Computers/Keyboards + Dorm Room = No Zzzzzz?

mmortal03 asks: "Not until recently, by living with a roommate in college, had I noticed how annoying mouse clicks and keystrokes could be to someone who is trying to sleep. Often, one of us will be up using our computer while the other is tring to catch some z's. Whether it's just to do some late night browsing, type a draft of a paper, read an important email, or whatever else, the clicking of the mouse and typing at the keyboard can drive the other up the wall. Some temporary solutions have been using alternate keyboard strokes instead of mouse clicks, and going to use the school's own computer labs, but those are only open so late, or so early. I would like to hear from Slashdot users as to what their solutions have been, in the dorm rooms, for this matter. Besides the clicks and taps, another bother is that, when the lights are off, our monitors light up the room like small lamps. Outside of handing each other earplugs and eye shades, are there any available input devices that lack the noisiness, or screen filters that dim the light output of monitors outside direct viewing, that might solve this problem? Any other ideas?" We've touched on this subject tangentially, twice in articles from December. Do you have other hints or suggestions you want to pass on?

Comments

Buy things!

[FrenZon]

For dimming the monitor outside of 'frontal view', get the 3M Privacy Filter.

You can solve the keyboard noise issue by buying a quieter keyboard (duh) - laptop style (scissor) keyboards tend to be pretty quiet as long as you cut your nails. Mouse button noise is going to depend on the device you use - while my Dell laptop's mouse buttons are louder than Jackhammer Tuesdays at The Taco Palace, my IBM Thinkpad's mouse buttons are virtually silent.

Re:Buy things!

[KozmoStevnNaut]

My trusty old Logitech Wheel Mouse Optical is very noisy. The buttons have a very loud hollow click and the scroll wheel sounds almost like hail on a tin roof.

Since it needed replacing, I bought a Logitech MX310. It makes much, much less noise. The buttons have a soft kind of click sound, and the scroll wheel is almost completely silent.

I heartily recommend checking out a lot of different mouses and keyboards. They're the devices you're going to interact the most with, so get something good instead of something cheap.

Re:Buy things!

[glk572]

IBM makes a usb keyboard with the same pointer as the thinkpad, which as the parent pointed out is just about silent.

A product link:
http://www-132.ibm.com/webapp/wcs/stores/se rvlet/P roductDisplay?catalogId=-840&langId=-1&partNumber= 31P8950&storeId=1

Re:Buy things!

[cybermace5]

Silent keyboards are easy to find; those roll-up ones would be a good choice and you can stow it away for daytime keyboarding with your favorite clicky keyboard.

For the mouse, I suggest using a touch pad. Some come with mappable areas that you could configure as the right mouse button. Left-clicking/tapping should be completely silent. Sure, a touchpad is no good for FPS games, but you should be keeping your roommate awake while you play games either!

I don't have any sympathy for the light problem. When I was in college, I averaged four to five hours of sleep on a good night. I could, and often did, sleep with the room fluorescents on full blast.

Re:Buy things!

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you don't have money (because you are a poor student), the best thing may be to type at a regular speed. It's easier to sleep on a regular sound ;)

On a more serious way, get a thinkpad(the less expensive you can find that can run your basic needs, ie Word and Excel) and try to work elsewhere when your roommate sleep. Most dorms have common places where you could find a chair and a table, so you would be able to work.

Re:Buy things!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Buy things!" is about the most useless advice you could give to the average student. Adding "duh" to the mix just makes you look more clueless. Sorry, but yours is not a solution.

Re:Buy things!

[Benw5483]

I ran into this problem somewhat as a freshman. But, it was normally me who was the one up late at night tapping away on the old keyboard. My roommate confronted me and I decided to try and cut back on the computer usage. It turned out to be good for me because I found that my late night browsing habits were counterproductive and were excessive. I cut back on it and used the computer more efficiently when I needed to work.

After that problem was worked out we both realized that the 2billion watt street lamp outside our window was just as bad as the clacking of keyboards.

This problem was remedied when my roommate and I and some friends were playing some football on the green and I absent-midedly grabbed ahold of the lamp post and swung around it. Instantly the lamp post swung towards the ground and I could do nothing but slow it as my leverage wasn't enough to hold it up. We all sprinted to our dormitory and holed up for the evening. For the rest of the quarter there was an orange cone over the lamp post's old position and we could sleep easily without the hindrance of a real bother.

Bottom line, you'll both be more productive if you do what you need on the computer during the day and stay away from too much pointless browsing at night. For me it was video game sites and random humor sites. For my roommate it was Snood. You can identify these things and get rid of them without the need to purchase quieter peripherals.

A long story for a short answer, but that's what I have to say....

Re:Buy things!

[Ed Thomson]

to make the mouse silent just open the mouse and remove the clicker.

Re:Buy things!

[Wolfrider]

--A good insight, cut down on computer usage if possible during the night.

--However, if that doesn't work here are some suggestions:

o White noise generator
o Padded eye covering for the sleeper (like a "horse blinder")
o LCD monitor
o Headphones
o Move the computer as far away from the bed as possible

one obvious solution

[dh003i]

Would be simply to be considerate of the other person, and not be using the computer at ghastly late times in the night, or very early times in the morning.

Re:one obvious solution

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be a solution, but it's impractical. Did you go to college? Was it a real one? Speaking for myself, I actually remember the time I went to bed before midnight during my undergrad years.

Let me rephrase that to make it clear: I went to bed somewhere between 2am and 4am every night. It was homework that kept me up that late. I was a CS major. I needed to use the computer. There is no way to avoid using the computer at late hours, at least on occasion, during college. And if you're in a dorm room, the computer is in the same room as your roommates' beds.

Re:one obvious solution

[theIG]

i think your solution conflicts with your signature... anyway

As an undergrad software engineering major, I find it very difficult to keep a regular sleep schedule. If I'm not doing homework, then I'm obsessed with my latest project, and the latter is amplified to the extreme, because it is rare that I don't have homework. Try and remember what it is like to be in our situation. You were 19 once too. ;) -kyle

Re:one obvious solution

[g-doo]

Or if the person has a laptop, he could simply work in the hallway, but preferrably in the common room. I also find it annoying when people shower really late and have really loud conversations in the bathroom and in the hallway. One person's need to get an assignment done on the computer is JUST AS IMPORTANT as another person's need to get enough sleep for the next day. If it's a desktop with Windows XP, see if you can use remote desktop on someone else's computer.

Re:one obvious solution

[dh003i]

except it's the computer person who's violating norms if he's up at 3:00 in the morning clanking on his keyboard. Going out in the hall, however, is a good solution.

I was lucky...

[OgdEnigmaX]

My roommate could (and did) sleep through ANYTHING. So I suppose my solution to the problem is to shop for roommates until you find one for whom such kludges are unnecessary :)

Re: I was lucky...

[Anonymous Coward]

A standard question on my university residence application asked how late I tended to stay awake. That was one of the major considerations for pairing roommates/suitemates (some others were smoking, noise level, cleanliness, and how often you had guests).

But I bypassed the whole thing by rooming with someone I already knew in first year, and getting a single room every year after that.

Voice recognition

[Anonymous Coward]

Would shut up the keyboards and mice. If you turned the monitor off, the light wouldn't be a problem.

Get earplugs.

[n1ywb]

Real geeks are lulled to sleep by the gentle sound of mouse and key clicks!

Re:Get earplugs.

[B1LL_GAT3Z]

I completely agree with the parent. My roommate and I now have three computers in our dorm room, four monitors (we both have duals) and it doesn't both either one of us. Especially considering that our latest computer addition has 7 hard drives, multiple fans, and no sides on the case. Learn to love the white noise - it is glorious.

Re:Get earplugs.

[ComputerSlicer23]

Yeah, and as I recall, that damages you hearing if you have prolonged exposure. There's a reason that no one actually offices in the server rooms in most IT shops.

Some of it, is that most people don't like the cold, and the air flow. Some of it, that you're normally in a restricted area, and your co-workers don't like that. Some of it, is all the noise.

I thought I'd read once that there are actually labor laws about it. (If you spend that much time in an area with noise, you need to have ear plugs). It might be somewhat like RSI (some what mythical, and urban legend like, but you still get all the legal notices about it). In all my time working with computers, and two parents who worked with computers and computer people all their lives, I've never met anyone who had CTS. You'll deaden your hearing for that range of sound (I suppose that could be construded as a good thing). I've got an enclosure with 4 computers in it, and 3 other desktop machines. I've invested in quiet fans, CPU cooling, and powersupplies. Best money I ever spent.

Kirby

Re:Get earplugs.

[zhiwenchong]

3M makes some good reusable ear plugs that can cut up to 12.5 dB (halving the NRR value gives you a better picture of the actual possible attenuation). Only costs $1.38.

However, earplugs only cut out the noise that enters through the ear canal. Sound can still conduct through your cranium, and besides, you will hear the sound of your own breathing.

The better (but more expensive method) is to get ACTIVE noise cancelling headphones (not PASSIVE ones). These guys basically send out an antiphase signal of the ambient noise, effectively cancelling the noise out (well, not perfectly, but...). Sony sells good ones for $149. Or build your own.

Re:Get earplugs.

[sheapshearer]

With all those fans buzzing, its no wonder you can' hear the sound of the keyboard clicking!

Re:Get earplugs.

[lambent]

I've had this experience, also. After living in close quarters for many years with a computer (or 3) whirring quietly to it self for 24 hours a day, I found that I could not live without it.

Once I moved into a new apartment where (ghasp) there was enough room to create a dedicated home office, and move the computers out of the bedroom, I had a ghastly time readjusting to the sound of silence ... horrible insomnia, random waking up in the middle of the night, not being able to shake the constant feeling of ... "there's no noise! the fans must have died!"

