This reminds me of a great scene from The Matrix Reloaded, where Councillor Harmann and Neo discuss the direction of control with respect to humans and machines:

Councillor Harmann: Down here, sometimes I think about all those people still plugged into the Matrix and when I look at these machines I... I can't help thinking that in a way... we are plugged into them.

Neo: But we control these machines; they don't control us.

Councillor Harmann: Of course not. How could they? The idea is pure nonsense. But... it does make one wonder... just... what is control?

Neo: If we wanted, we could shut these machines down.

Councillor Harmann: [Of] course. That's it. You hit it. That's control, isn't it? If we wanted we could smash them to bits. Although, if we did, we'd have to consider what would happen to our lights, our heat, our air...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0234215/quotes

I don't think most North Koreans read at night, judging by the satellite photos of a dark nation.

Surely North Koreans read at night. With such gripping reads as Kim Jong Il on the Art of Opera, who wouldn't be stricken with insomnia?

During the New York City blackout two summers ago, I was on vacation (actually, at home editing my paper on nullificatory juries). My laptop had a pretty good charge, and I did another three or four hours of editing on laptop charge. And then I read over a draft (and marked it up) by candlelight.

Then we took the kids outside to see the stars and the planets, which you generally can't see in the city. (They loved it, and asked the next day when we could do it again).

My wife loves candles, and so we always have a bunch around.

And by the way, I must say that it does incredible violence to my inchoate mental image of Will Baude to think that you didn't have a candle handy. Isn't that part of the whole Neruda-Nabokov-hats-ortolans kind of existence? That you have a candle or three handy for random romantic dinners?

Someday, somebody will google "Neruda-Nabokov-hats-ortolans" and find this page. I already smile at the thought.

To answer your question Kaimi, this is the price of summer sublets-- one can only take the bare necessities, and while that happens to include about 80 books, two colors of shoe polish, and a panama hat, I left the candles in New Haven.

N.B. I learned later that there are candles in our house and even one among Amber's things, but it was too dark for me to see them.

P.S.: How did you edit your paper on the laptop for three hours, then mark up a paper draft?

Were you marking up an old draft that lacked your three hours of work (which risks serious redundancy) or do you have a battery-operated printer?

Modules.

I don't recall the details, but it was something like this: "I know I can't print, so first I'll enter my existing markups to section 4 and rework them as needed. Then I'll do a markup to section 2, on my printed copy of the paper." Or something like that.

Wow. I hadn't noticed the crib from Hegel when I saw that movie. Maybe it's because I had been told that The Matrix Reloaded was a bad film and I saw it in IMAX, so I was concentrating on how freaky it was to be able to see every one of Keanu Reeves' and Carrie Anne Moss' pores.