight to the 12volt system.

  130. Where that story belongs... by WebMasterP · · Score: 1

    That's freaking sad. But that so should have been put in here: http://www.xtremetek.com/dumbassdb/index.php Along with the lady who put money and credit cards into her bay slots. Hahhahhahaha, oh man, so funny.

  131. life's little injustices... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How could someone be at once smart enough to earn enough money to afford a powerbook, and stupid enough to put it in an oven in the first place?

    Just wondering...

  132. Not surprising by vorwerk · · Score: 1

    The plastic can't withstand the heat (hence the discolouration), but the ICs and PCB can easily take those temperatures. Those components have to be able to stand the heat of immersive wave soldering, which is generally much higher than what a home oven can put out.

  133. a long time ago... by fgb · · Score: 1

    This reminds me of a time I was working in an office and a co-op student suddenly started panicking.
    He yelled out to our resident techie "There's smoke coming out of my monitor! What should I do!"
    Our techie replied, very calmly: "Turn it off."

  134. Re:They're just not saying, 'cause... by ianscot · · Score: 4, Insightful
    If this was an Apple store, the employee wouldn't be in a position to say anything about the (dorked-out) customer's reasons. Apple has a danged clear set of policies about dealing with customers -- you don't ridicule and you don't bitch. I know a few employees.

    So maybe we're not hearing the reasons because this person wants to keep her job.

    (I know ten women like this customer, though. Think of how casual she was in saying her little "baked apple" thing. Didn't faze her much. This is a woman with serious money and no sense. She miplaces four cell phones a year, at least.)

    --
    "Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
  135. Not too surprising... by Kalidor · · Score: 1

    I've seen several places that need computers to work in "exotic" environments. (deserts, ice feilds, savannah) Most of these places have a vigorous routing of taking the mobo's out of their computers, discharging all the electricity, giving it a good scrub down, and then drying it off in the oven every 6 months or so. I thought it was kinda crazy too, but ... they still work.

    --

    Code softly but carry a big magnet.

  136. Why she baked it... by Penguin2212 · · Score: 1

    Maybe she was trying to destroy data on the machine for some reason, that or somebody else was trying to destroy data on her machine. Who knows, maybe she didn't have a straight answer because there was something illegal involved.

    1. Re:Why she baked it... by BigLonely · · Score: 1

      Maybe she hid it for fear of being burgularized when at work, then when she came home, she preheated the oven for one of those slim-trim special aluminum-tray frozen dinners.

    2. Re:Why she baked it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe someone from Apple payed her to do it. As everyone knows (who have tried it), computers survive being baked like this.

    3. Re:Why she baked it... by BigLonely · · Score: 1

      Well then!!!! I'll have to try it too to prove you wrong!!!!!

  137. I'm confused. by bellings · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I don't get it. This is a 15", $2,400.00 powerbook, right? And she dumped it, without explanation, at a repair shop, because fixing it would be $1,000.00 for the new screen?

    This story has the stink of "bullshit" written all over it, frankly.

    --
    Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
    1. Re:I'm confused. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, that's what you would do (and so would I).
      She's either got insurance, ran down to the AppleStore to get a new one on plastic before Hubby came home, or she's just plain dumb (I know which one I would pick).

    2. Re:I'm confused. by bellings · · Score: 1

      She may be stupid.

      But it can't be insurance. I mean, she's not going to get insurance on a mac if she just dumps it, without getting an estimate or documentation, at a repair place and says, "oh, I guess I don't want it anymore."

      And, she can't just be dumping it and buying a new one -- she walked into the Apple store with a dead mac, and walked out empty handed. Plus, I've never met a human being who wouldn't say, "but what about my files! I need my files!" whenever they lost a computer, and she made no attempt to do that.

      So, my guess is that she's a crackhead who stole the Mac at an airport, and hid it in the oven while she was tweaking and afraid the boogey man was coming to get her. She probably brought it into the store with no idea what it was worth, hoping to get $25 or $50 for it so that she could get one more hit without selling her ass down on the blvd.

      What other kind of person would collect all the burnt, mangled keys from the bottom of the oven and bring them into the shop?

      --
      Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
    3. Re:I'm confused. by dvdeug · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And she dumped it, without explanation, at a repair shop, because fixing it would be $1,000.00 for the new screen?

      They said it's going to be at least a thousand dollars for the screen alone. And after you've poured another couple thousand dollars into the thing, you've got a laptop that's been baked in an overn, and likely never works quite right. It's almost cheaper, and certainly easier to just replace the whole thing.

    4. Re:I'm confused. by AaronBaker2000 · · Score: 1
      No one would put a TiBook in the oven just to get a story on slashdot.

    5. Re:I'm confused. by bellings · · Score: 1

      I guess I'm confused why she would dump it before they had a chance to test it, before they had a chance to pull any files off the hard drive, even before she managed to get anything better than a wild-ass guess repair estimate.

      Either we're talking about someone who just had the laptop sitting on their coffee table for show, or we're talking about someone who simply didn't even own the laptop she dumped.

      Certainly there are plenty of people in the world who can afford $2,400 laptops without blinking, and many of them might even have a laptop they never use and be totally unconcerned by what gets damaged during a wild party. But there are many more crack-heads out there who steal things without having any idea what they're worth, treat those things badly, and then dump those things once they discover that they're not readily convertible into more drugs.

      --
      Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
    6. Re:I'm confused. by commodoresloat · · Score: 1
      So, my guess is that she's a crackhead who stole the Mac at an airport

      I thought we had already established that the laptop was hot.

  138. come on... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Obviously she's a modern day emancipated woman who has more important things to do than learn how to work all those thingamajigs in the kitchen!

  139. GameBoy by btornado · · Score: 1

    This reminds me of the original GameBoys. When I subscribed to Nintendo Power, people would write in about their experience with their GameBoys and how it got destroyed, etc. Every time, they said that even after it got run over by a car, thrown out a window, etc, it still worked.

    1. Re:GameBoy by jcook793 · · Score: 1

      A few weeks ago my toilet was having a problem, so I opened up the top to have a look. I forgot about the always-present Gameboy Color I keep in the can and it slid right into the water tank.

      Took it apart, let it dry for a day, now I'm playing Tetris in the crapper like before.

  140. Re:This is the first post! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And you didn't make it this time either. So you can go back to feeling worthless.

  141. Only 400F? by mla_anderson · · Score: 1

    400F (200C) isn't very high. The systems I design have to be able to withstand 250C for a couple weeks at a time. Some systems have to handle 350C for weeks, and we are trying to push that to 500C.

    --
    Sig is on vacation
  142. Re:This is the first post! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I now feel worthwhile!

    sad, isn't it?

  143. My worst... by dallask · · Score: 4, Funny

    I worked for Digital Research, we did support for all the DR peripherals, IO cards, mice, sound and video... Lots of jumpers to configure, lots of crap to support...

    Well, one day I get a call from this guy, and his mouse wont work,... says that the mouse is jumpy on the screen... "Dirty track ball" I think, so I have him clean that... still jerky,... "Check Settings" I think, settings are fine... so we reinstall the drivers, reconnect the mouse, reboot the system, ... Still jerky!...

    So I call over my lv2 tech and his partner, and they go through all the same procedures.... for 45 minutes, were working this guy through navigating in windows with a mouse whose pointer jumps from one side to the other...

    The guy is frustrated, pissed at the mouse, pissed at us... and he vents... "I Just don't get this, Why do you sell this mouse if it doesn't work!!! I mean, it's not even designed right, the buttons are hard to click, and the label is upside down..."

    My ears peaked, so I took a chance... "Sir," as politely as I could muster, "When you look at the mouse, as your using it... describe what it looks like for me, tell me how your using it."

    With a frustrated sigh, he responds, "Well, I hold the mouse, and move the ball with my thumb, and click on the buttons, just like you're supposed to!"

    The dumb ass was holding a normal trackball mouse in his hand, upside down, and moving the ball with his thumb. I got him on mute as fast as I could... both me and the other techs, and everyone else who had gathered, burst out in cries of pain and agony.

    2 days later, I quit... that was just too much.

    --
    The Code Ninja is swift with his tool, precise in his delivery, and deadly accurate in his execution.
    1. Re:My worst... by piobair · · Score: 1

      I had a similar problem with a guy at that was placing the mouse on the monitor and following the pointer around with the mouse on the screen. Took about 2 hours on the phone to figure that one out.

      --
      I have a second sig, I call it sig#2.
    2. Re:My worst... by scrytch · · Score: 1

      I'd believe your story if I hadn't heard it verbatim a dozen times before with the company names changed.

      I mean, it's a funny story, but do you really have to pass it off as the truth?

      --
      I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
  144. A post on the discussion forum by Aetrix · · Score: 1
    I found this on the site's discussion forum:

    http://www.macaddict.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t= 67 98&start=0

    Post By: NAG
    Posted: Mon Feb 03, 2003 8:39 pm
    I wouldn't give [the link to your pictures of the Baked Apple] to /. unless you want your .Mac site killed.

    I vote for NAG as being the reincarnation of Nostradamus.
    --

    "One touch of Darwin makes the whole world kin." George Bernard Shaw
  145. Maybe she took the Apple slogan too seriously? by Tim+Browse · · Score: 0

    I can't believe nobody's done a "Rip. Mix. Burn" gag yet.

    Come on slashdot, get it together!

    Tim

  146. My Powerbook by blackmonday · · Score: 1

    Up until today I thought I had the worst G4 Powerbook story. I dropped it and cracked it into pieces the day after I bought it. (Yes the day after). It's at the Apple repair depot right now. But this story makes me feel like a much more intelligent individual.

    radio76.com y'all.

  147. Not so unusual by Nerdy · · Score: 1

    It's not that unusual to put electronics in the oven. My now 2 year old son dropped my Philips pronto remote into the bathtub one evening. After I stopped crying, since I figured it was toast anyway I placed it in the oven on the lowest heat. I left it in for 20 minutes, and then took it out to cool off and kept repeating. After a couple of cycles....viola!!...it worked again. It has been going ever since.

