now I know

[cellio]

One of my small-scale "fears" -- except that "fear" is way too strong a word for it -- is of oversleeping due to a power failure taking out the alarm clock. I have been known, when it's really important to be up early for something, to set the alarm on my watch as a backup. (This doesn't happen often. Once every several years, maybe.)

Last night demonstrated that this is no longer necessary. The unsynchronized beeping from two UPSs is enough to wake me even with the ambient noise of Forbes Avenue with windows open. This is good; it means I can shut things down gracefully and set a mechanical alarm if necessary. (Last night, as it turned out, power was only out for about 5 minutes, so I didn't need to do anything.)

(I guess the last time this happened Dani didn't have his UPS yet and my office was still in the basement.)

Ironically, I came in to work to an unusually-quiet office: things are quiet when the computer isn't running. I thought maybe we'd had a power glitch here that had exceeded the battery in the UPS. Nope, nothing like that: someone, presumably the cleaning person, unplugged my computer. Bah! A UPS won't help you if your computer isn't connected to it...

Comments

[goljerp]

someone, presumably the cleaning person, unplugged my computer.

This is bad. You didn't sound horribly upset about it, so hopefully nothing got seriously lost or damaged, but anyone working in a computer-related office should know that one never, ever unplugs a computer without making sure it's OK.

[cellio]

I haven't seen any evidence of damage, but yes, this annoyed me. I didn't lose anything (I don't tend to have long jobs that have to run overnight etc), and this is the first time this has happened in two years of being here, so with luck it was a fluke. I'll do some asking around to see if it was just me, I suppose.

[goljerp]

Even when I don't have actual unsaved documents or running jobs, I find that an unintended shutdown can have negative effects, because I have to take the time to get things set up the way I like again. It probably was just a fluke, but just in case it would be good that the person who did this should be gently told not to do it again. Next time they might cause significant damage.

[cellio]

Yup, I lost state that I had to recreate, which is a pain. My normal routine is to log in Monday morning, stay logged in all week (locking when gone), and reboot Friday before leaving. The automatic updates to the OS, if any, auto-run on Sunday. So the later in the work week it is, the more of a pain a reboot is.