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Computers/Keyboards + Dorm Room = No Zzzzzz? 217

Posted by Cliff from the solutions-for-light-somnambulists dept.
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?
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Computers/Keyboards + Dorm Room = No Zzzzzz? More

Computers/Keyboards + Dorm Room = No Zzzzzz?

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  • Buy things! (Score:5, Informative)

    by FrenZon ( 65408 ) * on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @12:22AM (#8245524) Homepage
    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.

    • Rearrange the Room (Score:2, Interesting)

      by ajax0187 ( 615355 )
      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.
    • Silent keyboards are easy to find; those roll-up ones would be a good choice and you can stow it away for daytime keyboarding with your favorite clicky keyboard.

      For the mouse, I suggest using a touch pad. Some come with mappable areas that you could configure as the right mouse button. Left-clicking/tapping should be completely silent. Sure, a touchpad is no good for FPS games, but you should be keeping your roommate awake while you play games either!

      I don't have any sympathy for the light problem. When I

      • Re:Buy things! (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Benw5483 ( 731259 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @04:47PM (#8252702) Homepage
        I ran into this problem somewhat as a freshman. But, it was normally me who was the one up late at night tapping away on the old keyboard. My roommate confronted me and I decided to try and cut back on the computer usage. It turned out to be good for me because I found that my late night browsing habits were counterproductive and were excessive. I cut back on it and used the computer more efficiently when I needed to work.

        After that problem was worked out we both realized that the 2billion watt street lamp outside our window was just as bad as the clacking of keyboards.

        This problem was remedied when my roommate and I and some friends were playing some football on the green and I absent-midedly grabbed ahold of the lamp post and swung around it. Instantly the lamp post swung towards the ground and I could do nothing but slow it as my leverage wasn't enough to hold it up. We all sprinted to our dormitory and holed up for the evening. For the rest of the quarter there was an orange cone over the lamp post's old position and we could sleep easily without the hindrance of a real bother.

        Bottom line, you'll both be more productive if you do what you need on the computer during the day and stay away from too much pointless browsing at night. For me it was video game sites and random humor sites. For my roommate it was Snood. You can identify these things and get rid of them without the need to purchase quieter peripherals.

        A long story for a short answer, but that's what I have to say....
        • --A good insight, cut down on computer usage if possible during the night.

          --However, if that doesn't work here are some suggestions:

          o White noise generator
          o Padded eye covering for the sleeper (like a "horse blinder")
          o LCD monitor
          o Headphones
          o Move the computer as far away from the bed as possible

  • one obvious solution (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dh003i ( 203189 ) <dh003i@gmail. c o m> on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @12:22AM (#8245529) Homepage Journal
    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.

    • Re:one obvious solution (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @12:41AM (#8245678)
      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.

      • Colleges are so obsessed with getting students to take 15 credits a semester and up that it gets scary.

        Take 12 or less credits per semester. It may take you an extra semester to finish, but you will be much less stressed and will likely do better in the courses you take.

        Being able to get sleep while in college is a great thing; you think much more clearly when well rested.

        Don't give in to the "take 15" propoganda; my friends who took 15 were always exhausted and inundated; I took an extra semester and a

    • Re:one obvious solution (Score:3, Insightful)

      by theIG ( 647290 )
      i think your solution conflicts with your signature... anyway

      As an undergrad software engineering major, I find it very difficult to keep a regular sleep schedule. If I'm not doing homework, then I'm obsessed with my latest project, and the latter is amplified to the extreme, because it is rare that I don't have homework. Try and remember what it is like to be in our situation. You were 19 once too. ;) -kyle

  • I was lucky... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by OgdEnigmaX ( 535667 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @12:23AM (#8245533)
    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 :)

    • Re: I was lucky... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      A standard question on my university residence application asked how late I tended to stay awake. That was one of the major considerations for pairing roommates/suitemates (some others were smoking, noise level, cleanliness, and how often you had guests).

      But I bypassed the whole thing by rooming with someone I already knew in first year, and getting a single room every year after that.

  • Get earplugs. (Score:5, Funny)

    by n1ywb ( 555767 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @12:24AM (#8245539) Homepage Journal
    Real geeks are lulled to sleep by the gentle sound of mouse and key clicks!

