Making Your Bedroom a Sanctum from Technology? 148
"The lucky few of us who've managed to not remain single can have one recalcitrant database or webserver strain a relationship to the extreme when it misbehaves multiple nights in a row. I personally have developed severe sleep disorders over the past half decade due to the little issues that always seem to happen just after that much needed REM sleep kicks in. I certainly can't fathom the patience my signifigant other has for sharing the disturbances.
I woke a few months back with a laptop near the pillow, flat screen still powered on the tv tray and an equal distribution of cats and wireless devices at my feet. I had a headache from various system fans, drives spinning, and the 'dings' of incoming mail. Enough was enough. I decided I wanted to make the bedroom as much of a sanctum as possible. The other 85% of the house can have wires, TiVos in various states, and homemade networked kitchen appliances; the place of rest should be geared to that purpose if I'm to be an efficient geek."
When off doesn't mean off... (Score:2, Informative)
It turned out to be coil whine from my monitor's power supply. Even when switched "off", it was never completely off -- the power button was only a soft power off, like an ATX supply. The reason I only heard it at night was that during the day it was drowned out by ambient noise. Once identified, it was easily solved by moving the power strip into a convenient location, so I could cut the power completely.
Keep it all out! (Score:4, Informative)
I work from home, I get calls at all hours about work. However, the nearest phone to my bedroom is a good distance. So far in fact, that I cannot get to it before voice mail does. If I do hear it, I don't even bother.
It was not always this way. When living space was at a premium I had my box in the bedroom for a short while. Fortunately, the wife put an end to it VERY quickly.
Your house is your kingdom and your bedroom your sanctuary. It's very comforting to lay my head down and hear absolutely nothing. No phone. No CPU fans. No churning disks. I really can get away there.
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It's the kind of noise that matters! (Score:3, Informative)
Whilst trying to quieten things down, I found that it's not the fan noise which is disturbing. In fact, they sell white noise generators to help people with insomnia, and white noise easily fades into the background.
What made the biggest difference was damping the vibration. I did this by placing strips of thick, firm-ish packing foam under the feet of everything.
The difference was amazing. With the 'humming' component removed the sound fades into the background like a dream.
I suppose the next phase would be to construct an enclosure with sound damping material and baffled air vents.
PC Soundproof box (Score:2, Informative)
Re:stupid. (Score:4, Informative)
If you don't want to be disturbed at nigth, pull out the phone. How hard is that ? Employer doesn't accept it ? In that case he should be *paying* you for being "always accessible".
Actually, he may not have the right to request those hours off nor extra pay except when he is actively helping out. In my state, CO, the Colorado Minimum Wage Law [coworkforce.com] reads as follows:
If you don't want to be disturbed at night... (Score:3, Informative)
If you took a job where you have on-call hours, you can't really think of those as _your_ time, though--they're partially your company's time. Hopefully you factor that into your salary considerations when you took the job. My dad's a doctor and I saw first hand what on-call means when I was growing up; I decided it's not worth it to me to be on-call, and I've stuck by that in all of my past job hunts.
As far as keeping technology out of the bedroom, that's trivial; you just have to not want it there, it doesn't show up on its own. There are a couple of tech things that I quite like, though:
a) soft-on alarm systems--my lights and music slowly come on in the morning, lights dimming up over a half hour with the music starting soft for the second half and gradually coming up louder. It's a lot easier to wake up that way.
b) a decent stereo system both for mood music and for waking up to
As far as non-tech essentials:
a) good shades, I live in the city and keeping out light is a big deal
b) good pillows, including a good choice for sitting and reading in bed
c) varied lighting choices (bright indirect full-spectrum bulbs, a good bedside lamp for reading, and candles or oil lamps)
d) reading material of a non-work nature
Sumner
Comment removed (Score:2, Informative)
My quasi-solution (Score:2, Informative)
I've got a bedroom with an attached bathroom; it so happens that adjacent to one of my walls is one of the closets in the bathroom.
First, I placed everything capable of generating noise (CPU, TiVo, etc.) in the closet. Then I bought a pair of 25' VGA cables and an extension for my USB hub, and replaced all of my peripherals with USB equivalents.
The end result is I still have my computer in my bedroom, but all of the noise generating components live in a closet which I can close the door to whenever I head to bed, resulting in pretty much a silent bedroom (with the exception of a bit of noise leaking in from the aforementioned loft...).