  148. but seriously.... by taperkat · · Score: 1
    isn't she a bit late for Thanksgiving Dinner?

    --
    "But I can't get an ocean that's deep enough for my day..." ~The Frames, "Fitzcarraldo"
  149. Possible explanation by Longjmp · · Score: 1

    My guess is she wanted to become a nerd and somehow got the equation overclocking = heat wrong...

    --
    There are fewer illiterates than people who can't read.
  150. no wonder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    i'm not surprised this was someone with a macintosh.

    For the clueless, by the clueless

  151. The baked Apple lady's perfect mate was in Peoria. by Jim+Efaw · · Score: 3, Funny

    Around 1990, my friend Jeff Byers (later head of tech support for Telix at deltaComm) was sitting in the old basement computer lab at Illinois Central College, when a one of the lab staff, for no particular reason, cut up a 5.25" floppy disk with scissors and inserted the pieces into the floppy drive in the next computer over. When someone asked him why he did that, he just shrugged and said "I don't know" and went back to what he was doing. A couple days later, the computer was gone.

  152. And why did he keep it? by taliver · · Score: 2, Interesting

    While I know he probably didn't mean it as such, it certainly seems a little sleezy. "Hey, this system's screwed, and will cost a loit to fix... so you might as well leave it with us and go buy a new one." Then he installs a new OS on it and runs it with a keyboard and external monitor?

    This just seems wrong to me for some reason. I hope he at least showed how she could use it again without buying an entire new system.

    --

    I demand a million helicopters and a DOLLAR!

    1. Re:And why did he keep it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They hadnt tested the motherboard at the time she was there. They have been trying to contact her ever since, both to ask her how it happend and to tell her that it still works.

  153. I know its been done before, but I couldn't resist by racerx509 · · Score: 1

    In Soviet Russia, Apple laptop bakes you!

    Well maybe not Soviet Russia, just Sweden.

    --
    13 year old white supremacists are shitty web designers.
  154. Re:I'm more amazed.... simple answer by MikeAR303 · · Score: 1

    Because they're stupid. ;)

    No seriously though it is pretty much a waste of time asking them because after you ask them they will start quizzing you on why it was a stupid thing to do. This is when all logic is tossed out the window.

    Besides, if we made them see their errors... who would we have to laugh at? :)

    (Do I get bonus points for using 2 emoticons in the same post? ;)) (Make that 3)

    --
    This post will be modded down for no particular reason by a sweaty 14 year old who is not allowed out past dark.
  155. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  156. nightmares by BigLonely · · Score: 1

    This is going to give me nightmares..... images of those keys "popping" off like popcorn, the distorted screen, melting .... melting........ Ohhhhhhhhh She's lucky the battery didn't explode in her face. Question: I wonder what effect those Lithium oxide fumes had on her..... Then again, that might be a good way to make "literate", alphabet-stamped waffles.

  157. New switch ad by verch · · Score: 2, Funny

    I had a PC, and I put it in the oven, and like, baked it for a while, and like it went beep bloop buzz and then exploded. It was a bummer.. It ruined my stove, it was a really good stove too. So then I got a powerbook, and like, then when I baked that, it like bent a little, but still worked and stuff.

    My name is Joe, and I'm a moron.

  158. it burns it burns by matto14 · · Score: 0

    and I thought that that pc laptops could only burn your penus now this damn.

    --
    SCREW FLANDERS
  159. Emachines survived complete house fire by freeefalln · · Score: 0

    I lost my house to a fire with my 366mhz celeron Emachines desktop. House burned to the ground, the emachines still boots to this day. that was 3 years ago.

    400 degress is nothing.

  160. Here's how it happened... by cedmond · · Score: 1

    I don't see what the confusion is over how she did it...this woman obviously has kids. My guess is in the 2-4 year old range.

    --
    ----------------------------------
    I'd rather not take sides until I hear the monkey's version - PHB
    1. Re:Here's how it happened... by MImeKillEr · · Score: 1

      Answer to that: Appliance locks.

      Problem solved.

      --
      Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
    2. Re:Here's how it happened... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My guesses:

      1 You don't have kids
      2 You are 35-40
      3 You don't have a wife
      4 You smell
      5 You're good with computers

  161. Mod Parent +1 Funny by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

    [No Text]

  162. Hoax by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    this story is an obvious hoax.

  163. Re:They're just not saying, 'cause... by Black+Copter+Control · · Score: 4, Funny
    If this was an Apple store, the employee wouldn't be in a position to say anything about the (dorked-out) customer's reasons.

    My reading, is that anybody who can walk into a store with an obviously fried (er, baked) $2500 box, and say with a straight face that she's got "a baked apple", has got to have a sense of humor.

    I'm betting that she went home, and told her astonished friends.

    "I can't believe it. The guy at the store took the computer from me, and didn't even bother to ask how my computer got baked. Talk about brainless drones -- wouldn't you want to know how that happened?"
    --
    OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
  164. Phew.. by bobba22 · · Score: 1

    Little old lady was relieved that her Tibook was still working. It contained all her death metal MP3s and warez. My question is what she was doing with a Tibook in the first place? I reckon the oven story is a cover. More likely that she forgot to grab it when she burned out the car she'd just stolen.

  165. that's just a sign of shoddy workmanship there... by AssFace · · Score: 1

    Anything that I buy has to spend some time in the oven - especially things like computers.

    If they can't pass that crucial test, then I see no reason to ever use and/or buy them again.

    The sencond crucial test is urinating on them.

    done AND done.

    --

    There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
  166. Apple Reliability by tfinniga · · Score: 1

    The keys came off? Whatever happened to "it just works"? Bah. See if I ever buy an apple.

    --
    Powered by Web3.5 RC 2
  167. She was... by thechao · · Score: 1

    calculating Pi. =)

  168. Re:They're just not saying, 'cause... by CyberKnet · · Score: 1

    (I know ten women like this customer, though. Think of how casual she was in saying her little "baked apple" thing. Didn't faze her much. This is a woman with serious money and no sense. She miplaces four cell phones a year, at least.)

    It is unlikely that she is that kind of person... You should try being a little less judgemental.
    Quoth the article:
    We told her that the cost of the screen alone would be around $1000 if not more, so she... decided to leave the machine with us to discard of.

    --
    Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor - Ovidius
  169. The classic "Baked Apple" ad by Faust7 · · Score: 3, Informative
    Here it is, as much as I could find of it:

    http://www.weaselcollectibles.com/cart/item-detail .cfm?ID=6152

  170. Good use for iBooks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Lets put them on the shuttle instead of the current heat shield

  171. Got this call by XL1977 · · Score: 1

    My wife works at Apple and she told me about this a few weeks ago. She came home and told me that she got a call exactly like this. The customer was wondering if this would be covered under warranty. Whatever.

  172. What is really amazing... by Eminence · · Score: 1

    is that people this stupid (or careless) can afford a new Powerbook G4...

  173. I hope this woman owns no pets by AssFace · · Score: 2, Funny

    The smell of a melting PowerBook is gross enough, but I would I'd imagine cats smell even worse after time spent in the oven.

    --

    There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
    1. Re:I hope this woman owns no pets by AndroidCat · · Score: 2, Funny

      She was probably smoking something and spent 20 minutes trying to boot her apple pie.

      --
      One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  174. Here is what happened! by kruczkowski · · Score: 1

    I bet she has a hax0r son who read /. daily.

    Probobly saw something about overclocking and wanted to "test the limits" of the machine.

    So he took his moms powerbook for a test.

    Now he is not alowed to tuch his computer, and mom has SO ebarised of her son that she didn't want to say.

    Or mom was just really dumb and figured she could eat the powerbook and get smart.

    --
    hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
  175. Sounds like an old Apple ][+ ad they used to run by farrellj · · Score: 1

    Apple had a magazine ad for the Apple ][+ where a customer's office had a fire, and they brought the system back to Apple, and after exchanging the case/keyboard it worked fine!

    This person should contact Apple...this would be a great "retro" ad!

    ttyl
    Farrell

    --
    CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
  176. Maybe she tried to hide it from burglars? by BlueUnderwear · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Sorry to inject a (semi-)serious answer among all the jokes:

    Maybe she went on holydays (planning not to take her powerbook with her), was concerned that the house might get burgled, and proceeded to hide the valuables: jewelry into the trash, bearer's share certificates among the old newspapers, apple into the oven, ...

    Three weeks later, when she came back, she had all forgotten about these hiding places, took the trash out, threw the old papers into the chimney and pre-heated the oven for a pizza...

    --
    Say no to software patents.
    1. Re:Maybe she tried to hide it from burglars? by Blimey85 · · Score: 1

      Damn! After all of this, she'll need another holiday!

      --
      How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
  177. ...And you could have fixed it!!! by siskbc · · Score: 1
    You couldn't have fried any of the chips - it would have been absolutely dead. Your troubles sound like what a lot of crappy-MOBO owners have been experiencing lately - a blown (probably electrolytic ) capacitor. These things are generally used for rectifying the power source into the MOBO - a task they would probably have fatally failed in after the lightning strike. ;) Symptoms of this are random crashes and such, as you describe. But, with a few $ and a soldering iron, it would have been good as new.

    And think, you would have had the COOLEST computer ever. Get a clear case to show off the crispy MOBO, and act all smug when you tell interested onlookers, "Aw, it was just a lightning strike. It works fine..."

    --

    -Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat

    1. Re:...And you could have fixed it!!! by zogger · · Score: 1

      --I honestly gave it a good look over, but will admit to not being the best engineer here. There was so much fried-looking stuff I wouldn't have known where to start. It's still a good story though, although I should have taken some pics of it before I chucked it, or sent it to apple maybe, let their engineers look at it just to see what was "right" still with it, where they did good.

  178. a geek version of jackass? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why I am reminded of those guys returning a rental car after taking it to a demolishion derby?

