daf bit: Makkot 6

Tractate Makkot begins with discussions of court proceedings, what to do about false witnesses, and the like. Today's daf talks about the warning that is required in capital cases. In the mishna Rabbi Yose says here that a malefactor is never put to death unless two witnesses had duly pre-admonished him. The g'mara raises two exceptions: first, a sworn enemy is executed because he is considered to be pre-admonished, and second, a scholar needs no pre-admonition because he is assumed to know what he is doing. (6b)

not my finest hour

Around 2:30 last night I was awakened by the siren song of under-nourished UPSs. (Out of phase with each other, of course, just to maximize the pain. But hey, I will never have to worry about sleeping through a power outage...) First I waited in case it was another power hiccup, but after several minutes I got up to shut down my computer.

Like everyone else I have an assortment of electricity-demanding computer stuff, but the UPS only fuels the CPU and monitor. (The external hard drive spends most of its time sleeping anyway, so it can fend for itself.) Bleary-eyed in the dark I sat down at my computer. I wiggled the mouse -- nothing. I tried the keyboard -- nothing again.

Oops, I thought -- when I bought the wireless keyboard and mouse, did that perchance involve a powered doohickey of some sort? Why yes, now that you mention it... Ok, fine -- I found the laptop bag and the mouse therein by the glow of the monitor and plugged it in. Strictly speaking I didn't need a keyboard for this.

I had just clicked on the apple on my way to the "shutdown" menu item when the battery decided it had had enough of me. Oops -- not my best timing. Well, now I have a slightly better idea of what the battery can manage -- about 8 minutes for a Mac Mini and a 20" LCD monitor. I had higher hopes.