Hacker News Reader

Comment by macinjosh | Hacker News Reader

I kid you not, in the early Intel MacBookPro days the Genius Bar told me that my extremely hot MBP that I could not use on my lap due to the heat was not in fact a laptop computer but a notebook computer and by using it on my lap I was essentially holding it wrong. This was in or around 2005 IIRC.

View on HN

A few companies ago, our IT dept's nannyware had a bug on OSX that was causing it to peg a CPU core at random. So, in engineering, we obviously just found a way to disable it. The IT guys were not amused. "It is against IT policy to disable this software" - yeah, well, it's against my policy to let your stuff burn my legs; get the bug fixed and I'll turn it back on.

You think IT likes it?

You think IT can fix the software?

No.

But if its antivirus or patching program. Come audit time:

"Hey IT, why isent software X installed on all computers?"

"Engineering dept found a way to disable it due to bugs in it!"

"rah rah unacceptable, you neeed to ensure this is installed, rah rah fix now etc etc"

IT can lean on the vendor to fix their shitty software.

If the head of IT doesn't want to do that, the department is dysfunctionally managed and does not have my sympathy.

Beyond that, I don't really care what policy is. While I generally don't care about company nannyware - after all, it's your machine - the line is drawn when you are literally burning my body. If you want me to use the device, it can't cause me physical harm.

Using the computer under ANY type of load would cause that...

Not really. It takes a sustained load over a long enough period of time to raise the temperature of the aluminum chassis to the point that it causes physical pain. If that's your use case, you have a point, but that's not most people's use cases, mine included.

Imagine unironically defending this behavior.

It must be nice to be able to implement substandard solutions and treat them as if they aren't substandard.

Directors pay the bill.

But where are they getting the money? Surely everyone is beholden to everyone else in a company context?

Directors aren't directly producing value, usually the software/sales/service is.

And what do they do when the vulnerability is in software X?

The vendor has to fix it.

This isn’t just a Mac thing, lawyers on all sides of the PC market highly suggested the terminology “notebook” over laptop for the longest time.

Unsure if related, laptops are called Note-PCs here in Japan. Asking anyone about a 'laptop' will just get you blank stares.

IBM manuals back then had warnings for that, and three line pitch as to why they refer to laptops as “portable computers” because of that.

That doesn't seem particularly unreasonable or even notable, other than the silly comment about the laptop vs. notebook label. Around that time all the laptops I remember got ridiculously warm. It was in the zeitgeist that men shouldn't use laptops on their lap because the heat could damage sperm quality. Everyone had those laptop trays with extra fans in them for using them on their lap.

The original Intel i7 in my HP laptop in 2010 had a working temperature up to 102°C. The fan noise was insane. Never bought another PC after that.

That was the line back when the 12" Powerbook G4 was burning laps.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com