It was like an addiction ... a hellish two weeks, but eventually the cravings went away.

Re:Get earplugs.

[hawkstone]

Excellent point. Not an urban legend at all. Check out the rules from this Occupational Safety and Health Administration publication. For up to eight hours a day, you can have noise levels at 90 db. But that's it. At 95 db, you need hearing protection for an exposure of over four hours. At 110 db, you aren't allowed more than 30 minutes unprotected.

As this is OSHA, the employer is responsible for making sure these rules are followed. For dorms, of course, just be aware that 24/7 exposure at much lower levels, even under 85 db, can be harmful.

Re:Get earplugs.

[ajagci]

Active noise cancellation works for hums and drones (steady low frequency noise), not clicks. So, it's useless for this purpose.

Re:Get earplugs.

[sydb]

Plus, if you're really lucky, you might be able to persuade a girl to spend more than 30 seconds in there. Well, if you need more!

Re:Get earplugs.

[hey!]

This is no joke: they really work. When I travel with my colleagues, we share rooms to save money (saving money = bigger bonus). Snoring is a big issue though.

Earplugs and benadryl are nopw part of the standard issue travel kit.

You can get compressable foam earplugs rated at 20-30 dB. I used mine last night and slept like a baby, even though my roommate is the worst snorer I've ever heard. I buy a big package and generally use them for 1 - 2 nights for hygeine reasons.

Re:Get earplugs.

[glk572]

12.5 db is nothing. I live within shight of upwards of a dozen bars, in a college town, above a place called the pita pit, that's open until 4 in the morning, and is a very popular postfunc destination, in adition there is a homeless man who beats on the newspaper boxes at all hours of the night.

I sleep with 35db silicone earplugs, you can get them at your local gun store, they work great.

I think that the real solution for the two of you is to extend some curtisy to the other, you need to make it clear that from 1am to 8am is sleep time, trust me you'll be happier, more productive, and get better grades. This was the solution my first year at college, but my roommate and I knew each other.

I also think that as you get frustrated that you need to rember that it's just a small problem, I just this year had the roommates from hell. Blalsting the same 2pac song at all hours from blown speakers, stealing from me, taping up pictures of women cut out of magazines, having no respect for my space, I had three of them who where buddies that my university stuck me with, it was hell on earth. You know the bully from jr high imagine living with three of them, in a 700 sq ft apartment. I only lived there for about a month and a half, cost me I figure around $2000 betwene stuff "lost" moving, and breaking my lease.

I think you should rate the advice you're given by the life of those giving it, so I admit that I can't live by my own advice, hence I'm writing this at something like 5:30 in the morning, watching cartoons. I think the real solution is just to live alone, I do.

My biggest advice is to get off campus as fast as you can, people may say that the dorms are a great place to meet people, but look at the quality of people you meet. Get to know the people in your department, or join a club, both are much better sources of frends than the dorm crowd. Plus I don't know about you but I hate eating in the dining hall, there's nothing worse than watching the food as it cycles from main dish, down to soup over the course of a week. The clam chowder was good though.

Re:Get earplugs.

[biglig2]

Well, the reason I rarely sit in my server room is because it's cold in there, but I see what you mean.

Re:Get earplugs.

[Anonymous Coward]

(too lazy to log in)

And you're recommending a $150 device to a college student? Where's the beer money going to come from?
Not to mention that sleeping with headphones is a real PITA, they're far more uncomfortable than having to deal with clicking noise.

I recommend talking to your roommate and having some sort of a "curfew"... if it's driving both of you up the wall, then that should be easy to set up. Granted, there will be time when it'll be necessary to work through the night, but you could work through it.

Re:Get earplugs.

[ktulu1115]

Damages your hearding?? From the whining of hard drives? Noise levels from that can't be much above 55-60db (normal conversation). Freshman year I had a small SCSI system with 4 drives in one (10,000rpm and yes, no sides to the cases either) in addition to two other PC's in the room as well. I could barely hear the noise at all, especially with the music going. :) But realistically the noise level wasn't much above 45-50db with everything else off, quite insignificant compared to a lot of other everyday noises. I could easily see someone not liking that level of noise but I doubt it will damage your hearing.

Like a lot of other people, I find the white noise to be helpful when trying to relax - it drowns out the smaller and quieter inconsistant noises that you will hear (ie: mouse clicks and keystrokes). The human brain interprets the noise differently - it's random but consistant, therefore doesn't draw your attention to anything in particular as opposed to the mouse and keyboard clicks from a good game of Quake.

As for the monitor glare (I really really hate that), frosh year I had bunkbeds and luckily claimed the bottom bed. All I did was drape a fleece sheet down along the side of my bed from the top of the bed above me combined with a nice poster covering the opening by my feet, and bingo, no light noise made it in (the other two sides were against concrete walls). I grew rather fond of it actually - the sheet came in mad handy when you were in the bed with some chick and your roommate comes marching in without a knock.

Re:Get earplugs.

[JohnFluxx]

Just so people get a feel for what that is..

I used to sell sliding and folding wall partitions. A good partition will reduce sound by 80db. It's very difficult to reduce by 100db since it will go through the ceiling.

So a rough measure of your office - step outside and close the door. If you can still hear the noise, then chances are you are around 90db, give or take 10db.

Re:Get earplugs.

[Deagol]

And you're recommending a $150 device to a college student? Where's the beer money going to come from?

If they're anything like the beer drinkers in my dorm, they get it from the local plasma lab (which was conveniently located walking-distance to a bar).

Re:Get earplugs.

[Anonymous Coward]

I got so used to my rommates late-night type fests that I couldn't sleep when I went home for the holidays unless somebody was typing on the family computer (which was in my room)

Re:Get earplugs.

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno about you, but I have to shout to be heard over the 512-node Beowulf cluster.

Re:Get earplugs.

[Thu Anon Coward]

CTS is a real problem. I experience it myself a bit unless I am using a gel wristrest, the foam ones don't cut it for me. And my wife also experienced it to.

RSI is also an actual problem. Try doing physical repetitive labor that allows no variation for changes in range of motion and you'll never disbelieve someone else's complaints ever again.

not bothering the sleeping roommate/spouse/gf

[joelja]

use a laptop and move to another room.

I've worked in the common areas in my dorm (ok this was ten years ago) for rather long hours since I wasn't willing to power up the mastadon gateway 2000 486 desktop I had in 1993 and keep my roommate up. we also used to avoid using the impact printer at 4am as a mater of priciple...

Re:not bothering the sleeping roommate/spouse/gf

[at2000]

Laptop keybords and mouse are silent anyway. At least our IBM is.

Re:not bothering the sleeping roommate/spouse/gf

[Anonymous Coward]

If your girlfriend is in your dorm room, chances are, you're not doing any sleeping anyways.

Re:not bothering the sleeping roommate/spouse/gf

[Chess_the_cat]

My IBM keyboard is crazy loud. I don't know too much about it but it says 'Model M' on the bottom. ;)

Re:not bothering the sleeping roommate/spouse/gf

[Anonymous Coward]

My girlfriend is here, but she's sleeping with my roommate.

Trackpad?

[profet]

I've seen numerous keyboards with trackpads built into the wrist rests...

If the keyboard is quiet enough then that and the non tactile double tap of a trackpad may be a good solution for the noise.

Get a fan.

[glassesmonkey]

Turn on one box fan, basically some white noise, and all your bitching about clicks and keypresses goes away.

Re:Get a fan.

[clark625]

I have to completely agree with this. A fan is by far the best way to get a good night's sleep through about anything, especially once you train yourself to sleep with it. I have two cats that run around the bedroom (with hardwood floors) all night playing or otherwise rattling about. Installing a ceiling fan was the best thing I ever did, although a simple box fan worked okay, too.

Re:Get a fan.

[bobgoatcheese]

I thirdly agree, this is exactly what I did during my sentence to dorms freshman year. It blocked out the clickity-clicks as well as the soccer being played in the hall at 3am.

Re:Get a fan.

[adamjaskie]

cat /dev/urandom > /dev/dsp

also works...

Re:Get a fan.

[sporty]

No. Sound is additive. While you create one noise with the fan, you still have the original noise. I work with headphones on most of the day, and while I don't hear the whitenoise around me, people chattering, phoens which ring continuously, if someone has something that I don't habituate, like some dork with sound on and using IM, I hear it perfectly fine UNLESS I turn it up to deafening levels.

Hopefully, the offender will use a lab, or another room if they have a laptop.

Re:Get a fan.

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Sound is additive. While you create one noise with the fan, you still have the original noise.

Going stictly by physics, that's correct. But people hear things based on psychoacoustics, and a sufficiently loud fan WILL prevent you from hearing quiet keypresses and mouse clicks (see this page for an explanation, including mathematical formulas).

The people using IM with sound probably have their speakers too loud. Go over to their desk when they're not around, and turn the speakers down or off.

Re:Get a fan.

[AvitarX]

just tried it.

it doesn't.

Re:Get a fan.

[monkeyfinger]

just tried it.

it worked perfectly.

(you are using linux, right?)

Re:Get a fan.

[Saiai Hakutyoutani]

I sometimes have a PC running at night, and the fan bothers me.

I'd rather look into flexible keyboards or active noise cancellation, though people can't seem to agree whether the non-existant sound is louder than the original sound or not.

Re:Get a fan.

[shfted!]

I can vouch for this. It drives me nuts not having a fan on. I need the white noise to sleep, when there is *any* other noise happening in or perceivable from the same room.

Re:Get a fan.

[AvitarX]

I guess I have something wrong then.

Yes I use Linux, it gave me silence.

I tried it as a regular user and as root just in case.

Re:Get a fan.

[JohnFluxx]

Some sound card drivers don't support /dev/dsp
I think some of the intel chipsets for one, check your kernel docs.

