Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with wake

Offer music at a wake?

Anonymous — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:20:37 -0800

I've recently learned that someone I used to know from when we were both much younger, has died. I knew him only in the context of church and we'd pal around on those Sundays, but we hadn't spoken in years. It's been suggested to me, by my parents, who still attend the church (I don't), that I might play some music at the wake, since I'm a violinist. But it seems to me this might be inappropriate for a few reasons. First, I'm not entirely sure music is traditional for a wake.

Second, I'm not sure it's appropriate for me to offer my services before being asked (although it's true that the deceased's parents don't know I'm in town).

Third, given that this person and I hadn't spoken for some time, I'm not even sure if it's appropriate for me to attend the wake in the first place, let alone perform music.

I'd be glad (not literally) to play music at the wake, if it would make things easier for the bereaved, but I'm wondering if there's a chance this might make things more complicated instead, or if it might be inappropriate.

What do other people think?

Fixing multiple monitors position changing after waking from Sleep in Vista?

wastelands — Thu, 07 May 2009 07:56:05 -0800

Annoying Vista bug: monitor positions change after waking from Sleep mode. How can I fix it? I have an external monitor plugged into my laptop via the VGA port. I use both screens (laptop + monitor), with the external on the left, and have the "Drag icons to match your monitors" in Display Settings to match and "Extend the desktop onto this monitor". Works great.

Yet whenever I wake from Sleep, I have to rearrange the monitors in Display Settings. Every single time. It's so annoying. Some googling led to this post:

http://www.vistax64.com/vista-general/97955-multiple-monitors-change-position-after-sleep.html

But I do not have such a task in my Task Scheduler.

I'm running Vista SP1 with all Windows Updates installed. NVIDIA 9600m GT video card with latest drivers installed.

Fixing a broken iPhone?

Blazecock Pileon — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 22:51:31 -0800

Broken iPhone sleep/wake button... I have access to an old iPhone with a broken sleep/wake button. The button is "pressed into" the case, and so is permanently pressed in.

I'd like to do something with it. Other than the button the phone worked fine. Is there an easy / inexpensive fix for this? Are there instructions for disassembly? Is there a place I can sell this phone other than eBay?

I've got the opposite sleep problem!

dithmer — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 21:12:21 -0800

Instead of not being able to get up in the mornings, I have a problem with waking up TOO early. Typically I go to sleep around midnight-1:00 am (it's when I start getting tired) but for the last 2 months or so I've been waking up anywhere between 5:00 am to 7ish, and my alarm doesn't go off until 8:15. Usually it's when I wake up because I have to go to the bathroom (and I don't drink anything before bed) but once I wake up I'm awake awake. If I try to close my eyes and fall back asleep, it's useless. I'm still getting 5-7 hours of sleep a night but this happening every night is catching up with me.

Stuff that might be important:
I was diagnosed bipolar about a year ago. I'm on Wellbutrin (300mg) for the depression and Lamictal (200mg) for the manic behavior.

I just recently lowered my Lamictal to 150mg because it's giving me (I think it's responsible) digestive problems.

I am between psychiatrists because my last one didn't listen to me at all (so any meds adjusting I'm doing is on my own, I know, terrible idea).

I drink no coffee at all. I do drink a can of diet soda a day, usually, but it's no later than 2 in the afternoon. And that's been the case for months before these problems started.

I've never been one to sleep in. I think the latest I've slept in years is 9:00 a.m.

I have a medicinal marijuana card. I was smoking it fairly frequently for a period of time after a long depressive episode, and I began to realize it really helps stabilize my moods. My swinging is way less frequent and extreme. And it also helps me fall asleep at night, which can be a problem for me too.

Every sleeping pill I've run into helps you FALL asleep, not stay asleep. I'm a morning person so I'm not terribly worried about drowsiness - I have a lot of energy. But what meds to turn to? Or is there something else I can't think of (Non-medicines and the like).

Thank you!

I'm so tired, I haven't sleep a wink. I'm so tired, my mind is on the blink...

punkbitch — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 05:30:40 -0800

I didn't sleep a wink last night. Now the day is beginning. How can I stay fresh? No, I don't mean summer's eve... I was out until late and then started shaving the giant beard I'd grown and honest to god that took over an hour (with a hideous razor). Suddenly I find its daytime. I have to go to work in about an hour and then class later this evening. Any great remedies to cure tiredness? Obviously sleep is out of the question and while I love coffee, I think I've been OD-ing on it lately and would prefer something less jittery. I want something that makes me feel...like I slept! sigh.

