Behind the candelabra: Power cut sends Britain’s boxes back to the '70s “Would you like to watch a film with me tonight?” Although the timing seems good – it has just gone 8pm – the offer is extraordinary. You see, in the busy Dabbs household, each member of the family works to his or her own barely compatible calendar and so it is mandatory to book in advance before any interaction can take place …
Heh, I had something similar happen.
I "found" a lost CO alarm down the back of a drawer, having been awoken at 2am by beeps about once a minute because the batteries were low.
Also have been woken up at 2am because a Windows b0xen decided now was the time to do "essential maintenance". Cue Windows startup sound at 80dB because the speakers were still on from watching a film.
When the power comes back in the middle of the night the otherwise silent CO detector gives a loud scream to make sure I wake up. The bedside radio retains its station settings. Switching it on to help go back to sleep - and the volume and treble/bass have gone back to factory defaults. Those levels appears to be designed for iPod deafened teenagers - much too loud in the middle of the night. The tone settings can only be adjusted by finding the remote control - max treble boost - min bass - and it still sounds "boomy".
The central heating timer is backed up by a 9v battery - but its always flat when a power cut happens. No "low" indicator - and very difficult to prise the slide out of the unit to change it after the event.
The lounge and kitchen radios lose all their station settings.
The laptop says "100% charged" - which in reality means "dead".
Oh bugger! On moving into my new flat, I didn't realise my smoke alarms were wired into the mains until after cooking bacon sandwiches for many. Removing the batteries failed to stop the infernal beeping. Aargh! I've not had a power cut yet, so now I've got the smoke alarm waking me up to look forward to on power restoration. Oh joy! It's already beeped once every 10 minutes for a day until I was able to source a 9v battery (even though it's got mains power). The 2 are linked as well, so even closing the kitchen door and removing batteries from the kitchen one doesn't save you from bacon smoke.
At least my microwave was bought without a clock. Also true for the dishwasher and washing machine. I've forgotten how I set the oven one up, but all the separate panel heaters in each room have their own clocks - and the timer on the one in my bedroom is actually different to all the others - to add to the fun.
I remember going to the Seeboard shop to pick up a timetable saying when the power cuts were going to be. It was a lot better when you could organise everything around them.
I'm not sure if civilisation really has failed, or I've just reached the point where I should buy a weather station.
I inherited my mother's talking microwave, it's for the visually impaired.
It has a cheery man's voice that when it boots up tells me the firmware version and "Clock not set".
It really is quite good. If you're feeling depressed just press some buttons and get "High power, five minutes!" or "Defrost fish!".
I think it's funny but my friends are worried about me. :)
Many years ago, I was doing an installation at a customer site. There was a guy working on a spreadsheet, and every time he moved to a new cell the machine told him the cell address and contents. I commented that it would drive me mad. He commented that he was blind, and would not be able to work if it didn't.
Once I got over the embarrassment, I was awestruck.
Maplin occasionally have a clearance of a large radio controlled digital clock at about £10 - then they restock at the original price of over £30 a couple of weeks later. Every room in the house, and also the garden, now has one. A single AA battery lasts a couple of years. They are about 200mm x 200mm with 24hr hh:mm:ss time in 50mm high LCD characters. It also shows the date and week day with 25mm characters.
If I put something in the oven it is easy to reference the clock in the kitchen for the next "attention" time. Wherever I am in the house has the same time indication - and they all adjust automatically for DST.
my projection quasi-weatherstation alarm clock is mains powered, with battery backup and MSF works a treat. the other one is 100% battery though they only last maybe 6 months.
the cablebox/dvr gets it's time from the cable company the microwave is easy to set clock>entertime ( I use 24hour format to annoy her indoors) start
the stove about the same, though once set at the same time they drift, as in some temporal rift despite being a few feet apart, I assume because they use the mains frequency as some sort of dumb time base code...