Re:Get a fan.

[sporty]

Uh.. no.. you tend to habituate certain sounds. It's the rare ones you hear. If his fan was what was making too much noise, I'd tell him to get used to it after a while.. like working in a cheese factory, you dont' smell it anymore.

Drown it out

[spacecowboy420]

Work Around:

Play some music. Not too loud. Something with a steady beat. Knocks you right out. Some Oakenfold does it for me ;-)

Re:Drown it out

[revmoo]

Does it have to be Oakenfold? :-P

Re:Drown it out

[dont_think_twice]

Play some music. Not too loud. Something with a steady beat. Knocks you right out.

Metallica works well for this too. Or Ozzy. Your roomate will love you.

I remember....

[FreshMeat-BWG]

Quake I. 3:00 AM. No sleep. I feel your pain. If it makes you feel any better, my old roommate and I are still friends after several years.

I did see something that may help you out. Check out the "rollable indestructible keyboard". I have seen these at Radio Shack and they appear to have that squishy feel with which I would not associate a clicking noise.

In the mouse category, look for a desktop version of the touch pad that is found on laptops. By tapping the pad, a mouse click is accomplished. That would result in at least quieter clicks of the primary button.

Re:I remember....

[adamjaskie]

I can't type on those things. I like my Model M.

Re:I remember....

[climberkid]

Yep, indestructible keyboards are virtually silent, difficult to get used to though. You probably won't have the same speed or comfort as you will with a standard keyboard but once you get it mastered, it's kinda nice to be able to roll it up and put it someplace if you need the deskspace.

Manners? Common sense?

[agent dero]

I'll touch on a couple things, as a roommate.

First off, if you're the ass typing late at night on an old IBM keyboard that CLICKS loudly, you're being a dick; be polite, I know you're in college, but you'll have better relations if you chip out the $20 for a quieter keyboard and mouse.

Secondly, don't be the retard that has to type up something major late at night. Get your work done soon, it's better to come in late from partying, than to type away for an hour, while your room mate is sleeping.

Common sense, c'mon people.

Re:Manners? Common sense?

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

"Secondly, don't be the retard that has to type up something major late at night. Get your work done soon, it's better to come in late from partying, than to type away for an hour, while your room mate is sleeping."

Just because someone is trying to do work late at night does not mean they have to do it late at night. It may be the case that someone prefers to do work late at night, just like some people prefer to do work during the day. Let's suppose that Person_A likes to do work in the afternoon and Person_B likes to take naps in the afternoon. The same situation exists and I wouldn't call either of these people "retards." Oftentimes people don't pick their study and work habits - it's just who they are. You're making the assumption that people who do work at night are only doing so because the work is due early the next day. Nowhere is this stated so I don't know why you are making that assumption.

Rather than insult people, why not try to offer some reasonable suggestions? For instance, if one roommate wants to go to sleep at 1 and the other wants to work till 3 - the person who enjoys the late night should do everything to make the keyboard/mouse as quiet as possible and then, do work until 2. Compromise but don't give up your entire way of doing work.

Re:Manners? Common sense?

[hawkstone]

Good points. Additionally, if you are at the point where you have to do it late at night, your choices are to either get a lower grade, take a late day (if you're lucky enough to have one), or do the work late at night. And if you're going to do it, I think it was awfully considerate of the poster to actually attempt to find ways of avoiding waking his roomies.

Speaking for myself, I had a lot of homework in college. I realize that varies by university and by major, but I wasn't the one who had stayed out late partying the night before and screwed himself into having to work on something late at night. I was the one who had stayed up late working on other homework the night before and had to stay up late the next night. My roommates all had different majors, though, all in the Engineering college, and we were all in the same boat. We were lucky to be in an apartment instead of a dorm room, that's for sure....

Re:Manners? Common sense?

[Canthros]

Hey, I only kept up one roommate once with my Model M. ... Since he regularly drove me nuts (including keeping me awake at night watching movies) with *his* habits, I can't say I felt *too* bad about it.

One other thing is that that was the year I had a funny sleep schedule. I only slept about 7 nights out of every 8 (or 6 of 7? Which night it was moved), so there were nights when I just didn't sleep. It didn't really matter whether I was working on anything or not.

Re:Manners? Common sense?

[KMAPSRULE]

Secondly, don't be the retard that has to type up something major late at night
As I worked 30 hours a week while attending college the only time I had to do my homework and typing was late at night after I got back from work

Some people have no choice! However I realized that my Odd hours due to work would probably have driven any roomates mad! so for the few semesters i didnt commute and lived on campus I shelled out the extra for a single occupancy room.

Re:Manners? Common sense?

[stienman]

Oftentimes people don't pick their study and work habits - it's just who they are

What the...?

Are you suggesting that study HABITS are genetically controlled? If you are one of the 3 people on this planet who knew how to study without being taught, then perhaps you cannot possible modify your HABITS in which case I feel very, very sorry for you and the life you are forced to lead.

If, however, you realize that study HABITS are things that are formed and are modifyable, then you will likewise come to the conclusion that while you may now prefer to study late at night, there is no biological process which forces you to do so that you cannot modofy by changing your HABITS .

It makes me sick to see people who blame their actions on anything just to avoid personal responsability. Get out of your little comfort zone. If you don't learn to do so now by choice, then when you are thrust out of your comfort zone you'll simply be lost.

-Adam

Re:Manners? Common sense?

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

Hey Adam,
Did you see the part of my post where I said you should compromise? The statement you're picking out was in response to the parent's post of calling someone a retard for studying late. Now, I also said that you should find a compromise that is agreeable. But you ignored that part. Why is that?

Re:Manners? Common sense?

[theLOUDroom]

Secondly, don't be the retard that has to type up something major late at night. Get your work done soon, it's better to come in late from partying, than to type away for an hour, while your room mate is sleeping.

Third, don't live with such a pompus ass that they get a roommate, yet are unable to cope with any signs of someone else actually living there. (You better not make any noise other than when I say it's okay...I don't care if you have 5 final projects due.)

Maybe you go/went to college for underwater basketweaving, but some people actually have to do a lot ok work.


So here's an idea:
Be frickin considerate yourself and buy a $0.99 pair of earplugs.

I NEVER stopped any of my roommates from working. Never. When my roommate's group was sleeping in shifts, clacking away 24 hours a day, know what I did?
Sucked it up, dealt with it and put a pillow over my head. Have some consideration for other people or get your own damn room if you know you can't cope with it.

Re:Manners? Common sense?

[stienman]

I did see the part of your post where you said they should compromise. I was not concerned about that part. The part of your post I found laughable was the assertion that "Oftentimes people don't pick their study and work habits - it's just who they are"

It was this portion of your post which I chose to address. I agree with the remainder of your post.

-Adam

Flexible keyboards

[schoolsucks]

You could try these keyboards Link

Also, there are more links and information in this thread over at SilentPCReview.com

Link

You need to be shot.

[DAldredge]

You speak ill of the Model M. You should be shot! :->

Here's what I did...

[Anonymous Coward]

Drink. Pass out. No, seriously. Get a fairly large fan for some white noise. Set it facing the corner. Get a mini fountain. These two will kill any wiretap^H^H^H^H^H errrr You'll get used to it.

Why not?

[thelenm]

What's wrong with earplugs and eye shades?

Re:Why not?

[mmortal03]

The hard part isn't getting them and using them yourself, the hard part is convincing your ROOMMATE to use them. When I wrote that, I DID think to myself, well, if I made the effort to get them and use them myself, he might just get them too. They ARE an option, I was just looking for some other convenient alternatives.

think laptop- lcd & kb.

[millia]

screen brightness: lcd displays. they're great, especially on my laptops, where they can be turned down quite a bit- to where they don't cause that halo effect. plus, your battery life goes up!
keyboards: go visit your local compusa/ fry's/ best buy and start clicking, but look for a laptop kb in a usb package. (this dell i'm on right now would wake the dead, i realize upon listening to it for a moment.) i just bought my dad (when i was in singapore last month, so i have no idea where to start looking here) such a kb. so aside from being almost unbearably cute, it's also pretty darn quiet. i think brand name was benq.
mouse, i have no earthly idea. everybody seems to use the exact same clicker style inside. (i would suggest getting a mouse, like logitech, that can be disassembled for cleaning without removing the teflon strip.) i would suggest optical, but every damn optical mouse seems to glow like las vegas.

Re:think laptop- lcd & kb.

[Jellybob]

i would suggest optical, but every damn optical mouse seems to glow like las vegas.

I have one of the Logitech wireless opticals, and it's surprisingly tasteful... there is a slight glow, but it's faint enough that you can barely see it even with all the lights off in the room.

I did see a particularly tacky mouse by one of the cut-price peripheral makers recently though... it had a red glowing scroll wheel.

Desktops are surprisingly portable.

[cgenman]

Put your moniter on top of your tower, stuff you keyboard and mouse into your pocket, unplug the ethernet cable, unplug the power strip. Move everything to the common area in one brisk carry, using a slab of wood if necessary.

The effect is twofold. One, you are typing away in the common area where your roommate's sleep cycle is safe. Two, you get better about doing your papers in the daytime, so that you don't have to lug your machine about.

Re:Desktops are surprisingly portable.

[lambent]

You either have very large pockets, and consequently very large pants .... or very small keyboards, and consequently very tiny hands.

Re:Desktops are surprisingly portable.

[wolrahnaes]

large pockets, regular size pants. cargo pants are your friend.

i've carried 4 xbox controllers (the good big ones, not those tiny "controller s" things), 2 power cords, 4 ethernet cords, a netgear router, a netgear switch, and the rf modulator in my pockets. i had the game wallet clipped to a belt loop and more games in my coat pockets. this left my hands free to carry my xbox and laptop.

easy

[dont_think_twice]

If you turn the music up loud enough, your sleeping roomate wont be able to hear the mouse or keyboard at all.

