I have a really old clock radio that my grandparents gave me when I was kid that I still use to keep time in my bedroom. It's so old that it's from before manufacturers figured out to stick batteries in to maintain the clock when there's no power. Every time the power goes out the clock resets itself to 12:00am.

The clock only has two ways to set the time: fast and slow. Fast moves ahead about 1 hour every second, and slow is 1 minute every second. If you happen to overshoot on fast then you have to go 24 hours around to try again. It's a pain but the power doesn't go out too often. Usually.

Lately the power has been going out a lot and I've gotten tired of resetting it. I kept thinking it would be nice if the computer could fix it for me. What I decided to do was plug the clock into an X10 appliance module and stuck a Firecracker module on a Linux server I have nearby. Using Heyu and At, I told the computer to turn off the clock at midnight and turn it right back on. It worked great! Now I just have to try not to accidentally push the button on an X10 remote that turns it off...