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Cook Your Breakfast With MacBook 118

Posted by timothy from the preparation-of-food-with-heat dept.
Kisom writes "Everyone knows Apple isn't famous for their cold notebooks. Dan Lurie however discovered it was possible to cook eggs on the bottom of his MacBook. Even though it took three times as long to cook the egg, Apple should probably be concerned."
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Cook Your Breakfast With MacBook More

Cook Your Breakfast With MacBook

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  • I do not... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17, 2006 @05:37PM (#15733959)
    I do not like MacBooks and ham,
    I do not like them, Sam I am!

  • Apple looking at other markets (Score:5, Funny)

    by yagu ( 721525 ) * <{yayagu} {at} {gmail.com}> on Monday July 17, 2006 @05:38PM (#15733961) Journal

    From the summary: Even though it took three times as long to cook the egg, Apple should probably be concerned. Actually McDonalds should be concerned. Apple is coming out with a previously unannounced, now leaked, new product, the Egg MacMuffin.

    • Re:Apple looking at other markets (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Why is this in the apple section, and doesn't at least have the Terry Gilliam Foot Icon, as the article itself reads:

      If you didn't know yet this is a
      joke.

      (you guys really need to read the whole thing)

    • Other one-liners... (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      ...not to mention the new baked Apple Pie.

      Didn't they have the iGrill on thinkgeek?

      But doesn't it just overheat in the most user-friendly, fashionable, ultra-hip and trendy way?

      Should you run out of supplies for your own experiment, you can get a fresh dozen from newegg.

      With the designer colors, this cookware seems less Emeril and more Martha Stewart, doesn't it?

      Steve Jobs is announcing that the iPod Souffle will be available in November.

    • Apple is coming out with a previously unannounced, now leaked, new product, the Egg MacMuffin.

      Maybe they should cool their laptops with an Egg MacMuffin Fan?

      Disclaimer: my new 17" MacBook Pro actually seems to run cooler than my old 17" 1.33MHz G4. And the fan hardly ever comes on at all. Wth my old G4 I would somtimes set it to "reduced power" mode just to keep the fan from running.

      • Titanium PowerBook G4s (either 450MHz or 600MHz, I forget) can get frelling hot.

        Like, flash point of some fabrics hot.

        Like, I might've killed a blanket or two with mine.

        >_>

        -:sigma.SB

        • Flash point is the lowest temp at which a substance creates enough vapor to catch on fire, altho real engineers will probably cringe at that definition. It's usually applied to gasoline etc, altho I suppose it could be applied to anything, since even coal will presumably produce a flammable vapor at a sufficiently high temperature.

          But fabrics? I don't think that word means what you think it means.
          • The term can and is applied to fabrics, ask any firefighter. The term's definition may be slightly different in the context of fire suppression, and would probably be more correctly substituted with "fire point," but it can be applied to anything combustible.

            Of course I highly doubt that even a MacBook gets hot enough to ignite fabric. Being hot enough to discolor fabric is not the same as being hot enough to ignite it.
    • Concerned? Apple could turn it into a marketing opportunity [nytimes.com].
    • Would you like WiFrys with that?
    • Didn't you hear? It's all part of the new iLife 2006 Suite - others are iToast, iFry, iMelt. Apple acknowledged this in a press release titled iKnow.
    • Unlike Microsoft's typical crash and burn solution, the new MacGrittle will cook your eggs differently: while leaky, the runnyness will be smooth, and you won't face the dreaded viruses and E. coli of the competition.

  • For those who are curious, like me (Score:5, Informative)

    by truthsearch ( 249536 ) on Monday July 17, 2006 @05:38PM (#15733963) Homepage Journal
    From the Egg Nutrition Center [enc-online.org]:

    Egg white coagulates between 144 and 149F, egg yolk coagulates between 149 and 158F and whole eggs between 144 and 158F. Plain whole eggs without added ingredients are pasteurized but not cooked by bringing them to 140F and maintaining that temperature for 3 and 1/2 minutes.
    • It's no problem to start cooking eggs then. My MBP, just being used for posting right now (so effectively idle) is cooking along at about 60c CPU temp, 140F. When I did a burn-in test, I saw it hit 85c (185F!), which is just insane. I picked the thing up to move it to a different table, and almost dropped it, since it was well hotter than the steering wheel was in my car after sitting with all the windows closed in the middle of a heat wave.