    • Re:Get earplugs. (Score:5, Informative)

      by zhiwenchong ( 155773 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @01:06AM (#8245892)
      3M makes some good reusable ear plugs [3m.com] that can cut up to 12.5 dB (halving the NRR value gives you a better picture of the actual possible attenuation). Only costs $1.38.

      However, earplugs only cut out the noise that enters through the ear canal. Sound can still conduct through your cranium, and besides, you will hear the sound of your own breathing.

      The better (but more expensive method) is to get ACTIVE noise cancelling headphones (not PASSIVE ones). These guys basically send out an antiphase signal of the ambient noise, effectively cancelling the noise out (well, not perfectly, but...). Sony sells good ones [zawodny.com] for $149. Or build your own [powerpill.org].
      • That's a TERRIBLE recommendation. Active noise cancellation raises the sound floor in order to cancel sound. This may be fine while you're awake, but it's the type of thing that can give you headaches, especially if one ear (of the headphones) becomes slightly skewed, and you end up getting the wrong signals. (Which will probably happen if you shift around at all during sleep). In addition, the cost of running those things 8 hours a day (night) gets to be ridiculous

        • Re:Do NOT get Active noise cancellation! (Score:4, Insightful)

          by ajagci ( 737734 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @05:10AM (#8246907)
          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.
      • Active noise cancellation works for hums and drones (steady low frequency noise), not clicks. So, it's useless for this purpose.
    • This is no joke: they really work. When I travel with my colleagues, we share rooms to save money (saving money = bigger bonus). Snoring is a big issue though.

      Earplugs and benadryl are nopw part of the standard issue travel kit.

      You can get compressable foam earplugs rated at 20-30 dB. I used mine last night and slept like a baby, even though my roommate is the worst snorer I've ever heard. I buy a big package and generally use them for 1 - 2 nights for hygeine reasons.

  • 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...
    • Put your moniter on top of your tower, stuff you keyboard and mouse into your pocket, unplug the ethernet cable, unplug the power strip. Move everything to the common area in one brisk carry, using a slab of wood if necessary.

      The effect is twofold. One, you are typing away in the common area where your roommate's sleep cycle is safe. Two, you get better about doing your papers in the daytime, so that you don't have to lug your machine about.

      • You either have very large pockets, and consequently very large pants .... or very small keyboards, and consequently very tiny hands.

        • large pockets, regular size pants. cargo pants are your friend.

          i've carried 4 xbox controllers (the good big ones, not those tiny "controller s" things), 2 power cords, 4 ethernet cords, a netgear router, a netgear switch, and the rf modulator in my pockets. i had the game wallet clipped to a belt loop and more games in my coat pockets. this left my hands free to carry my xbox and laptop.
    • I remember back in high school I was finishing up a paper around 4AM. My roommate was up working on homework too, so I didn't think anything about pringing my paper out on my old impact printer.

      A few minutes later ther was a knock on the door. Turns out I had woken up the guys on either side of me plus both of the people in the room above. This through remarkably well insulated walls for a dormitory.

  • Get a fan. (Score:5, Informative)

    by glassesmonkey ( 684291 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @12:27AM (#8245561) Homepage Journal
    Turn on one box fan, basically some white noise, and all your bitching about clicks and keypresses goes away.

    • Re:Get a fan. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by clark625 ( 308380 )
      I have to completely agree with this. A fan is by far the best way to get a good night's sleep through about anything, especially once you train yourself to sleep with it. I have two cats that run around the bedroom (with hardwood floors) all night playing or otherwise rattling about. Installing a ceiling fan was the best thing I ever did, although a simple box fan worked okay, too.
    • I concur. Get a cheapo model in the $20 price range. It should be nice enough that the blades won't wobble (the sound will be constant) but still cheap enough that it'll make a nice moderately loud sound.

      I bought one initially for air circulation, then quickly realized how useful it was at drowning out other annoying little (and not-so-little) sounds.

    • Re:Get a fan. (Score:5, Funny)

      by adamjaskie ( 310474 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @12:54AM (#8245795) Homepage
      cat /dev/urandom > /dev/dsp

      also works...

