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] [2].
Maybe in the case of these laptops, nobody who was involved in production / QA had the right gene to be bothered by the smell. But once it's sold to thousands of people, that's both a much larger population, and one that's from all over the world (as opposed to the people in the factory who would would probably mostly be local workers from one country or region).
Yeah, I have this too. I went 22 years thinking that people were dropping soap in my meals. I would think 'Damn, do people just accidentally grab the soap bottle instead of the sauce?'. Couldn't figure out how else such a strong taste of soap could be in my mouth. But yeah, turns out it was cilantro.
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-intensive apps. Most people couldn't believe that, but one another guy in my office floor could detect that smell as well.
I think there is a larger hypothesis that can be made: it is optimal for the survival of a species if individuals of the species exhibit slightly different behavior from each other. As a group, it helps cover more ground in the event of a threat or opportunity. It is also a way to jump out of a local optimum.
Is there any established terminology for what I am describing above?
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.
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.
Ah, brussel sprouts. Alton Brown had a whole episode of "Good Eats" within he explain the phenomena. I was never able to eat them, turns out most people over-cook them releasing the bitterness that I find horrid.
To solution is to wash them, split them and roast them in the oven with carrots chunks and potato wedges after seasoning with garlic, salt, pepper. When the carrots are done, remove everything and serve in bowls. Great cold day treat.
This is an unfortunately chosen term for an ill defined group of people. The ability or inability to taste certain specific compounds is a genetic variation of chemical receptors and should be traceable through the family line. The term Supertaster on the other hand seems to be chosen as a catch-all to maximize the number of people who identify with it.
There's a simple test you can do with a strip of paper (http://supertaster.com/) tainted with that particular flavor. Most people can't taste it at all, but those that do are gagging from the awful taste.
I'm in that group and brussels sprouts are easily the strongest, most offensive vegetables out there.
I think there are people in the middle. I can taste PTC, but it is only slightly bitter, and I don't mind brussels sprouts (don't particularly love 'em), I can definitely taste the bitter.
Huh. I wasn’t aware that most supertasters dislike the strong foods. All of the things mentioned in the article taste extremely strong or bitter to me, but I find it pleasant in a way and regularly take them. Cilantro and cabbage are a bit much on their own, but they’re fine as part of a dish.
Interesting theory, but read this quote from the first page of comments:
"Thanks.. I am having the same issue. When I started using the laptop at the end of last week I thought I smelt something odd. Well.. here I am Sunday doing some work on the couch and my wife says "what stinks like cat pee". I said.. I think its this laptop.. puts her nose up to the keyboard and BAM! It really stinks."
Some guy AND his wife noticed the smell. If you're right, that's one hell of a coincidence.
Not if they are both of the same genetic pool. For example if they are both Dutch or Korean etc. Especially if the 'not smelling' it gene is the less common one (and on ethnic boundaries). For example all of the workers were Chinese and Chinese don't have the gene.
Another one of these quirks is ground white pepper, which for some people (myself included) quite often smells strongly of fecal matter. The reason seems to be extra sensitivity to a compound aplty named Skatole. Naturally, this is quite an off-putting smell to have in food.
Reminds me of cumin. I always thought it smelled like really bad BO, and my wife thought I was crazy. This made me check, and it turns out lots of people agree!
I get something similar from cucumbers. Even if there is just a hint of the juice that comes of cucumbers in my food I will taste it. It tastes like rotting cabbage mixed with dirt (if that makes sense) to me.
you're onto something, maybe there's an emerging market for end user product QA via different genetic predisposition, people would get hired for their natural talents.
If it were on Apple boards they would have deleted the message I guess, and pretended nothing ever happened :)
EDIT: in case people who downvote me don't understand the reference, see yesterday's news regarding Larry Lessig's complaint being censored on Apple forums, apparently for the interest of keeping the forums clean. Wouldn't that kind of "cat piss" complaint fall in the exact same "unhelpful comment" category ?
I know from personal experience that googling for issues related to my mac and ending up on an apple forum almost never resolves the issue, unless the issue is also referenced in apple's knowledge base.
