Cringester Thomas F. says he’d just loaded his 1966 ford F25 truck with camping gear when the Dell Inspiron 1300 sitting on
the floor of the cab burst into flames, just like the laptop that made headlines in Japan. When the fire reached the truck’s gas tank, well, remember that scene
in Star Wars when the Death Star gets destroyed? When he got back home eight hours later, Dell’s online support tech demanded
the service tag from the bottom of the charred-beyond-recognition notebook before he would help him. Dell spokesfolk say they
take such matters very seriously and are investigating it thoroughly. Earlier Dell had blamed its combustible laptops on defective
lithium ion batteries (like that’s going to reassure us) and has asked the Consumer Product Safety Commission for help. When
Dell says its computers are “the bomb,” I never thought it meant that literally.
Crash and Burn Apple has given up the fight to force two rumor sites to reveal their sources for their reports on “Asteroid,” the digital music gizmo that has yet to collide with any computers on this planet. It seems
bloggers are journalists after all, as far as the California courts are concerned. Now that that’s settled, maybe Apple can
track down the guys who offered those "irregular" stock options to Steve Jobs back in the late ’90s. Oh, wait. That would be Apple’s board, wouldn’t it? Mystery solved.
“I Am Not a … Oh, Never Mind”: The U.S. DoJ is trying to extradite a U.K.-based former VP for Peregrine Systems who has been charged with helping to cook Peregrine's books to pump up the stock price. His name? Jeremy Crook. Mr. Crook denies all wrongdoing. Luckily, his attorney is named Steve
Law.
What’s Up, Geek? Apparently I misused the term nimrod when talking about the FTC and its lost notebooks. (“And the password is... nimrod.”) Several readers informed me the word means “hunter,” not “dimwit.” However, according to my dictionary, nimrod also means an especially inept hunter -- specifically, Elmer Fudd. Hey, everything I know I learned from Bugs Bunny.
Got hot tips or hotter laptops? Send them to cringe@infoworld.com and you could win a bag useful for smothering fires.
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