    • I can vouch for this. It drives me nuts not having a fan on. I need the white noise to sleep, when there is *any* other noise happening in or perceivable from the same room.
  • Work Around:

    Play some music. Not too loud. Something with a steady beat. Knocks you right out. Some Oakenfold does it for me ;-)

  • I remember.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by FreshMeat-BWG ( 541411 ) <bengoodwyn AT me DOT com> on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @12:27AM (#8245566) Homepage
    Quake I. 3:00 AM. No sleep. I feel your pain. If it makes you feel any better, my old roommate and I are still friends after several years.

    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.

  • Manners? Common sense? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by agent dero ( 680753 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @12:27AM (#8245568) Homepage
    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.

    • "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."

      Just because someone is trying to do work late at night does not mean they have to do it late at night. It may be the case that someone prefers to do work late at night, just like some people prefer to do work during the day. Let's suppose that Person_A likes to do work in the afternoon and Per

      • 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 socie
      • Oftentimes people don't pick their study and work habits - it's just who they are

        What the...?

        Are you suggesting that study HABITS are genetically controlled? If you are one of the 3 people on this planet who knew how to study without being taught, then perhaps you cannot possible modify your HABITS in which case I feel very, very sorry for you and the life you are forced to lead.

        If, however, you realize that study HABITS are things that are formed and are modifyable, then you will likewise
    • 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.

      Third, don't live with such a pompus ass that they get a roommate, yet are unable to cope with any signs of someone else actually living there. (You better not make any noise other than when I say it's okay...I don't care if you have 5 final projects due.)

      Maybe you go/went to college for und

  • Why not? (Score:3, Funny)

    by thelenm ( 213782 ) <mthelen.gmail@com> on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @12:37AM (#8245645) Homepage Journal
    What's wrong with earplugs and eye shades?
  • screen brightness: lcd displays. they're great, especially on my laptops, where they can be turned down quite a bit- to where they don't cause that halo effect. plus, your battery life goes up!
    keyboards: go visit your local compusa/ fry's/ best buy and start clicking, but look for a laptop kb in a usb package. (this dell i'm on right now would wake the dead, i realize upon listening to it for a moment.) i just bought my dad (when i was in singapore last month, so i have no idea where to start looking here)
    • i would suggest optical, but every damn optical mouse seems to glow like las vegas.

      I have one of the Logitech wireless opticals, and it's surprisingly tasteful... there is a slight glow, but it's faint enough that you can barely see it even with all the lights off in the room.

      I did see a particularly tacky mouse by one of the cut-price peripheral makers recently though... it had a red glowing scroll wheel.

  • easy (Score:3, Funny)

    by dont_think_twice ( 731805 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @12:42AM (#8245688) Homepage
    If you turn the music up loud enough, your sleeping roomate wont be able to hear the mouse or keyboard at all.
  • Assuming it's an option - I'm not sure how US colleges operate - then you should move out. If relatively insignificant noises like keyboard and mouse clicks are bothering you, then you'll be in huge trouble when the really noisily annoying stuff like music, TV, games and sex ramps up.
  • read an important email, or whatever else, the clicking of the mouse and typing at the keyboard can drive the other up the wall.

    How loud can one handed browsing be?

    --
    Sigs aren't just for memos anymore!

  • be glad he/she's not using voice recognition (Score:3, Funny)

    by rcpitt ( 711863 ) * on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @12:45AM (#8245706) Homepage Journal
    On the other hand, if she is, you can always yell out in your sleep "format c: yes"

    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.

  • My experience... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by starsong ( 624646 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @12:48AM (#8245744)
    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.
    • While it's true that most late-and-all-nighters are a result of procrastination, I don't think it's fair to assume that this is always the case.

      When I was in college, there were a few times where my workload got so large that I found myself working 'till 4AM and getting 4 hours of sleep a night for weeks straight. (Granted, I had an office in the CS hall that year, so instead of keeping my roommate up at night I just went days at a time without seeing him.)

