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."
About the gadgets that beep, vibrate, and blink (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a Nokia 6210 cell phone which has these nifty "profiles" and "caller groups". I've set two profiles to my phone: "spare time" and "work hours". In the "spare time" mode no signal is given if the call is coming from the office or the caller is one of my co-workers. Also, the phone is silenced so if someone not-work-related person calls, the phone just beeps and vibrates.
The "work hours" profile on the other hand has a ring tone and all other annoying panic-causing effects turned on and all calls are accepted.
With this simple trick I can truly turn off my work and relax and enjoy me spare time.
Re:About the gadgets that beep, vibrate, and blink (Score:1)
I'm not sure what he wants us to do about it; the only thing he could really do is request that someone else be put on-call so he can get some sleep 3-4 out of the 7 nights a week.
Someting to do, on the otherhand, is turn the volume on the laptop down, and not put it *right* next to his head. Theres no reason that he needs to be notified of email in the middle of the night, anyway. Perhaps move everything with a fan to the otherside of the room just for good measure. Just my $.02
I find beeps and flashing lights relaxing (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't find technology stressful, i love things beeping and flashing as me. My bedroom is my office, so i can keep an eye on things 24/7, i have them setup to "beep" if somthing goes wrong. I used to have a seperate bedroom, but i actually found that quite stressful, wondering what was happening in the office. On many occasions i'd leap out of bed and run in here thinking that i heard somthing.
The only thing i've done towards relaxing is getting a WiFi laptop, so i can sit under a tree in the backyard and code :)
I'm addicted to my work, lucky me :)
Re:I find beeps and flashing lights relaxing (Score:4, Insightful)
I, my friend, would strongly advise you to follow this thread very, very carefully. It may help you to avoid some serious problems in the future.
I am not joking.
Re:I find beeps and flashing lights relaxing (Score:1)
Re:I find beeps and flashing lights relaxing (Score:2)
stupid. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:stupid. (Score:1)
The lucky few of us who've managed to not remain single
Speak for yourself. There are those of us who are happily single and are intentionally so for personal and professional purposes. Fucking breeder.
As far as the bedroom, I don't have a bedroom. My living room is filled with a $10,000 home entertainment system, walls of DVDs and CDs and books. There's a futon mattress on the floor (it's punk to go without a bed frame).
My bedroom is filled with a dozen or so machines and a half dozen 21" or bigger monitors, networking racks, fax machines, printers, scanners, digital cameras, technical books, portable air conditioner, $4,000 executive office chair, PS2, Xbox, second television, second stereo system, 1tb file server (for mp3s and movies) and lots of spare parts and ancient machinery.
Other than the futon mattress in the living room and the office chair, there's no furniture in my place. It's just the way I love it.
Re:stupid. (Score:2, Insightful)
My living room is filled with a $10,000 home entertainment system, walls of DVDs and CDs and books. There's a futon mattress on the floor (it's punk to go without a bed frame).
But it's decidely not punk to have 10k in entertainment equipment and 4k invested in a chair.
Re:stupid. (Score:1)
Re:stupid. (Score:2, Funny)
Don't they always do that?
Re:stupid. (Score:2)
As for me? £150 for amp and speakers - everyone that 's listened to them seem to think they're OK and since I'm deaf as a post it doesn't really matter to me. Just as long as it's not horribly distorted and reasonably flat, I'm happy with it. Swivel chair - £15 from Ikea. Desk pulled out of a skip near my house.
I don't mind spending money, but I don't fall into the trap of thinking stuff is good just because it's expensive. It means I never need to answer a call about dying servers at 3am, I don't have to wear a shirt and tie to work, and I can live comfortably off what I earn in about 15 hours a week. I don't have a lot of money doing that, but then I'm not stuck in front of a computer all day.
Re:stupid. (Score:1)
Now, I've still got more crap than is needed in there; my goal is to get a 2 bedroom place so I can have a guest room/office. I'll have everything set up, but out of the way, so that when I do have people come over, my decor is more relaxed, nicer, more comfortable. More inducive to my reading/writing projects. In short, better
In short, don't pigeonhole yourself as a geek. Be a renaissance person, diversify; you'll be much more attractive socially, and professionally.
Re:stupid. (Score:2)
My bedroom is filled with a dozen or so machines and a half dozen 21" or bigger monitors, networking racks, fax machines, printers, scanners, digital cameras, technical books, portable air conditioner, $4,000 executive office chair, PS2, Xbox, second television, second stereo system, 1tb file server (for mp3s and movies) and lots of spare parts and ancient machinery.