      I have noticed that this is a much bigger problem when plugged i
      • About plugged in vs on battery.

        ON the battery, it's probably more conservative with bringing the CPU to full speed, and when plugged in, give it max performance because battery life is not worried about.

        Also when plugged in, the charging circuitry and battery charge are probably working hard to charge the battery.

        grump

      • ironically enough it runs far cooler when in Windows via BootCamp than in OSX (even though the battery life is almost halved).

        Interesting. My 2.16 MBP runs very hot in OS X: between 55 C idle and 83 C at full load according to CoreDuoTemp. I can't imagine that it's running much hotter than this in Windows or the processor would either throttle itself or shut down. (I haven't taken the machine apart to look at thermal paste application.)

        Yet the machine *feels* hotter in Windows, even though I have no wa

        • How bout the top-left corner when in OSX? The strip above the keyboard is right where the vent is - if the fan is kicking in when in Windows, that means the heat is being redirected to that vent. Well I suppose its more the difference between the two that matters. Still, it the keyboard can get to almost unusably hot when in OSX - even if I'm gaming in Windows, the keyboard is more comfortable to use (well, heat-wise anyways, I have trouble with anything but my FPS keyboard for gaming now). Maybe it's j
  • My PowerBook runs pretty hot as well. I've always figured that it was the form factor. Unlike my Latitude, my PowerBook is minimal in dimension, making it necssaary to cram all the pieces parts in there. I've never really thought that much air actually gets into the PowerBook, but it is nice on a cold day.
    • So does my humble 1.25Ghz iBook. My 12" powerbook, same specs but more 512mb more RAM though, is friid. Go figure. Metal case, must be a heat dissipation aid.
    • I don't think it is the form factor, or atleast it isn't for my 17" MacBook Pro. (Nor the 15" i guess) A few weeks ago Apple updated the SMC firmware which handles amongst other things the cooling. Although it used to be somewhat warmer than I would have expected, the fan is now more active and it is much cooler.

      When the SMC was being updated the fan was going at full power, and I was almost expecting it to take off. So they either tried to make the macbook run too quietly and/or the firmware had some bugs.
      • Now the problem is that your battery will only last 2 hours or so with this new 'update'. Yeah, back in the day the original 'Toilet Seat' iBooks could deliver 8-10 hours battery time with no problems exactly because they had no fan.

        That's the one thing I cannot stand about Apple: they keep tweaking settings with their updates without giving users any options to adjust them afterwards.

        Like disabling SuspendToDisk ('hibernate') option in 9.0->9.0.4 update, removing 'swappiness' control from 10.1, disablin
        • Yeah well they did the opposite with my iBook G4 800mhz. They released a firmware update which makes the fan NEVER kick in unless the unit gets so hot my apps crash anyway. The fan still works in hardware test, etc. I want the fan on. I wish apple would make it configurable. I can change the fan settings on my pc motherboards, etc. I don't mind more noise if i can actually run a game.

  • Incorrect summary (Score:4, Informative)

    by SoCalChris ( 573049 ) on Monday July 17, 2006 @05:40PM (#15733982) Journal
    Granted, it probably took something like 3 times as long than if he had used a stove, but thats obviously not the point.
    That doesn't say that it took 3 times as long, it's just a candid guess by the article writer.

  • What 'Do Everything Out of the Box' Means (Score:5, Funny)

    by theRhinoceros ( 201323 ) on Monday July 17, 2006 @05:43PM (#15734009)
    "Introducing the superfast, blogging, podcasting, breakfast-cooking, do-everything-out-of-the-box MacBook."

    By the way, yes, I am a Mac user.
    • Right, but you have to hang upside-down to fry that baby and use the computer at the same time... you know, like Batman! [imdb.com] Have fun!

