Why am I Up?

This last evening I’ve had the opposite problem. I fell asleep at 3:30 UTC (early for me) but then work up at 8:30 UTC (middle of the night). Then I was up two hours. Then tried to get back to sleep another two hours. I only succeeded in lying in bed tossing and turning. Then just a few minutes ago I decided that even though I would really like a couple more hours of sleep and feel quite tired, that given my failure to fall back asleep and the fact the sun is now up, I should just go ahead and get up even though normally it would be another two (maybe three) hours until I would be stumbling out of bed. Ideally at this time of year given my work schedule, I’d sleep from about 6 UTC to 14 UTC each day. So I am getting up, although I resent it. Yawn!!!

But usually, I have the opposite problem. Hitting snooze for hours and not getting up when I should. People keep coming up with good ideas for alarm clocks to combat this sort of thing, but I haven’t seen any of them actually AVAILABLE TO BUY yet. And this one is no different. Just another design prototype. Come on, somebody please sell one of these?

Anyway, I love the idea.

Alarm clock that won’t give up
Stephen McGinty, Scotsman

The wall-mounted alarm clock can be switched off only when its user climbs out of bed, stands directly in front and repeats, by pressing coloured buttons, a sequence generated randomly each morning. If the user fails to repeat the sequence swiftly, the alarm will continue to blare until the task is completed correctly.

(via Digg)