  179. Data Loss by allenw · · Score: 1
    I just have one question (ok, technically two):

    If the machine's data was recoverable, why didn't he ask her if she wanted it before formatting the hard drive? What if she had important work on it? I mean, I would hope she would have a backup, but...

    Sounds like pretty crappy customer service if you ask me.

    1. Re:Data Loss by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      mod this up to the max

  180. The Crucial Ingredient Is Missing by TheRhino · · Score: 2, Funny

    Cocoa!

    Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all week.

  181. Call me cynical, but... by GCU+Friendly+Fire · · Score: 1
    This is the kind of thing I'd do if I wanted cheap publicity for my computer brand.

    Total outlay: one shake-and-bake computer.

    The story will get posted to hell and back, and may even make it to some mainstream newspapers.

  182. Lets all make guesses as to why she did it... by Lodragandraoidh · · Score: 1

    I think it would be fitting and proper to let this thread degenerate into wild speculation as to why she did it...

    I will start it off:

    She hid the thing in the oven, planning on surprising her husband/kid/friend with the present of a computer at a later date. Several days later, she decides to bake something, and turns on the oven to let it heat up (you know how most recipies call for you to 'preheat the oven to 400 degrees' etc)...forgetting about the expensive 'apple pie' under the blowtorch.

    Mystery solved...

    Now, post your speculations!

    --

    Lodragan Draoidh
    The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
  183. I'm tempted to throw mine into the oven as well. by FrankieBoy · · Score: 1

    My view of Apple is quickly turning into a good runner up to Microsoft for "Least Favorite Giant Corporate Entity". They're still snubbing the next MacWorld in Boston and have now announced that they're going to snub MacWorld in NY. Their customer service stinks. I have a G4 TI notebook and when I pick it up sometimes it looses power. When I called it in for support their responce was that I "shouldn't be picking it up with the power on". ?!?!? Hello!!!! Do they not understand how their customers are sing their products?

  184. Re:They're just not saying, 'cause... by elmegil · · Score: 1

    If she was willing to just walk away from a $2500 machine, you don't think she's made of money?

    --
    7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
  185. Parents beware... by symbolic · · Score: 1


    Maybe her kid was ticked at her.

  186. Am I the Only One? by virg_mattes · · Score: 1

    Maybe I'm just being old-fashioned, but she left the computer behind because it was trashed. When this fellow found that the computer proper worked correctly, why didn't he call her up and offer to return it to her, perhaps for use as a desktop system, instead of formatting the drive and using it himself? That's still her computer, and if it still works he's not very professional just to keep it. Remember, she left the Mac with them so they could discard it, so it's reasonable she'd want it back if she knew it worked.

    Virg

  187. bull#!@$ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's one of the shuttle astronauts laptops.
    Return it to NASA promptly!

  188. ibooks by SHEENmaster · · Score: 1

    don't have a metal(titanium) frame like powerbooks do.

    I think it would be a lot more impressive, if a lot less functional.

    --
    You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
    1. Re:ibooks by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · · Score: 1

      Uh. I thought the frame in an iBook was made out of magnesium. Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks so, either.

      --

      I write in my journal
    2. Re:ibooks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Not necessarily. A lot of thermoset plastics need to be made a lot hotter than 400F to have much effect. Note that the keys popped off, but survived, and the plastic encasing the chips obviously did ok too. Thermoplastics would melt and run (and maybe burn), but thermosets can be remarkably tough.

    3. Re:ibooks by Jucius+Maximus · · Score: 1
      "ibook don't have a metal(titanium) frame like powerbooks do."

      They have a magnesium frame. Read for yourself: http://www.apple.com/ibook/

      Of course, considering magnesium's properties, you might get more than a cooked apple if you put an iBook in the oven. (Magnesium is flammable.)

  189. Why is this news for nerds? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    Nerds don't do this.

    Oh, now I get it. Ok, Apple users do it. Sorry! :)

  190. Re:They're just not saying, 'cause... by supremebob · · Score: 1

    I would have told the Apple store to keep it as well.

    For the $1,500 that she would have paid to have it fixed (screen, keyboard, cleaning, and labor), she could have easily bought an iBook that was nearly as fast as her old G4.

  191. How about a microwaved PC laptop? by cacav · · Score: 1

    Before I became an engineer, I worked as a Deskside Service Rep in one of the buildings on our site as an intern. The guy I worked with told me about the employee who won the "no common sense" award from our team.

    The previous winter, the support guys started learning of people leaving their laptops in their cars over the winter. When they brought them inside for work the next day and booted them, condensation began to form everywhere. So an email went out telling people to let their laptops warm up to room temperature before turning them on, so that the ocndensation wouldn't short anything out.

    Well one woman on the team was in a rush one morning and decided to expedite things by throwing her laptop in the microwave down the hall. It didn't fare as well as the baked Apple. Apparently when they opened it up and tried turning it on afterwards, they found that the LCD display had melted somehow and was running down the back of the screen.

    Sad part is, they actually gave her a replacement laptop.

  192. the solar rig here.. by zogger · · Score: 1

    ..the solar rig here is complex. there's two redundant large arrays that feed two seperate battery banks, those goto the main house on the estate where I live. (we the po folks do the grunt work here). I pull a 15 amp AC feed from a sub panel installed off the smaller of the two arrays. that is now underground inside conduit, heh. The inverters themselves use the grid for AC-1 in, and there's a diesel genny for AC-2 in, so there's plenty of options. My own personal rig is three panels and a charge controller going to 4 storage batts with a strict 12 volt system, that runs the lights and some other jazz in here (an RV) and my smaller old powerbook 280c which is my "storm" throw away computer now if anything happens to it. I haven't seen any problems with the hard drives yet, or any weird voltages problem. I manually set the options menu on the inverters pretty high so they kick over if the voltage starts to drop. Those batteries are expensive so we do whatever is possible to keep them as full as possible and only do real shallow cycling. Also added de-sulphators which apparently work quite well, at least the electroylyte got a lot cleaner visually and they seem to be in almost new condition still.

    some pics are online of the main stuff. Go to the middle of the page, mountain top in georgia pics.

    1. Re:the solar rig here.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey, do you work for Lara Croft!?!

      Later...
      Corrado

  193. mumbo jumbo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    For me the brain that baked this powerbook is the guy who posted this article.
    It's unlikely that someone who spent a lot on a brand-new powerbook g4 would probably burn it in the oven. I guess this powerbook was already dead and the guy then "baked" it so it could make a fun slashdot story.

    And more: Why the lady left that very expensive thing there? Only because the guy said it had no salvation? Unlikely.

    Come on.

  194. i know this person by troutsoup · · Score: 1

    this is too funny, i know this girl! i saw the laptop a few weeks ago, in good working order, she told me about the case warping and said something to the extent of _titanium shouldn't warp_

    --
    -- troutsoup.com
  195. I say by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    it's getting hot in here ... so take off all your keys.

  196. yes, but by zogger · · Score: 1

    --ok, -1 for saying "pooter", but I get a +1 for NOT saying "boxen", so it cancels.....
    heh heh heh

    1. Re:yes, but by fusiongyro · · Score: 1

      forgot the additional -1 for saying "anywho". :)

      --
      Daniel

  197. similar story with a twist..... by buckaroo-b · · Score: 1

    A few years ago when I was doing desktop/laptop support I came accross something similar.

    One day my manager hands my a laptop and a ziploc bag full of keyboard keys, and instructs me to repair as quickly as possible, to ask no questions and return it to him.

    Upon closer examanination the keys they we are melted and distorted. So I removed the hard drive and placed it anothewr usit and returned it as instructed.

    Later on I found out the whole story. It was lucky that the hard drive was not damaged, as water (or some liquid) was spilled on a laptop (Toshiba 650CDT if it matters) and a hair dryer was used to dry it out. Apperantly the the user was interrupted while doing this so he set the hair dryer down on the keybaord to tkae a call. Hence the melted keys...

    So what's the twist, turns out the laptop belongs to a Senior Director of our company. Why did he decide on the hair dryer method? Apperently he was in a hotel and was advised by two other to do so, the CIO and IT Director of our company!!!!!

    --

    i have walked down train tracks, walked down train tracks, drunk at 3 a.m. it not magic, it's no great trick, w
  198. Backwards by tritone · · Score: 1

    Darnit. She got it backwards. When you overclock your computer, you're supposed to put it in the freezer.

  199. Thinking Different by crimsontiger6 · · Score: 1

    Hmmm yup.

    --

    be vigilant, be pure, behave
  200. Apple should deal with the baked apple situation. by Ukab+the+Great · · Score: 2, Funny

    I suggest they rename their objective-c API from Cocoa to Cinnamon.

  201. Re:Old News(here is a workin link) by Swe3tDave · · Score: 1

    http://www.attrition.org/gallery/computing/vintage /digitaldataporn/tn/baked-apple-ad.jpg.html

    Well.. i dont have an apple to bake.. but i still got my Windoze cd... ;)

  202. Not surprised... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My mom used to make wire wound resisters and would on occation, have to bake them to get them into tolerance. Short of melting, I don't see how any other critical parts would be effected. Also, I would imagine that any modern computer would use resistors that would be unaffected by heat.

    Also, those who listen to NPR are probobly aware of Northern Michigan University's Laptop Initiative Program where students pay way too much for a POS laptop. After a breif stint in late 2001 early 2002, art students were allowed to choose to get a laptop from Apple instead. By the end of the laptop distribution in Fall 2002, 300 Apples were DOA, while only 12 of the IBMs had any problems. But in Apple's defense, more IBMs of NMU's 2001 model have been KIA. But one must also keep in mind, those have also been around for an extra year.

  203. been wanting to make... by zogger · · Score: 1

    ....been wanting to make a router/firewall from one of these old pentium one serious junkers I got kicking around, partly for that purpose of physical protection. Just been lazy and need to figure out where to put the thing, about ran out of room in my RV "office" here. Office is I took the front passenger seat out, all my stuff is crammed in there.