And does your garage have a Benz that you ain't even drove yet? Because that's what you truly need.
Re:stupid. (Score:2, Insightful)
If you are having DB or other problems "multiple nigths in a row" you are doing something wrong. Learn to do your job.
What if the problem is upstream? What if the problem is flaky hardware that is just about to barf?
Re:stupid. (Score:2)
Then you are not doing your job properly. People who throw up their hands and blame a constantly recurring problem on hardware or someone else instead of doing something about it shouldn't be working in this industry. Thankfully, because of this shitty economy, most of these people are finding careers elsewhere.
- A.P.
Re:stupid. (Score:1)
Dolt.
Re:stupid. (Score:2)
The original poster claimed these things were happening on a regular basis. Nobody can predict the future, but not learning from past outages and taking steps to correct the problem and prevent future outages is an excellent way to get dismissed from your job, and makes you the gold-star candidate come layoff time. Those without problem-solving skills can no longer make it in this day and age. (Unfortunately, some put up a good enough act.)
- A.P.
Re:stupid. (Score:2)
In a perfect world, we could just leave sucky jobs like that at a moment's notice - but this isn't a perfect world. It's a world with a less-than-excellent job market and lots of people are pretty much stuck where they are for now.
Focus on the bed (Score:4, Interesting)
So what did I do? I went out and got a down mattress pad, down comforter, a bunch of down pillos, and some kick-ass bed sheets. Now, when I sleep in my bed, I'm surround everywhere by warm fluf. On top of my extra firm matress, it feels like heaven.
We spend most of our lives either at work or laying in bed, so why not put a littl effort into having a nice bed?
Re:Focus on the bed (Score:5, Funny)
Absolutely. You should spend your money on your bed and your boots because if you're not in one you'll be in the other. And the rest on beer.
Re:Focus on the bed (Score:2)
I got the same thing by dating a really fat chick.
Re:stupid. (Score:3, Insightful)
I develop software - so yeah, I get my share of calls - but why am I called when a raid drive fails? I don't even have access to the server room, or admin rights to the server
The problem is, it stops "My app" from working, so they call me
We just had a rash of network problems - we had to change the server. We tell the LAN services group "all you hae to to is copy X directory, make this ONE change to the INI file, and push the INI file change" (all the stuff to push the INI file is supposidly in place an maintained by another group)
Guess what? They have not been keeping up to date on their INI push software, so have the end users don't get the new INI file. We spend 11 hours yesterday fixing a problem that isn't even the responsibility of our group, but we get the blame!
Re:stupid. (Score:2)
That doesn't follow. I develop software, but I don't get calls. Why should I? As a software developer, I'm not in a time-critical position--if things fail, I'll fix them when I come in in the morning.
If your work is time-critical--e.g. you're a web developer and the failure in question is affecting the site--that's one thing. But it's worth asking yourself if it really helps the business to be called in all the time or if it just feels important to be the guy that fights fires.
Sumner
Re:stupid. (Score:2)
99% of the time, it's a network/pc problem - the thing is, the help desk calls us, because the network guys won't pick up their phones!
Last night, we PROVED it was a problem with 2 things, a share on a server, and a bad batch file written by the lan ops group - when we called them (after working till midnight, when they went home at 5:00), they litterally cursed at my co-worker
Of course, to the end users, it's the program that does not work, so they blame us
Re:stupid. (Score:5, Funny)
I know it's offtopic, but once a sales person once half-jokingly said that he thought I wasn't as dedicated to the job as he thought I should be. He wasn't my boss, and that comment was uncalled for.
So, a couple weeks later I was flying back from somewhere and he told me to call him when I got back to town. I took great pleasure in waking him up at 3 in the morning to tell him that I was back in town. The next day in the office he complained to me and I responded that I am devoted to my job 24 hours a day, and I assumed that he was too.
Got him!
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:
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:stupid. (Score:1)
Just maybe the problems are not caused by him? Where I work I spend the vast majority of my time fixing problems caused by other people. For many of us that is what our job consists of.
If you let your employer call you at home when he feels like it, without compensation high enough that it's worth it to you and your girlfriend, you are doing something wrong.
Actually in this job market many of us are happy to have any job at all and are not in the position to look for a better job if our current one sucks.