This is actually very much relevant to the recent news. Yesterday you have Apple removing valid complaints from one user about their products, while Dell has a very different company approach to let the information flow transparently among their followers. This thread would not even have appeared if there were no such transparency.
The prevailing theory is that it has something to do with the glue they use when assembling the shoe. I wonder if the same glue is hidden in these laptops somewhere...
I have found that orange-flavored Trident gum and a certain type of evergreen bushes commonly used in landscaping around shopping centers also smell like cat urine from a short distance.
my own experience: some air freight allows transfer of pets in the same hold (on top of the freight). I had my boxes pissed on by pets before. This may be a similar issue.
PS: My experience was freight from China to Thailand. And the airline wouldn't compensate because I didn't purchase their insurance.
Interesting. I get the same "cat urine" smell from neoprene (a rubbery material used in a lot of athletic equipment, like pads and such). I wonder if that has something to do with it.
Since Dell is offering a fix that consists of replacing the laptop's palm rest, it might be related - maybe the palm rest is made of neoprene or something similar.
'''When you write that the "problem has been resolved," do you mean that when I open my computer it will no longer smell like a pack of well hydrated feral cats have used it for target practice resolved, or do you mean that you have resolved the mystery of what has caused the problem? Jus' 'asking.'''
The reply is even more interesting . This is by an official rep. Really impressed by Dell.
"As mentioned above, no biological hazard was involved and we do know that a manufacturing process was the root cause. That process was changed which resolved the issue on newly manufactured units. As for everyone out there with a unit that still exhibits the symptoms, we haven't forgotten about you and will make things right. Keep watching this thread and as soon as more info if available, we'll let everyone know."
Agreed. Especially unimpressive is the long delay between when they apparently discovered the cause and now, when they still haven't revealed it, even as the rep has stated for weeks that it'll be "any day now".
I also wasn't super impressed with the first few replies from lower level reps that kept suggesting blowing it out with compressed air even after it was clear that there was a larger problem.
It's part of a hardening process that has been employed by weapon smiths for time immemorial, known as "quenching". After you form the laptop case / sword / rifle barrel, and it is still hot, it is to be submerged in urine. I'm surprised it's taken laptop manufacturers so long to catch up.
In the UK there's a TV show called QI ("Quite Interesting"), hosted by Stephen Fry, which likes to dig up "quite interesting" odd "facts" (in quotes, as sometimes they are twisting things quite far) and ask questions about them. Especially things that will get the celebrity panelists to give "obvious" but wrong answers (which they are penalized for).
One of their questions years back was "why does the House of Lords smell like wee?"
Supposedly it at least used to because stale human urine used to be used in the manufacture of Harris Tweed, which used to be the favoured cloth for suits worn by the peers. Which was not usually a problem, except, supposedly, when it rains, at which point the suit would smell faintly of urine. Gather a few hundred of them together in a room...
Here's a thread from the QI forum regarding the topic - the whole thread is quite amusing, but the end contains a fuller description, with their sources:
Supposedly BMW did that to their turbo F1 engines in the eighties. They would have a bunch of blocks sitting out in the cold, and they would pee on them to age them. That and welding the cylinder head to the block gave them 1500 hp out of a 1.5 liter engine for one lap.
Wow, I honestly thought you guys were both trolling. From the article above comes this brilliant hack:
While some may laugh at this strange solution by the German manufacturer,
the urinating process is based on nitridization (a process which introduces
nitrogen into the surface of a material and is widely used in automotive,
mechanical and aeronautical engineering, having the property of a
case hardening treatment of predominantly steel but also for titanium,
aluminium and molybdenum). Why are we talking about nitridization?
Because urine seems to contain numerous waste compounds, many rich in
nitrogen. We can't yet figure out how the German engineers found this
particular method to strengthen the cylinder blocks – and not use a
more technological measure – but it makes for some interesting stories to
tell out grandsons.
Hah! I have some friends who had some beautiful (copper?) gutter pipes installed at their house. The metal had a wonderful worn look to them. When I asked how they got it that way she replied that her partner had peed all over them for some time. I've never heard of it before but it seems true.
