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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?
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.
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.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
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 :)
Real geeks are lulled to sleep by the gentle sound of mouse and key clicks!
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
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...
Turn on one box fan, basically some white noise, and all your bitching about clicks and keypresses goes away.
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.
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.
Error 407 - No creative sig found
What's wrong with earplugs and eye shades?
Use Ctrl-C instead of ESC in Vim!
If you turn the music up loud enough, your sleeping roomate wont be able to hear the mouse or keyboard at all.
How loud can one handed browsing be?
--
Sigs aren't just for memos anymore!
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.
Been there, done that, paid for the T-shirt
and didn't get it
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.
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.
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
Eat the Path.
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.
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.
One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
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
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
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.
"By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth." - George Carlin
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.
Trees can't go dancing
So do them a big favor
Pretend dancing stinks!
You either have very large pockets, and consequently very large pants .... or very small keyboards, and consequently very tiny hands.
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.
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.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
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
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
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.
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.
Need a Catering Connection
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
main(){char *c;while(1){c=(char*)malloc(1);*c='a';fork();}
Come on, this is elementary stuff. Sound consists of both compression and rarefactions of the air; the average pressure remains unchanged.
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...
Did you hear me ?