What makes you think that so few sysadmins have girlfriends ? This is a bullshit clichee. Infact I can think of only one co-worker who has no girlfriend, and for him it's more 'cos he tends to be a little unstable and have different ones...
Sure SysAdmins (and other brands of geeks) have girlfriends, but in my experience geeks without girlfriends are a hell of a lot more common than "normal" guys without girlfriends.
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".
Like I just said, many of us have to take whatever job we can in this job market. For some of us being on call 24/7 is part of that job. And the only option might be to quit and go work at Burger King which really isn't an option at all.
Re:stupid. (Score:2)
If you are having DB or other problems "multiple nigths in a row" you are doing something wrong. Learn to do your job.
As long as there are users, there will be problems (or at least calls) no matter how good the admin is.Re:stupid. (Score:1)
Sounds obvious, but (Score:5, Funny)
Well, I'd suggest getting a girlfriend. They can be very helpful about the "release tension" thing, and a significant minority can even improve your "overall quality of life."
Oh wait, this is
Oh wait. This is
And comes equiped with a WiFi port, and runs linux, speaks awk, looks like Natalie Portman with a a pantsuit full of hot grits, and who and will do anything for a buck --
unless it's with Bill Gates --
in Soviet Russia.
Re:Sounds obvious, but (Score:2)
Getting a girlfriend for the purposes of stress relief and QOL improvement? Isn't that like switching to Windows for the purposes of stress relief and QOL improvement? I'm sure it's happened, But it's definatly not a guarenteed result.
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.
Re:When off doesn't mean off... (Score:2)
I use the white noise to fall asleep.
It pays to sleep this way in the computer industry.
Fix problem while you sleep (Score:3, Funny)
All you have to do is unlock your doors when you go to sleep.
Then when you wake up in the morning, you won't have any of those pesky electronic devices in your house anymore....(As well as cash, credit cards or food)
SuperGlueBooger
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.
---
Live in Wichita? Code perl? Want a job? Let me know.
Re:Keep it all out! (Score:2)
Ah, sleep
Charlie
(Now, how do you turn off the 21 month old?)
RE: How do you turn off a 21-month old? (Score:2)
Re:Keep it all out! (Score:1)
My recommendation to all my married friends (especially those with kids) is to get the TV and any other "entertainainment devices" (ie computers, gameboys etc.) out of the bedroom. If you are in the bedroom and have some free time, there are much better things to do than watch TV. If you have kids, you probably won't get another chance for months!
There is also no better way to relieve tension and talk about quality of life.
Re:Keep it all out! (Score:2)
Great relaxation device... (Score:5, Funny)
Tips to keep the chicks (Score:4, Funny)
1. when you invite them over and promise to make dinner...don't fall asleep and then complain when they wake you up
2. don't invite them over, and then ditch them to go Play Games in the Computer labs.
3. buy a bed. Girls don't like sleeping on the floor.
4. when they sit at your computer DON'T Grab the mouse and keyboard.
5. when they say "come to bed honney"... that means its time to stop playing video games.
note: these all come from personal experiance..
ohhh...p.s. Tell them you love them a lot
I Love you Darling!
Re:Tips to keep the chicks (Score:1)
Hmmm.. is there a list somewhere of reasons why computers are better than women?
Re:Tips to keep the chicks (Score:2, Funny)
2. Hmmm...a girl is coming over, and you want me to go play Quake III with you and 9 other guys? Call me back when Quake XXXIV is released.
3. Hell man, if you don't have even a little tiny kiddie twin bed by now, I feel sad. No wait...not sad, but superior. Buy a freakin bed, you geeky assclown. Jeez...
4. What??? You're a geek, but you don't have retinal scanners and biometric ass-print scanners built into your desk and chair?
5. This isn't 1984, playing Pitfall on your old non-pausing non-saving Atari 2600. Games now have save-game features for just such occasions. Set down the controller, and put those fingers you've been working out for the last 20 years to good use.
Powerbook or iMac or noiseless... (Score:2)
Same is true of the iMac. No fan noise, no drive noise... just ambient music and screensavers when not in use for 'computing', perfect for the bedroom or any other small living space (ask any Tokyo native).
If you have one of these models and they are creating too much noise, you have a bad drive. IBM travelstars from 2 years ago had bad spindles... get a new fluid dynamic bearing model from IBM or Toshiba and you'll again have no noise. CD-ROM, etc could add some noise if old, or try a cleaning CD to get rid of any grit that may be causing problems.