I wear a watch for the rest of it
surprisingly powercuts are very infrequent, since stepping foot on the shores of this great land I can only remember 4 in a decade, one of which was because a local store was burning down and the fire service shut power down to the whole block so they could spray liberal amounts of water on the building ( that was right next to the neighbourhood distribution lines) we actually met our neighbours was a fun time... the owner of the building even bought us dinner at the restaurant across the street (which was on a different feed)
the other times are generally due to the American penchant for A/C set at 0k so the transformer on the pole gives up in a spectacular bang and smoke display... (or if the whole neighbourhood is doing ok the man sub station transformer giving up the will to live... a small mushroom cloud generally happens then very impressive!)
or most recently some twit driving into a pole.
Luckily her indoors is verging on hippy so we have more candles then a bloody church which means there is always some to hand, I on the other hand have torches strategically placed around the house, mainly because I think I am going blind and use the torch as some sort of "x-ray" beam for finding lost keys, remotes, just about anything ( it is quite surprising even in broad daylight how using a torch can help you find things even if they are out in the open!) - oh and to counter her attempt to make us all live in a candle lit hobbit hole :)
must get a generator though the flaccid man-tool of America where I live is well known for its windy storms, and I do not want the fridge to plunck out for any length of time.
I did consider using the old 220V rack mounted UPS we are getting rid of at work, but then I realized it is probably overkill for a EMTA and a couple of cordless phones.
and no the "public" wifi in my house is not ups'd in the vague hopes that when the power goes out, the kid will pick up an analogue entertainment device.. though the private emta wifi stays on as long as I have a ups ( it has it's own ups battery too but it only lasts about an hour)
....but its battery powered so the fucking thing drives me batshit every time I have to change the batteries.
Its so bad I routinely leave the thing until the batteries die, which is probably 2 weeks past when the LCD display stopped displaying anything visible.
I suppose I ought to change it but as always apathy rules supreme :)
1. Serves your right for buying a cheap weather station
2. Thank you for declairing me "middle aged" for owning a weather station (tho one immune to power cuts :-P )
3. So YOU have noticed the sky+ box 5 minutes pretending not to do anything too... It worries me.. The warrenty ran out a number of years ago (terminated by me pulling out and replacing the HDD) - but that LOOOOONG pause before power up.. very disconcerting.
My friend's older Sky box needs a good 2 minutes to warm up, before it will speak to him. My Mum's starts instantly, and works perfectly. Mine starts instantly but refuses to give me program details for about 10% of channels until it's got its breath back. For some bizarre reason it won't allow viewing of Dave ja vu for 10 minutes from boot, which affects no other channel. Not even Dave. Mostly it does BBC and sport, so no matter.
We bought a masterclock off eBay - it's info plate says it started running on the 1st December 1946, clever little marvel of engineering. It sends a pulse of electrickery around the house and theatre every 30 seconds which drives all the slave clocks forward by 30 seconds, where does it get it's electrickery from? The fire alarm battery which as it is only sounding 1 horn, will quite happily sound the horn for a good 12 - 16 hours (and probably more but that's the longest we have run it without feeling an intense need to pull it off the wall and jump on it) In a power failure - all the clocks keep perfect time! YAY
Also - when emergency lighting is as cheap as it is now-a-days - there is no excuse for people not to start putting it in their houses (like at the top of staircases) - approx £15-20 from TLC Direct
Though a child of the 70's the writer seems not to have grokked the Tao of Tech.
Feel the Force, grasshopper (or something like that); there are things one can do only if he does not think bout them. The first kata. waltzes, tying shoes -- and setting a digital watch with four buttons and no instruction book.
Assembly of Japanese bicycle take great peace of mind -- Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (page 164 in my copy)
FWIW, if you have what he calls "the mechanic's feel" you will astound your co-workers and disturb your managers, who will have NO idea how you fix things, or how to handle you.. But that is another thread.
