I Hate Naming Posts
I'd really like the meet the genius who made the standard snooze button 9 minutes. I picture a bunch of guys sitting around a board room discussing this new revolutionary feature they're going to introduce, a delay on your alarm. Most people would then pick a nice even time frame. 5 minutes clearly isn't a snooze, 15 would make you late-something around 10 would be perfect. But wait, we don't want to actually make it 10, that wouldn't make sense, and we all know 9 minutes is really a "snooze."
I clearly need a new alarm clock, I used to have the kind where the snooze shortened each time. Which also didn't work for me since I'm a compulsive snoozer and it just got annoying. I'm thinking about getting the kind with the adjustable snooze, but they all seem to have the "projection feature" which I'm not crazy about since knowing the outside temperature it not often inspiration to get out of bed around here.
3 comments:
There are reasons generally given for a nine-minute snooze. I have heard both asserted as truth, though I am skeptical about the second one and would want some sort of computer scientist to weigh in on it.
1) Nine minutes is 15% of one hour. Ten percent of an hour (six minutes) is, as you note, not long enough, and twenty percent of an hour (twelve minutes) is too long.
2) The nine-minute snooze dates to the early days of electronic alarm clocks, when circuitry was very expensive. By reducing the snooze time from ten minutes (two digits) to nine (the highest one-digit number), programmers could save one unit of memory. When one unit is saved over a large-scale operation, it becomes significant. The modern nine-minute snooze is simply an artifact from this earlier time.
So, take your pick. As I said, the first one seems more compelling to me. I am not entirely sure that the second explanation is technically correct.
I wasn't a fan of a nine minute snooze until I got a new alarm clock that had a four minute snooze. Four minutes is very very annoying, but i guess it works cause you get up the first time the alarm goes off since the four minute snooze is so ungratifying.
Needless to say I don't use that clock anymore.
I just really want a 10 minute snooze since I'm OCD.
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