Re:Get a fan. -- Bingo!

[Hollinger]

I concur. Get a cheapo model in the $20 price range. It should be nice enough that the blades won't wobble (the sound will be constant) but still cheap enough that it'll make a nice moderately loud sound.

I bought one initially for air circulation, then quickly realized how useful it was at drowning out other annoying little (and not-so-little) sounds.

Move out

[drsmithy]

Assuming it's an option - I'm not sure how US colleges operate - then you should move out. If relatively insignificant noises like keyboard and mouse clicks are bothering you, then you'll be in huge trouble when the really noisily annoying stuff like music, TV, games and sex ramps up.

One button at a time

[tickticker]

read an important email, or whatever else, the clicking of the mouse and typing at the keyboard can drive the other up the wall.

How loud can one handed browsing be?

--
Sigs aren't just for memos anymore!

be glad he/she's not using voice recognition

[rcpitt]

On the other hand, if she is, you can always yell out in your sleep "format c: yes"

and claim it was a nightmare ;)

On a more practical note - while I love the IBM keyboards, I recently purchased one of the Logitech "Internet Navigator" keybaords (thumb wheel on the left and lots of extra buttons that Linux doesn't yet seem to see) that is really quite quiet. That along with one of the add-on "skid-pads" (like the ones on laptops) should lower the noise a few decibels.

Add to this one either a piece of relatively heavy fabric hung between the desk and the bed(s) or a (used) free-standing partition (like cubicles are built from - haunt the local auctions) and you can get some much needed rest.

Re:be glad he/she's not using voice recognition

[DRACO-]

I have the same keyboard.. I found a little a plugin for xmms that works with multimedia keyboards such as the one you described. I searched thru freshmeat for the term logitech itouch that is the name of an older version of the keyboard.

On redhat 9 the scroll wheel works automagically. The extra buttons can be caught by X if you want to go to the trouble of binding to them.

DRACO-

Re:be glad he/she's not using voice recognition

[KozmoStevnNaut]

I believe the scroll wheel is just sending the same input as the up and down arrow keys. It certainly acts that way.

My roomate causes the same problem for me...

[ForestGrump]

My very simple solution is have your roomate "kill himself". As a bonus, you can stop studying and get straight As for the quarter/semester.

oh wait...it was a movie?
-Grump

My experience...

[starsong]

Don't use the computer while your roommate is trying to sleep. Really. It's rude. OK, maybe that's a bit harsh, but it's the reason most colleges have quiet hours. Technical solutions (a shirt over the monitor, etc.) are, in my experience, unlikely to work. They can even breed resentment if the problem continues.

I had this same problem last year at university; my roommate would stay up until 3-4am surfing, gaming, and doing nothing in particular. Which annoyed me. And occasionally I would come in and surf during the day, when he was trying to take a nap. Which pissed him off. We eventually decided on clear rules; i.e. he would either read quietly or leave after 1am (when I usually went to bed), and if he was asleep when I got back from class during the day I would take my laptop and go to the library.

Also, ask yourself if you really need to be using the computer at three in the morning. Couldn't you do that paper a couple of days in advance, instead of 5 hours before your class starts next morning? Living with a roommate demands a certain amount of flexibility. You may have to rearrange your time.

The bottom line is that this problem really needs a social solution, not a technical one. You need to talk to your roommate and set clear boundaries that benefit both of you, so you can get your work done and also sleep. For me that made the difference between a great friendship and icy silence, which was the direction things were heading before we worked it out.

Re:My experience...

[Anonymous Coward]

Couldn't you do that paper a couple of days in advance, instead of 5 hours before your class starts next morning?

Why would you assume an assignment is due the next day just because someone's working on it at night? Some people work best at night. Especially in residence, where the day is filled with distractions (including roommates moving around the room).

I've stayed up until sunrise doing assignments that weren't due for a week. It's 6+ hours of complete silence, what better time is there? And for certain things, especially programming, sleep deprivation seems to help me.

Re:My experience...

[gid]

My personal solution was white noise, plus learning to sleep with headphones on, I could sleep through a war with that setup, for all of 5 hours, until my alarm went off and it was time to go to class. :)

I probably annoyed my roommate some, but him coming back and trying to take a daily nap in the middle day annoyed me to no extent as well. I finally switched roommate's when I found someone that liked surfing until 3-4 am as well, we never had any trouble sleeping if someone was at his machine. I'm a night person, I always have been, heck in college I used to play games on weekend like 9am or so. Sorry if my habits annoyed people, but i really don't make all that much noise, (I can type quietly, use headphones, and turn down my monitor brightness if really need be)

Anyway, it's all good now, I have my own place and can make as much noise as I want at night, short of mowing my lawn. :)

Re:My experience...

[Bastian]

While it's true that most late-and-all-nighters are a result of procrastination, I don't think it's fair to assume that this is always the case.

When I was in college, there were a few times where my workload got so large that I found myself working 'till 4AM and getting 4 hours of sleep a night for weeks straight. (Granted, I had an office in the CS hall that year, so instead of keeping my roommate up at night I just went days at a time without seeing him.)

I've also seen several professors hand a student huge piles of work, due tomorrow, on the same day.

It's college. Shit happens in college.

Re:My experience...

[megabeck42]

I had a similar situation. My freshman year roommate and I were entirely dissimilar. I am your average geek. He was a 212 pound, born again christian, wrestling champ. He didn't drink, I did. He listened to christian rock, I listened to Wumpscut and other caustic german industrial. We both had obnoxiously massive stereos and large loud computers.

However, we arranged for some simple rules: no alcohol in the room, no sex in the room, and use headphones while both of us are in the room.

It worked out well, I would sleep during the day, he would sleep during the night, we arranged our room in an L, with desks at the foot of the beds, so that the monitor/lcd light would shine away from the person asleep. I had no problem sleeping while he did his homework; and he enjoyed the fact that my machine was a freaking wind tunnel with usb ports.

After living with a good friend the next year and watching things go down hill because we were too similar and too alike, I've learned to appreciate the healthy relationship I had with my first roommate.

Re:My experience...

[klaricmn]

Don't use the computer while your roommate is trying to sleep. Really. It's rude. OK, maybe that's a bit harsh, but it's the reason most colleges have quiet hours.

wtf....when's the last time you were in a college dorm. Quiet hours are setup so that the a$$ clown that lives next door to you can't play his stereo at full blast when he comes home drunk at 4am. They aren't meant to limit you from having the noise at a reasonabl level (ie. such that it can't be heard outside your room). Thus, I don't exactly think keyboard click were anything that any college considered when designing their quiet hours policy.

Re:My experience...

[Jmstuckman]

I'd agree with you there...really, if someone thinks that typing during the night is excessive noise, wait until they live next door to the guy who playes Eminem at door-rattling volume at 3AM! Using a printer or scanner, talking on the phone, having visitors, or listening to music at night may be too loud for some people to sleep, but I can't imagine a college dorm room where typing or writing at night is considered rude! What kind of school do those people go to??

Room with a geek

[joeface]

When I roomed with somebody who loved tech as much as I did, the policy was "Hour of the day be damned -- if it's cool, do it!"

It's the same as complaining that your roommate smokes. The solution? Room with a non-smoker.

Some advice / tips

[Undefined Parameter]

I've run into this precise problem before, as have others, I assume. I won't bore you with the details of my particular experiences, but needless to say, you can take heart in knowing that you're not alone. That being said, on with my advice:

1 - Be polite. Neither of you need to hammer your keyboards. More often than not, the keyboard will respond to lighter strokes. Lighter strokes = less noise. Using the mouse sparingly, as you are, also helps.

2 - Dim your monitors. This is usually built into the standalone monitors via their "menu" buttons, and into the OS of laptops. Usually.

3 - Put sound barriers between your beds and your computers, so that the sound has to reflect off of several surfaces before reaching your ears. This will dampen the noise, somewhat.

4 - If at all possible, when a roommate is going to sleep, the other should head to the labs for an hour. Theoretically, when the other returns to do work, the sleeping one will be in a deep enough sleep such that quiet typing and a dimmed monitor shouldn't wake them.

5 - Get a dorm single or move off campus as soon as possible. It may not happen until next fall, but it's amazing how much more and better sleep both of you will get. :-)

Hope this helps!

~UP

Re:Some advice / tips

[pauldy]

But if they did all this though they would not have anything to bitch about.

I am curious as to why you took this as a real post anyway. Anyone that cannot figure out how to solve this problem on their own is not in college. If sufficiently motivated individuals cannot find the solution to such a trivial problem then the problem does not exist.

Ambian

[reconbot]

It works and not only do I not hear anything as I fall asleep I don't remember anything either. Honestly its been a god send.

Move your bed

[Jmstuckman]

Is your bed loftable? If you put your beds over your desks, the light coming from the monitor shouldn't bother you because the light will be shining horizontally onto your wall. The keystrokes might not bother you as much either because of the greater distance.

Rearrange the room a bit

[Bastian]

My roommate and I had this problem when we were in college, too. We ended up solving the problem by rearranging the room so that there was not line-of-sight from the beds to the desks by placing the back of the desk towards each bed. We also bought some styrofoam insulation and put it between the beds and the desks, and hung comforters alongside the desk if someone was going to be up late. This damped the noise quite a bit, and blocked the light.

Before that, we bought a quieter keyboard (and just shared it between both computers) and turned the brightness on our monitors way down - in a dark room, there's plenty of light to see a monitor that's set too dark to be able to see well during the day. This helped a bit, but not enough.

A few useful devices

[Frambooz]

Here's some utilities that might help: http://store.yahoo.com/earplugstore/whitnoismac.ht ml I have no experience with white noise generators myself, but one of my friends swears by it - white noise masks out the noises his cats (and sometimes infant) make.

