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Alan Cox's Exploding Laptop
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.'"
...for buying an IBM ThinkPad, notorious for their unreliability. Perhaps he should have considered an Apple or Dell instead.
And now, a PSA from David Lynch.
"What? Exploding laptop and you're running linux? Oh, we don't cover that."
Alan Cox (born 1968) is a programmer heavily involved in the development of the Linux kernel since its early days (1991). Whilst employed on the campus of University of Wales, Swansea, he installed a very early version of Linux on one of the machines belonging to the university computer society. This was one of the first Linux installations on a busy network, and revealed many bugs in the networking code. Cox fixed many of these bugs, and went on to rewrite much of the networking subsystem. He then became one of the main developers and maintainers of the whole kernel.
Wincopy
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.
.
Is that why there is a "Made for Windows XP" sticker on it?
Maybe somebody will build a laptop that doesn't require you to "take the battery out of the computer unless they need it." I have a UPS battery backup for my desktop system, and I don't have to pull the battery out of it when I'm not expecting to need to use the battery. That would defeat the whole point of having the thing. I think a lot of people are using their laptops like that, it's their main computer and they like the fact that it has a battery too so they can survive without it plugged in for an hour or two.
I got curious about how much better Lithium Ion batteries were than Nickel Metal Hydride. So, here are a few numbers I quickly grabbed from the Wikipedia.
_ battery
Li-Ion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_ion_battery
Energy/weight ~150 Wh/kg
Energy/size ~250 Wh/L
NiMH:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_metal_hydride
Energy/weight 60-?? Wh/kg
Energy/size 100 Wh/L
My laptop gets a couple hours of battery life with Li-Ion. It looks like I'd get about 40% of that with NiMH -- not that appealing. I don't think we'll be turning back any time soon.
I just hope that the next generation of battery technolgy is inherently less likely to explode.
Good thing no one actually puts Laptop computers in their lap.
9/11 Eyewitnesses to Explosive WTC Demolition 1 of 2
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.
Question: With all of the exploding batteries lately (Apple, Dell, Toshiba, IBM/Lenovo (possibly), etc. Have you seen any reports of Sony laptops exploding?
;)
Does Sony "cherry-pick" the A-grade batteries for their own use and send the B-grade and lower ones to their clients?
If so, what kind of liability issues does that raise. Sony HAS done some questionable things in the past knowingly.
Someday we'll all look back on this and plow into a parked car.
Good thing we don't make Beowulf Clusters out of laptops, or then I could say...
With the current trend in battery explosions for laptops, I wonder how long until all laptops are considered explosive devices and aren't allowed to be used on planes. Perhaps we should start using things that are more stable. Like radioactive material or internal combustion engines. Ooh! Or we could all get neat little hand cranks!
What am I going to do on my flight to Germany now?
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.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Alan Cox is an important leader and resource in the Linux community. On behalf of all Linux users, I hope that, for the sake of our collective Cox, manufacturers can sort out these battery issues.
We regret to inform you, Mr. Cox, that since you were operating with an unsupported software configuration (i.e. Linux) we can not offer you support in regards to your issue (spontaneous incendiary explosion). Thank you for purchasing an IBM thinkpad.
Sincerely,
IBM Tech Support
Anonymous Luddite: "What do you think of the dehumanizing effects of the Internet?"
Andy Grove: "Not Much."
Coming Soon Laptops On A Plane!
I am worried. 'real fire'? How virtual must your reality be to shout 'real fire'?
Idha khatabahum lijahiluna qalu salaman
Great! Sounds like Alan Cox has finally added support for the RJE and EOI opcodes to the Linux kernel.
You forgot a very likely possibility:
4) Your computer is full of dust.
Every 6 months or so, I take the computers outside and blow out the "Ghost Turds". I have a fairly dusty house, and when they are full of "Dust Bunnies", I know by the fact that my temp-controlled fans kick up speed at inappropriate times.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
For one, keep in mind that it's not a laptop, it's a notebook.
So it's roughly 8.5" x 11" (A4 for the metric world)? Because, you see, the term "notebook" was specifically inaugurated for the subclass of laptops the approximate size of -- get this -- a notebook. With the ones even smalled than that being "subnotebooks".
Laptop is an unfortunate consumer-ism
No, it's a manufacturer-coined name for the class of machine small enought to fit on the lap and powered by batteries, going back to the advertising for the Gavilan SC.
Just about every single person living in the UK...
If a battery is defective and may explode, how long would it take ? For example, suppose you buy one replacement lithium battery nowadays; and you use it for X months; may you say "I have used it for X months, it did not explode, so it is not defective" ? Or, otherwise, is it a defect that may show up in a random moment in the future? Does anyone here at /. know?
These defective batteries are exploding a lot now, and it would seem like being directly near one of these would be a source of serious injury or even death. If no one is mamed or killed by this, it will be out of sheer luck. Hopefully this will be a wakeup call to battery manufacturers that, you know, they have to be conservative with battery production. People barely tolerate cars with defects that emerge during accidents; they are not going to appreciate having laptops that are bombs, carried around by their kids and significant others.
Pretty much all of the UK. And since it appears that the UK started forming fire brigades just after the Great Fire Of London, that's probably where the name originates.
;)
Besides, 'Fire Department'? What's that? 'Department of Fire'? Hey, sounds like a fantastic place to work! Legal arson!
'cause the reputable merchants have to have enough margin the accept returns, and recalls, and make things right.
that's also the difference between the world of walmart, and the world of macys....
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
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.
Is his diary still in Welsh?
That's the silliest thing I ever knew. I used to read it, but now he's effectively cut it off for the non-Welsh speaking world.
Get your own free personal location tracker
Shouldn't all this exploding-laptop trend really lead to producing more durable cases for portable devices? Like, if a "laptop" really exploded like this while on someone's lap, the person could be seriously injured. If it [the laptop] had a harder casing, possibly made of titanium, the risk of injury would be much less.
-- Sig down
I think that would depend on which part would be made more durable. If you reinforced the entire casing then you might just make the explosion build up more pressure and potentially making it even more dangerous. It would probably be a good thing to reinforce the entire casing except the back so the explosion is aimed in the safest direction, like a shaped charge.
No, Alanis, it would be a coincidence. It would be ironic if he was working on a battery status monitoring program when it exploded.
"Proudly Posting Without Reading The Article"
Actually, if you have proper saftey procedures in place, there should be a tube of Ca-gluconate cream close by so you can apply it after you wash the exposed area. That will supply a nice source of Ca for any remaining HF. Of course that's just the 'band-aid' you use for the trip to the hospital. As previous posters have mentioned....you're not going to know if it was a lethal exposure until it's too late.
IANALY, but you are on an interesting track. Products liability law in many jurisdictions in the US imposes liability if the plaintiff can show, among other things, that there was a reasonable alternative design. That is, a design that would have prevented the injury could have been built at the time that the original product was built and still been reasonable, so far as its utility and cost go.
So, if someone does get injured by an exploding laptop and can show that a harder case would have been a reasonable price to pay for the added safety, he can probably sue and recover for his crotchal injuries.
I once bought a laptop that was advertised at the chemistry faculty of the uni, where I found out after buying that the owner actually passed away after an accident like this happened. The guy apparently didn't wear a labcoat, or stuff got into his pullover through his labcoat, his story was soon over after that :(
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