      Suppose you could be "Mac"man... but I somehow doubt that a guy in tights with a rainbow colored apple on his chest is going to stop any criminals in their tracks.

      • If the criminals die of laughter, crime is just as fought.

      • Re:What 'Do Everything Out of the Box' Means (Score:4, Funny)

        by Skevin ( 16048 ) on Tuesday July 18, 2006 @01:10PM (#15737799) Journal
        > but I somehow doubt that a guy in tights with a rainbow colored apple
        > on his chest is going to stop any criminals in their tracks ...until those same criminals realize his main power is spontaneously generating ungodly amounts of heat in any object in a very short amount of time. You'd think twice about trying to pull a gun on a superhero who just caused your buddy's teeth to explode in his head without so much as blinking. Oh, you might try to run, but I think one of his other powers is immobolizing you on a platform, making it impossible for you to migrate anywhere else. Criminals are dragged off to jail where they sit until they Switch or Think Different.

        I've heard, however, that Macman is vulnerable to flying chairs, and that you can force him to revert to mortal form (a la Shazam back to Billy Batson) by shouting "Developers!" over and over. In fact, this was how he was defeated back in issue #382 by his arch nemesis performing both actions silmutaneously. Macman only barely fended off the storm of flying chairs by counteracting it with a storm of flying toasters and then wounding his arch-enemy with his very last HyperCard.

        Solomon Chang
    • If someone could just figure out how to replace the DVD drive with a slot-loaded panini press...

  • Uh, guys? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Monday July 17, 2006 @05:44PM (#15734015) Journal
    From TFA:
    Now you know the secret of the overheating notebook.

    If you didn't know yet this is a joke.

    (you guys really need to read the whole thing)

    (Although I have no idea what's going on in that murky YouTube video so maybe I'm missing something...)
    • Hey Slashdot editors: Now YOU'RE spreading FUD. Either relabel this as "Humor" or pull it from the site.

      • Re:Uh, guys? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by arivanov ( 12034 ) on Monday July 17, 2006 @06:07PM (#15734148) Homepage
        Fud - dunno.

        I still have fond memories of my first Am386DX. It was spread around the desk surface with the more critical components bolted to it (so we could use it to test boards and components). A few days after we put it into action we found out that the CPU heat sink (this was in the days before CPUs had fans) perfectly doubles up as a coffee warmer for one of those neat little copper kettles used for Turkish coffee. Just the right form factor (the later CPUs became too big for that).

        I also remember burning my hand on the first slotted Celery after forgetting to plug the fan in. The scar is still visible, because I got my hand trapped in the case against it (it hurt like hell). I also remember cooking eggs on one of these after moderately overclocking it. Amazingly enough it was still working throughout the process. In those days (P2/P3) Intel used to have nearly perfect thermal throttle which prevented CPUs from baking. It lost it sometimes around P4.

        Frankly, I would not be surprised if an egg will cook on the bottom of a new Mac. I am pretty sure that it will cook on the bottom of my HP if I run a make bzImage on it and turn the cpufreq off. Do not see why the Mac will be any different.

        • Re:Uh, guys? (Score:3, Informative)

          by KozmoStevnNaut ( 630146 )
          My Pentium 4 Northwood-C first throttles and then shuts down if it reaches approximately 96 degrees C. I "discovered" this because I forgot to plug in the fan on the CPU after assembling the system...

          In the manual for my Thinkpad T42 (Pentium-M Dothan) it says that the CPU will shut itself off (triggering the rest of the system to shut down) at a little over 100 degrees C. And I'm pretty sure that it starts throttling at around 72 degrees C, since that's the highest I've ever gotten it to, by running Prime9
          • I'll just finish this sentence which I seem to have overlooked...

