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Have you restarted your computer this week?

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21–30 of 411 posts

Re: Have you restarted your computer this week?

#21
post #12

aren't there other old-school people like me that shut down everything at end of day and restart the next? can't be hacked if it's completely off can't get struck by lightning or surges if the surge-strip is flipped off fans and spinning drives have lifetime on motors

>can't get struck by lightning or surges if the surge-strip is flipped off That's not how electricity works. Hot may be open but your ground and return is not.

that's an interesting thought but would violate physics for lightning to come in through the ground line?

Re: Have you restarted your computer this week?

#22

I don't have any data to prove it but I think Mac users don't bother "cleaning up" after they are done with their computers. I think windows and Linux users usually shut down their laptops when they are done. I believe this is because of how Mac is designed, nothing really closes. You close an app and it's just "minimized". Same behavior as with the lid, you close the lid and it suspends. If I recall correctly, at so…

I think a large part is also how long it takes to restart a Mac. Every so often a coworker has to restart and I could probably restart my Linux (or even Windows) laptop 3 times before they're back on.

Kind of reminds me of how slow Windows computers used to boot back in the Vista and 7 era.

Re: Have you restarted your computer this week?

#23

I remember when Linux users were practically obsessive about uptime and restarting felt like a sign of failure. This was at a time when Windows seemingly needed to restart once or twice a day, at least. These days I like to turn my work Mac off at the end of the week just so I feel a literal sense of closure. It's not really the applications minimizing and running in the background; it's ME.

I do still enjoy the odd >30 day uptime on my PC. Usually only reboot when a new kernel version is cut.

I used to reboot into every kernel patch but often I leave .0 running for a very long time now. They seem stable and the kernel moves fast enough nowadays there's often another .0 right around the corner. There might be exploits but they're not a valid threat model for my little desktop.

If something smaller like Mesa updates, I can reload everything simply by logging out/back in, no need for a full reboot/LUKS unlock.

Re: Have you restarted your computer this week?

#24
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>can't get struck by lightning or surges if the surge-strip is flipped off That's not how electricity works. Hot may be open but your ground and return is not.

that's an interesting thought but would violate physics for lightning to come in through the ground line?

No. This isn't some theoretical Star Trek neutrino emissions scenario. Lightning punches-out wherever it hits, including ground, which is directly connected to neutral.

Re: Have you restarted your computer this week?

#25
post #12

aren't there other old-school people like me that shut down everything at end of day and restart the next? can't be hacked if it's completely off can't get struck by lightning or surges if the surge-strip is flipped off fans and spinning drives have lifetime on motors

Lightning is a special case because it will jump through the air, regardless of the surge switch status.

Re: Have you restarted your computer this week?

#26

I remember when Linux users were practically obsessive about uptime and restarting felt like a sign of failure. This was at a time when Windows seemingly needed to restart once or twice a day, at least. These days I like to turn my work Mac off at the end of the week just so I feel a literal sense of closure. It's not really the applications minimizing and running in the background; it's ME.

It was a differentiator when distro updates where sparser, and in start comparison with Windows at the time which couldn't stay up for more than a couple of days without crashing (particularly the XP era).

Re: Have you restarted your computer this week?

#28
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>can't get struck by lightning or surges if the surge-strip is flipped off That's not how electricity works. Hot may be open but your ground and return is not.

that's an interesting thought but would violate physics for lightning to come in through the ground line?

Lightning is electricity that goes through hundreds of meters or even kilometers of air (supposedly a good electrical insulator) to reach the ground, it's not above travelling through electrical lines the opposite way they're intended to be used.

Re: Have you restarted your computer this week?

#29
post #11

I don't have any data to prove it but I think Mac users don't bother "cleaning up" after they are done with their computers. I think windows and Linux users usually shut down their laptops when they are done. I believe this is because of how Mac is designed, nothing really closes. You close an app and it's just "minimized". Same behavior as with the lid, you close the lid and it suspends. If I recall correctly, at so…

my every day use macbook I expect 150+ days uptime before something goes wonky that forces a reboot

I used to be in this camp, maybe not 150+ days but with month+ uptimes, but now with Docker I have to restart regularly as I frequently get notes about 'no more disk space' and the only way to reclaim is is to reboot.

Re: Have you restarted your computer this week?

#30

I remember when Linux users were practically obsessive about uptime and restarting felt like a sign of failure. This was at a time when Windows seemingly needed to restart once or twice a day, at least. These days I like to turn my work Mac off at the end of the week just so I feel a literal sense of closure. It's not really the applications minimizing and running in the background; it's ME.

> These days I like to turn my work Mac off at the end of the week just so I feel a literal sense of closure

It's also just nice to start Monday with a fresh boot.

If nothing else, it keeps me from getting to the point of 200 tabs open that I'm totally definitely going to need again "soon"

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