    Of course, I was going to use one of those runs on a floppy drive router things, but reading the poll thread I see I won't be 1337 and "cool" if I admit to even owning a floppy, so......

  204. Re:They're just not saying, 'cause... by schon · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Apple has a danged clear set of policies about dealing with customers -- you don't ridicule and you don't bitch

    So you can't ask a question without ridiculing or bitching?

    How about "Can you tell us why it was in the oven?"

  205. Apple popsicle by Beige · · Score: 1

    A few years ago on a hot summers day one of the sysadmins at the company I worked for warned the CEO that using his laptop for too long might cause it to overheat. A few hours work later the CEO solved this problem by putting the laptop in the freezer. This cured the overheating, but in a more permanent fashion than he had presumably hoped for...

    --
    pandnotpian.org. The untruth will set you free!
  206. C-16s and flame wars by Epsillon · · Score: 1

    I had a Commodore C-16 in my ill-spent youth that survived a fire in our house. I had to re-case it and replace the molten key-caps with those from an old VIC-20 I had in bits, but it still worked...

    --
    Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.
  207. searching for the reason "why" by cr@ckwhore · · Score: 1

    While sitting here thinking of a believable reason of "why" this person would bake a mac ... I suddenly remembered an article about 10 years ago that appeared in PC Computing Magazine. Basically, they took a bunch of laptops, perhaps 10 different models, and did this kind of stuff to 'em to ween out the toughest laptop. They threw 'em off buildings, put 'em in the oven, dumped water on 'em, left 'em outside in the freezing cold over-night, etc. I don't remember how it all turned out, but some of the laptops survived. Maybe this woman was inspired somehow.

    --
    Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
  208. well, thats one good use for a Mac by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the other being a paper wieght or non-connectivity device

  209. rotten for geeks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    this is kinda like rotten.com for machines. Cute, but disturbing.

  210. Pentium Envy by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

    She was just upset that the G4 doesn't run hot enough.

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  211. Re:They're just not saying, 'cause... by GTRacer · · Score: 1
    ...She miplaces four cell phones a year, at least.

    Did she try calling any of them when she realised they were missing?

    What does one do with a "found" cellphone anyway? Is there no ID (can't remember what the phone's unique xmit ID is called...) check done when registering an existing phone with a carrier?

    GTRacer
    - Cellphones suck anyway...

    --
    Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
  212. History Repeats Itself by cgreuter · · Score: 1

    Perhaps I'm showing my age here, but I saw a similar story in an ad for Apple some years ago. The headline also read Baked Apple and showed a picture of a really toasted computer. In this case though, it appears that the computer in question had been at the center of a small house fire, but once again, it still worked and only needed a new case and keyboard.

    Only, the computer wasn't a Mac. It was an original Apple II.

    1. Re:History Repeats Itself by AndroidCat · · Score: 1

      Showing your age? I could go pull out a Byte and find that ad. Didn't it have a somewhat sooty ginger cat in the picture too?

      --
      One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  213. Why/How Re:I'm more amazed.... by IvyMike · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'll bet you dollars to donuts this is how it happened: A lot of people get the bright idea to hide their valuables in the oven. They either forget that they've done this, or forget to inform their housemates that they've done this. Then, somebody gets a hankerin' for a frozen pizza, and preheats the oven....

    1. Re:Why/How Re:I'm more amazed.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why would you heat the oven if you wanted frozen Pizza??

  214. I was totally unaware ... by Mikey-San · · Score: 1

    I mean, I know the PowerBook G4 gets pretty hot when it's running, but mine's never done /that!/ ;D

    -/-
    Mikey-San

    --
    Mikey-San
    Karma: +Eleventy billion (mostly affected by watching Celebrity Jeopardy)
  215. Re:Baked an (Origin 2000) by cactopus · · Score: 1

    Sounds like a career limiting move.

    How long did that job last anyways?

  216. I've done something similar... here's why by jhsewell · · Score: 1

    About a year ago, I spilled an entire mug of steaming hot coffee (with cream and sugar) into my PowerBook G4 while it was running. My first thought was that I had just ruined a $2500 computer.

    I immediately unplugged the machine and removed the battery. I then proceeded to completely disassemble the machine into its constituent components. I washed the pieces individually in distilled water using a soft-bristled toothbrush to get in all of the nicks and crannies. The only pieces that I didn't wash were the display, hard drive, and Airport card.

    I gave the pieces a final rinse in distilled water and then baked them in the oven for 30 minutes at 175 degrees (F). The idea was to cause all of the water to evaporate out of the components. Since it was distilled water, I was hoping that it wouldn't leave any deposits or residue behind.

    I reassembled the machine, held by breath, and hit the power button... It worked and continues to work properly to this day.

    1. Re:I've done something similar... here's why by johneee · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I used a hair dryer on a 20K mixing console and a $5K digital piano that got caught on stage when one heck of a sudden rainstorm (you know, one of those ones that starts raining horozontally so the stage roof doesn't do anytyhing) came up without any warning.

      The digital piano actually got taken into a trailer before it got too wet, but unfortunately it was left directly under a leak in the trailer. When we picked it up later the water ran out in big streams. It worked just fine.

      The sound console was mostly fine, we just lost one of the aux returns on it. No problem. Gotta love Mackie.

      --
      - ------- There are ten kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary, and those who... Huh?
  217. kthx by zogger · · Score: 1

    --my pooter and I poot in your general direction, trollish1. neener neener. cya

  218. baked apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Having done support for apple I can say this "typical apple customer"
    Nuff said.

  219. Re-fomratted HD by Morky · · Score: 1

    It might have been nice to offer to save the lady's data before blowing it away. (Maybe she left too quickly...)

  220. baked apple by koan · · Score: 1

    Having done support for Apple I can say this (I earned that right) "Typical Apple Customer"

    --
    "If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
  221. Revenge? by failedlogic · · Score: 1

    I'm wondering if this is not an act of revenge on an ex-husband/boyfriend. She may have decided to take some of her ex-hubby's possessions and destroy them to oblivion - or put them in the over knowing they wouldn't make a nutricious meal.

  222. Perish the thought! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh god! Do you know what this means???? That asswipe Valenti was right! Digital data is forever!

    We must shut Apple down now as they're stuff is too good and is making Valenti's claims truthful!

  223. YES by meowmonster · · Score: 1

    Easy answer... YES.

    Becuase the answer will just hurt your brain even more that seeing what they did.

  224. Re:I'm more amazed.... simple answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    best /. sig ever :)

  225. Re:They're just not saying, 'cause... by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Nine times out of ten it's an electric razor, but every once in a while... it's a dildo. Of course it's company policy never to imply ownership in the event of a dildo... always use the indefinite article "a dildo," never "your dildo."

    --

    I write in my journal
  226. bake this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    wow, how retarded. nerds really care about this, huh?

  227. Beowulf, Dude... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Dude, I was like... Imaging a beowulf cluster of ovens running OS X... and then the oven's all like, 'bake, bake, bake, bake...'

  228. Surprised no one thought of this theory yet... by jinx90277 · · Score: 1

    Somehow, I think she was covering up for one of her teenaged sons who had just watched American Pie and stopped listening after the "hot apple" part of the line.

    If true, that poor Powerbook may have other damage I don't want to think about.

    --
    "she says i'm lousy conversation. as if that's supposed to help."
  229. kids by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    'nuff said

  230. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  231. Theory is half-baked... by jmichaelg · · Score: 1
    Could have been kids or possibly, the woman, in a last minute cleaning rush before company came in the door, stashed it in the oven and forgot about it.

    No, I don't know anyone who would do something that dumb. Er, where did I put the mail?

  232. To Serve Apples by AndroidCat · · Score: 1

    It's a cookbook! It's a cookbook!

    --
    One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  233. Then why am I not impressed? by NoData · · Score: 1

    You know, I've heard such stories, but alas the toughness of the TiBook does not impress me. I work in an all-Apple lab, and we've gone through several. A small fall (from a chair onto carpeted floor) cracked one on the IR port side..(there's still a LOT of thin plastic besides the Ti underside and lid) and I had to superglue bits of the chassis together. Alas, the amazing heat the things give off didn't make it easy on the bonds, and the thing cracked in that area again. The paint famously flakes off the titanium (wasn't that one impetus for them switching to the new aluminum alloy?). And ALL the TiBooks we've had end up with slight warping of the screen so that they no longer close flush. Thank god for the magnetic latch, or the one I currently use wouldn't close. My advisor handles his kinda roughly (not baking it in a frickin' oven, but shoving it in and out of backbacks) and cracked the screen....

    And we've had other issues...Yet a different TiBook's LCD screen up and died. The one with cracked screen came back from Apple repair with a right speaker that didn't work.

    And the power supplies? Easy prey to fray. You unwind the flying saucer enough times, and suddenly there's not so much insulation down near hub of the spool.

    Structurally, they just don't feel or perform as solidly under normal (i.e. not baking) wear-and-tear as they look in my experience. I've handled a few of the new iBooks for an extended period, and now there's one tough cookie. On the other hand, the power supply plug on my sister's iBook barely stays in the chassis jack...and that CD tray is just waiting to snap off (to say nothing of its horrible position).

    Well, having said all that, the machines and the OS are an unmitigated joy to use, but not so impressed with the ruggedness of the PowerBooks. Maybe the Albooks will be tougher?

    1. Re:Then why am I not impressed? by MoneyT · · Score: 1

      First you seem to be talking iBooks here not TiBooks.

      Second, IIRC, none of the clamshell iBooks or later came with IR ports.

      I've been using my Ti all over stuffed in a bag and taken all arround and haven't had crakced screens etc.

      TiBooks don't have saucer power adapters, and nither do the iBooks anymore (and the saucer lasted me a good 2 years before someone kicked the cord out).

      But overall yes the TiBooks were built less rugged than the iBook.

      --
      T Money
      World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
    2. Re:Then why am I not impressed? by ipjohnson · · Score: 1

      I don't know about you man but my iBook (clam shell) is by far and away the most rugged machine I've ever used. I've dropped it, I've used it in the freezing cold , I've even spilled pints of beer in it.