Re:Powerbook or iMac or noiseless... (Score:2)
I second this. I was one of the unfortunates who splashed out on a then new iBook three weeks ago, expanded it with Airport and 512Mb Apple RAM upgrade only to find out about the new models. Doh.
Thing is I never realised how loud my PC is until I started using the iBook for my correspondence.
Anyone want to buy an immaculate three week old 640Mb/Airport/iBook/800/12.1/DVD/CD-R in the UK?
hmmm (Score:3, Funny)
Technology heaven (Score:2)
Apart from that I make sure all buzzing, flashing beeping and vibrating work related gizmo's come equiped with a special feature I call a "power switch"
I typically use this feature when I go home from work.
Alternatively, if your boss is a penny saving monster and refuses to pay for this feature you could just forget to take all gizmo's home.
Of course you should always make it clear to your boss that all gizmo's you paid for yourself are off limits for him.
it's not about this guy's tech problems (Score:1)
This biggest difference between my ultrasparc home box and My work box is I can pull it down when I want to. Oh, and it's in my bedroom. Sigh...
Yesterday I got the server out of my bedroom, maybe the PC will be out sometime soon, but I doubt it.
Re:it's not about this guy's tech problems (Score:1)
Above all else, get the systems away from the bedroom, and away from the living room, so you can relax.
The ambient hum of 26 case fans... (Score:5, Funny)
Take a different strategy. (Score:5, Interesting)
It rings a lot and half the time I don't want to answer it. But I've got to check the Caller ID to see if I want to answer it or not. How do I ally myself with this technology? Answer: technology. A talking caller-id box, for example, would save me the trouble of rushing to a caller-id box to figure out that I do or don't want to rush to the phone. Have it announce over the whole-house intercom during waking hours if that is pleasurable. If you've had enough of the phone for the day, unplug it at the network interface box outside your house. It is amazing the peace it can buy.
WiFi is a nice way for me to have my technology when and where I want it. Instead of having to go to the computer to look something up, I can figure out the answer to a question in the living room. Or I can log onto a server from the bedroom. It has freed me from 'you must be in the office to reference the WWW or log into work'.
Probably the most useful and enabling device in the house, second to the general purpose PC, is the TiVo. I can't think of why I'd want to ban it from the bedroom. It is an enabling device that allows us to watch television on our own terms. Unless you don't believe in television in the bedroom.
Really, you have to look at your technology as devices that serve you. If they don't serve you, change them so where they do. If your company gives you a pager that you hate lugging around, swap it for a Timex pager-watch. If you can't change them, then I can see your approach of RIF'ing them.
As far as the bedroom, the only technology that I have found to be disruptive in there is the pager. But that is exact purpose of the pager, to be disruptive. So I can hardly complain about something serving its useful function.
Re:Take a different strategy. (Score:1)
I've found a great solution to be a cordless phone with caller ID. The phone is always nearby so I barely have to move to see the caller ID. That system works pretty well during the day or on weekends. If I really don't want to be bothered, like when I'm trying to sleep, I'll forward my calls to my cell phone, which I'll have turned off. If someone wants to leave a message they can, but I can review it on my own time.
In addition, the cell is always with me during the day and also has caller ID, along with a lovely Ignore button that will send callers straight to voice mail.
Finally, I use the cell for non-work-related friends and family. No one else has my cell number.
So, you are correct. You can use technology to stop the frustration of technology.
Re:Take a different strategy. (Score:2)
Technology to the rescue. Get a Nortel 9516 [telephone-depot.com] phone. (about $100 US.) Has calling line ID and integrated voice mail, but the best feature is that it supports voice tags.
Enter a number into its directory and then speak into the phone to set the tag... Then, when (for example) Joe calls, the phone will say out loud "Joe is calling." If you don't answer it, it can go a personalized voice-greeting that you recorded specifically for Joe saying "I'm at the bar desperately trying to forget the server crash... Come help me get loaded." Anyone who you haven't set a personal voice-mail message for gets the default one.
Anti-telespam bonus: You can program "Unknown Number" to go directly to a message saying "Please add me to your do-not-call list... Please add me to your do-not-call list..." and set it so they can't leave a message.
Disclaimer: I used to work for Nortel but sold all my stock when it was still worth something, so I have no further interest in promoting their products, other than the fact that this is a cool phone and I have one myself.