            And while it does get rather hot while playing games (it's amazing how much heat is generated by playing something as old as the two first Fallout games on a 1.7GHz Pentium-M), it has never once affected stability. It just keeps on going, although the fan noise does build to pretty high levels, and it never seems to shut the fan off once it's started. It just sorta stays in low speed mode, even if I force the clock speed down to 600MHz. Puttin
      • Ever since I saw it in the "Mysterious Future" it has had the Monty Python foot next it. Its Funny. Laugh.
        • It was only recently changed after numerous people pointed it out. I'd like to also point out that the Slashdot editors made no attempt to recognize that they were wrong. If everyone likes to blame the "mainstream media" (or since people love to make up accronyms now, 'MSM') for not admitting fault, here would be a great instance for Slashdot to set an example. Any takers?

  • So... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Kesch ( 943326 ) on Monday July 17, 2006 @05:44PM (#15734018)
    When will we start seeing iOmlettes?

  • This is faked - and really a joke. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17, 2006 @05:46PM (#15734023)
    Take a look at the original link:

    http://www.sagags.com/?p=441 [sagags.com]

    It mentions that it is in fact a joke.

    • Re:This is faked - and really a joke. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Golias ( 176380 ) on Monday July 17, 2006 @05:53PM (#15734079)
      Obviously. The Slashdot editors have proven, once again, that they suck at what they do. Actually, worse than that, they don't actually DO what they do!

      For fuck's sake, the "article" is shorter than most emo kids' blog entries, and says "This is a joke" in bold, oversized text at the end!

      VA Linux should fire every last /. editor, and hire a whole new staff. They don't need to be geeks, or even slightly tech-aware. They just need to be literate, and it would be a huge step up.

      • They just need to be literate

        For those who are not paticularly literate there is the image of a foot at the top of the page above the text of the article to indicate that it is a joke. Moving the mouse pointer over the foot gives you some text that lets you know that it is a joke. For those that are more literate there is also link to the article. For those that can't bother to spend the time to notice either of these things there also appears to be the option to fly off the handle, demand the sacking of

        • For those who are not paticularly literate there is the image of a foot at the top of the page above the text of the article to indicate that it is a joke. Moving the mouse pointer over the foot gives you some text that lets you know that it is a joke. For those that are more literate there is also link to the article. For those that can't bother to spend the time to notice either of these things there also appears to be the option to fly off the handle, demand the sacking of all of the editors and look lik
      • Um. Calm down. The editors put it in the "funny" category.
      • The Slashdot editors have proven, once again, that they suck at what they do. Actually, worse than that, they don't actually DO what they do!

        Actually, if you read the FAQ, you'll find that the editors don't even claim to do what you think they do:

        How do you verify the accuracy of Slashdot stories?

        We don't. You do. :) If something seems outrageous, we might look for some corroboration, but as a rule, we regard this as the responsibility of the submitter and the audience. This is why it's important to read co

        • If something seems outrageous, we might look for some corroboration

          Outrageous... like somebody claiming to be frying an egg on their laptop? There wasn't even a need to "look for some corroboration." Just read the goddamn article.

          I'm not saying it's right, just that you really shouldn't be surprised. It's always been this way.

          And I'm not saying it hasn't always been this way, nor that I'm surprised.

  • Why do we link to blogs? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by HockeyPuck ( 141947 ) on Monday July 17, 2006 @05:47PM (#15734041)
    So why does /. link to a blog which in turn links to the actual article: http://www.sagags.com/?p=441 [sagags.com]? The normally adds NO value.

  • It's a joke (Score:4, Insightful)

    by CtrlPhreak ( 226872 ) on Monday July 17, 2006 @05:48PM (#15734043) Homepage
    This is more satire taken seriously by an idiot on the web. The link in the article above is a blog that picked up another blog where the guy clearly says he's making a joke. This is like when the onion is taken seriously...

    That aside, props to the Egg MacMuffin joke...
    • This is more satire taken seriously by an idiot on the web.