Ah, also, I live in Buenos Aires (in case you had an American, British, Aussie etc.. product to recommend).

Finally, since I'm rambling, whatever you recommend obviously doesn't have to be a 'product.' Yoga? Breathing? Ice water? ugh... so...tired...

alarming cat

scottMontgomery — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 10:21:19 -0800

Why would a cat wake you up between 4 and 5 in the morning when it has water and food and an accessible litter box? My parent's cat has taken to coming in to their bedroom and "talking" to them between 4 and 5 every morning. My mom has gotten up on occasion and can't figure out what the cat wants as all doors are open to food, water and the litter pan. When they don't respond at all to the cat (when it does the 4 - 5 AM wake up thing) the cat pees in their fireplace or on a bathroom rug.
Does anyone know what this could be about?

MacBook spontaneously waking with security settings changed?

lorimer — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 09:38:04 -0800

What would cause a MacBook to spontaneously wake from sleep (roughly every few weeks, at apparently random intervals), with all of its Bluetooth Sharing checkboxes checked, when it was put to sleep with them unchecked? This is second-hand from my mom, but here are the details I got by phone:

- Her MacBook's set to prompt for a password when it starts and when it wakes from sleep, so by spontaneous wakeup I mean that while the MacBook is in sleep (with its LED pulsing to indicate sleep), the screen suddenly lights up with the usual password prompt.

- It sleeps connected to AC but not to anything else (no network, no peripherals, bt off, Airport off).

- She's never used any bt device with this MacBook.

- Nobody else lives in her house, but the neighbors' houses are close, so I don't know whether any of her neighbors are physically within bt range (she REALLY wants to hear whether this could or couldn't be caused by someone else with a bt device trying to connect with her machine, and if so, whether that means anything in terms of nefarious file exchange possibilities).

- She doesn't have any third-party software that assumes or would be automatically checking for a bt device.

- She doesn't have any user-scheduled actions, alarms or other things that should be waking her machine from sleep.

- From what I gather her machine's very close to default setup in every way, w/ very little third-party sw and definitely nothing sketchy or unknown.

- Each time the machine wakes spontaneously, it seems to be in the same state it went to sleep in, except that when she goes and looks at the Network & bt preferences (since I advised her to uncheck all the "sharing" boxes in both), all three of the Bluetooth Sharing checkboxes ARE checked. She unchecks them and puts it back to sleep, and later it wakes normally.... until the next time this mysterious spontaneous-awakening happens and they're all checked again.

- Up until now she has not had "Require pairing for security" checked on the bt pane -- I just advised her to do that.

- This has happened several times over the last few months, not at the same time of day, but it's possible (not sure) they might have all been at the same interval after the MacBook was put to sleep. I think all have happened less than an hour after it was put to sleep.

S3 Standby mode...Wake On LAN...Energy Savings...WHY DOESN'T IT WORK!!!!

bradn — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 08:17:33 -0800

S3 Standby mode...Wake On LAN...Energy Savings...WHY DOESN'T IT WORK!!!! After reading the great article in the Aug07 Maximum PC "Put Your PC To Sleep and Save Hundreds of Dollars", and after finding the article's roots on the web, I decided to give it a shot. I followed the instructions (as well as any info i could find online) to a T, and I can't get it to work right.

I need the system to be available for file serving to Xbox Media Center, and for printing from the wireless laptop (not sure if that will wake it up anyway, but hopeful). I would like to it sleep when nothing is going on.

I can enter S3 Sleep mode just fine, but it wakes up automatically after a second or 2. I assume this is because of normal network activity, so how do I get the system to know the difference between normal network refreshing stuff and an actual call for a file?

Here's my specs: Home-built system with an Abit AN8-SLi (Nforce 4) motherboard, fresh install of Windows XP. Networked via the on-board LAN.

Checklist:

Wake on Lan is enabled in BIOS.

BIOS option "USB resume from S3" disabled - I don't need the mouse to wake it up, i can use the power button

BIOS option "Wake-up by PME# of PCI" disabled - I don't need any PCI devices waking it up

BIOS option "Wake-up by OnChip LAN" enabled

in XP:
NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller Properties:

"Allow this device to bring the computer out of standby" is checked.

"Only allow management stations..." is unchecked (when checked, apparently only the elusive "magic packet" can wake it, and I don't think the xbox can deliver this magic. It does, however, stay asleep when this is checked.

