cellio | short takes

Going to the eye-doctor and having my pupils dilated seems to cause the day to become bright and sunny. But this is Pittsburgh, where sunny days are relatively uncommon. Does this mean that most people in Pittsburgh never have their eyes checked this way, or are we all mysteriously choosing the same few days for this?

I posted the preceding on the "great unanswered questions" page on our wiki at work. In keeping with the name, I've received no answers.

Why does Windows 8 hide the control to shut down the computer? The discussion in the (currently-)top-voted answer makes a good deal of sense. And I actually didn't know that it's now considered safe to just turn a running computer off; decades of "don't do that" have trained me not to.

Back in July 530nm330hz posted a review of a new book of lessons from the talmud, specifically tractrate B'rachot (blessings). Based on that review I recently bought the book and I'm quite enjoying it so far. It's organized by talmudic page, so I first jumped to the entries on particular pages that I know and love -- how does God pray, different themes of concluding blessings, the tussle over leadership where they deposed Rabban Gamliel (I previously wrote about that one), and one or two others. Now I'll go back and read the rest. I hope this book is the first in a series.

I forget where I came across this special "de-motivator" image, but why should I keep all the fun to myself? (Image behind cut.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Older computers had power shut-off buttons. Newer ones have "power off request" buttons, which send the signal please ask the OS nicely to turn things off for you. (Macs have been this way for a lot longer than Windows machines, but all modern laptops work this way.)

And even yanking the cord out of the wall (assuming a desktop machine) isn't as catastrophic as it once was. Yeah, you might do damage if you happen to be writing a file *right* as you yank the cord, but the systems have become quite fault-tolerant. The problem is: it *occasionally* doesn't fail safe, and no one likes to "occasionally" lose their work...

Oh, so the function of the power button has changed? Any idea at what stage this happened?

(I am aware that these days it's quite often possible to recover stuff even after an abrupt shutdown, which is wonderful. I well remember the days when it wasn't... that's how I learned to do backups, after losing a 9-page complex legal document I'd typed...)

It's changed gradually over the past 20 years, depending on what brand of machine you have and what OS you run.

When was the last time you saw a power *switch* on a computer, of the type that rocks back and forth, rather than a power button that you press in? The switches interrupt the physical flow of power...so that'll give you some idea of when it definitely wasn't the case.

oh wow, I don't even remember that :)

short takes

Re: re the Windows thing

Re: re the Windows thing

Re: re the Windows thing

Re: re the Windows thing