It is all about planning (Score:2, Interesting)
After a couple of 'emergencies' (don't get me started - one person's emergency is usually another's lack of planning) took place and I was unreachable, I was called into my boss' office. A little white lie later, and we decided that my house was in a 'dead zone' between cell towers, and since the company didn't want to buy me a new house, I was suddenly passed over when it came time to 'carry the phone/pager.'
Problem solved. I never had to deal with late night emergencies, and I never had to give more hours to my job than were nessessary. It is nice to have my evenings free for my family and myself.
Re:It is all about planning (Score:2)
I carry a cell phone -- my choice, I'm not required to -- 24/7. If something I'm responsible for is down, I want to know immediately. Pushing your responsibilities off on other people because you're too good to carry a cell/pager, and too dishonest to tell your boss that, is a sure-fire way to make sure you're first on the RIF list when cutbacks happen -- and for your co-workers' sake, I hope you are. If you don't pull your weight because you're too special to do what's expected of you, you don't deserve the job. If the job is too demanding for you, find another one -- don't push your work-load off on your co-workers. We hate people like that -- I've worked with them for years. I've had to resort to blocking caller-id, or going outside and using my cell to call people back into work, because they won't answer the phone if it comes up with a work number.
Pathetic.
Re:It is all about planning (Score:2)
Besides, if you're on-call 24/7, something is wrong. There should be three competent people to care for anything mission-critical, period. You can do it with two, which isn't so bad (2 hours on-call before and after work, perhaps). Being the only person qualified for a task is begging for disaster. Sure, it's great job security, but what if you suddenly get the urge to become a professional harmonica player? Or are hit by a bus? Or totally flip out because you missed Yet Another Movie Date because of a fucking call that was fixed by powercycling the printer (not that i'm bitter)?
Being on-call sucks, yes. But being on call for certain hours is a hell of a lot better than being on-call 24/7. 24/7 duty will kill you, or your aspirations of a social life, or at least hurt your relationships.
I know, I was the lynchpin before. It really sucked. They didn't pay me what i was worth as the Only Competent Person, and they didn't seem to care about the concept of spending money on a backup. So good-bye i went, and i haven't looked back (that was several jobs ago; i've spent the past 8 months unemployed, living off savings from my last job; not once have i wanted to go back to the on-call position).
Being the only person that can fix a problem shows very poor planning on the part of your management.
Re:It is all about planning (Score:2)
There are other people who can, and may very well, do the fixing. As the person responsible for the systems though, I have to know what's going on so I can make the necessary decisions to ensure it's done, and done correctly. That's responsibility -- it certainly doesn't mean that I'm the only one who can fix things -- on the contrary, I work hard to ensure there are other people who know how to fix anything I can. And, I trust the people who work for me (now -- my last shop was horrible) completely. I know they'll get the job done -- but that doesn't relieve me of the responsibility.
My point was that if you don't want the responsibility, don't take the job (or move on, as you said you did). Don't tell your boss lies and push your work off on your co-workers -- they hate people who pull stunts like that. And what is he going to do the day his boss comes to his house and sees his cell phone works fine?
All that said, being the single point of failure for several systems is pretty bad. I did it for four years on my ship -- I'll never let that happen again.
Re:It is all about planning (Score:2)
Then again, I guess we see other things differently. From my perspective, labor is the single most expensive line item on our budget. Why throw more money out the window paying for overtime, an extra employee to play games all night long, etc., when we can purchase a piece of equpment, and rely on redundancy to pick up the slack until things can be fixed on our primary systems the next business day?
The poster of this topic looked for solutions to his problem, and while mine might not work where he is currently employed, it might give him something to think about if he finds a different job.
Best solution I heard about was from a colleague of mine who's company pays a $5K bonus to employees (limit 4) who carry the phone/pager in rotation.
I've been working here for 5 years (67 months), and my boss has been to my house several times. Either he has never thought about that conversation since then, or his cell provider is different from what we use at work.
Re:It is all about planning (Score:2)
Good for you! I've made a few similar postings here in Slashdot, but after receiving endless replies of "Welcome to the real world, twerp" (real quote, honestly) and the such I've given up.
If people want to let themselves be on call 24/7, work long hours of unpaid overtime, and be miserable because their "social life" is shit because of it - well, that's their problem.
Stand up for your rights as an employee, don't let them f*** you over. If you feel the need to work endless hours of unpaid overtime just to keep your job,
Re:It is all about planning (Score:3)
silence (Score:1)
All high tech will be moved to a dedicated room. And the stereo will be in the living room.