Oh come on, *nobody* knew how to set their digital watches in the 70s. They kept going off in the middle of morning assembly or in chapel, and during lessons about half a dozen chimes would sound out around the classroom on the hour, every hour, with no way of stopping them. Some of the kids in class would fold their arms promptly on the hour in order to stifle their watch chimes in their armpits.
My digital/analogue wristwatch insisted on bleeping at 2am after the last battery change. Couldn't remember the necessary sequence on the two buttons and a three position winder spindle.
Last week the watch stopped - at last the alarm would get reset. Time to try out the economy of changing the battery myself with a tool from Maplins. Surprisingly easy - but the watch didn't restart even after trying two new batteries. The new batteries' voltage checked out at 1.67v - and suspiciously so did the old one. Looks like the watch has died after 25 years. Looked for a replacement in the shops today today. All I could see were armoured chronometer designs that used to be advertised for U-boat captains - or trendy? day-glo plastic..
The famous Welsh Korean (though his cars now seem to be Chevrolets ?) actually makes rather good microwaves.
Friend has had his fancypants one in stainless steel for about ten years. My more modest model was rescued from behind a bankrupt Kosovan cafe in N. London bearing the scars of heat from the industrial toaster previously parked below it in the caff. Still going strong some years later in daily use.
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The stories of power cuts & explosions on flipping a switch reminded me...
As a young student I was gazing at the back & white TV (valve based) and commented to my landlady, it's owner, 'that's been a reliable TV, hasn't it'. At that very second fine smoke rose from the rear and it stopped working. She gave me a rather hard look. This only happened once in my lifetime, fortunately.
I live in an area of frequent power cuts, but the devices sold here are the same as in the rest of the world and do not have power backup for the clocks. After the twentieth time around the kitchen, resetting the various devices, I asked myself why I bothered. There is a kitchen clock, my heirloom, a Tetley Tea-pot clock, probably available on e-bay for £1.50, but that one wouldn't have belonged to my mum, so why do I need every other device to tell me what time it is? I don't.
Fed up with the flashing? Me too. The things are turned off at the wall switch when not in use. Probably saves electricity too.
Die, flashing digits, die!
One always gets power cuts, and most of the time they are at the worst time. Once after doing some re-wiring of the main breakers at my house, I had them trip off. I thought it was a general neighborhood dropout, but alas it was due to the fact that the main breakers had overheated up. Why did they overheat? Well, it was because the contact screws weren't torqued down enough, and the aluminum wire got loose. Bad karma solved by obtaining a nice screwdriver and muscling the screw down to more tightness.
As for goofy clocks. Most digital clocks are in the category. They flash and flash sticking at 12:00 because that is what they are told to do. A more intelligent design would be to blank the display and turn on the colon (no flash). Then when someone really decides to set the clock, it would be functional.
Yes, all silly digital clocks should have a battery backup if they don't set themselves, but the cheapness of the suits in charge usually dictate that it be left out. Thankfully most computers have two methods: The internal battery backed up clock which takes 10 years to kill off a battery, and good old NTP. Clocks on the other hand can find solace in the nice radio signal from WWVB that they latch onto here in the USA (there are others in different areas).
Tick-tock tick-tock. Now what is my longitude?
Too right.
When the Virgin "Superhub" was having all its firmware issues, not too long ago, I often had to reboot it to get it to remember what was connected.
Cue wails and screams from teenage daughter, because she had to be offline/couldn't get online for five whole minutes.
What fool uses candles still; get some big D cell powered, discount store, power LED torches, they P on candles for brightness, and last days.
1st time had to use a blow lamp to heat food in pans, inadequate torches, and wretched candles. 2nd time I had power LED torches, canned gas stoves, canned food, steamer pans (dedicated steamers always break anyway, and steamer pans can be used on any heat source), and enough books and Li-on battery powered gadgets to last days.
You must get P''d off twice a year for the GMT/BST switch; I don't.
