Users complain their Dell 6430u laptops smell like cat piss • Hacker News Board

Re: Users complain their Dell 6430u laptops smell like cat piss

#161

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 31, 2013, 1:24 AM UTC

benihana wrote: post #32

whalesalad wrote: post #17

Reminds me of my sisters Volkswagen beetle. It's got some material under the leather that smells exactly like crayons. It's impossible to get rid of. Not as bad as cat piss but really strong. Gives me a feeling of nostalgia every time I'm in it haha. Google "Volkswagen smells like crayons" and you'll find a lot of VWs in the early 2000s have the same smell.

I had a 2004 BMW that used to smell like that. I was told it was the glue they used in the car's interior. I loved that crayon smell; it wasn't offensive, just odd.

[deleted]

Re: Users complain their Dell 6430u laptops smell like cat piss

#162

Post by solistice » Thu, Oct 31, 2013, 4:57 AM UTC

rsynnott wrote: post #99

It's a FEATURE. If they didn't want cat urine-scented, they should have opted for the plain 6430, not the u.

Product Scenting Suffixes as follows:

   [u] - "urine",
   [s] - "sock,worn",
   [bc] - "burned,capacitor",
   [br] - "burned,resistor",
   [a] - "asbestos" 
   [m] - "methapetamines",
   [c] - "cocaine,regular",
   [cw] - "cocaine,wall street",
   [cc] - "cocaine,columbian", 
   ...

Re: Users complain their Dell 6430u laptops smell like cat piss

#163

Post by snikeris » Thu, Oct 31, 2013, 12:48 PM UTC

hrjet wrote: post #96

csense wrote: post #77

Maybe this is something that's only smellable by a certain subset of the human population. I invited a family member to try Chipotle once. She complained of a soapy taste in the food. We both thought maybe a staff member had been careless about rinsing hands after washing with soap. I later learned that some people have a genetic predisposition to perceive cilantro, an herb common in Mexican food, as a soapy taste [1…

This is very much true in my own experience. I have an incredibly sensitive nose especially to alarming things. I once woke up from my sleep due to a LPG gas leak in a different floor, and alerted them of the leak! People who were awake hadn't noticed the smell; but once alerted they could easily smell it. Also, once when I was working on a new Dell laptop, it started giving out an acrid smell when running CPU-intens…

Sure, it might be optimal for the species; however, individuals are not going to adapt "for the good of the species" [1]. If your gas smelling genes have no disadvantages and they help you survive in situations where you might not otherwise, they might as well just spread to everyone and the "slightly different behavior" gets exhibited everywhere. In other words, it doesn't really matter if something is optimal for the survival of the species since no one is optimizing at that level.

As an aside, our capability for rationality means we have the ability to optimize for the survival of our species, but it doesn't seem like we do so.

[1] http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/misconceptions_faq....

Edit: I don't know how to quote so I removed it.

Re: Users complain their Dell 6430u laptops smell like cat piss

#164

Post by rzt » Thu, Oct 31, 2013, 6:10 PM UTC

joyeuse6701 wrote: post #160

rzt wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My 2000 Saab 9-5 Aero has the crayon smell in it, too. IIRC, it was the glue used to assemble the interior. They changed the process in 2003ish, so more recent Saabs don't have the crayon odor. My wife has a 2002 9-3 SE has no crayon smell, but she used to have a 1999 Viggen with the crayon smell. I love it.

awww bro, a viggen? Awesome awesome car, definitely wanted to get one at some point.

They're still out there. There are some very cherry examples on saab.net

My girl's Viggen was the lightning blue coupe. She sold it when she got into grad school. We often talk about getting another...

Re: Users complain their Dell 6430u laptops smell like cat piss

#165

Post by hrjet » Fri, Nov 01, 2013, 7:16 AM UTC

snikeris wrote: post #163

hrjet wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very much true in my own experience. I have an incredibly sensitive nose especially to alarming things. I once woke up from my sleep due to a LPG gas leak in a different floor, and alerted them of the leak! People who were awake hadn't noticed the smell; but once alerted they could easily smell it. Also, once when I was working on a new Dell laptop, it started giving out an acrid smell when running CPU-intens…

Sure, it might be optimal for the species; however, individuals are not going to adapt "for the good of the species" [1]. If your gas smelling genes have no disadvantages and they help you survive in situations where you might not otherwise, they might as well just spread to everyone and the "slightly different behavior" gets exhibited everywhere. In other words, it doesn't really matter if something is optimal for t…

Individuals need not voluntarily adapt for the good of the species, and that's not what I am suggesting. I am suggesting an emergent phenomenon that leans towards behavioral diversity within a species.

An example: Ant colonies exhibit wide diversity in behavior between workers, keepers and queens. Something similar but subtler might be at work in all species.

Re: Users complain their Dell 6430u laptops smell like cat piss

#166

Post by staringispolite » Fri, Nov 01, 2013, 11:23 PM UTC

PeterisP wrote: post #159

staringispolite wrote: post #40

Specifically cat urine, not other urine? I must be thankfully smell-deficient because I wouldn't be able to tell the difference, and I grew up with cats for 20 years

"Growing up with cats" is a disadvantage in this case - people don't really notice the 'default' environment that they're used to, your nose 'turns off' that specific smell and doesn't record it. My relatives who have cats (especially in the plural) are unable to distuinguish their own items that smell of cat from similar items that don't. It's similar for smoking - nonsmokers can easily identify traces of smoke smel…

This is a good point, and one I hadn't thought of. But I wasn't smelling cat pee often either.

If we had two sets of items, one of which we had some cats pee on, and one of which we had some humans pee on, you think you could sort them into cat/human groups with a high degree of success?