      I'm sold

    3. Re:Then why am I not impressed? by andrewski · · Score: 1

      Actually, there is no thin plastic to be had on the TiG4 except the keyboard, trackpad, and the Apple logo on the lid. The white wrap-around fram is carbon fiber IIRC.

      I've had my TiG4 (DVI 666) for about 8 months now and it is solid as fuck. I have dropped it onto concrete, sat on it, and generally abused it since I recieved it. The only compaint I have is that I have one dead green subpixel. It used to bother the crap out of me, but I don't even see it anymore. Also, the paint is coming off the frame, but that's fine with me. It looks kind of crappy but probably deters casual theft.

      And then there's my old 5300c. I have had this thing for years and years, and it still chugs along. The pin inside the socket where the PSU plugs into the machine broke off years ago, and I run it with a VST expansion-bay power adapter that takes virtually any kind of power. The battery lasts all of 15 minutes now. No dead pixels on this baby. In use as a serial console (because GRRR my G4 doesn't have a proper serial port).

      I think you've been having problems with the older rev 1 or 2 Powerbook TiG4s. The last 3 generations have been golden, however.

    4. Re:Then why am I not impressed? by NoData · · Score: 1

      No, everything i mentioned was regarding TiBooks except my last comment. And my comment about iBooks was that, in contrast to TiBooks, they are surprisingly solid.

      And yes, TiBooks (at least 667MHz model I'm using right now, and all the prior models I've used) have come with the saucer power adapters.

    5. Re:Then why am I not impressed? by NoData · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Perhaps it's carbon fiber. Whatever it is cracked easily and badly. There has not been a TiBook in my lab (I count 4) that has not had some sort of hardware issue. Perhaps they are rev. 1 or 2., although my advisor is a Mac madman and upgrades at almost every speed bump, so I doubt his cracked screen one was. As for the one I use (the one whose chassis cracked around the IR port), System Profiler says it is 667MHz, PowerBookG4 version 2.1. Maybe this corresponds to rev 2?

      Anyway, I am gratified to know that they've gotten better.

    6. Re:Then why am I not impressed? by Megane · · Score: 1
      And the power supplies? Easy prey to fray. You unwind the flying saucer enough times, and suddenly there's not so much insulation down near hub of the spool.

      The trick is to avoid unwinding that last loop of wire.

      My first yo-yo died because the wires finally wore out in the (so-called) strain relief of the plug that goes into the Powerbook. I dropped my replacement on a linoleum floor one day and it almost completely broke in two. I've even taken it apart once since then, just because I could.

      I tried to get the old one to break in case I could re-use the innards, but it didn't work.

      --
      #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
    7. Re:Then why am I not impressed? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The 400 and 500 MHz original TiBooks came with an IR port on the back.

    8. Re:Then why am I not impressed? by Jon+Abbott · · Score: 1

      The 550 and 667 MHz TiBooks (pre-DVI) came with IR ports as well... When they included DVI ports, they also included an audio-in, which didn't leave much room for the IR port.

    9. Re:Then why am I not impressed? by Jon+Abbott · · Score: 1

      I believe Apple switched over to the new power adapter (3"x3"x1") when they released the CD-RW Tibooks.

    10. Re:Then why am I not impressed? by andrewski · · Score: 1

      You have the same one I have. It has the Radeon 7500 and DVI out and audio in ports. I think you had the same problem I had. Mine was loose near the optical drive on the corner, and I sent it in and they went over it with a fine-toothed comb. I haven't had a problem since.

      Send it back for service!

  234. NO ONE ASKED HER BECAUSE... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No one asked her because its a freaking publicity stunt ya bunch of freaking idiots.

    There are wayy too many idiots in the world. Period.

  235. How on Earth... by bluethundr · · Score: 1

    ...did we as a whole ever evolve out of the swamps???

    I really do need to step up my efforts vis a vis setathome so I can finally get off this goshforsakenrock!

    --
    Quod scripsi, scripsi.
  236. Years ago, while working at an Apple repair depot by jackdoodle · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I ran across a client who excalimed that there was a problem with his 'starter chip'. Apparently, the battery had run out, and as those with Apple experience know, the most frequent symptom of a bad battery is a blank screen; the blank screen goes away with a warm reboot. So, as I watched in horror, the client showed me what he was doing: just after the computer started up, while it was on, he removed the RAM SIMM, and plugged it back in. Recoiling from the shock of having its RAM torn out and plunked back in, the computer restarted. The client, of course, was disturbed that 'this seemed to work less and less often lately'. Either the computer gods, or the patron saint of the feeble-minded, had clearly been smiling on him...

  237. Re:video of this by Starman9x · · Score: 1

    well, actually of a VCR -- it's probably a bit of a setup/planned video, but set to look like tape from a surveilance camera. This is a german site with some, well, odd stuff on it [perfect for the slashdot crowd] but go to nu-rock and scroll down to the video/ burning-recorder.mpeg to see what I'm talking about

  238. My Theory by objekt · · Score: 1

    She probably thought it was a safe place to hide a valuable item. Later she wanted to bake cookies, forgot the laptop was in the oven, preheated it, uh...you know the rest.

    --
    -- Boycott Shell
  239. This is a tribute to Apple's high quality. by Lethyos · · Score: 1

    Do any of you think that laptops from any other vendors would have survived that computer-hell for 20 minutes and *still* function at all? I think it's absolutely incredible that a company can produce a piece of hardware that can stand up to that. Obviously a plastic LCD is going to fry, but it appeared mostly functional.

    Anyone get the feeling that Apple did this through an anonymous employee expecting news to spread through the geek community? I certainly would regard Apple laptops as "rugged" from now on. :-)

    --
    Why bother.
  240. I though Apple users were Smart by Denver_80203 · · Score: 1

    Didn't apple release study results suggesting apple users, while they can't figure out how to nivigate a PC, are "brighter" than the rest of us on average? Well I'll serve this one up as Exibit A against that!

  241. Re:I'm tempted to throw mine into the oven as well by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I had the same problem with my ti book. It's apparantly a problem with the early models, simply fixed with the insertion of a plastic shim.

    whoever told you not to pick up your laptop wasn't firing on all cylinders, take it into your local repair centre.

  242. 5 months old and you can type?! by jo_ham · · Score: 1

    Are you in the guinness book of records?

    1. Re:5 months old and you can type?! by haikvr · · Score: 1

      HOOHAAA i lost a rib laughing !!

  243. How do we know this is real? by MrMrBen · · Score: 1

    Ok, he has pictures, but it wouldn't be that hard to generate those. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it sounds like a really bizarre thing to do, and a bit weird that he didn't try to get an explanation out of her. But, who knows.

  244. The vastness of space . . . . . by LazloToth · · Score: 3, Insightful

    . . . is nothing compared to the boundlessness of stupidity.


    --


    It's only funny until someone gets hurt. Then, it's hilarious.
  245. I doubt it.... by Mike+Rucker · · Score: 1

    If that was the case then she probably would have thrown it out the window when she was done to make it go fast enough.

  246. I've actually seen this happen before. by Aqua+OS+X · · Score: 1

    I've actually seen this happen before. Placing a laptop, cell phone, pager, etc in the oven on 'warm' is a good way to dry it out if you get it wet (a hairdryer also works). With most ovens it is possible to keep your laptop warm enough to allow water to evaporate, yet not so hot that it melts.

    However sometimes people take this little tip too far. They decide to speed up the process (which should actually take hours) and they end up with broiled-notebook-surprise.

    --
    "Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
  247. Why Why Why by dfcox530 · · Score: 1

    Thats all I want to know.

  248. It's a recommendation believe it or not by Himring · · Score: 1

    I'm married, and my wife watches these 'women' shows that teach you everything from: how to make really pretty ornamental flower arrangements from tissue paper (unused of course) to how to dress like martha stewart. Anywho, I saw on one of these shows where the lady was explaining that if you're in a big hurry -- guests coming over and all -- and trying to get the house in order quickly, just toss dirty dishes, or whatever is laying out that you want out of site, into the oven.

    I'm convinced that's what causes this sort of thing. You forget all about having the items in the oven, and, later, while preheating to cook a that roast, something starts smelling funny....

    --
    "All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
  249. Years (I mean YEARS!) ago... by fordboy0 · · Score: 1
    In Cincinnati we had a computer store called appropriately enough, "Cincinnati Computer Store". In said computer store sat an Apple II+ that had burned in a fire. Melted to hell and back, but the bastard still worked. The store used it to sell many Apple II's I'm certain.

    <FLAMEPROOF>
    (Of course I bought an Atari 800, the clearly superior machine, even if it couldn't handle a fire.)
    </FLAMEPROOF>

    --
    Ligaguinggligagiggagoogoogwillgo
  250. It works... so give it back to her!!! by psgalbraith · · Score: 1

    We told her that the cost of the screen alone would be around $1000 if not more, so she decided to leave the machine with us to discard of. Before we tossed it in the trash, I decided to try and power it up just for kicks, and it worked!

    So give it back to her! Otherwise it's as bad as stealing.

  251. Yep, these pics are baked, with Photoshop! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is fraud. I know, I know, blame me of troll or what ever. This is an old urban legend. Can't us see that pictures were created with image manipulation?
    (Melted LCD looks totally NOT real, and checks those
    melted keys. Some of them look like they have melted EXACTLY (pixel per pixel) same way, and that's makes picture quite suspicious!)

    1. Re:Yep, these pics are baked, with Photoshop! by shawnce · · Score: 1

      The keys are the same shape and are made of the same material with little variation in the material itself from key to key.

      That alone will make it likely that the keys will warp in very similar fashions when subjected to roughly the same amount heat.

      The other damage doesn't look faked to me either...