Ok, not all high tech, a small hub and perhaps a WiFi link will be in the floor so I can connect a laptop of a friend or mine if something is urgent
Silly me.
And perhaps the mobile
whine, whine, whine (Score:4, Insightful)
nearly all technology shares a common feature. an off switch. learn how that works and quit whining.
what a ridiculous story.
This thread sucks... (Score:3, Insightful)
It isn't that hard to make the decision to leave a computer out of your friggin bedroom, unless you live in a dorm room, an efficiency or studio apartment, or something along those lines.
I don't understand what makes this question at all interesting.
You don't like computers in your bedroom?
Neither do we.
So we didn't put any in there.
Hope that helps.
I've taken the opposite approach. (Score:1, Interesting)
The joy's of single living, aye?
Re:I've taken the opposite approach. (Score:2)
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.
Re:It's the kind of noise that matters! (Score:1)
PC Soundproof box (Score:2, Informative)
Just Turn It Off (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes! (Score:2, Funny)
Oh...I thought you said a Sanctum FOR Technology...nevermind.
missing poll option ;-) (Score:2)
(well, i guess you could count the bathroom and kitchen as seperate rooms but you probably don't want to sleep in the tub or oven, do you?)
Not possible (Score:2)
Fix the problems or fix your problem and get a new job. If you are getting paged more than 3 times a week off hours, hire an overnight operator or technician.
The wrong direction (Score:5, Insightful)
Here are my recommendations:
- Get rid of all the technology in the room that doesn't contribute to your life. Take out the laptops, the terminals, the cellphones. (Find a place nearby your door to charge the cellphones and PDAs and whatever. Not the bedroom door, the door to the Big Blue Room.)
- Take out all the phones in the bedroom. Unless you are on-call, you don't need a phone there.
- Get good, heavy drapes for the windows. Block out light and sound for a good night's sleep. If you work a night shift, upgrade all the way to blackout curtains.
- Keep it quiet. You probably have music available all the rest of the day. Make this room different from the others.
- Change the lighting. You need a good lamp for reading, which should be directional enough that you don't disturb your bed partner. (Get a separate lamp for said partner.) Make your general light adjustable, so that you can turn it up to full illumination for cleaning, and down to a soft glow for other activities. Nothing should blink, nothing should be fluorescent. (Exception: the compact-fluorescent spiral bulbs can be bought with solar color temperatures. These make excellent reading lights with a proper shade.)
- Get more exercise. Nothing will do as much for a good night's sleep as regular exercise -- you won't need as much sleep, either. Don't exercise right before going to sleep, though -- you'll wake up sore.
- Learn what your body wants. I, for example, have a real problem if I eat within two hours of going to bed. So I don't. Maybe you need more water before sleep, maybe you need less. Experiment and find out what works.
Easy (Score:2)
Complete your work at work
Get a new job (maybe a better one???)Stop whining.....
See?? easy..Your heretical beliefs (Score:1)
Not always a choice (Score:1)
personally ... (Score:1, Interesting)
Backup. (Score:5, Interesting)
Phrase it something like this: I am the only person who understands how these systems run. I'm the only person who can fix them when this breaks. If I get hit by a bus, you're in a world of hurt. If I don't start getting more sleep, I'm going to burnout, and you're in a world of hurt. I work 70 hours a week regularly, and the backlog keeps piling up. I need someone to help me.
Then (well, after 2-3 months training the person), you can take weeks off from pager duty. There's a reason doctors have on call rotations. You should too.
One of the things that I've done is set expectations at my place of work. 90% of the time, my pager is available to them when they need me. That other 10% is well communicated in advance, and my boss knows that my pager will be on my bedstand, but I'll be in another state.
(Oh, and reguarding the person who saw 'recurring nights of database server issues' as a sign of stupidity, they might be right, they might be wrong. We've had a sun e4800 go really flakely on us recently. It took WEEKS of long nights (since the box was production, and we couldn't take it down in the day) to get the hardware on that box stable (it would work fine for 3 days or so, then flake out hard). Sun wouldn't give us a new box (with at least an understandable reason), and keep insisting on replacing individual pieces. And it certainly wasn't our doing. It turned out to be a bug deep in the IO chassie's firmware.)
Two words: (Score:4, Funny)
The best bedroom... (Score:4, Interesting)
No, don't mod this as funny. I'm serious.
