STORY
OSCON Laptop Battery Scare
OSCON Laptop Battery Scare
- A funny personal anecdote about a laptop battery panic during a major tech conference.
The Panic
- During the week of OSCON 2013, I woke up to find my main laptop completely dead.
- Pressing the power button did absolutely nothing. I was in a panic, even starting to cry, because I had a presentation and a podcast to deliver on Wednesday, and I had not yet finished writing the presentation.
- I prepared to restore my work by moving to another room to copy my previous day's firewire backup onto a spare laptop.
The Resolution
- As I set up in the other room, my main laptop suddenly booted up on its own.
- I realized that when I had moved the laptop from my work chair to the bed the night before, I had not properly seated the charger cable.
- The laptop had run on battery power all night and drained completely.
- The scare resolved immediately, leaving me with a valuable reminder to verify my power connections.
These facts are as Randal recalls them, but much time has passed for most of this. If you find a factual error, please email realmerlyn@gmail.com.