    2. Re:Yep, these pics are baked, with Photoshop! by Nexx · · Score: 1

      Well, it's *possible* that the lady's oven didn't heat things evenly. I admit it's a remote possibility, and I also don't want to invest in a PowerBook just to bake the bloody thing just to see if it'll survive, so I guess we won't find out :)

  252. Space Apple by axxackall · · Score: 1
    No connection to Columbia tradegy. Just thinking would it be better to use PPC on Space Shuttle and ISS instead of out-dated old Pentiums? I knwo that G{3|4} has much better heat/performance ration than Intel P{3|4}. And I know that NASA prefer old models of Intel chips. Now Iwonder, has G3 or G4 been ever considered to fly?

    And this case just adds the oil: perhaps whole PB motherboards can fly, not only Motorolla chips.

    I know some small kiosk vendor, who used to build their products on old PB motherboards. Unfortunately, they have mostly moved to Intel notebook motherboards because many customers want wintel-compatible 3rd-party applications. If not that - they would still prefer Apple powerbook motherboards to mount on street walls.

    --

    Less is more !
    1. Re:Space Apple by Arcturax · · Score: 1

      The Pluto-Kuiper express space craft was going to use the G3.

      --

      --Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
    2. Re:Space Apple by axxackall · · Score: 1

      I hope that space craft doesn't need all candy-whistles of MacOSX. All it needs that the OS will just work. And I hope they'll use Linux for it. Thus it might be the highest admitting of the fact that Linux is not only Linux/x86 - it works also on other platforms!

      --

      Less is more !
    3. Re:Space Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't imagine that spacecraft CPUs use standard operating systems. And if they do, I would think they would use something more real-time than Windows, OS X, or even Linux.

    4. Re:Space Apple by Large+Green+Mallard · · Score: 1

      Most things that are going into orbit are horrendously old technology, because it works, instead of costing millions of dollars if a small part needs replacing becuase they used a bleeding edge part.

      I think the Hubble is built out of 100mhz 486DXs, specially sheilded for long term exposure to space. These will probably get used in any new shuttle too.

      Putting things up in space with humans is even worse.. they need to make sure that they won't emit fumes, which over time will cause decay or illness or something. The ISS has a specially made multi region DVD player for just this reason :) Plastic, Batteries, even the discs will emit fumes in the right or wrong situations.

    5. Re:Space Apple by axxackall · · Score: 1
      The getting older by itself does not imprve quality of doing work. Let's call things traight.

      Testing - that what's used to filter out components for space programs.

      Compare, fo example, Compaq uses very thorough testing of memory stick, which are no fifferent then you buy everywhere. At the end of testing it is certain that sticks work, they have exactly the same latency and other parameters and generally they work exactly as they supposed to. No "plus-minus". That testing is a part of very high price of Compaq computers.

      So, time, bby itself, does not make things better. However, time is essential for testing. But what time? No one test anything in real-time mode. Instead, you have specially designed intensive testing procedures involving extreme temperatures ad various radiation levels.

      Another thing to know is that any testing is not enough to kill the last chance of failure. What you do is redundancy. You don't have one computer making some function, instead you have three of them doing exactly the same. Then you have the voting system (also redundant) comparing the output of each and making the decision to which of them to trust.

      It was a short explanation. In reality you have to build more complicated schema. I don't know what is used by NASA. Perhaps they do what they can on such modest budget.

      Or perhaps they should use more experience of russian former space engineers working in America for projects where "citizenship" is not required :)

      --

      Less is more !
  253. I meant body rather than frame by SHEENmaster · · Score: 1

    please excuse my mistake.

    --
    You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
  254. I'm buying one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well, I've always thought that Macs were overpriced, underpowered pices of junk designed for people without a clue who just wanted a computer that went well with their curtains.

    But now that I know it can be baked in the oven and still work, well, I just have to buy one. This is the sort of thing Apple should invest in. Who cares about price or performance? Who cares about an OS that doesn't treat you like you're retarded? No, what people really want is computers they can bake.

  255. Re:They're just not saying, 'cause... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "...What does one do with a "found" cellphone
    anyway? Is there no ID..."
    You dispose of all Identifiers on it check the street price and either sell it or if its better than yours put a new sim card in it. At least thats what most people would do - reasoning If you were careless enough to lose your cellphone you dont deserve to own it.
    Oh yeah - one more thing - you can Call your friend in china or australia - just make sure you keep moving.
    Thats what hapened to a friend of mine anyway. => thats what people do when they find a cellphone unatended.

  256. Mac folk is city dwellers but they're on the level by asciirock · · Score: 0, Redundant

    ...removed it from the kiln but then it end up getting trampled on by a herd of wild elephants. Well, I thought the hurricane and being blowed up woulda finished it off but gol'dang it the little feller booted into osX like a charm. I tells you these Apple computers sure take a lickin and keep on tickin'. Guh. Drool.

  257. another possibility: by Hubert_Shrump · · Score: 0, Redundant

    maybe it had ants in it?

    --
    Keep your packets off my GNU/Girlfriend!
  258. Flawed reasoning by Flavio · · Score: 1

    For starters, you analogy is flawed. Fixing a laptop involves replacing defective parts with new/refurbished ones. It's also easy to detect what's defective and what's not. Physicians don't work this way.

    And what sort of "extra information" would you like to know? There's nothing else to say about how the laptop got damaged, only *why*. And knowing why it was put in the oven won't help you fix the problem.

    And by the way, I don't have a problem with sharing stories, but I _do_ have a problem with people not minding their own business.

    1. Re:Flawed reasoning by Shanep · · Score: 1

      but I _do_ have a problem with people not minding their own business.

      Knowing the rationale can lead the tech to explain why it's not correct. Without it, next time she might bake it at half the temp for half the time, when really, she should have just seen a tech to begin with.

      --
      War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
    2. Re:Flawed reasoning by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      True Flavio....but the real reason is not because you can see whats wrong or broken and fix itDoctors can do this also...but because you have ACCESS to see whats wrong and fix it. Doctors have to ask questions because they cant cut you open just to see for themselves what is wrong with you, unlike a repair technician. =)

    3. Re:Flawed reasoning by racermd · · Score: 1

      Finding the reason *WHY* she put it in the oven to begin with might lead to deeper issues than just a crispy computer. We can speculate all we want about why she did what she did, and the various reasons can lead to different types of repairs that might be neccessary. But unless we ask her "why", we may never know what the original problem was, if any.

      Did she (or someone else) spill liquid over the keyboard? Ok, we'll need to look for water damage or corrosion on some parts and replace them as needed.

      Did she get confused about what was in the oven at the time (ie: did the recipe call for apples) or does she just store her computer in the oven and forgot to take it out before she turned her oven on? Ok, she's a nut-job and we're looking for any abnormal operating behavior, but we don't need to specifically look for water-damage.

      In my 7+ years of IS/IT and PC repair, I've found that the immediate reason someone brings a computer to you is only the tip of the iceberg. More often than not, there's other underlying issues that led to them coming to you for help. And physicians *do* work this way. Your average car mechanic works this way, too. So does anybody else that repairs things for a living be it human, mechanical, or otherwise.

      Next time you're at your local doctor's office for an injury, pay close attention to the questions they're asking you. I'd be willing to bet that they ask you how you did what you did, which will inevitably lead to you explaining why. The reason they do this is so that they understand what forces went into creating the injury. Often times, what's visible isn't the only problem that needs attention. If they didn't do this, other injuries may go untreated and they wouldn't be doing their jobs to "repair" you correctly.

      The investigation of the source of a problem is just as important, if not more so, than the resolution of it. So, no, my analogy isn't flawed. Computer parts are less compex than human "parts", granted. And this situation clearly didn't require asking for a reason why she did what she did (as a repair probably wouldn't be cost effective). But computer parts (as well as some mechanical ones) can intermittently fail without giving other indicators that they're not working correctly. Hard drives come to mind, as do some memory chips. A slightly dirty connection on a PCI card will sometimes cause an otherwise perfectly working card to fail periodically. Testing the hardware shows no failures, but there's definitely a problem. Unless you are aware of the complete set of circumstances surrounding the issue, you would be unable to make an accurate diagnosis. Gathering as much information about the problem you've been hired to fix is important and cannot be considered "not minding [your] own business." It's "your business" as soon as you agree to repair the computer. Sharing personal, and possibly humiliating, information with others for entertainment, however, *is* not minding your own business.

      --
      My sources are unreliable, but their information is fascinating. -- Ashleigh Brilliant
  259. You guys are so easy to fool by Papa+Legba · · Score: 2, Troll

    Check the pictures guys. It's very obvious that they did a screen swap to a lower body. This whole thing is a huge fake. Want proof?

    Check all the pictures labeled warped screen. You will notice two things. Their is a plastic IR cover to the right and an RCA plug to the left. Both are made from the same plastic as the keys of the keyboard, which if you remember correctly completely deformed in the oven.

    Both of these peices of plastic show NO deformity. Also the white plastic of the RCA plug has not even turned brown at all. This is a total fake.

    --
    Papa Legba come and open the gate
    1. Re:You guys are so easy to fool by shawnce · · Score: 1

      They are NOT made of the same plastic.

      The IR window is a plastic that is transparent to infrared they keys are not transparent to most/all wavelengths in and around the visible spectrum (and then some). The two plastics most likely have differing responses to temperature. The power connector is a different type of plastic from the keyboard as well.

      With that said judging by the damage in the pictures to the system the oven was most likely on broil with the laptop facing up or at least with the top closer to a heating element.

  260. Re:They're just not saying, 'cause... by rob+colonna · · Score: 1

    The screenshots show it running MacOS 9.1; i don't think any new machines have shipped with 9.1 since summer '01 or earlier, which probably makes this an original-rev PowerBook G4. It may be 2 years old, and only 400MHz... Which is not to say one will have a hard time finding a home for it, but may explain why she was willing to accept having to replace it (especially if she was in a store with the new ones staring right at her!).

  261. mm apple by Peax · · Score: 1

    baked apple is alright. maybe she should have grilled and then boiled it?

  262. Easily averted by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This incident could have been prevented had the lady thought to make use of the 44oz. cup of soda sitting on top of her CD-ROM beverage holder to cool her Apple.