The way human psychology works, you want to have a place where you do nothing else but go to sleep. Any other distractions, and you're creating a basis for insomnia. I can understand the need to save space, so perhaps add some clothes storage so you can get dressed there, but even that is a distraction. If possible, you should do that in another room. The bedroom can be just large enough for the bed, and a little stand for an alarm clock, and that's all.
Don't put a TV or stereo in the bedroom. Don't read in the bedroom. Again, you're only distracting yourself from falling asleep. I know you're using them to try to fall asleep; don't. If you want to watch TV or read, do it in another room.
Re:The best bedroom... (Score:3, Insightful)
Um, for a lot of people falling asleep isn't the problem. Waking up is. Having the lights slowly come up and the stereo come on quietly and get louder can be a lot easier on the body than having an alarm clock start blaring out a buzzer.
And on weekends, waking up and reading lazily in bed is one of life's great pleasures.
The #1 way to deal with insomnia is to get more excercise (not right before bed, but earlier that day/evening). #2 is to take a hot shower about a half hour before bedtime.
Sumner
Get a girlfriend (Score:2)
You can accomplish all of the above that way.
What? (Score:1)
Cheers, Paul
Basically empty (Score:2)
My bedroom (Score:1)
Hot sweaty sex is the thing you are lacking. (Score:4, Insightful)
If you aren't getting regular sex, that's the problem. If you are, you aren't paying enough attention to doing it right.
You'll know you are doing it right when you find yourself incapable of coherent thought for at least 15 minutes after you're done.
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
Simple stuff (Score:1)
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...).
None at all (Score:3, Insightful)
So I definitely need to separate the technology (now a laptop computer on the desk in the spare bedroom) from my bedroom.
Assumptions (Score:1)
Can't eliminate ALL the electronic stuff (Score:2)
Yeah, (Score:2)
Ok, you guys can wake up. I'm done rambling.
Re:My Future Plans: (Score:1)
If somebody (like me) don't really have any other place for hi-tech except their own room silky drapes around your bed can be a good idea: you just go for the most silent pieces of equipment that you can find and them the drapes cover up the rest of the noise.
Of course there is still the problem of work calls, but for them you (and your significant other, and people at work) just have to decide between 24/7 availability (and relative higher pay) or switch off your phone and the like.
Re:uhhh, dude... (Score:4, Interesting)
So until you work somewhere that has more than 2 servers doing file and print sharing for a daytime staff of 12, don't tell me or others they are bad admins for a server not working _multiple_nights in a row. You haven't walked a mile in their shoes. I can safely assume from your ignorant comment that you've never worked with real servers before.
Re:uhhh, dude... (Score:3, Interesting)
Take a page out of google's book. By the time you have 100s of servers, with proper redundancy it doesn't really matter if one (or several) of them is down. Google's to the point where once a week they reboot the failed machines and replace the ones that don't come back up. You might need to do it daily.
Only if there's a good _business_ reason for you to be called in/working late should you do it. "The machine is down" is not a business problem; "the site is down and we're losing customers" is. Work things out so the first doesn't imply the second and you'll get a lot more sleep.
Sumner
Re:uhhh, dude... (Score:3, Insightful)
Google's customer services are searches. Their application is relatively static and simple. (They have 1 application). Google's business is their webservers.
In other businesses there may be 100's of externally facing applications, and even more internal applications. Code is constantly changing, and there is always activity somewhere. I bet Google doesn't have 3 backup internal mail servers. However, if the mail stops working, the mail admin is getting up at 3 am to fix it.
Re:uhhh, dude... (Score:1)
sweat shops , and they are responsible
for a horrendous amount of equipment,
and files
In the never ending quest to lift that stock
price, tens of thousands of ppl have been
flushed down the toilet
I worked at Cisco systems and 8,500 of us
got canned there, some were awesome workers
I was perhaps above average, but I worked hard
With this, make more with less, mentality they
have stretched thin what was already running
at a pretty frantic clip
If you are working at some university or
government project where there is no corporate
blood thirsty pressure, then you are clueless
Until you live under the shadow of the Axe,
with unrealistic managers that are suits,
and know not shit of what you do , save
your vipers tongue for them
All to often support ppl support things like
oracle that are one endless patch process
and when it breaks enough , they release
yet another patch
So as long as there is crap code out there,
there is going to be sleepless support ppl
Don't see it going away anytime soon
Peace !
Ex-MislTech