Thanks, I see your point. My computers are usually doing something (running servers, long-running computations, backups, downloads, etc) or they are sleeping (ie, not running up the power bill). Boot time isn’t the tedious part of restarting, it’s restoring state that isn’t saved. Anyway, I always disable auto-updates because updates change things; I want to choose when things change.

I’m surprised your PC runs hot enough to cost you so much for A/C. I doubt my computers impact my power bill very much compared to appliances, heating, charging cars, etc.