      I've also seen several professors hand a studen

    • Re:My experience... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by megabeck42 ( 45659 )
      I had a similar situation. My freshman year roommate and I were entirely dissimilar. I am your average geek. He was a 212 pound, born again christian, wrestling champ. He didn't drink, I did. He listened to christian rock, I listened to Wumpscut and other caustic german industrial. We both had obnoxiously massive stereos and large loud computers.

      However, we arranged for some simple rules: no alcohol in the room, no sex in the room, and use headphones while both of us are in the room.

      It worked out well, I

  • Room with a geek (Score:2, Insightful)

    by joeface ( 182928 )
    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.

  • Some advice / tips (Score:5, Informative)

    by Undefined Parameter ( 726857 ) <.moc.oohay. .ta. .modeerf4leuf.> on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @12:49AM (#8245758)
    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
    • But if they did all this though they would not have anything to bitch about.

      I am curious as to why you took this as a real post anyway. Anyone that cannot figure out how to solve this problem on their own is not in college. If sufficiently motivated individuals cannot find the solution to such a trivial problem then the problem does not exist.

  • Rearrange the room a bit (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Bastian ( 66383 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @01:04AM (#8245884)
    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.

  • Suggestion: A quieter keyboard will help (Score:5, Funny)

    by flikx ( 191915 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @01:12AM (#8245926) Homepage Journal

    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.

    • I was anticipating the humor of your post, and then you blew the punchline. Here, let me help:

      Scour the university surplus for an old IBM Model M keyboard, and whack you roommate with it next time they type while you're trying to sleep! Those things weight a ton. Your roommate will be out cold.
  • You stuck in a nerd dorm where clicking keys is the most noise you have to deal with? In two dorms and a couple of apartments I was in during college, you had a choice: learn to deal with the noise and sleep through it, or get drunk and pass out along with all those people making the noise.

  • 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
  • Having a roommate clickity-click on the keyboard - Mildy annoying.

    Having a roommate who is a liar and a scumbag with no moral compass - Truly annoying.

    Tim

  • My solution (Score:2, Funny)

    by Cuthalion ( 65550 )
    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.

  • Laptop (Score:5, Funny)

    by falsification ( 644190 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @03:05AM (#8246538) Journal
    Get a laptop and do your late night typing outside the room.

    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.

  • Get a laptop... (Score:3, Informative)

    by antdude ( 79039 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @03:11AM (#8246554) Homepage Journal
    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.

  • Become a labbie.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by molo ( 94384 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @03:30AM (#8246624) Journal
    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

    • Re:Become a labbie.. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Cyberop5 ( 520141 ) *
      Amen. No better way to compile gentoo than to stay awake all night in a computer lab. Virtually endless resources: machines, network, space (physical and data storage), printers, and peace.

      Just make sure you know when the building is locked.
  • Get a rolly keyboard.
    http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/keyboard s /5a7f/ [thinkgeek.com]

    Use a tablet or touch-pad.
    http://store.yahoo.com/directron/tables.html [yahoo.com]

    ...or go expensive [thinkgeek.com]?

    --Robert

  • adjust. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ziggles ( 246540 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @03:58AM (#8246690) Homepage
    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.
  • For traveling, and keeping odd hours, I have an Eagle Creek eye mask. I also found some earplugs that work amazingly well, though you may have to shop around for some that work well and fit comfortably; try a mall travel store. The foam ear plugs that you compress and they expand in your ear are just junk.

    Total cost is less than $15.

  • Build a loft (Score:4, Informative)

    by toast0 ( 63707 ) <slashdotinducedspam@enslaves.us> on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @04:36AM (#8246808)
    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.
  • I was in NROTC, so I WAS driven up the wall by my roommate's keyboard and mouse clicks on a regular basis, because I had to wake up at 5:30am every morning, and my roommate didn't have class until 10am or so.

    Anyways, the best way around this is to have your roommate evacuate the room for the hour around your bedtime. You go to bed and say "Shoot, it's time for bed."

    Your roomate should reply: "Okay, I'll go take my math book and work problems for an hour".

    It's only critical that you have silence in the

  • laptop (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ajagci ( 737734 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @05:16AM (#8246933)
    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.
  • I learned to sleep through anything in college.

