I mean whether, not why.

Nice thought, but their next question would have been "so what's all the typing about if you don't have a network either?"...

You could lie to that too.

"I'm composing emails for when I can send them"
"I'm catching up on some off-line work I'd got behind on"
"Since I can't work, I'm writing a novel"
"No, that clicking noise is my geiger counter, not my computer"

I want to keep a geiger counter next to my desk now. Mwhahahaha.

Conversation from physics lesson:

G: *clicks very slowly*
P: BTW, when should we be worried?
T: Well, if the first three digits were whirring faster than you can see, Icertainly start thinking of leaving the room.
P: What's the next sample?
T: *holds metal to geigercounter*
G: *first three digits were whirring faster than you can see*
T: What's wrong?
P: Uh, um, I know that *can't* be dangerous or you wouldn't be holding it, but, uh, you did say that, uh,...
T: Doh! It's only scary if everywhere in the room's like that.
T: *moves metal 1/2 cm away*
G: *stops*

Can't you work without a network? (Certainly there are plenty of work things I can't do without a network but I can usually find something productive to do without.)

The only way to get stuff automatically backed up is to store it on the network. So many people probably wouldn't have access to anything useful to work with.

Hmm, I hate it when everything you can possibly do is on the network. It's like that for me too (home directories are on NFS) and the couple of times we've lost networking in the computer room have been pretty hellish. Actually, I can't think of a job for years that hasn't involved using the network for everything.. yay modern technology, etc.

Random small-world syndrome thing -- do you know Caroline Berry (wol)?

I could in principle use my local disk and make sure to back stuff up/check it in to the network. That'd also have the advantage of making builds significantly faster - but in practice I haven't found it worth the effort yet. If they start making a habit of breaking things I might, though.

And yes, I do know wol :-)

Cool, I went to school with her. I vaguely remember meeting you at an open day? Long time ago :)

Small world syndrome strikes again.

That would make a difference, yes. I commit often enough that even if my desktop blew up I'd only lose hours of work at most, usually much less than that.