"Everyone knows that Apple's Intel powered portable lineup gets hot, but this is insane! An enterprising fellow figured out that it would be possible to actually fry an egg on the bottom of his black MacBook," says The Unofficial Apple Weblog, with picture.
In a comment, Patrick Haney says: "that's nothing. Try cooking up some bacon on a MacBook Pro! http://www.flickr.com/photos/splat/177826218/ (I think I'd want to see the video before swallowing that one.)
Presumably the Mac that's auditoning for a job at Mac-Donalds (groan) is one that suffers from the overheating problem tackled by Interrupting Moss at the Something Awful forum. He made his system run dramatically cooler by opening it up and correcting the manufacturing defect -- the application of too much thermal paste, as illustrated on page 106 of Apple's Service Manual.
Warning: these pictures are not suitable for those with what the BBC used to call a "nervous disposition".
So Steve Jobs sent him a thankyou letter and a case of wine, right?
Nope. The forum got the usual threatening letter from Apple's overbusy legal staff saying: "The Service Source manual for the MacBook Pro is Apple's intellectual property and is protected by U.S. copyright law."
Of course the real problem isn't the single excerpted page being linked from Something Awful, but instead the fact that the image shows the extremely sloppy manufacturing process that is causing the MacBook Pro to run at temperatures as high as a 95 degrees Celcius [sic] under full load. (A temperature so high that the processor is at risk of malfunctioning.) Rather than addressing the problem of the shoddy workmanship, documented not only by those who purchased Apple's $2,500 laptop but by Apple's own service manual, Apple is trying to silence those from the Macintosh community who are trying to help other Mac users fix Apple's mistake.
Note: I'd assume Apple can tell the difference between egg-frying discoloratons and the palm-rest discoloration that results from a manufacturing defect that has affected some white MacBooks. Apple's lawyers will probably grill you if you try it.