Suggestion: A quieter keyboard will help

[flikx]

Scour the university surplus for an old IBM Model M keyboard. I have a few of them on various boxen, and I have to admit that they are the quietest keyboards I've ever come across.

Re:Suggestion: A quieter keyboard will help

[weeboo0104]

Scour the university surplus for an old IBM Model M keyboard.

You laugh, but that is exactly what I used back in college. My Macintosh-using roomate went insane from the fact that I ran OS/2 on a PC and had an internet connection through the dorm buildings asynchonous terminal line. I also had the satisfaction of knowing that if I ever needed to bludgeon my roomate, the Model M was solid enough to do it.

Re:Suggestion: A quieter keyboard will help

[ivan256]

I was anticipating the humor of your post, and then you blew the punchline. Here, let me help:

Scour the university surplus for an old IBM Model M keyboard, and whack you roommate with it next time they type while you're trying to sleep! Those things weight a ton. Your roommate will be out cold.

ear plugs

[yarbo]

Go to your local drug store and pick up some ear plugs. They're cheap, effective, and will take care of noise from neighbors too. Also look into wearing a sleep mask. They look stupid, but the monitor glow won't bother you any more.

Re:ear plugs

[cryptor3]

I've found that sleeping masks help me sleep better in general. I'm surprised at what complete darkness will do to your sleep rhythms.

Nerd dorm?

[gmhowell]

You stuck in a nerd dorm where clicking keys is the most noise you have to deal with? In two dorms and a couple of apartments I was in during college, you had a choice: learn to deal with the noise and sleep through it, or get drunk and pass out along with all those people making the noise.

Re:Nerd dorm?

[Anonymous Coward]

You stuck in a nerd dorm where clicking keys is the most noise you have to deal with?


My first few years were in the "party dorm". I needed my loud case fan, keyboard, and mouse clicks to try and drown out the sexual moaning and screaming from my neighbors; the constant painful reminder that I was a nerd and wasn't getting any.

quiet peripherials

[Anonymous Coward]

you could try a quiet keyboard... never heard of a quiet mouse, though... the thing that bothers my sleep most is the sound coming from the fans on the computers

Kids these days...

[illuminatedwax]

For Chriss' sake, man!! It's a freakin' college dorm. Get used to it!

You should be happy your roommate isn't nailing the bejeezus out of some sexy college girl gone wild.
--Stephen

Re:Kids these days...

[dont_think_twice]

You should be happy your roommate isn't nailing the bejeezus out of some sexy college girl gone wild.

Why exactly should he be happy that he is missing out on a live girls gone wild? He is posting to slashdot - it is probably the closest he will ever come to real sex.

Re:Kids these days...

[Anonymous Coward]

dunno about you, but I don't want to see my roommate fucking anyone.

-AC

Make a trade...

[Jmechy]

You keep roomie up all night on computer one night, he gets equal opportunity the next night with his "flavor of the hour". Seems to have worked for me so far

Rearrange the Room

[ajax0187]

If at possible, rearranging the furniture could work, too. If the light from the monitor is bothering you, just point it in the opposite direction from your bed - the reflected light should be quite a bit dimmer than the monitor itself. Having some extra furniture between yourself and the offending computer might even help dampen the sound a bit. That, combined with the white noise from a fan or radio, might take the edge off of the computer noise.

Bah

[TheOnlyCoolTim]

Having a roommate clickity-click on the keyboard - Mildy annoying.

Having a roommate who is a liar and a scumbag with no moral compass - Truly annoying.

Tim

Re:Bah

[Anonymous Coward]

Watching his parents pick him up after he fails out - priceless.

Re:Bah

[Nasarius]

People who use the phrase "moral compass" - Arrogant pricks.

You kids!

[Anonymous Coward]

You should try sleeping when someone is using a typewriter.

Some of us

[Anonymous Coward]

Couldn't you do that paper a couple of days in advance, instead of 5 hours before your class starts next morning?

For some of us this is totally impossible. Procastination is a great thing. 90% of the work I get done is late at night/early in teh morning. What the hell is up with all this shit. Can't all you mofos just get goddamn earplugs.

My solution

[Cuthalion]

Even before college I had difficulty falling asleep. Eventually I figured out a technique which hasn't failed me yet:

Get really really tired first. If you haven't slept for 56 hours, a little 'clicka click click' isn't going to keep you awake! Neither is a small nuclear war, for that matter.

My advice to you is...start drinking heavily

[cpt_rhetoric]

I thought that was one of the main activities in College anyway. "Nothing's over! Was it over when the German's bombed Pearl Harbor?!"

Re:My advice to you is...start drinking heavily

[Anonymous Coward]

Was it over when the German's bombed Pearl Harbor?!

My my, talk about long range bombing here...

Re:My advice to you is...start drinking heavily

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a guess, but looking at your response I figure you can't be any older than the low twenties.

Laptop

[falsification]

Get a laptop and do your late night typing outside the room.

If I had only done that back when I was in college....it would have been much, much better. I would not have fallen behind in my studies, become depressed, got stressed out, had a major fight with my roommate, ruined the best friendship I ever had, and lost out on an opportunity for a menage et tois with the two cute neighbors down the hall.

But no, I didn't want to spring for another $200. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.

Maybe

[TheOnlyCoolTim]

I dunno. I have a simple but very strong set of morals.

Tim

Get a laptop...

[antdude]

and take it out of the room. Do it in a study room or hallway. This would be a problem if you need to print something, especially with dot matrix (I had an IBM ProPrinter XL-24E?) during my college days). Do that in the morning, in the lab, or somewhere.

Re:Get a laptop...

[KMAPSRULE]

Ah yes I Have one of those Pro-Printer XL-24E's Best damned printer I have ever had, I love the thing although it just collects dust nowadays.

We did use it to get back at this kid who would play doom with his surround sound system at 4am, we waited till he fell asleep for his afternoon nap put the proprinter in his roomates desk, and let loose the little program we had written that sent 80 character lines of 'E' s to the printer.....

Re:Get a laptop...

[antdude]

KMAPSRULE: Rats, I regret for not using it for pranks during my college days. Although my friends did say it was very loud. ;)

Become a labbie..

[molo]

If you're a geek already, why not go that extra mile and become a computer labbie? You get the access codes to the labs and can keep them open all night. You also get in good with the faculty and sometimes even get paid to do something you would be doing already.

-molo

Re:Become a labbie..

[Cyberop5]

Amen. No better way to compile gentoo than to stay awake all night in a computer lab. Virtually endless resources: machines, network, space (physical and data storage), printers, and peace.

Just make sure you know when the building is locked.

Re:Become a labbie..

[Anonymous Coward]

distcc

Rolly keyboard, touchpad?

[Ramses0]

Get a rolly keyboard.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/keyboards /5a7f/

Use a tablet or touch-pad.
http://store.yahoo.com/directron/tables.html

...or go expensive?

--Robert

Re:Rolly keyboard, touchpad?

[neglige]

Here are also a few nifty (and probably expensive) solutions. All you should hear is the tapping of the fingers on the table ;)

Of course this adds yet another light source to the dark room...

Laptops

[wrexsoul]

I personally have a laptop that I would haul around to one of my campus's many network ports. Now, all my fun stuff is on my desktop, so using my comparatively underpowered portable version doesn't seem very appealing, but with such remote-access tools like VNC, on the college's local network system, I could use my desktop as if I were sitting in my room from the student union. Sadly this doesn't help if you want to be having a frag-fest, but it's much better than sitting in a dark room trying to type as quietly as possible.

adjust.

[ziggles]

My roommate in college was a late night studier.. he'd often be up until 4AM studying. Which meant doing anything from reading in bed with a lamp turned on to using the computer. At first I found it very difficult to get to sleep.. but I figured I'd get used to it. And I did pretty much. Not much of a story, I know.

But I did find that often when I found it difficult to sleep, it wasn't really because the light or clicking was so annoying that it was impossible to sleep, it was more just built up resentment against my roommate that he could be so incosiderate while I was trying to sleep! Once I got over that it was pretty easy to doze off no matter what he was doing.
I dont know, it just sounded like a similar situation by the way the submission was worded. Like the fact that he was doing something potentially annoying while you were trying to sleep bothered you more than the annoying thing itself. I could be wrong.

Re:adjust.

[Anonymous Coward]

no matter what he was doing.

So you mean what when he was jacking off you did not mind?

eye mask & ear plugs

[Parsec]

For traveling, and keeping odd hours, I have an Eagle Creek eye mask. I also found some earplugs that work amazingly well, though you may have to shop around for some that work well and fit comfortably; try a mall travel store. The foam ear plugs that you compress and they expand in your ear are just junk.

Total cost is less than $15.

Build a loft

[toast0]

Stick your beds as close to the ceiling as your dorm and physical needs allow.

Play some music at a reasonable volume when you're typing, and your roomate will hear muffled music when you're working. Try making the loft not loud enough to wake the dead when you get in it.

Do NOT get Active noise cancellation!

[dmayle]

That's a TERRIBLE recommendation. Active noise cancellation raises the sound floor in order to cancel sound. This may be fine while you're awake, but it's the type of thing that can give you headaches, especially if one ear (of the headphones) becomes slightly skewed, and you end up getting the wrong signals. (Which will probably happen if you shift around at all during sleep). In addition, the cost of running those things 8 hours a day (night) gets to be ridiculous

Re:Do NOT get Active noise cancellation!

[ajagci]

Nonsense. Active noise cancelation may generate some noise of its own in the amplifiers, but that's a side-effect unrelated to how it is intended to work.

