One more thing to worry about!

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I heard this one on the news while driving to work today.

Can laptops really do this?

Well, I've known for a while that sitting for hours with the laptop in my lap was uncomfortable, now I'm wondering if my increased knee freckles have anything to do with it?

And given the picture in the article, I wonder if the girl realizes that if her wi-fi is turned on, she's beaming low levels of microwave continuously into her vagina? Wow, sounds like a setup for the contest, doesn't it?

Hugs
Carla Ann

Comments

Elsewhere...

The arrticle was published in the Swedish medical journal LÄKARTIDNINGEN
Ginnie

GinnieG

Tan

As I have permanent cyclist's tan lines.....

I know my big-honkin' laptop

Zoe Taylor's picture

I know my big-honkin' laptop puts out a LOT of heat. I hate to do this because it sucks up excess battery life, but I use a USB-powered cooling pad for exactly this reason.

I never thought about it being physically detrimental though. That's kind of scary >_>

* * *

"Zoe, you are definitely the Queen of Sweetness with these Robin stories!"
~ Tychonaut

~* Queen of Sweetness *~

laptop burns

I have a gotten a first degree burn from a laptop laying on my chest while playing world of warcraft at higher settings. Laptops can get extremely hot and you need to regulary check the fan vents on them to make sure they are clean and if you can take the base cover off them and clean the vents which helps cool them down. Another option to cool them down is to replace the batteries every year to year and half because new ones charge and dissipate better than old ones.

Hugs,
Jenna From FL
Moderator/Editor
TopShelf BigCloset

Hugs,
Jenna From FL
Moderator/Editor
TopShelf BigCloset
It is a long road ahead but I will finally become who I should be.

LAP TOPS

I heard that on the news as well, what next do we have to worry about
RICHIE2

Laptops and heat

It doesn't surprise me that laptops can get that hot. Just take a peek inside a desktop PC, and you see whopping great chunks of metal with fans on top to dissipate the heat, plus plenty of air space. Laptops have virtually nothing in the way of heatsinks and tiny fans. So the metal body of the case tends to act as a heatsink, with only the thin plastic exterior between it and whatever it's resting on.

The easiest thing to do if you don't have a table handy is to rest it on a tray (lap trays - the ones with a beanbag underneath that conforms to the profile of your legs - are probably best) and extend the flimsy little legs to raise the fan above the tray surface. Besides being better for your body, with an air gap it (a) won't get as hot, and (b) won't turn on the (often noisy) fan as much.

But back in 2002 there was a case of a man who had problems with a much more delicate piece of his anatomy after using a laptop for an hour without protection...
(Sorry, couldn't resist the pun!)

 

Bike Resources

There are 10 kinds of people in the world - those who understand binary and those who don't...

As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!

free orchiectomy

I guess that would be one way to get an insurance company to pay for an orchiectomy. :)

Marie

Technician

I worked at Dell for several years and would tell people not to use them as laptops. The first generation portable computers did not put out that much heat from the processor but as they became more powerful the more heat was generated. They get very hot on the bottom and the cooling fans would suck up the air from below but that was to dispense heat.

I have several models and yes its like cooking your legs at low heat. I would tell my step daughter not to do it but I was just a stepdad at the time and what did I know.

Digital microwave technology

Digital microwave technology and 802.11b are NOT really the same thing. Commercial digital microwave transmitters (the BIG honkers on the towers) run between 6 and 30GHz.

802.11 is in the 2.4, 3.6, and 5GHz bands

The biggest difference? Well, even if you use your microwave oven for an example, there's a huge variance between 20 milliwatts and 1200 watts.

You can crank your transmitter up to about 100mw, but that's rare, and usually results in popping silicon.

---
I did note that the article compared it to sun damage, which is what I was thinking of. Just today, I was sitting in my car, wearing a black t-shirt. The strip of sun on my shirt was twice as hot, or more, as the laptop I was holding.


I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.

Microwave energy

I tend to view warnings of brain damage from cell phones etc. with a super large grain of salt. The US Navy has been operating high power microwave transmitters for over 70 years with no epidemic of brain tumors for Navy crewmen. It at least would seem that some sort of medical problems should arise but I haven't heard of any. The VA would be flooded with complaints and would be a lead article in the news. If I can survive 2 years on flight decks with multiple mega watt transmitters flooding the area with microwaves then a cell phone 'ain't no thang'

Huggles
Chelle_MM

Heat Shields

Puddintane's picture

They make gadgets designed to prevent the problem, either simple heat-dissipating flat surfaces (the silver one) that one can use as a lap desk, complex aerodynamic surfaces (the pink one) designed to increase airflow over the bottom of the laptop, or elaborate combinations of flat surface and padded support, in a bewildering array of materials, from space-age rigid foam to polished hardwood lap desks with space to keep writing materials and assorted gizmos one might want to schlep about.

Heatshift Pad

Lapdesk

My own is rather simple, because I made it out of a perfectly-sized Oxo polypropylene kitchen cutting board (very sturdy) to which I affixed industrial-strength velcro strips by means of which I both raise the laptop slightly off the surface (to improve air circulation) and prevent it from sliding around.

I've never noticed any warmth at all, and have used many alternatives over the years.

Cheers,

Puddin'

A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style

-

Cheers,

Puddin'

A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style

Pink!

Zoe Taylor's picture

Why is it some of the best heat sinks are pink? Not that I'm complaining ;-) I just find it amusing.

When I built my first PC, I used ... Gah, I forget the company name, but the RAM had hot pink heatsinks, and chugged along right to the end of that poor PC's life.

My shield has a built-in fan, hence the USB connection, but it works well enough without the fan since it's ventilated to allow the heat to be sucked out. It suffers from the problem you mentioned the velcro fixing, of sliding all over the place though.

* * *

"Zoe, you are definitely the Queen of Sweetness with these Robin stories!"
~ Tychonaut

~* Queen of Sweetness *~

Pink!

Puddintane's picture

I'm not exactly sure, but pink has specific as well as general meanings in the world of computer components, since certain anti-static foams and plastics are dyed pink to let us know that they're "safe" for delicate electronic parts. That in turn undoubtedly uses the trope of "femininity" to imply gentleness and care, and is probably carried over to the heat-sink using the same primitive associations through the amygdala. Product packaging is a frighteningly effective science these days.

Mind you, the heat-sink and pad pictured in pink is also available in black, for those who prefer to accessorise with pearls.

I used one like the link below for about five months, but it uses a soft plastic that very quickly began to become brittle and crack. By the end of the second month it had noticeable fractures at the very edge (and I'm not at all hard on things like that) which gradually migrated toward the center. Eventually, it started leaking little plastic beanbag chair bubbles and I had to toss it. That's when I bought my OXO board, since I use them in the kitchen all the time and have never had one fail, although eventually they become scored through cutting and I retire them before the cuts become serious enough to make cleaning difficult.

http://gifts.barnesandnoble.com/Home-gift/Pink-Jumbo-Lapdesk...

I'd highly recommend avoiding this particular brand.

They're a local company, and I brought it to their attention almost immediately, but they refused to do anything about it. Customer service is -- after all -- a cost centre.

Cheers,

Puddin'

A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style

-

Cheers,

Puddin'

A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style

Using laptop keeping on lap

Using laptop keeping on lap for a long time can cause ovarian cancer.A very high wavelength of heat is emitted by laptop so its always advisable to use it keeping on table or on top of pillow on the lap.