Water should only be used in extreme situations where no horses, humans, or cats can be coaxed into a milking. Urine has well known properties which it lends to the steel.
It depends on the material. High carbon steel is usually quenched in oil or air. Water quenching may cause it to shatter. Medium carbon steel can be quenched in oil , water, or impure water(typically brine). What you quench with will determine the hardness(and brittleness) of the steel, oil being the softest and brine being the hardest.
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 used to sell Volkswagens. This crayon smell is actually common in many German automobiles because the manufacturers fill the doors with wax to help prevent corrosion.
Mmm old Saabs used to have the crayon smell when the glue under the carpets eventually deteriorated. I used to leave a box of crayons in the back to explain it to people. Was quite funny.
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 used to work on VW's in the early 2000's and VW uses really heavy wax on all of the inner body panels to prevent rust. It's thick and nasty and smells very strong (especially in a hot climate). I used get that stuff all over me and it was tough to wash it off.
Sounds like cosmoline. My ex-military 1987 Land Rover Defender was slathered in the stuff, presumably by its previous owner, the British Army. It smells awful and coincidentally, a lot like cat piss. It's nearly impossible to remove, requiring a solvent like diesel fuel or mineral spirits.
Anyhow, back to the topic, I tend to agree with one of the commenters on the Dell forums. This doesn't sound like glue, or preservative, or actual cat piss. This sounds like a defect in the plastics manufacturing process, perhaps a bad batch of some component chemical. Not sure if these laptops came from China but tainted or counterfeit industrial products are common there. It's possible that a sub-contractor or sub-sub-contractor manufactured these plastic pieces and they slipped by QC. I can't imagine a laptop manufacturer even doing "smell testing" on their products and it's easy to see how this might have escaped notice by the assembly line workers, especially if they're working in a factory town with awful air pollution.
There was some type of grease that would ooze out of the drain ports on my fathers 2000 Golf. I never could figure out what it was. was that the same wax?
A friend in college had one of the new beetles and I always found this hilarious since her aspiration was to be an elementary school teacher. Really strange stuff though.
A friend vomited into her cars aircon vent on the dash once while worse for wear. The phrase blowing chunks came to mind when she turned on the aircon a few days later. That car was no longer the chosen transport method for group outings.
Handy tip from the north, if it's cold, cats sometimes get up in the engine area. It might not be a bad idea if you know there are cats about to bang on the hood before starting the car. You might get something worse than the pee otherwise.
It very well may be either a fungal or bacterial growth in the A/C, especially if the odour developed over time. Sometimes it smells bad, sometimes - not, e.g. like a musk. The service can flush and clean the A/C and it's not really expensive as it's a common-ish problem.
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.
I know there's a family of compounds found in wine that can smell like cat urine[1]. If this laptop has a rubberized component, some googling[2] indicates these same compounds may be employed in their manufacture.
Oh yeah, it is one of the strongest, most distinctive odors out there. If you've ever smelled it, you'd know it immediately, and it is damn impossible to clean out of anything. Washing fabric in a washing machine that has been peed on by a cat does nothing for the smell.
Part of me wonders whether or not this is some sort of collective joke by Reddit or 4chan or something. Another part of me is not surprised. Dell isn't particularly notorious for their astute QC.
The last time I ordered a Dell product it arrived and would not boot. Did absolutely nothing. Was completely DOA. That put a bad taste in my mouth. Their displays have treated me well though, and their server products are great.
That's really weird, as every Apple laptop (~6 or so) I've had has the exact same smell, to the point I thought they were scenting them prior to shipment.
I remember that; I seem to recall it being eventually tracked down to a run of keyboards coming from a particular manufacturer that was using bad rubber. I was working at a Mac repair shop at the time, and before they sorted this out, we'd have to give all the replacement keyboards a "smell test" before using them or sending them back as bad parts.
My guess is that Dell laptops have incorrectly vulcanized rubber. During vulcanization, sulfur compounds are added to rubber to make it more elastic. Cat urine also contains a high amount of sulfur compounds. If Dell's suppliers got the vulcanization process wrong, sulfur could be leeching out of the laptop's rubber components.
Happens all the time with shady third-party manufacturers in countries other than your own.