Never, ever, buy cooking appliances with digital displays, unless they are obviously easy to set, and Microwaves are stupid because they destroy food fast; better a steamer pan set and a halogen bowl oven instead.
I looked at a new digital display version of a halogen bowl oven, and instantly saw that it was unusable, the design was the usual dated, brain dead design; so I bought the clockwork version instead.
Why The F*** are most designers of computer controlled home appliances, still doing carp design, and not added Radio clocks and external automation facilities; they must be either cheapskates or retarded; even optically isolated RS232 would do!
My watch is solar powered and radio set too, because I want something which just works and stays water proof.
As for your Weather Station, you must have a cheap model; pay a bit more for a wireless USB touch screen one; I have one because I cycle, and want to have a clue how much or little clothing and rain wear I need, before I go out, because I don't trust weather forecasts.
It's massive, massive overkill, but a whole house UPS rated to run the entire place for the ten-fifteen minutes that it'll take the generator to fire up and the automatic transfer switch to cut over? (I've seen the one in work's datacentre in operation- quite impressive.)
Also, there was the time I was doing setup/tear down for a local convention with an assistant pushing a trolly load of gear into a darkened room at the hotel we had booked. I got five steps in, yelled "AZIZ! LIGHT!"*. The instant I shouted it, the lights came on in the room from the presence sensor, and I swear my assistant jumped three feet straight up. I couldn't stop laughing for several minutes afterwards.
* From the excellent movie "The Fifth Element", of course.
I have an in-car GPS navigation thingie (I won't name and shame the manufacturer, except to say that the name has two syllables and both sound like "Tom") that demands that I set the time by hand.
This is particularly ironic and -- once the joy of the extreme irony has paled -- bloody irritating because of the way GPS works. GPS satellites broadcast the time with sufficient accuracy that a GPS device can calculate its position by comparing the times received from several satellites and calculating the time-of-flight and so the distances from each one. The time accuracy is sufficent that traders use GPS time signals to synchronize trades made in different parts of the world. The idea that a GPS device might need to be told the time is preposterous.
The GPS device exists to tell you its position, so any notion that it might be unaware of the local time zone is equally ludicrous ... I suppose there might be some uncertainty as to the start and end of daylight savings in different places, but my device receives map updates online fairly regularly and could easily pick up DST data at the same time.
Setting the time isn't exactly rocket science, but the option is buried several screenfuls deep in the preferences settings, so it's not as quick as one might like. Oh, and when the main rechargeable battery of the device runs flat (which it does quite often) the time needs setting afresh.
(It also needs to be told to switch from giving distances and speeds in miles and to giving them in kilometers when on the continent -- to match the figures given on road signs -- even though it does seem to know which country it's in ... but that's another issue)
The whole thing just beggars belief.
I can completely relate to all of this as I sit chuckling at my desk.
The bedside alarm clock is always a killer for me as I try to set the time, alarm times and then have to retune all the digital radio stations.
My Microwave and cooker remain on some factory default time zone and the candles are carefully hidden under the sink but as you said, I have a torch available to locate them with the additional security of a torch app on my smartphone.
Two possible solutions here - one is to use a UPS (mine has four battery-backed sockets and cost under 70 quid) where possible and try and get radio-controlled devices for the rest (unlikely for an oven/microwave/central heating timer, even though they *should* really be readily available).
Wall clocks are certainly available radio controlled - my analogue one actually moves the hands many rotations to get the time right and it's amusing to watch and also listen to the chuck-chuck-chuck noise as it desperately tries to get the time right :-)
BTW, if your microwave doesn't do timer-based cooking (and very few do, yet it's an obvious feature to have), then a clock on the front is a total waste of electricity (it should go into standby and turn off the display after 2 mins of non-use in that case).
Things I have to change the time on because of daylight savings time twice a year: my central heating timer and my ancient Pansaonic alarm clock (hooked to a UPS). I ignore the clock on an old Toshiba microwave I have since it's pointless. Oh and yes, all my watches are radio-controlled too.
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