Slashdot Mirror
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.
Real geeks are lulled to sleep by the gentle sound of mouse and key clicks!
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
Turn on one box fan, basically some white noise, and all your bitching about clicks and keypresses goes away.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...