Sunday, November 07, 2010

Automatic Time

I normally get up with my iPod beeping quietly about 10 seconds before my standard cheap and loud alarm clock goes off.  This is enough time to get me up, and to the alarm clock, so I can shut it off as soon as it goes on.  That level of synchronization was accidental at first, but now I make the effort to maintain it.

I forgot to re-set the clock this morning, so it went off an hour early.  I shut it off and went back to bed, expecting my iPod to wake me at the proper time.

My iPod however managed to go off an hour late--the alarm was set for 7am, and the iPod changed itself back to standard time--but the alarm itself didn't go off until 8am Standard Time, even though the alarm still read 7.    No big deal, I didn't have anything pressing to get up for today--but I'm not sure how they managed to do that particular error.

Not the first time I have had similar problems--I used to rely on an 'atomic' clock that listens for a radio signal every 2am.  The only obvious setting was to change time zones, and the clock would not always hear the signal to re-set itself.  When changing batteries, or when daylight savings came it would not reliably re-set itself so I 'd have to rely on some other method.

I have been making a living as some sort of technician for most of my life, I can solder, I can run Linux,  I can even set up and run Windows if I have to.    But for some reason,  I can only set an alarm clock properly from scratch about 75% of the time.    I'm glad to see that Apple is only a little better...

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