6 ms·

I love desktops, but I have to admit that it's pretty great having a built-in UPS. To get the equivalent for my desktop is an extra $200+ and a big honking box

I love desktops, but I have to admit that it's pretty great having a built-in UPS. To get the equivalent for my desktop is an extra $200+ and a big honking box that apparently will only last for 30 minutes when the power goes out.

WalterBright 6y ago
The power goes out for a day, sometimes days, every year in my neighborhood when the wind blows. Finally fed up, I recently had a generator installed that attaches to the natural gas line. I know that purchase was effective, because a week after it was installed there was a big storm and power went out everywhere except my neighborhood. Just having a generator successfully wards off power failure, you never have to actually turn it on. I submit this is objective proof that I am living in a simulation and none of you exist, you're just artifacts of the simulation.
- EdPF 6y ago
  You understand Murphy's law, and other laws of the universe well!
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    Not only do I control the weather, but the stock market, too. If I buy a stock, it goes down. If I sell it, it goes up. Every time. Fortunately, after about 6 weeks or so, the market forgets I did a transaction, and things start moving my way. I'm forced to be a long term investor.
    - dkersten 6y ago
      Now, if only you would let the rest of us know before you buy or sell stock ;-)
    - giardini 6y ago
      waiterbright says>" If I buy a stock, it goes down. If I sell it, it goes up."? Vijay, is that you?
- toast0 6y ago
  > Just having a generator successfully wards off power failure, you never have to actually turn it on. Beware, you need to regularly maintain it too (hopefully it does a weekly starter test, and it probably needs yearly oil changes). I didn't check mine, and found the battery charger had failed at about 1 am when my wife had a flight out that morning. That was fun. (We don't have everything on the generator, so it's not as effective as yours, our utility wiring is actually pretty fragile, and our well pump is one of the things not on the generator, buying a portable genrator for that seems to have helped, but I did have to roll it out a week ago)
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    Mine needs to be started once a month and the oil changed every year. I think I can handle that :-) It would have cost twice as much to run everything with the generator, and that isn't really necessary, so it's a smaller one. I worried about the battery being dead and no way to hand crank the generator, so I made sure that the generator could be started from a car battery or one of those zap-o-matic car jumpstarters. (I bought one of those last year, and had occasion to try it out on my stone dead car battery last month - it worked great!)
- camgunz 6y ago
  Whenever I'm waiting on someone, say to arrive at my place before we go to some event together, I start doing something else. I'll start doing dishes, playing a game. Within 60 seconds they show up. #GameTheSystem.
- RonanTheGrey 6y ago
  > I recently had a generator installed that attaches to the natural gas line. Hmm. Is this something I can buy at Home Depot or something?
jnxx 6y ago
> when the power goes out. Oh, are you from the US?
- Silhouette 6y ago
  Not sure what this means. FWIW, I'm in the UK, and short brown-outs are not uncommon if, for example, the national grid is adapting to a failure somewhere during severe weather. For a while when there was a recurring equipment failure a year or two back, my whole area had several full power cuts, even lasting for multiple hours once or twice, until they finally figured out the root cause and fixed it. The UPSes we have all our key equipment running on have been some of the best tech investments we've ever made, even if they did cumulatively cost over £1,000.
  - FullyFunctional 6y ago
    I’m from Denmark and when power went out I was television worthy news. I don’t actually recall it happening more than once. I never experienced a power loss in the five years I lived in France. Now I’m in silicon valley, the tech hub of the world - with 3rd world internet and power that goes out every time the wind blows. Just reporting facts.
    - christophilus 6y ago
      California is not like the rest of the US, though. I’ve never lost power except during extreme weather events (hurricanes, intense tree-felling storms, etc). You’re right about the internet, though. It’s a monopolized system here, and the anticompetitive nature of it means it sucks across the entire country.
    - Symbiote 6y ago
      There was a ~45 minute power cut in the centre of Copenhagen last month, starting at about 1:30am. There was another (several hours) in 2018, which I think is the one that made the news. (I was at home, awake, for both.) They're a bit more common than you remember, but I suspect most of these Tweets are affecting fairly small areas, e.g. construction work cutting cables etc: https://twitter.com/radiuselnet https://twitter.com/radiuselnet I have some servers in Copenhagen, and from their logs they've lost mains power about every 2-3 years. They have a UPS, but I certainly don't bother for a desktop computer.
fomine3 6y ago
That's great feature. Even powerful gaming laptop, it can run dozens of minutes that's superior than UPS.
neop1x 6y ago
Another option is solar panels + big battery.