      I happen to be a friend of Dan Lurie, and he's only 17, so it's possible that he took this seriously, however he is also very bright, so I can believe that his presentation of it as fact was perhaps a joke to see who he could fool. Apparently that list includes slashdot editors...
  • I just got a new (black) MacBook. It doesn't run any hotter than my old three-year old Dell Inspiron 1100 (Celeron 2GHz) laptop. Besides, why would anyone mix food and laptops together? Especially if you have the black MacBook. :P

  • My Macbook burns (Score:4, Interesting)

    by eebra82 ( 907996 ) on Monday July 17, 2006 @05:59PM (#15734112) Homepage
    I wasn't surprised at all when I read this blog entry. My Macbook (the vanilla version, cheapest of the three) is so hot that I actually burnt my skin. If I put it on a pillow, it gets excessively hot and makes the laptop hum like hell.

    I have experienced heat before, but not this kind. I wonder what the airports say about the new portable egg toasters.
    • I wasn't surprised at all when I read this blog entry. My Macbook (the vanilla version, cheapest of the three) is so hot that I actually burnt my skin. If I put it on a pillow, it gets excessively hot and makes the laptop hum like hell.

      Dude, use a frickin LapPad [xpad4laptop.com]... you know something designed to work with laptop vents, that isn't too heavy and has a cusion for your parts... all while deflecting the heat from the laptop.

      Having had several P4M space heaters that double as a notebooks for the past 3 years (

    • The should have used spirits cooling [totl.net] (and a freezer that goes up to 11...)

      (Yes, I know it is an old link. Shame that totl doesn't get updated these days.)

    • Re:My Macbook burns (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Laptops and notebooks are never supposed to be placed on cushions, pillows, blankets or other padded and insulating material. For God's sake, every single user's manual for notebooks and laptops have stated just that ever since they came out!

      If you want to use a notebook or laptop, then follow the extremely basic rule of keeping the vents clear and if possible, place on a hard surface.
      Again, just as it says in the bloody user manual.

      RTFUser Manual!
    • If you put it on a pillow, or probably your lap, you are blocking the heating vents. No surprise if it proceeds to get hot.

  • Try running BootCamp and Vista - Dangerously Hot! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ironwill96 ( 736883 ) on Monday July 17, 2006 @05:59PM (#15734113) Homepage Journal
    With some recent software updates my new Macbook Pro (around a month old now) doesn't run overly hot under OS X, even when charging the battery. However, I installed Vista under Boot Camp and since it isn't supported by Boot Camp yet the power management functions don't all seem to work as normal (it is a beta after all). Well, needless to say you can't put the Macbook Pro on your lap at all, especially not when plugged in (which, running Vista you get maybe 90 mins of battery life or less so plugged in is a constant state). I could easily cook many things on that upper left corner which is where I assume the battery is located at since the charging input is on that side. My guess would be that the temperature on that side exceeds 130 degrees fahrenheit or more.

    And yes, it is blasphemy that I am running Vista on a Mac and its unsupported blah blah blah blah, but either way the Macbook Pro's still run way too hot and don't ever seem to run their fan. Their own documentation tells you not to use your *laptop* on your lap, which seems quite stupid to me. Whats the point of a mobile computer if I have to be tied to a *DESK*.

  • Cooking with technology (Score:3, Informative)

    by Kelson ( 129150 ) * on Monday July 17, 2006 @06:03PM (#15734136) Homepage Journal
    This reminds me of a story I once heard about a scoutmaster who rigged up a miniature oven you could put on top of a car engine. He supposedly had recipes where the time had been converted to miles driven. On camping trips, the boy scouts would set up a meal before they left, and by the time they arrived at the campsite, dinner would be ready.

    • Re:Cooking with technology (Score:2, Interesting)

      by kfg ( 145172 ) *
      Common practice in the 30s through 50s. You could even buy commercial units. You can bake potatoes by simply wrapping them in foil and jamming them between the tubes of the exhaust manifold, although there is a certain risk of them falling out and I won't comment on the taste.

      KFG
      • This is also common practice on modern industrial cranes. I had a conversation recently with a guy who operates a crane and cooks out for lunch every day on a platform he rigged up to the muffler.