  263. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  264. How 'bout a parady of MacArthur Park? by NaugaHunter · · Score: 1

    CHORUS:
    My Powerbook is baking in the dark,
    The backlit logo's turning brown,
    Someone left the 'Book out in the rain
    I never thought it'd take it
    But someone thought to bake it
    And I'll have rip those MP3's again
    Oh, no!


    --
    R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
  265. where is the crust? by itzdandy · · Score: 1

    not only did she put the wrong apple in the pie, she didn't make any crust!?!?

    - anyway

    i have always known that apple's hardware was of a high quality, but wow.

  266. I'm gonna try that by mkiwi · · Score: 1

    Did all of you see what it did to the screen?! Whoa, that has to be the best case mod ever!!!

  267. Re:Maybe she had just switched from an x86 laptop. by RzUpAnmsCwrds · · Score: 1

    That would be funny it the PowerBook G4 wasn't such an effective lap warmer.

  268. FLEMEBAIT, MOD DOWN! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh really, are you implying that WE are dumb? Then get off /. it is our "dumb" property.

    POst not intended to be offensive, simply informative. Posted as anonymous for karma reasonZ.

  269. This guy just wanted to be on slashdot. by chaboud · · Score: 1

    He probably put together a machine from the parts of other dead powerbooks and threw it in the oven.

    Realizing that everyone would call him a moron, he blamed some woman and got himself on slashdot.

    Doesn't everyone here want to get on slashdot?

  270. Re:New ad campaign - the Windows version by mnemotronic · · Score: 1
    "It takes a licking, and keeps on ticking!"

    Now if it was a Windows machine that would be :

    • Takes a baking and keeps on flaking!
    • Takes a heatin' and it's still a cretin!
    • Takes a fryin' and leaves me cryin'
    • Takes a temp 'cause it's functionally exempt
    • Takes a toast and costs the most!
    • Takes degrees and redefines "sleeze"
    --
    The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
  271. Reminds me of... by pjt48108 · · Score: 1

    ...An old Apple ad from the early early 80s. It showed an Apple II (or some such device) that had been through a fire and still operated. Anyone else remember that one?

    --
    Mmmmmm... Bold, yet refreshing!
  272. try as I might... by zogger · · Score: 1

    ..try as I might I just can't seem to get my normal leet bubbaebonics normal speech pattern down into type form... oh well, anywho....

    maybe make everyone on slashdot use klingon as a universal esperanto? And then it would be klingon written as 1337 5p34|

  273. Re:chew on this, dough boy by Bunji+X · · Score: 1

    Nothing beats the feeling of being proven wrong, huh? :)

    --
    ---
    The combined human population is enough to feed every living tiger for app. 28000 years.
  274. a soldering accident by SHEENmaster · · Score: 1

    melted part of the plastic backing the screen.

    --
    You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
  275. Slap-on-the-forehead dumb by IllogicalStudent · · Score: 1

    I was working in retail on Saturday morning and I got a call. Customer on the other end insisted that the t-shirt transfer paper (iron on stuff) we sold her earlier had broken her (inkjet) printer. I asked a few questions, and it eventually became clear that this oh-so-intelligent individual attempted to feed a t-shirt with the paper over it through the printer, assuming that that was how the transfer worked, and got stuck in the rollers. Suffice to say, she got put on hold and I had a really good laugh.

    --
    But Maaa! Everyone else has a .sig !
  276. Cooking hardware on purpose by AsmordeanX · · Score: 1

    One possible explaination might be that she had spilled water on the laptop and put it in an oven to dry it out.

    My father accidently poured a glass full of Coke into an Amiga 500 (this was years ago FYI). He rinsed the whole motherboard off with water then placed it in the oven to dry it off. The pilot light kept the tempature in the oven around 40C.

    The fix worked perfectly. A few months later, the same computer was filled once again with Coke (my fault this time).

    So once again, he washed it and put it in the oven. Unfortunatly my mother decided to bake some cookies. So she turned the oven on to preheat it and went about making the dough. About 10 minutes passed when my dad realized what she had done. He removed the Amiga from the oven. Its case was warped and the floppy drive face was useless due to the melting. Amazingly enough it still worked as well. Though it did rock back and forth when you typed on it after that and the FDD was connected via a cable and sat on the outside of the case.

  277. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  278. I must agree! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I made a post about this earlier but it must be some where modded down. This "story" IS COMPLETE FAKE. Look at picture with "melted buttons" VERY carefully. For example, compare SHIFT-buttons. They are warped EXACTLY the same way, only in the other one bumps are made look different by just little Photoshop(or similar) effect! You can easily spot numerous other identically melted buttons. Natural, I don't think so! Also note the ABSENCE of SHADOWS, or at least the highly unnatural way the buttons are "piled" on each other! And look that LCD screen! I won't try it myself (melt an LCD screen), BUT I BET YOU, that MELTED LCD won't BE that SHINY after being in 400 degree oven!

    Q.E.D. Fake, fake and fake. I don't want to read about these kind of "publicity stunts" from /.!

  279. No, the woman was not real old by Zen+Programmer · · Score: 1

    She is now in her late 40s to early 50s. Her name is Alice. B Toklas. And I love her. And yes she has brownies.

  280. Re:i wouldn't know... by Bunji+X · · Score: 1

    It's the feeling you are experiencing right now.

    Feel good?

    --
    ---
    The combined human population is enough to feed every living tiger for app. 28000 years.
  281. Possible reasons why she put it in the oven by stinkwinkerton · · Score: 1

    1. Hopped up on goofballs.
    2. While enjoying the thrill of her apple in the kitchen, her husband, an MCSE walks in...
    3. While hiding her valuables from possible burglary, she sticks her jewelry in the freezer, her Apple in the oven, and her PC in the middle of the living room floor.
    4. "Honey, check out this p0rn site! Its HOT HOT HOT!"
    6. She lights her husband's cigars with $100 dollar bills. She lights her oven with an Apple.
    7. Goofed up on hop balls.

    --
    "Look! There! Evil, pure and simple from the Eighth Dimension!" --Buckaroo Banzai
  282. Burglars do not look in the oven by adam+arndt · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I have heard other people put stuff in the oven for this reason. Then they turn on the oven.
    I saw a baked Compaq Armada like this. But then, it didn't get stolen.
    It still worked fine after 10 mins at 180C in a fan-forced oven. If you do this, take off the ON knob.
    I'd like to see comparative tests for Intel and AMD baked this way (as opposed to removing the heat sink). Let's see the Intel try and cool off by lowering the clock speed now.

  283. Friend melted a PC by AaronW · · Score: 1

    A friend of mine did something similar. At a company I worked at we were trying to qualify a phy chip for a NIC card. One of the things we tested was response to temperature. In one of our labs we had an environmental chamber which was extremely well insulated. Anyway, my friend had the PC running in the chamber with the light on and forgot and left it running over a weekend. On monday morning, anything plastic on the computer was melted, including the CDROM drive. Amazingly enough, the computer was still running. My friend replaced the case and melted CDROM drive and continued to use the system for quite a few more months without any problems. The rest of us wouldn't touch his hardware for some reason.

    --
    This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
  284. [OT] Re:I'm more amazed.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ``...architectural fancy-type thing...''

    ``[if Iraqi officers follow Saddam's orders, when the war is over, they] will be tried, held, and persecuted!''

    Guess who said these.

    None other.

    What's his secret? I don't think I could talk like this if I tried.

    1. Re:[OT] Re:I'm more amazed.... by Abreu · · Score: 1

      What's his secret? I don't think I could talk like this if I tried.

      Probably learned from Dan Quayle

      --
      No sig for the moment.
  285. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  286. Re:you're obviously not getting it... by Bunji+X · · Score: 1

    Who started mumbling about "Fahrenheit in the article"? IRMC.

    --
    ---
    The combined human population is enough to feed every living tiger for app. 28000 years.
  287. Drying the Sucker out... by EverLurking · · Score: 1

    I've heard of people dropping their old battery (non-rechargeable) powered Palm Pilots in the toilet when they leaned over to flush. The restoration process went something like this:

    1) Remove batteries/power supply.
    2) Disassemble Case.
    3) Rinse everything out with Distilled water.
    4) Put it all in a warm and dry environment for a few hours to dry everything out. (I think the original reccomendation was an Oven set at 100-150 F for 2-3 hours)
    5) Reassemble and voila, all that nasty urine residue is gone and your PDA should continue to work.

    You know, she probably got the darned thing drenched (spilled a soda or water on it, or perhaps left it out on the patio when it started raining) and wanted to dry it out before powering it up again. Unfortunately, screwing up on the Temperature setting ain't healthy for any laptop. Heck, anyone know what the max temperature a LCD scheme will tolerate?

    DaveC

    --
    There are no stupid questions...just stupid people.
  288. mmm... by the+Garden+Gnome · · Score: 0

    mmm baked apple...

    --
    Water, water everywhere so let's all have a drink-Homer Jay Simpson
  289. My worst by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A woman thought the OnScreenDisplay on her monitor was the Start Menu. I just about cracked up laughing on the floor, I hope she didnt' hear.

  290. computing for the lowest common denominator by t0ny · · Score: 1

    I guess thats what happens when you expressly market toward people who dont understand computers, and by golly, dont want to. ever.

    --

    Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.

  291. Urban Myth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Only stupid apple users can make myths like this and think we'd swallow it. Look at it, the article and site does not provide ANY contact info, it might just as well come from the ass of a fellow Anonymous Coward. Seriously people, think credibility, and think how fantatic these stupid MAC people are.

    The baked apple story has surfaced 3 times as far as I can remember. Back in 89, there was a baked apple story on the Well, about how some lady had tried to warm her apple laptop after it was left out, during a move. And guess what.. the apple worked (no contacts though).

    In 1992 (or 3), there was small burb about a burning apple that works, some guy lit an apple comptuer on fire then booted it up and composed an e-mail and saved it on the floppy before ejecting it out (this was shown on tv -- but later it was found to be faked).