WalterBright 6y ago

The power goes out for a day, sometimes days, every year in my neighborhood when the wind blows. Finally fed up, I recently had a generator installed that attaches to the natural gas line. I know that purchase was effective, because a week after it was installed there was a big storm and power went out everywhere except my neighborhood. Just having a generator successfully wards off power failure, you never have to actually turn it on. I submit this is objective proof that I am living in a simulation and none of you exist, you're just artifacts of the simulation.

EdPF 6y ago
You understand Murphy's law, and other laws of the universe well!
- WalterBright 6y ago
  Not only do I control the weather, but the stock market, too. If I buy a stock, it goes down. If I sell it, it goes up. Every time. Fortunately, after about 6 weeks or so, the market forgets I did a transaction, and things start moving my way. I'm forced to be a long term investor.
  - dkersten 6y ago
    Now, if only you would let the rest of us know before you buy or sell stock ;-)
  - giardini 6y ago
    waiterbright says>" If I buy a stock, it goes down. If I sell it, it goes up."? Vijay, is that you?
toast0 6y ago
> Just having a generator successfully wards off power failure, you never have to actually turn it on. Beware, you need to regularly maintain it too (hopefully it does a weekly starter test, and it probably needs yearly oil changes). I didn't check mine, and found the battery charger had failed at about 1 am when my wife had a flight out that morning. That was fun. (We don't have everything on the generator, so it's not as effective as yours, our utility wiring is actually pretty fragile, and our well pump is one of the things not on the generator, buying a portable genrator for that seems to have helped, but I did have to roll it out a week ago)
- WalterBright 6y ago
  Mine needs to be started once a month and the oil changed every year. I think I can handle that :-) It would have cost twice as much to run everything with the generator, and that isn't really necessary, so it's a smaller one. I worried about the battery being dead and no way to hand crank the generator, so I made sure that the generator could be started from a car battery or one of those zap-o-matic car jumpstarters. (I bought one of those last year, and had occasion to try it out on my stone dead car battery last month - it worked great!)
camgunz 6y ago
Whenever I'm waiting on someone, say to arrive at my place before we go to some event together, I start doing something else. I'll start doing dishes, playing a game. Within 60 seconds they show up. #GameTheSystem.
RonanTheGrey 6y ago
> I recently had a generator installed that attaches to the natural gas line. Hmm. Is this something I can buy at Home Depot or something?

jnxx 6y ago

> when the power goes out. Oh, are you from the US?

Silhouette 6y ago
Not sure what this means. FWIW, I'm in the UK, and short brown-outs are not uncommon if, for example, the national grid is adapting to a failure somewhere during severe weather. For a while when there was a recurring equipment failure a year or two back, my whole area had several full power cuts, even lasting for multiple hours once or twice, until they finally figured out the root cause and fixed it. The UPSes we have all our key equipment running on have been some of the best tech investments we've ever made, even if they did cumulatively cost over £1,000.
- FullyFunctional 6y ago
  I’m from Denmark and when power went out I was television worthy news. I don’t actually recall it happening more than once. I never experienced a power loss in the five years I lived in France. Now I’m in silicon valley, the tech hub of the world - with 3rd world internet and power that goes out every time the wind blows. Just reporting facts.
  - christophilus 6y ago
    California is not like the rest of the US, though. I’ve never lost power except during extreme weather events (hurricanes, intense tree-felling storms, etc). You’re right about the internet, though. It’s a monopolized system here, and the anticompetitive nature of it means it sucks across the entire country.
  - Symbiote 6y ago
    There was a ~45 minute power cut in the centre of Copenhagen last month, starting at about 1:30am. There was another (several hours) in 2018, which I think is the one that made the news. (I was at home, awake, for both.) They're a bit more common than you remember, but I suspect most of these Tweets are affecting fairly small areas, e.g. construction work cutting cables etc: https://twitter.com/radiuselnet https://twitter.com/radiuselnet I have some servers in Copenhagen, and from their logs they've lost mains power about every 2-3 years. They have a UPS, but I certainly don't bother for a desktop computer.

fomine3 6y ago

That's great feature. Even powerful gaming laptop, it can run dozens of minutes that's superior than UPS.

neop1x 6y ago

Another option is solar panels + big battery.