Laptop Heat May Cause 'Toasted Skin Syndrome' 195
mrvook submitted an item that might affect a lot of you "Working with a laptop on one's lap for extended periods of time has been found to cause heat damage and skin discoloration in a handful of cases, prompting researchers examining the phenomenon to recommend thermal protection for laptop users and warnings labels on laptop device packaging." Only 10 cases have actually been reported, so this might just be a case of media hyping something, or it could be the end of the world with a generation of nerds doomed to sterility and crunchy crotches.
Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I just look at it as voluntary sterilization (Score:4, Insightful)
I think I'd rather get a vasectomy than slowly bake/burn/scorch my parts, thank you.
But, I admire your enthusiasm. :-P
Re:Warning labels suck (Score:5, Insightful)
A more accurate headline (Score:3, Insightful)
Science? (Score:5, Insightful)
put it in Idle where it belongs
I'm surprised this is just now getting an article (Score:2, Insightful)
In other news... (Score:3, Insightful)
...putting your hand in a toaster also causes Toasted Skin Syndrome.
Who woulda thunk it? :(
Extremely old news, maybe 20,000 years old (Score:5, Insightful)
My parents said this used to happen to them when they were kids.
They grew up in houses that were heated by coal fireplaces - they would sit too close to the fire for too long and the same thing would happen. The cure - stop putting your skin too close to heat sources.
Seriously, I think people have known about this since the discovery of how to make a fire. We just forgot about it for the last 50 years while we all enjoyed our modern heating systems that distribute heat more evenly.
Re:A new feature for the i5 (Score:3, Insightful)
You're assuming that it's painful. I come from a family with poor pain sensitivity and I've literally broken bones without knowing it.
This is probably why there's only 10 cases of it. You need quite the combination of events to get it.
1. A particularly hot laptop
2. Somebody with high pain tolerance or something wrong with their heat senses*.
3. A particular dedication towards working on their laptop, on their lap, for a continous and extended period of time
I've used my computer on my lap a few times, and it does get warm. But I shift around, get up and get a drink or snack, visit the bathroom, etc...
*There's also the boiling frog scenario - toss a frog into boiling water he'll try to jump out. Put a frog in cold water and slowly warm it to boiling he won't. Some research says this is legend, some says it's true as long as you're really, really gradual. Me? I wonder if it also depends on the frog. Anyways - there are probably people less likely to notice being slow cooked than flash burned.
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
>Why is it that we as a society feel we need to put warning labels on things for the dumbest of society?
Because civil suit outcomes and damages are determined by jurors, who are the lowest common denominator themselves.