  292. MOD PARENT & GRANDPARENT UP!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Take the pic into Photoshop (or the GIMP) and rotate some of those keys so they're oriented the same way. A distortion pattern from Photoshop 7.01 was used, almost certainly.

    Don't have the time? Follow the parent's advice and take a look at the Shift keys.

    It's a fake.

  293. Apple Laptop Keyboards Unsuitable for Unix Users by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Apple laptops are effectively unusable for unix users.

    I am a long-time Unix user. That means I need to have the Ctrl key to the left of the A key. This is a genuine need, not merely a want; it is based upon ergonomics. The Ctrl key is heavily used in unix, and it must be easily accessable. It cannot be off in the lower left corner of the keyboard where it is difficult to get at, and where it distorts the position of your left hand such that you can't easily type other keys while holding the Ctrl key down.

    Apple desktop keyboards are now all USB. They are all OK. The CapsLock key can be re-mapped into a Ctrl key.

    Unfortunately, even in this modern age, all Apple laptops have built-in ADB keyboards. The ADB keyboard is broken-by-design. It is, in general, not possible to remap the CapsLock key into a Ctrl key.

    There are some exceptions, but they are horrible kludges. They are horrible kludges because the original design of the ADB keyboard was a horrible kludge. The correct solution would be for Apple to re-design their laptop motherboards to use built-in USB keyboards. This hasn't happened yet. If you run Linux, use Debian's solution. For Mac OS X users, uControl works. There are no solutions (that I know of) for either NetBSD or OpenBSD. Please note once again that the "solutions" above are in fact kludges, because of the original bad design of the ADB keyboard.

    Apple provides a technical note on how to remap the keyboard, but provides no solution to the hardware problems caused by the design of the ADB keyboard. This tech note helps foreign language users, but does nothing for the CapsLock/Ctrl problem.

    Apple is (currently) ignoring Unix users! This is not merely speculation on my part. In an on-going email exchange I am having with an Apple employee (whom I won't name) in their marketing department, the Apple marketing person directly stated to me that Apple was catering to their historic Mac customers, and is purposely ignoring the Unix market. He also claimed that Apple would soon start paying more attention to the Unix market. I won't hold my breath. Apple has been ignoring Unix users for more than 12 years. I expect that trend to continue.

    Apple has now lost two opportunities to sell me hardware. I really wanted an Apple laptop for their superior battery life, and for the PowerPC with Altivec CPU. (The Altivec is vastly superior to the x86 line for DSP.) Because I can't live with the broken-by-design built-in ADB keyboard in all Apple laptops, Sony and IBM sold me laptops instead. If Apple fixes this problem, they will sell me a PowerBook next year; if they don't, I'll still be running OpenBSD on x86 hardware, and wishing I could use a Mac.

  294. Re:Maybe she had just switched from an x86 laptop. by Jucius+Maximus · · Score: 1
    " ... and thought it wasn't getting hot enough when it ran."

    Apple notebooks are not exactly cool-running. The 12" powerbook gets DAMN hot. My iBook gets very warm on the left (hard drive) side as well.

  295. Your doubt... by dallask · · Score: 1

    you know, Ive heard the "Cup Holder" Story a million times too... but Ive fielded one of those myself...

    And one case where the computer had caught fire...

    And one case where the surge protector wasnt pluged in... "Is the computer pluged in", "Well yes...".... well NO!!!

    And one case, I shit you not, where a guy took a hack saw to a PCI video card to make it fit in an AGP slot...

    Ive seen much of the darker side of the tech support field... its not pretty...

    --
    The Code Ninja is swift with his tool, precise in his delivery, and deadly accurate in his execution.
  296. Re:They're just not saying, 'cause... by Nexx · · Score: 1

    But the screenshot also *looks* like it's a PowerBook Ti of sorts. Or do you mean the original-rev PowerBook Ti?

    I'm just a little confused, will appreciate a clarification :)

  297. Ellen Feiss by spike+hay · · Score: 1

    So I put my computer in the oven,

    and it was like "crackle, crackle crackle"

    And then, like, half of my computer was gone,

    And I was like "unhh"

    --
    If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
  298. wtf. by mrselfdestrukt · · Score: 1

    >Am I the only one for whom this conjures up images of Shrinky Dinks?

    Yes, Yes you are.
    Seriously.It's funny and all but don't you think this is just another marketing trick from Apple?A rep from Apple dropping off a baked apple and everyone spreading the news. I'm not saying it's a bad trick.It's almost like those articles on Microsoft site about people switching to microsoft.

    --
    "I used to have that really cool,funny sig ,but it got stolen."
  299. Nope. That's OS/X by Chmarr · · Score: 1

    Bzzt.

    Look at the left side of the screen. That's the OS/X Dock.

    1. Re:Nope. That's OS/X by rob+colonna · · Score: 1

      Not on this page. It rather plainly says 9.1:

      http://homepage.mac.com/aaronsteele/PhotoAlbum7. ht ml

    2. Re:Nope. That's OS/X by Chmarr · · Score: 1

      Yes, those photos at the URL you mentioned are 9.1, the one I was referring to was the OS/X dock, which is absent in 9.1

      Considered that the Mac might be dual-boot ?

  300. Nuked hard drive. by rice_burners_suck · · Score: 1

    This reminds me of my employer, a very intelligent gentleman. One day, a hard disk present in a very expensive industrial computer crashed. Its contents were VERY important and my employer ignored my suggestions, for YEARS, that he should make occasional backups of data around his facility. As there was no other copy of the necessary data, I was about to have it shipped to a data recovery specialist when my employer, not knowing about the possibility of recovery and figuring he had nothing to lose, put the hard drive in the microwave for a minute. There were cool lightning bolts. At that point, I simply threw the thing in the garbage because I didn't even want to waste the time to put the damn thing in a box and to mail it.

  301. Re:They're just not saying, 'cause... by richie2000 · · Score: 1

    It's an IMEI number. And they only check for registered and blocked numbers. I don't know of any carriers that automatically register and lock the numbers (with one exception; subsidized pre-paid bundles with card and phone, those are locked to a specific carrier (but not to a specific card) for a period of time) - you'll have to send the number in and then block it yourself if the phone gets lost or stolen.

    --
    Money for nothing, pix for free
  302. Why did she do it? by Keith_Beef · · Score: 1

    Maybe she is astroturfing.

    She is paid to get an idea into areas of public debate. A few months ago, she was hanging around in bars, railway stations, shopping centres, talking into her mobile phone and saying "just take a look at the picture I'm sending you now, I just took it on my new mobile phone"...

    This month, her job is te get us all to believe that PowerBooks are so robust, you can really mistreat them, and they still work.

    She almost got the job of promoting Oracle's "unbreakable" slogan... Hey, maybe that could be given to the "crack a Mac" focus group...

  303. For the record... by alispguru · · Score: 1

    I have a 500 MHz iBook, which can get warm if I use it on a surface with little air circulation (like on top of its carrying case on my lap), so I picked up a Cool Pad, which cured it completely, and is a neat swivel to boot.

    A coworker of mine has a recent Dell laptop. I assume this thing is one of those "desktop replacement" atrocities, because it has two fans, each about an inch in diameter, firing out of the back of it. I've used them occasionally to warm my hands in cold meeting rooms. He only runs it on batteries long enough to find a wall outlet.

    My iBook might have a fan - I wouldn't know, I've never heard it or felt any breeze from the vent holes near the screen hinge.

    --

    To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
  304. Re: Darth Dubya by Abreu · · Score: 1

    Not only clairvoyant, but also strong in the ways of the dark side!

    --
    No sig for the moment.
  305. Solution! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think there is an obvious explaination that no one here has posted - Her boyfriend left her, or she caught him cheating. Her first reaction - f*ck up his sh*t. Put his new PowerBook (spend more time with his computer than ME!) in the over for a while. Take it to the Apple store so she can say 'Wow, I tried to get it fixed, but they couldn't do it. Sorry.'

    Serious mental illness, this.

  306. Other bad powerbooks.. by Large+Green+Mallard · · Score: 1

    This powerbook belongs to Linux Kernel Hacker and IBM ozlabs employee Rusty Russell.. the pictures don't do it justice of how bad it looks. I'm surprised it still worked...

  307. Re:Baked an (Origin 2000) by jandrese · · Score: 1

    Fortunatly I wasn't the one who actually screwed the board back in (I was working with a partner). Also, we were both co-ops and the machine was a test machine. It was still a rather nasty little incident, but it's not as uncommon as you might expect. When you're working with bleeding edge hardware, it is somewhat expected that the hardware will fail spectacularly once in awhile.

    --

    I read the internet for the articles.
  308. Re:I'm tempted to throw mine into the oven as well by Junta · · Score: 1

    My Apple support story....

    Have an iBook, the lid latch broke (what GENIUS designed that flimsy metal hook to hook into a small plastic strip... Hook cut through the plastic within two months of normal use).

    Called Apple saying the lid latch broke. They said they used to warranty the lid latch, but found that too many customers had the problem and it wasn't cost effective to warranty it, and thus they no longer honor warranty repair for the iBook lid latch. WTF, this can't be legal, changing the terms of the Warranty without the knowledge and consent of the customer who made the purchase under the old terms.

    Later the plastic ring around the headphone jack broke (again, another ingenious design decision, not only do they use plastic for a headphone jack ring when every other device uses metal, but they *also* leave empty space between the plastic ring and plastic case just to make sure the damn ring breaks). Similarly, the plastic around the ethernet jack broke, but I'll let that slide as someone tripped over the ethernet cord. They at least will fix those two (and the frayed power cord).

    I guess they get one point for repairing some 'cosmetic' damage other manufacturers wouldn't cover, but lose about 3 points for iBook plastic parts, and about 30 points for renigging on the warranty conditions...

    --
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  309. wrong recipe by LordAlpha · · Score: 1

    As any electron pusher knows, boards with chips should be baked at 190 deg. for three hours.

    Keep it cool, damnit!