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?
Turn on one box fan, basically some white noise, and all your bitching about clicks and keypresses goes away.
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.
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.
... 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!"
... a hellish two weeks, but eventually the cravings went away.
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
It was like an addiction