On the advanced tab, "Wake on magic packet", "Wake on pattern", and "WakeOnLAN from PowerOff" are all enabled.

Computer is set to a static IP

All network shares are mapped to network drives, using the IP address instead of the computer name.

Help please?

Guide me on obituary/wake invitation design for a dear friend

a_green_man — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 03:01:25 -0800

A member of my community has recently died from cancer. I offered to design an invitation for his wake and could use some guidance. I didn't know him nearly well enough, but he touched my heart in the same way as he did his closer friends, just more briefly.

I was just informed that my offer to design an invitation would be welcome but due to circumstances, I only have until Friday to put something together. I won't have more details for another day or so, but need a jump on the thought-process since my brain needs time to 'compost' data.

My question is two-fold:

a: Wording? He was always informal. An awesome "drunk", a good soul, a team-member in our volley-ball group, a person who lived life for his friends and the interactions we all had, and had/has an incredible partner that saw him all the way through these hardest times.

All I find for format online and in newsprint is formal obituary style. How do I phrase it to be true to his personality? Any ideas for formatting to appropriately fill either an 8 1/2 x 11 or half-sheet? centered, left-justified, ???

b: Graphics? I honestly don't know if it will be print or web/email. Probably figure low(ish)-quality printing at worst, web at best. Should a picture be top/bottom/or faded line-drawing-style on the background?

Assume it's black and white. Can I do anything with a picture of him that makes him "there" without looking like a cheap cut&paste? If anyone would offer to photoshop a line-drawing from a picture of him that would work for a background for text(email is in my profile), I would appreciate the help with my inadequacy.

I'm obviously a little over my head with this atm, but no-one else is stepping up to create something worthy. I have the basic skills(mostly InDesign), some time, and the desire to honor his life in a way that I can.

Sleep Shock

archagon — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 18:29:10 -0800

Sometimes before I fall asleep (but after I've started to doze off), a strange electric shock runs through my body and wakes me up. It doesn't happen very often, and seems to occur at random when it does. It feels exactly like you'd think an electric shock would, only sans any physical effects. When it occurs, I immediately open my eyes and realize that I've been dozing off. I doubt it's actual electricity, as it's happened in several different beds. Perhaps it's imaginary?

When I doze off, my mind usually goes through a "dream thought" phase, in which my thoughts slowly begin to overtake my senses and gradually become "reality". As this process is typically unnoticable, getting "zapped" gives me quite a shock (no pun intended): my dream "reality" is rapidly shattered, and I get the sensation of waking up from something... real.

Does this happen to anyone else?

Oh, and no -- it isn't a problem at all. I'm merely curious about the nature of the phenomenon.

Simulating sunrise on the cheap

leotrotsky — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 07:36:32 -0800

Simulating Sunrise: So they sell timers that plug into outlets, and they sell dimmers that plug into outlets. Does anyone know of some way to combine the two that doesn't involve me rewiring the outlets in my apartment? I'm looking to jigger with my circadian rhythms in anticipation of the coming winter darkness.

Help me shake away the morning foggies and become a morning person.

frogan — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 12:59:49 -0800

Help me shake away the morning foggies and become a morning person. Hi there, AskMeFi, long-time reader, first-time asker.

For several ironclad reasons, it would be much better for me to get up earlier, work out and generally be a "morning person." Child, family and work schedules all sync up to me having the hours of 6:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. all to myself. Unfortunately, I'm not a morning person, and usually spend these hours by crawling back into bed.

And when I say, "not a morning person," I mean "I can't function within human norms." Cognitive functions are limited. Walking is a challenge -- I feel as if I'm moving through invisible goo. It just takes me quite a long time to wake up, period.

FYI, I am fully aware of sleep disorders, and I do not believe that is the issue. It's more about the "get up and go" part of the equation.

Are you one of those people that can spring out of bed and immediately go running/swimming/biking? I would like to be that person. So how the heck do you do it? Has anyone had experience in switching from "night person" to "morning person?"

night-owls need not apply

Oddly — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 18:08:51 -0800

How do I become a morning person? I can't seem to get out of bed before I absolutely have to (or later). When I do get up early, I really enjoy taking the extra time to ease into the day, but I just can't seem to make a habit of it.

Early risers: what's the rush to get out of a warm, cozy bed?

Song from the Wire

drezdn — Fri, 08 Oct 2004 08:57:54 -0800

At the end of the most recent episode of The Wire (episode 28- dead soldiers), what was the song they sang at the wake?