    As the type of person that likes to go to bed at 9 or 10 and get a full 8 hours of sleep, I had some roommates with vastly different sleep schedules.

    During my freshman year, my roommate (also a computer geek) stayed up until at least 2 every morning, often playing computer games. Often he would invite a friend over to use my computer and he'd have somebody else on speakerphone from across campus while they played together. The game of the day was "Command

  • Call yourselves students? (Score:3, Funny)

    by vrai ( 521708 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @07:26AM (#8247254)
    Real students don't sleep and wake! They pass out and come to. If you can't sleep through the noise of a few mouse-clicks then you're not nearly drunk enough.

    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!

    • Actually some of my fondest memories of college do involve spending 48 hours coding on a big project. Or those nights you and a bunch of friends are hanging out in the lab getting work done and having a good time joking around, running out to 7-11 for slurpies and chicken kebobs at 4 am.

      Not everyone feels getting plastered and passing out is a "good time". I did my share of partying too but I didn't spend all my time talking on the porcelain telephone or waking up asking "Dude, what happened last night".

  • I find the problem with a real quiet sleeping environment is that very slight noises, anything abnormal will wake me up.

    For several years I've used a noise generator or sound conditioner [marpac.com].

    Go to one of those kitchen/bath stores or sections in a department store. They have noise generators that mimic the sounds of running water, rain, surf, white noise, etc.

    By playing a level of background noise, the annoying signal of your roommate's typing will be submerged and you can get some rest.

  • You little boys and girls shouldn't be up that anyway. You have to go to bed early so you can be up at dawn for a new dayy of work work work and learn learn learn.

    Earmuffs? Eye shades? Try curfews, or cutting the Internet and power connections at, say, 8 PM.

  • Those nice little rubber keys are pretty nice on your fingers too...
  • These are real solutions my computer friends and I did when living in a dorm room together.

    1) Stay up later. I'd often force myself to sleep whent he sun came up. Everyone is alseep then. (My 1st class was at 2:00pm, but my last class was at 8:00pm)

    2) Drink more. Alchol is a depressent. It'll make you tired and you won't care about the clicks. It's really depressing that I have to tell a college student to drink more though.

    3) The clicks are binary. They are telling you to party harder. You aren't tired

  • No problem (Score:5, Funny)

    by splattertrousers ( 35245 ) on Wednesday February 11, 2004 @11:44AM (#8249172) Homepage
    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...
  • I have found that I can't sleep without some ambient noise in the background...be it my 5 servers, typing, traffic, people talking....I have grown accustomed to noise. I find that when I go home (we live in a rural area), I have trouble sleeping just because there aren't people doing various loud things nearby.
  • ...how annoying mouse clicks and keystrokes could be to someone who is trying to sleep.

    Why, when I was in college, we were woken up by a friend using my PC (one of two on the whole floor) to print his paper on my daisy wheel printer. Sounded like a 50cal machine gun going off at 4am in a quiet dorm room. After that we started hiding the printer cable at night.

  • I remember back in my College days I stayed in the Dorm room with Union Pacific railroad tracks 100 feet away blowing their horns loudly at 1am, and a bunch of roommates that liked partying in large numbers upstairs. It's a wonder I got any sleep at all...

    Nowadays I've moved to a location about a mile from the airport, and despite the occasional roar of a jet taking off nearby me, I sleep like like the dead :-)

    Keyboard clicking....BAH!!!!
  • You know the solution, it just appears that you don't like it.

    You need to go with good solid ear plugs and eye shades. I highly recommend both of them.

    My wife and I run on different schedules at times. To keep us from destroying one another's sleep, we go with ear plugs and, when required, eye shades.

    Yours,

    Jordan
  • Hello computer. How are we today?

    Seriously though, foam earplugs are a very handy item, unless you want to buy your roomie a laptop, in which case I'ld like to move in as well.

  • Get a Roll up keyboard [thinkgeek.com] (no clicking), and a touchpad mouse [thinkgeek.com] (or one like on a laptop).

    No sounds at all.

  • EARPLUGS (Score:3, Funny)

    by sir_cello ( 634395 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @04:12AM (#8256265)

    Did you hear me ?

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