Furthermore, many people find something like white noise soothing and don't get a headache from it at all. If any kind of sound made us ill, we wouldn't have survived as a species. It's only some man-made sounds that suggest danger that are a problem. Key clicks fall into that category.

Re:Do NOT get Active noise cancellation!

[dmayle]

You obviously don't understand active noise cancellation.

Sound travels in pressure waves. That's basic science, and you should know that. Let's assume the sound floor is currently set at the 1 atm level (atmosphere). If a sound comes in that zeroes at 1 atm, and peaks at 10 atm, active noise cancellation will create the exact opposite pressure wave, with a start at 10 atm, and reaches 1 atm when the original sound hits 10. Since we only hear frequencies, or rapid changes, our brain interprets this as not hearing a sound, but the pressure level has still been raised to 5 atm for the course of this sound! (That's the average value of the two waves).

Now, I should note that these numbers are completely made up, for simplicity, but the principle holds true. Active noise cancellation may be quiet, but it is not effect free on your ears, and can give you headaches, especially if the cancellation ends up slightly out of synch (which would give you very low or muffled noise levels, but a a very high pressure level)

Re:Do NOT get Active noise cancellation!

[acd294]

Although you are basically right, the numbers you have are all wrong, and it change the argument as well.

As far as I know, The average pressure of any sound wave (measured over more than one wavelength) must be zero. Other wise the world would continually increase in pressure. For instance, in your example, if the incoming sound was between 1 and 10 atm, that means that the average pressure due to the noise is 5 atm, much much higher than normal pressure of 1 atm.

Also, noise cancelling doesnt change the average pressure, so even in your example (if it worked that way) the average pressure in your ear would still be 5 atm with noise cancelling.

The biggest thing is that all sound waves must fluctuate between -n and n. Like -1atm to 1 atm relative to the standard pressure (for an absolute change of 0atm to 2 atm). That btw would be a huge amplitude but that is besides the point. The noise cancelling simply uses a reversed wave form to lower the amplitude of the waves there fore lowering the magnitude of the sound. It doesnt not increase the pressure on your ear.

Re:Do NOT get Active noise cancellation!

[ajagci]

Come on, this is elementary stuff. Sound consists of both compression and rarefactions of the air; the average pressure remains unchanged.

Re:Do NOT get Active noise cancellation!

[coloclone]

You should try a pair of Shure E2C's.

I use them to sleep and they don't have "active" cancellation. They work quite well for me on airplane, mowing the grass, snorning girlfriends, etc... They are low profile, comfortable and sound GREAT!

Boodler.

[spiff42]

Well, if one wants background noise, perhaps Boodler can help out. Just like buying those whitenoise boxes, except this runs on Linux ;-)

Critical hour after your head hits pillow

[PeteyG]

I was in NROTC, so I WAS driven up the wall by my roommate's keyboard and mouse clicks on a regular basis, because I had to wake up at 5:30am every morning, and my roommate didn't have class until 10am or so.

Anyways, the best way around this is to have your roommate evacuate the room for the hour around your bedtime. You go to bed and say "Shoot, it's time for bed."

Your roomate should reply: "Okay, I'll go take my math book and work problems for an hour".

It's only critical that you have silence in the time that it takes you to actually fall asleep. It depends on your depth of sleep, but my dorm roommate has had friends over (quietly), played computer games, soft music, typed papers, and it didn't disturb me in the least. As long as your roommate is quiet around the hour when your head hits the pillow, you will be okay.

You can say: "Oh, no, don't worry, i'm pretty tired and will be asleep within moments."

Or you can say: "Yeah, that would be awesome. I've got to get up in 6 hours and I'm not tired in the slightest."

If the period of time elapses, and your roommate returns... just pretend to be asleep. That will make you fall asleep faster than anything else in the world.

And if all else fails, and your roommate is an asshole... just remember that you can be as fucking loud as you want in the morning. Have your other ROTC buddy who wakes up at 6am knock on your door as loud as a motherfucker, or slam the door when you go to shower, or just be as loud as you fucking can. Get revernge on your sonofabitch roommate who refuses to give you a little space when you want to hit the sack.

On the other hand, if your roommate goes out of his/her way to give you space at sleeptime, and is a generally nice guy about letting you get to sleep before making much noise... give the dude a break. If your roommate is a nice guy, and so are you... you will be pals forever, no matter what.

If you are all passive/agressive towards each other, you will have no greater enemy

Words of wisdom from one who knows.

laptop

[ajagci]

A shared dorm room is for sleeping, nothing else. Have your roommate pick up his laptop and go somewhere else. Dorms have common areas and universities have computer rooms for that purpose.

There are technical solutions, but they are expensive and miss the point.

Re:haha impact printer

[Bastian]

I remember back in high school I was finishing up a paper around 4AM. My roommate was up working on homework too, so I didn't think anything about pringing my paper out on my old impact printer.

A few minutes later ther was a knock on the door. Turns out I had woken up the guys on either side of me plus both of the people in the room above. This through remarkably well insulated walls for a dormitory.

Say what?

[gr8fulnded]

I turn off my hearing aid! Woohoo! Losing my hearing 3 years ago certainly has it's advantages!

--Dave

Contractual obligations. Manners.

[sonamchauhan]

If you have your own living area, then stay up late. If you live in a dorm, stick to the *agreement* you *signed* with the college when they allocated you dorm quarters.

If that agreement states you can stay up at all hours, keeping your dormmates sleepless, then you have the right to do that. Otherwise, control yourself and go to sleep at night!

Oftentimes people don't pick their study and work habits - it's just who they are.

"...it's just who they are"? I am surprised - just how self-absorbed has society become?

Just "change who you are". Habits *can* be changed. It's not like someone has asked you to grow back a missing leg.

Re:Contractual obligations. Manners.

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

Okay tough guy - let's say one roommate sleeps during the day and one roommate sleeps during the night. By your trite little statement, both should change their habits and never sleep. You're an idiot. I mentioned that there should be a compromise but you seemed to ignore that in your reply. Why is that? Could it be that you're a fucking moron?

All signs point to yes. Eat shit.

Re:Contractual obligations. Manners.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't remember signing any agreement that said anything about when I had to go to sleep. Or even whether I could pelt my roommate with footballs all night while he tried to sleep. Besides, "late" is relative at college. Believe it or not, I had a roommate who used to go to sleep around 10. On the other hand, I remember doing my grocery shopping at 3 in the morning.

Re:Contractual obligations. Manners.

[sonamchauhan]

Acidic Diarrhea: By your ... statement, both should change their habits and never sleep.

Both the OP and me said the late-niter person should alter his habits. (I am not the OP BTW.) I also said if the agreement gave you the right to, then stay up. Otherwise: "control yourself and go to sleep at night!"

Acidic Diarrhea: Eat shit.
Shame on you man - you can do better.

Wasn't a problem for me

[DeadSea]

I learned to sleep through anything in college.

As the type of person that likes to go to bed at 9 or 10 and get a full 8 hours of sleep, I had some roommates with vastly different sleep schedules.

During my freshman year, my roommate (also a computer geek) stayed up until at least 2 every morning, often playing computer games. Often he would invite a friend over to use my computer and he'd have somebody else on speakerphone from across campus while they played together. The game of the day was "Command and Conquer". All night it would be constant clicking, typing, swearing, explosions, and "I'm a Mechanical Man" game music.

There were a couple things that helped me sleep through all this:

1. I was dead tired every night. Getting exercise helps with this.
2. We had lofted beds. Being up above the noise really helps for some reason. Also keeps those friends from sitting on me, which would have woken me up.

My later roommates were then amazed that I could go to sleep with all the lights on, the music blaring, and basically a party going on in the room.

Re:Wasn't a problem for me

[andy55]

As one of the "later roommates", I can wholeheartedly testify to this amazing tale! This guy was amazing!!

I could be playing games till 3, getting up at 5 AM every other day (long story), or chatting w/ people in our room w/ all the lights on--this guy wouldn't budge!

However, I will say that this guy--we'll call him "steveo" for the purposes of this post--would talk in his sleep. ...in German, in fact! It started the semester "steveo" took German.

Thanks for all the good times, "steveo"--I miss ya, man!!

Re:Wasn't a problem for me

[DeadSea]

So why shouldn't I post for karma?

Fool.

Call yourselves students?

[vrai]

Real students don't sleep and wake! They pass out and come to. If you can't sleep through the noise of a few mouse-clicks then you're not nearly drunk enough.

I got a first-class (CompSki) degree from a good university without pulling any work-related all-nighters and drinking enough to drown a small country.

You're going to spend the next forty years working your arse off, at least spend the time you have at college/university having fun. You don't want your fondest memory of university to be the time you spent 36 hours debugging a server!

Re:Call yourselves students?

[thebatlab]

Actually some of my fondest memories of college do involve spending 48 hours coding on a big project. Or those nights you and a bunch of friends are hanging out in the lab getting work done and having a good time joking around, running out to 7-11 for slurpies and chicken kebobs at 4 am.

Not everyone feels getting plastered and passing out is a "good time". I did my share of partying too but I didn't spend all my time talking on the porcelain telephone or waking up asking "Dude, what happened last night".

Re:Call yourselves students?

[couchslayer]

This is a better point than you realize.

The most important thing you can learn during your undergrad years is how to make friends with people you wouldn't have associated with before. Something that the 'geek' community often forgets is that college is your best opportunity to learn how to network effectively. 4+ years of learning how to connect to people, with lower risk than you're going to have at any other time in life.

Learn how to have fun, as well. College is a time to collect stories that you can think fondly back on, and do things you'll have much less of a chance to do later. Once you enter the 'real world', not only will you have some idea how to network, but some of those stories should make great conversation material.

Re:Call yourselves students?

[macjohn]

Vrai's got it right.

