Friday, April 27, 2007

The Snooze Button


For the past few days, I have been resorting to the good ol' Alarm clock to wake me. My dad used to do this effectively earlier on. Sadly, due to the distance between Dallas and Mumbai, waking me up everyday turned out to be an expensive deal for my dad. Hence walked in my new alarm clock to give company to my old cell phone and my new cellphone and between them 5 alarms to wake me up.

Everyday, I have trouble opening my eyes, until the sun is shining brightly and almost blinding my closed shutters. The alarms that I keep do not help me in anyway , because all I do is snooze them. Today when I snoozed my alarm at 7:30 and then was woken by the next ring at 7:39, I realized that there was something aberrant from the usual. Why did my alarm go of at 7:39 and not at 7:40 ? ( I am gald, that gave me an extra one minute more to get ready and catch my 8:16 train.)

I got to work and was yawning away , when I remembered the point that had bugged me in the morning. This prompted me to get online and do some research on why alarm clocks had a 9 minute snooze interval. I came up with some captivating answers.

Engineers believe their bosses come to check on them every ten minutes. Ho ho! ---I am one!!

Physiologists have found that a sleeper who doesn't want to get up will fall back into a deep sleep if left for longer than nine minutes. ----------------Very True...

Wiki said: "Well, I have researched this topic and yielded some theories. If the snooze button is 9 minutes then the digital clock would only have to keep track of the last digit, because the last digit would go down by 1."

So thats the digital clock. What about the analog one?

"Clock experts say when snooze alarms were invented, the gears in alarm clocks were standardized. The snooze gear was introduced into the existing mix and its teeth had to mesh with the other gears' teeth. The engineers had to choose between a gear that made the snooze period nine-plus minutes or 10-plus minutes. Because of the gear configuration, 10 minutes on the nose was not an option.

According to these clock historians, engineers chose the shorter snooze, figuring "less than 10 minutes" seemed more punctual and marketable than sending people back to dreamland for "more than 10 minutes." "

Have you realized how that has messed us up.. I get these amazing dreams in those snooze periods.. and just when I am about to get to the most interesting part of the dream .. RINGGGGG RINGGGGG.

And now I have to snooze my outlook calendar every 5 min, that reminds me to update my time sheet. I think the problem is not snoozing..it's just me PROCRASTINATING.


Well anyway thought for the day...


"Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. - Edgar Bergen "

4 comments:

Artistic Revelations said...

Even tho I use alarm clocks....there is an inbuilt body clock that wakes me up on the time that I desire...Dunno if the body clocks have a snooze function ??

mrsragh said...

you can come out of this dependability on alarm clocks if you want to.I do use alarm clocks but I wake up before and switch it off that it will not disturb the sleep of my partner.so no question of snooze function and the research.

Anonymous said...

So you've started writing again... musings of a beautiful mind. Good Kavs.

mrsragh said...

yes I am from kizhakkepat.your cousin.
sorry I didn't check my blog for last few days and saw your comment only today.
I liked your blog.got it from your orkut profile.
will meet in orkut.