        Apparently egg-cooking time is becoming a common metric by which we rate our computer hardware these days. I recall a similar article not too long ago. A quick search popped up This Link [slashdot.org].
    • Up in the great white north we have gadgets that cook kabasa under the hood of your snowmobile. I have heard of store bought ones but never seen one. After a 3 or 4 hour ride, whatever is in the box is heated or cooked enough to have a beside trail snack.

  • Never study web UI design at U of Michigan! (Score:3, Funny)

    by briansmith ( 316996 ) on Monday July 17, 2006 @06:11PM (#15734174) Homepage
    So many options! So little importance!

  • Someone had to say it... (Score:3, Funny)

    by iangoldby ( 552781 ) on Monday July 17, 2006 @06:16PM (#15734198) Homepage
    Is this an exampe of egg-streme programming?

    Or have reports of overheating MacBooks been egg-sagerated?

    <ducks>
  • Please read TFA (http://www.sagags.com/?p=441), which states, "If you didn't know yet this is a joke (you guys really need to read the whole thing)." Engadget messed this one up too.
  • From the article:

    its (sic) important to understand the fact that Apple has no control over how hots (sic) Intel's processors run

    Actually, Pentium M processors have sofware adjustable voltages. I've successfully undervolted [gentoo-wiki.com] my Dothan 725 and the difference in cooling (and the lack of fan noise) is quite stunning. I believe the Core processors have something similar, in which case Apple does have control over the CPU heating.

  • A good rule of thumb is for every 10 degrees Centigrade rise above maximum temperature specification the chip's reliability is cut in half. Notebook vendors fudge temp spec. Many have altered BIOS's that allow them to perpetually run hot, even beyond normal shutdown temp.
  • And grill your dinner to a crispy state in five seconds flat.

  • cooking forensics (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pikine ( 771084 ) on Monday July 17, 2006 @07:12PM (#15734472) Journal
    I know the article is a joke, but I could tell that from just looking at the picture. If he really cooked an egg on his MacBook, he would need a bigger foil, otherwise the moment you crush the egg, it would spread and stain the uncovered parts of the laptop. The foil is too small to cover the spread of one egg. Thus, it is apparent from the picture that the egg was cooked before it is placed on the foil.
  • Yummy Egg MacMuffins every morning! :-)
  • Buy a dell (and a frying pan)...
  • .. unless you want that cooked too ;-)

  • blame fashion and wimpiness (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The fixation on light/powerful/ultra thin and chic has lead to a plethora of problems with notebook computers. Battery life, still dismal in 2006 because every battery advancement which should have gone to extended useage times has been completely negated by making them increasingly smaller to reduce weight. Heat dissipation has gotten worse (now they have to use fans when orginally most laptops got by without fans using passive cooling) because of packing so much stuff inside a too closed up case. Slightly
  • Now I hate fans in computers as much as any other Mac Fanboy, but as Parallels on the MacIntel hw is just too damn compelling to ignore any longer I'm pricing out one of these notebook computers.

    So I got to thinking - if the fan kicked on at a lower threshold, perhaps the case wouldn't get so unreasonably hot? Is the fan threshold temperature in PRAM or some other place that's reasonably easy to manipulate?

    I've got two G4 PowerBooks (a 12" and a 15") and after cooking my the logic board in the fifteen inch
  • Well, considering that my Powerbook can easily get to the temperature needed to cook an egg (which is 65 C), how is this news worthy? They run hot, they have run hot for as long as I've been using Macs. A lot of electronic components crammed into not a lot of space, then wrapped in thin plastic or aluminum equals quite a hot computer.
  • Well, if you want to bake some food with a computer, and you don't have a mac, use http://www.phys.ncku.edu.tw/~htsu/humor/fry_egg.ht ml [ncku.edu.tw]
  • Mac: Hi, I'm a Mac
    PC: Hello, I'm a PC
    Mac: I can cook an egg!
    PC: You must think you're hot shit
    Mac: Yes, yes I do
  • The thing is, you want to fry an egg quickly. Otherwise, it gets all rubbery. Put an egg on a city sidewalk on a hot day. It actually fries. And the point...?

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