Residents of Esparto, California had their windows shattered by an explosion created as part of a Mythbusters segment designed to see whether or not it was truly possible to knock someone’s socks off. According to KCRA news, the Mythbusters crew ignited 500 pounds of ammonium nitrate about a mile outside of Esparto that resulted in an explosion that “was a lot bigger than they expected.” → Read More
In the grand tradition of “let’s but this M80 into the toilet,” this video shows a group of miscreants firing a capacitor bank in a way that is both maniacal and dangerous. When capacitor banks are outlawed, only outlaws will have capacitor banks. → Read More
LG recalled some of its laptops, most out of production, due to a meltdown in Seoul. A graduate student was using the laptop when it melted but LG is reporting that the explosion was impossible under “normal conditions.” LG Electronics stops sales of laptop computer [TheHindu] → Read More
Not that I want to cause a panic, or even heaven forbid a tizzy, but there’s incidental evidence that the cellphone in your shirt pocket can explode and kill you. No, it will explode and kill you. It’s a matter of time. It’s a ticking time bomb, waiting to glow a hole in your chest, as it did to an unfortunate South Korean named Seo. His phone was in his pocket, and the battery… → Read More
Hot on the heels of last month’s battery recall, Toshiba has issued another one. This time it’s Satellite A100, A105, and Tecra A7 owners that’ll be affected. It’s a scant 1,400 batteries versus last month’s 10,000 but the batteries themselves are very similar — they contain Sony rechargeable lithium-ion cells. → Read More
About 5 years ago I was cruising along the information superhighway, minding my own business, when all of a sudden my monitor made a sharp popping sound and shot a small to medium-sized flame out the top. I was frightened, but unharmed. Reading these posts and articles about laptop batteries exploding makes me wonder about how I would have felt lo those many years ago if my monitor had been in my… → Read More
Strike up a match, light the candles, and welcome another member to the exploding laptop club. After an Acer laptop exploded in someone’s lap recently the company decided to make the move to recall 27,000 laptops due to overheating batteries that were made by — get this — Sony. Hmmm, between Dell, Sony, and now Acer’s exploding laptops, maybe using Sony-made laptop… → Read More
. It’s been sitting on the down-low for eleven months in hopes that there would be no trouble with non-Dell laptops. Sadly, that has not been the case. The Yamiuri goes on to state that had Sony addressed the issue correctly almost a year ago, when it discovered the flaw in the manufacturing process responsible for the explosions, they could have avoided the costly recall. As it is, Sony is… → Read More
Dell announced this morning that it would recall an additional 100,000 faulty laptop batteries. This latest announcement will move the total number of recalled batteries to 4.2 million. Toshiba also announced a recall of 830,000 batteries, made at the request of Sony. The Sony batteries explode due to shards of metal left within the cells. To date, nearly 7 million Sony batteries have been… → Read More
Here’s a product that makes sense. This corduroy sleeve from Wrappers not only protects your laptop from injury, it protects you from being injured by your laptop. The sleeve, you see, is fire retardant, which sadly isn’t the same thing as fire proof, but it’s a start. So if your laptop decides to burst into flames while bouncing along in your backpack, it just might prevent you… → Read More
The Korea Times is reporting that following a similar move by the Aussies at Qantas, Korean Air has banned Dell laptops and Apple Powerbooks and iBooks from its flights. The decision comes at the heels of recent widespread issues with exploding laptop batteries. Laptops from Sony, the makers of the questionable battery, remain unaffected because they were apparently using better, non-exploding… → Read More
With all the buzz lately about exploding laptops and excruciatingly hot MacBooks, I suspect we’re going to start seeing a lot more products like this. The Lapinator is composed of the heat resistant 3M Thinsulate fiber and a comfy cross-linked molded foam bottom. Though it might not be too successful against the shrapnel of an exploding Dell battery, it looks like it should effectively… → Read More
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