I got through 4 years of college and 2 years of grad school primarily scheduled by beer. My xcelent advice:
* Study til 9PM
* Drink beer til 11PM
* Sing along with the jukebox til closing. It's more fun to have a whole table singing together than this new-fangled Kerry-oki stuff.
* If you can't find your car, walk home, wake up a housemate, and start crying.
* If you can find your car, don't drive. (This is a new rule that we didn't do when I was in college. But having got a DUI a few years ago, I recommend it. http://www.digitalmx.com/john/dui.html)
* When you wake up and feel OK, go to class. Under no circumstnaces take a class that starts before 8. Unless you can pass without going to class. I got through one that way.

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously don't understand active noise cancellation.

Your concpt of sound waves is way off. The wave will have periods of pressure above 1atm and below. You cancel this wave out by generating one at the exact same amplitude but 180 degrees out of phase.

The resultig pressure is exacly 1 atm.

White Noise Blanket

[4of12]

I find the problem with a real quiet sleeping environment is that very slight noises, anything abnormal will wake me up.

For several years I've used a noise generator or sound conditioner.

Go to one of those kitchen/bath stores or sections in a department store. They have noise generators that mimic the sounds of running water, rain, surf, white noise, etc.

By playing a level of background noise, the annoying signal of your roommate's typing will be submerged and you can get some rest.

Re:White Noise Blanket

[Idealius]

White Noise is beautiful :)

If you don't want to go through the process of buying a white noise generator just buy a fan instead -- it's just as good.

permanent, effective relief

[ghostprovidence]

i took about 25 aspirin once and went deaf for the better part of two days ... what you need is a little

Intentional Hearing Loss(tm)
Simply choose one of the following easy methods:

viral or bacterial infection (meningitis maybe?)
drug toxicity
excessive noise exposure
middle ear infection
head trauma

and you'll be tucked away in your quiet wonderland before you can say "how about a beowulf cluster of ...

Re:Best tip

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a room!

Just get your own room and this problem is irrelevant. I never understood the appeal of going to college and living in a dorm room with a complete stranger. I just decided to go to a local state school where I could commute from home so I didn't have any of those problems. Thankfully my roommates (parents) didn't bug me too much and I had a quiet environment to study. Nobody cared about late night computer sessions because I had my own room.

Re:Best tip

[KDan]

Over here I lived in dorms and we all had individual rooms, from the age of 16 onwards. (I wasn't boarding before the age of 16..)

Daniel

"Convince" him to go the computer lab

[JMandingo]

I solved this problem by putting on my earphones and playing music. Initially this was to drown out the kestrokes so that I could sleep. Incidentally I was playing it just loud enough that my roomate could hear it. He was unable to concentrate enough to write his paper, so he ended up going to the computer lab. Problem solved for that particular roomate.

Naughty

[rixstep]

You little boys and girls shouldn't be up that anyway. You have to go to bed early so you can be up at dawn for a new dayy of work work work and learn learn learn.

Earmuffs? Eye shades? Try curfews, or cutting the Internet and power connections at, say, 8 PM.

a few solutions...

[Pamplemousse]

1. Despose of your room mate keyboards 2. Despose of your room mate

Get a ZX Spectrum keyboard!

[Mxyzptlk]

Those nice little rubber keys are pretty nice on your fingers too...

keyboard/mouse replacement

[Anonymous Coward]

As others in this thread have suggested, being flexible and accomodating is the most obvious answer. Getting used to the noise is another.

If you can do neither, and are determined to buy another gadget that will reduce the noise, then check out the touchstream keyboards from fingerworks. This keyboard/mouse combo is totally silent once you get used to it. Only downside is that it does take a couple of weeks to get used to it....

As for the light, as long as you are working (and not just brosing/gamnig) you can simply dim down the monitor and use editors and color schemes that are dark. Gray and dark pastels on black background works wonderfully in the dark. I don't know whether similar windows themes exist, or whether windows can be customized to that extent, but if you're geeks, you'll be right at home in linux and vi/emacs anyway, right? :)

Get used to it

[moro_666]

our dorm was 50m away from a railway + we had a computer in the room and hallway lights which had old halogen lamps and 'brrrrrrrr' all the time.
i got used to it all :)

just as time goes by people get used to noises which doesn't let them sleep. for example atm. my gf is using
her cellphone to wake us both... it doesn't wake me after
a few months at all, now my gf will have to bring some little 'wrestlingmoves' in to wake me up.

i am no "strong" sleeper, i wake up even if the wind blows too hard and my balchony door cracks a bit. but when i hear noises that i'm used to, it has no effect whatsoever.

althrough you could consider getting a more quiet keyboard, nowadays the soft feeling keyboards are quite
lownoise , for example i have logitech's deluxe keyboard which practically doesn't produce any sound at all, at least my gf doesn't ever say that it would bother her.

[wonder how 60 year old grannies can sleep besides their husbands who snore like automobiles at low throttle]

Alcohol

[davidhan]

Get enough beer so that one or both of you pass out. Don't college kids drink any more? As an aside, you know your roomate is just checking out p*rn when you're sleeping, right? Swap his 'hand' lotion for some super glue, that should cut down on the noise.

Re:Alcohol

[wynler]

Seriously this works. I don't think taking it to the passing out level is good. But, three or four shots will relax you enough to not care that there are keyboard clicks. Go with liquor instead of beer though, it'll agree better with your belly while your sleeping.

VIK && Touchpad == Solved Problem

[Spokehedz]

Use a Virtually Indestructible Keyboard which is just about the coolest thing on the planet. I've been using one at home (and, on the road--its a treat in cars/trucks where coffee can spill 'cause its 99.999% waterproof/coffeeproof) and I've never looked back. the only thing it doesn't do good is gaming. the keys are too mushy, and sometimes they stick for just a microsecond too long, and you end up doing a sidestep when you wanted to do a spin-move... but I digress. its almost silent. there's no plastic keys to 'click' and the contacts inside are a thin plastic which makes almost no sound at all when the keys are pressed. there's a very soft 'thoop' when the silicone is pressed, but you'd be hard pressed to have that make more noise than the fans inside the computer. (more on that later.)

And for the mouse... well, a touchpad comes to mind. yes, using keyboard 'shortcuts' (the keyboard came before the mouse, remember? There not 'shortcuts' there the original way you did those things.) is a better answer, especially with the quieter keyboard... but sometimes its just easier to use a mouse.

The ultimate solution would be a eye-tracking, headmounted unit where you'd just have to look at the icon/button/text and it would be clicked/pushed/selected... Or a Datajack and a Deck... but that's a few years off, yet... or not, if the /. community really put their collective beans together. ;)

Two words

[Anonymous Coward]

Drink heavily. After you pass out, all those lights and noises will stop bothering you. Of course this might not be the best solution as far as your grades go.

sound of silence ... horrible insomnia

[Slowtreme]

A lot of people have insomnia when moving out of mommy and daddy's house. :)

Real Solutions

[scorp1us]

These are real solutions my computer friends and I did when living in a dorm room together.

1) Stay up later. I'd often force myself to sleep whent he sun came up. Everyone is alseep then. (My 1st class was at 2:00pm, but my last class was at 8:00pm)

2) Drink more. Alchol is a depressent. It'll make you tired and you won't care about the clicks. It's really depressing that I have to tell a college student to drink more though.

3) The clicks are binary. They are telling you to party harder. You aren't tired enough. A good college day should leave you exhauseted.

4) Get a girlfriend and sleep in her room. Witha guy and girl in a room in college, there's no reason to not get it on. That'll help you sleep too. I definately recommend NOT doing that everynight, unless you take 0-30 minutes. I enjoy foreplay so it'd be a 2, sometimes 6 hour act starting at 10pm. That much sex up until that early in the morning will effect your studies. Be careful with this one. (Yes, I am serious here; no nerds don't get it jokes please, because I got plenty of it.)

5) Room configuration. We bunked our beds, and messed wit the supplied desks. This part is hard to explain but... we had desks that had hutches on them that were supposed to provide a back and a book shelf above the monitor on top of the desk. If we re-oriented these so the bottom edge was facing us, and and the fide edges that used to face us were againt the desk, we'd wind up with a cubby hole that a keyboard and mouse fit in, and only allowed the sound to travel out in 1 direction. This direction was perpendicular to be bed line, so no bed heard it. (Imagine an L with the shorter line being the direction of sound traved and the long line as the placement and orientation of the bed) One you have this cubby, we took the stands off our minitors and sat them down, and everything was ergonomically kosher.

6) Soft music in the room. I lucked out. All my friend from high school went to the same school and liked the same music. We got a 300dic cd changer put our music in it, and pressed play. We'd have it on 24/7 and it provided a nice murmer to cover up any kind of other sound in the room. Speaker placement is key.

hear this story.

[Anonymous Coward]

over at one of the universities in cracow, there's this story that is being told at almost every party.

there were two students in a room, one of them studied mathematics, while the other one was studying geography or something. the one who studied mathematics, was the one who usually stayed up late. so one day, the other guy notices that his ass is sore. he goes over to the doctor, and the doctor asks him if he's gay. he says not.

later it was found out that, the one who stayed up late, would wait until the other one went asleep. he then took out a cloth soaked in ether, and made the other guy inhale, at the same time loading him in the ass.

No problem

[splattertrousers]

Easy solution:

If you have to work late on the computer, tell your roommate that you're going to be up for a while making noise. He'll grumble a bit, get up, and walk down to the girls' side of the floor. He'll knock on a random door which will be opened by a beautiful blonde.

He'll say, "My roommate is making noise, can I sleep here?" She'll let him in and he'll see that her hot roommate is totally naked. Five seconds later, the three of them will be having sex for hours and hours (with the lights on at full intensity of course).

You'll be working on your geeky project the whole time, constantly adjusting the tape on your glasses and making nerdy expressions.

