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Alan Cox's Exploding Laptop

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the a-famous-exploding-laptop dept.

Bowie J. Poag writes to mention a page put up to commemorate the explosion of Alan Cox's laptop. From the article: "Alan was on the other side of the room from the laptop. I was elsewhere. He yelled out, I ambled towards the room in my own good time, and then I heard 'Fire! Real fire! Call the fire brigade, now!' and I speeded up a bit. From Alan subsequently, I gather there was an explosion and flying pieces of laptop, and a fireball, and a couple of fires started where (presumably) boiling battery landed, and one fragment smashed an LCD monitor. And then there was smoke and smell (there is still smell) and smoke alarm wailing and firemen and sirens and paramedics (happily unneeded) and police and a man with a notebook asking questions for the fire report.'"

6 of 339 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Epidemic? by threephaseboy · · Score: 3, Informative

    Neither the MacBook or the iBook G4 have two latches on the screen, neither have audio jacks on the front, no apple notebook shipped with a 4 pin FireWire jack (on the front? are they serious??), etc.

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  2. Re:Data Recover by Beryllium+Sphere(tm) · · Score: 4, Informative

    They handle fire- and smoke-damaged equipment all the time.

    At the risk of being arrested and taken to a home for the criminally obvious, don't breathe any of the smoke from an exploding battery. Some formulations burn into chemicals that you don't want anywhere near you, such as hydrofluoric acid. It's not that strong an acid but it's remarkably destructive to flesh. If you do get a whiff of smoke go to the emergency room even if you feel OK.

  3. Real source of "info" on Alan Cox by rsborg · · Score: 5, Informative
    ...Whilst employed on the campus of University of Wales...

    Now where have I read that phrase before? *googles* oh yeah...

    Dude, at least site the source of your data (and more complete information at that): wikipedia page for Alan Cox.

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  4. Re:Brigade by stevelup · · Score: 3, Informative

    Just about every single person living in the UK...

  5. Re:Data Recover by Weedhopper · · Score: 3, Informative

    Yep. HF is straight up deadly. Eating away your flesh is the least of your worries when 3% covereage with .1M solution is enough to kill you in 48 hours. It's not a pleasant way to go, either.

    I used to work with HF in my lab when I was a grad student. Let me tell you, you start to follow lab safety procedures REAL careful like.

  6. Re:His own fault... by arivanov · · Score: 3, Informative

    RTFA: he bought the battery off eBay. Nuff said, no need to say more, move along.

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