Swell

It turns out there’s something called “swelling battery/keyboard” on laptops. I found this out because someone posted it on the business unit Teams chat and told us to be on the lookout for it. The latest victim was on a Mac, but evidently this is not unknown to the HPs that the company uses for Windows-based machines.

Someone said that when it happened to his HP, the first signs were the touchpad and shift key rising, preventing him from being able to shut the laptop. Well, I use an external keyboard, so I have no idea if keys are sticking, but that machine has run hot since the day it was issued to me in September 2019. I mean what-the-hell hot.

Well, when I looked at my laptop, here’s what I saw:

That didn't seem good. Then I looked again:

Well, crap. I sent pix to IT and they’re shipping me a new laptop. Evidently Li-on batteries are not something to mess around with.

I have to say that this is a first: I mean, I’ve had colleagues who wanted to kill me, but this is the first time a laptop tried it.