flemmings | (no subject)

Oh such sadness. The lovely little 15" monitor I got second hand from my SIL took me back seven years to the lovely 15" monitor I wrote my best stuff on. Square, you know? Fonts to the edge of the screen and quite happy with 800x600; none of the pale pixillated crap the 17-inchers pull, flat-screen or not. I was chugging away at the current story in a haze of nostalgic creativity and hurray go me.

But it has a quirk. The first three times I tried to use it it wouldn't quite turn on. The on-off button on the front blinked and heat lightning flashed on the side, but no picture. My brother looked at it sternly and it then behaved beautifully.

The secret seems to be not to turn it off. Leave that little button alone and all is well. Alas, last night I turned it off. This morning is heat lightning and no picture. So am back on the trojanned computer's 17" flat screen that wants to be 1440x900 and sulks at 800x600 and pixillates everything to death.

What I don't get is that even the geeks who produce this stuff are getting older. Why are screen resolutions getting higher and higher? Does everyone really hunch six inches from the screen? And how do they move afterwards if they do?

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I think the main reason screen resolutions get higher and higher is because people want more "real estate", actually - most people are not paying attention to one thing at one time when they use their computers. It's just like having a bigger house to put more stuff in.

For the record, I sit about a foot away from my screen (1280x1024), with my back mostly straight, my stomach close to the edge of the desk, and my elbows flat on the desk when I type. This requires most screens to be raised on a pedestal of dictionaries (not this one, it is huge) and my office chair set very low, but I've always been comfortable this way and experience no back problems.

Even a foot away from 1280x1024 is impossible on this monitor, the fonts are so tiny. Are they truly readable? or do you bump the browser size up 140%?

Me, I think most people don't use their computers for reading. Watching wide-screen movies, maybe.