Or maybe I've been watching too much porn...

Re:No problem

[elementik]

Well, your name DOES point in that direction...

noisy

[borgasm]

I have found that I can't sleep without some ambient noise in the background...be it my 5 servers, typing, traffic, people talking....I have grown accustomed to noise. I find that when I go home (we live in a rural area), I have trouble sleeping just because there aren't people doing various loud things nearby.

Wuss

[Ratbert42]

...how annoying mouse clicks and keystrokes could be to someone who is trying to sleep.

Why, when I was in college, we were woken up by a friend using my PC (one of two on the whole floor) to print his paper on my daisy wheel printer. Sounded like a 50cal machine gun going off at 4am in a quiet dorm room. After that we started hiding the printer cable at night.

Fun in dorms

[Lao-Tzu]

My solution was to drop out of University and move across the country to get away from my roommate.

He didn't use a computer so much as a guitar, though. At any hour of the night. I could live with that sometimes, but the night he came home drunk and smeared feces all over the common bathroom... well, that was just too much.

Leave school.

I wish I had your problem in College....

[tekiegreg]

I remember back in my College days I stayed in the Dorm room with Union Pacific railroad tracks 100 feet away blowing their horns loudly at 1am, and a bunch of roommates that liked partying in large numbers upstairs. It's a wonder I got any sleep at all...

Nowadays I've moved to a location about a mile from the airport, and despite the occasional roar of a jet taking off nearby me, I sleep like like the dead :-)

Keyboard clicking....BAH!!!!

Why does it matter

[JBFrobozz]

College is supposed to be an experience. I lived in a dorm for two years and now I moved into my fraternity house. If a few mouse clicks and keyboard strokes can keep you awake how do you get any sleep at all. People in the hall ways the neighbor's stereo, etc. I would think that you could just sleep through it.

Maybe your college isn't hard enough and doesn't require enough studying. I have found that I can sleep when my roommate is still up with the lights on.

I'm not going to ask him to go to the library to do his homework just so I don't here mouse clicks.

My advice is start enjoying everything about college.

Ear plugs and eyeshades is you solution

[jordandeamattson]

You know the solution, it just appears that you don't like it.

You need to go with good solid ear plugs and eye shades. I highly recommend both of them.

My wife and I run on different schedules at times. To keep us from destroying one another's sleep, we go with ear plugs and, when required, eye shades.

Yours,

Jordan

Oh computer! Computer?

[mnemotronic]

Hello computer. How are we today?

Seriously though, foam earplugs are a very handy item, unless you want to buy your roomie a laptop, in which case I'ld like to move in as well.

Take less credits per semester!

[ZorinLynx]

Colleges are so obsessed with getting students to take 15 credits a semester and up that it gets scary.

Take 12 or less credits per semester. It may take you an extra semester to finish, but you will be much less stressed and will likely do better in the courses you take.

Being able to get sleep while in college is a great thing; you think much more clearly when well rested.

Don't give in to the "take 15" propoganda; my friends who took 15 were always exhausted and inundated; I took an extra semester and a summer semester to finish and actually managed to have SPARE TIME in college!

-Z

Re:Take less credits per semester!

[KaLogain]

Sometimes that doesn't work out when there is a schedule you have to follow, especially considering some classes are only taught one semester, and not at all in the summer. There is also the money issue, since the cost keeps on going up the later you spend in college even more money do you spend.

Re:Take less credits per semester!

[LordNimon]

15 credits a semester? You must be joking. I don't know any engineering or CS major who was able to graduate in 4 years without taking 18/credits a semester every semester.

Re:Take less credits per semester!

[OblvnDrgn]

Not to mention in most schools less than twelve credits a semester is considered part time instead of full time, which can screw up a great number of things including financial aid. What college was the grandparent at?

My Solution == White Noise Generator

[tilleyrw]

I chose to purchase a white noise generator ("Sleep Machine", "Noise Machine", etc.).

Sears sells them in the bedding department for about $15.00.

If you don't like the sound of a waterfall (approximation of white noise), you can choose frog song, baby crying, drunken orgy, orgasm, and other soothing tones.

Beer

[Krezel]

Drink lots of it. I'd suggest at least 6 of them, within a half hour of going to bed.

Hard liquor also works well, and you won't have to climb out of the loft as much during the night.

got the mouse thing covered

[KanshuShintai]

http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/12/13/12 3226&mode=thread&tid=137

has info on silent mice.

HEPA filter

[Anonymous Coward]

You can HEPA filters easily and cheaply at places like Sears. It makes white noise. And it cleans the air and even electro-statically removes free radicals which are harmful to living cells.

Seriously, it can make sleep very refreshing. I started using one when I had kids. As babies, they coo and groan and twist and turn and make all kinds of little noises at night. When you have newborns you're so tuned in to any real cries for help during the night that you hear each and every harmless noise and it keeps you awake.

Fans, white noise devices, HEPA filters -- they don't tune out the noises you need to hear. They just muffle and gloss over every little click and tick and blend them into the background noise, so that you only REALLY hear and respond to the urgent, important noises.

On Keyboards

[Gleapsite]

I've found that the roll up keyboards they sell, are extremely quiet, due to the fact that instead of the hard plastic they're soft.

Walling off the room with dreassers, or similar is a good idea as well.

Solved

[pyrote]

Get a Roll up keyboard (no clicking), and a touchpad mouse (or one like on a laptop).

No sounds at all.

Other problems?

[MikeDawg]

Until I had moved out on my own, my computer had always been in a different room. Once I moved out, and got roommates, it was inevitable that I have my computer (4-6 of them, depending on various things) had to stay in my room with me. One (or more) were actually servers (not critical or anything, but my personal servers that I would like to maintain uptime on the 'net with).

I've always noticed, that I can easily become "immune" as it were to particular noises that would normally disturb sleep. After a week or two, I eventually became completely unaware of the computers in my room while I was sleeping, and had no problems ever falling asleep, even with my 21" monitor acting like a night light at times. When girls would spend the night or whatever, they were always bothered by the noise I have in some of my clunky boxes, old 3, 4, and 8 gig drives, that the bearings would occasionally make the squealing noise (not to often), fans in each of the cases and so on. I've always have been able to gain a comfort level after so many days of sleeping, that I eventually get used to the background noises. Hell, when I started working graveyard, I could sleep through anything (I liked to sleep right after I got off from a shift); the morning when everybody is waking, and moving around, and starting their cars to go to work, etc.

I know that this technique of "getting used to it" doesn't apply to everyone, as I'm almost positive it doesn't, always helped me get through the nights, I just toughed it out for those couple of weeks.

Use a pillow.

[ThetaPi]

I've had a roommate since I was a junior in highschool. I just sleep with a pillow on top of my head, along with part of a blanket on top of the pillow.

The black blanket blocks most of the light and the pillow blocks both light and sound. I also tend to sleep with my back towards my roommate.

My roommate and I have an agreement to study without the overhead lights on if the other wants to sleep. I'm usually the one that is up late, but when I'm not I find that our agreement works fairly well.

Oh, and a pair of headphones work well if you want to listen to music after the roommate has went to bed. These can be shared too.

We had this problem

[dtrent]

1. Go to CompUSA and find the quietest mouse and keyboard they have(they tend to be the cheapest too).

2. Put a towel (or some other sound dampening material) underneath the keyboard.

3. Be conscious of how hard you and your roomate hit the keys

90% of your noise will be gone.

Get two rooms

[smartiq2]

As a college student in EE, I have seen quite a few of my friends fight about this. Four of them got together and talked to the dean and arranged it so that they could combine rooms (usually two people share a room). In one room they have four beds and it is a "sleep area". In the other room right next door they keep all of their computers/kitchen stuff/noise making things. This way they solve the sleeping problem, and they get an apartment like layout without the apartment.

Hopefully your deans are ok with this.

EARPLUGS

[sir_cello]

Did you hear me ?

Keyboard/mouse replacement

[AlecC]

Silent, but expensive, keyboard and mouse replacement: Fingerworks Touchstream keyboard

Details...

[glpierce]

Keep in mind that the OSHA levels are the point at which "25% of [the] population will exhibit hearing loss so severe that it will impair ability to effectively communicate with spoken language" (Pastore, 2002). The guidelines were set up so that "Industry can meet criteria without going bankrupt" (Pastore), not so that you'll be healthy or hear well.

(Full citation available on request.)

Discman

[drpentode]

Have your roommate listen to soothing sounds or music on a discman as he sleeps. Those tiny earphones don't fall out if you turn over.

Give your roommate a laptop...

[aquarian]

Good laptops have relatively quiet keyboards and silent pointing devices. They're expensive, but well worth it -- two semesters of restful nights are easily worth two grand. Not to mention the savings in dormroom real estate, and superior ergonomics. I frequently put in 12 hour days w/ my laptop, and I'll never go back to a desktop.

One fix...

[Dr. Evil]

I didn't do this myself, but it worked well for some friends of mine...

You're in a dorm right?

The rooms are doubles right?

Split with another dormroom. Put four beds in one room and four desks in the other.

Keeping the keg out for all-night parties is the hard part though.

Re:Get a fan. -- Bingo!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, cheap box fans are $10 these days.

iPod Use #23

[Anonymous Coward]

Get on eBay and get yourself a shiny magic white sleeping box. Sync up a soothing playlist and lull yourself into a peaceful slumber. Just be sure not to strangle yourself on the earbud chord, or you'll be sleeping indefinetely.

Buy an IBM Model M

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Buy an IBM Model M.
2. Type as per usual.
3. When roommate complains about clickety din, grab keyboard and bash roommate's head until he is blissfully unconscious.

Re:Get a fan. -- Bingo!

[Hollinger]

Ah, yes, but I bought one that had about an 8" blade diameter.