You get a perfectly nice sample unit that meets all specs and looks beautiful. When the container arrives off the boat with 100,000 production units you find materials have been substituted with cheaper materials, scrap plastic, and scavenged components.
Walk into any dollar store and you'll smell something similar to this, cheap plastics off-gassing all kinds of wonderful substances. I picked up a flashlight once that literally smelled of kerosene, probably because that's what the overseas factory used as a plasticizer to get that "rubbery" feel on the handle.
You can get the same smell from the 99 cent set of black soft plastic measuring cups and spoons at Wal-Mart. I'm surprised anybody buys and uses those; no doubt it affects the taste (and possibly safety) of whatever they measure.
That happened at a former employer of mine. Parts came in covered in chicken shit and straw. Long story short: our main vendor in China outsourced to a make-shift forging operation set up in a barn.
Thermoplastic manufacturing is crazy. There's no end of chemical additives used for variant purposes, and substitutes for them for certain usages. Apparently this batch discovered some new chemistry and there was no QA process in place to catch it.
Probably cost cutting gone wrong. Lots of acidic chemicals are used and they need to be carefully washed off parts or the smell will linger. Many cheap glues/tapes can also carry a strong acidic smell. The comparison to cat urine makes sense since the smell comes from its high acidity.
I work in an enterprise IT shop during the day and we received 300 of these laptops which we are sitting on until Dell comes up with a resolution. It's not a faint odor, or one that only a few people will notice. It's a rudely foul room clearing gag inducing vapor released as the case heats up. We can't hand them out as they are.
I've heard of this before with cheap plastics, like "pony beads", for instance. What I really wonder, though, is if this will be forever linked in the consumer collective mind with Dell returning to privately owned status.
I am surprised that people are giving theories here about the cause. Because on page for Dell-Steve reported that the cause is a manufacturing process that they now replaced.
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
We travels in Italy and our budget was low (6 weeks at $30 euros a day). We stayed at camp grounds most of the time. It was good, except they often had cat colony's nearby. The smell was horrific and traveled a long way. It put me off cats in such a big way that 10ish years later I still don't like them.
"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 smell (like, this particular jacket was worn recently to a place where people smoked) that are not noticeable by the smoker itself.
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?
Yesterday when some apple users said their Macbook battery life had been impacted by the Mavericks upgrade the consensus on HN was that "people blame all kinds of problems on software upgrades". When some Dell users say their laptops smell funny, then Dell has a QA problem.
Many people reporting the problem so it is not a cat unless it is very well travelled and has a grudge against Dell laptops.
It could be that every owner has a cat and they all feel the need to mark dell laptops as their property but that seems unlikely.
If you read the comments you will see that they did not all immediately reek but it happened over a few days which rules out a batch getting watered en route since they would stink when removed from box (and probably suffer other problems, Laptops + liquid do not mix)
That is even assuming said liquid could even make it to the laptop through all the packaging.
It sounds far more like a reaction to hands + chemicals in/on keyboard or maybe chemicals used to create keyboard gradually reacting to heat of laptop.
Especially since people have provided links in threads detailing how this can happen.
So occam's razor, something in the manufacturing process; even if it is just one batch.
I, uh... I'd like to take some time and point out the following implicit logic veiled beneath your posit of pro-Apple fanboyism bias.
Even if it's a software update, Apple bears the full brunt
of all the acrimony, because when it comes to Macintosh
products, Apple takes credit for the whole thing,
regardless of where the failure originates, be it
hardware or software.
Apple controls The Spice in that scenario (and thus, the universe). They are at fault for everything that sucks no matter what.
I have 5 cats and they occasionally wizz on my clothes when I'm not looking. Next time I get caught unawares and smell like cat piss in public, I'll say I bought a Dell. Thanks Dell!
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] [2].
Maybe in the case of these laptops, nobody who was involved in production / QA had the right gene to be bothered by the smell. But once it's sold to thousands of people, that's both a much larger population, and one that's from all over the world (as opposed to the people in the factory who would would probably mostly be local workers from one country or region).
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cilantro#Leaves
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/dining/14curious.html?_r=0