It's all about the size
Jan. 21st, 2008 11:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceOne thing about working (well, sort-of working) with a 12" screen, it gives you back a certain sense of scale.
See, when I moved into the wonderful world of PC-ownership, mid-eighties, my first monitor was a 12" - and at that time it was the larger of the two standards available. Monochrome, of course: green text on black (there was a rarer and sexier amber-on-black, but that was only available on the 10" model). Since then, of course, monitors have inched up in size at every change of computer; I've been through 14", 15" and 17", my current model is 19" and I have been thinking how small it is.
Now I have the laptop on the desk here, and I've been looking from one to the other - and, uh, no. 19" is not small. It suddenly looks enormous again.
Which does not of course stop me pining for something Even Bigger (Drew from whom I bought the laptop speaks of working on a 30" screen...), but at least I am reminded that that is just greed.
In other news, it's raining. Again. And I am seriously thinking about breaking out the umbrella. Not for my own sake, I regard the object with a weary contempt - but for the sake of keeping the laptop dry, it might be worth it. I had planned to spend pretty much the whole day in town, working and reading. Even to the point of having lunch, in town, by myself. Which is something I never do, unless I grab something cold and take it back to the Lit & Phil. I love eating out, but it's Really Really Hard on my own. Not quite sure why, given that I have no trouble drinking on my own, but walking into a restaurant is just so much harder than a pub. And in my own city, where my own house is twenty minutes' walk away - well, I just never do eat out except with other people. It never crosses my mind.
Of course, these days one can eat in pubs. Which is a sort of halfway house, I s'pose. Only I have a half-price sushi voucher, and it would be a shame not to use it.
But. Rain. Miserable bewetting. Being cold and damp all day, and either worrying about the laptop or faffing with the umbrella... It's not appealing.
Except that I'm getting nothing done at home - behold, I am writing long and excursive LJ-entries instead, which is always a giveaway - and if this keeps up much longer I'll just do what I did yesterday, which is drive myself frantic with my own inactivity.
ETA: there is now snow in the rain. I don't want to go out in that. *sobs*
See, when I moved into the wonderful world of PC-ownership, mid-eighties, my first monitor was a 12" - and at that time it was the larger of the two standards available. Monochrome, of course: green text on black (there was a rarer and sexier amber-on-black, but that was only available on the 10" model). Since then, of course, monitors have inched up in size at every change of computer; I've been through 14", 15" and 17", my current model is 19" and I have been thinking how small it is.
Now I have the laptop on the desk here, and I've been looking from one to the other - and, uh, no. 19" is not small. It suddenly looks enormous again.
Which does not of course stop me pining for something Even Bigger (Drew from whom I bought the laptop speaks of working on a 30" screen...), but at least I am reminded that that is just greed.
In other news, it's raining. Again. And I am seriously thinking about breaking out the umbrella. Not for my own sake, I regard the object with a weary contempt - but for the sake of keeping the laptop dry, it might be worth it. I had planned to spend pretty much the whole day in town, working and reading. Even to the point of having lunch, in town, by myself. Which is something I never do, unless I grab something cold and take it back to the Lit & Phil. I love eating out, but it's Really Really Hard on my own. Not quite sure why, given that I have no trouble drinking on my own, but walking into a restaurant is just so much harder than a pub. And in my own city, where my own house is twenty minutes' walk away - well, I just never do eat out except with other people. It never crosses my mind.
Of course, these days one can eat in pubs. Which is a sort of halfway house, I s'pose. Only I have a half-price sushi voucher, and it would be a shame not to use it.
But. Rain. Miserable bewetting. Being cold and damp all day, and either worrying about the laptop or faffing with the umbrella... It's not appealing.
Except that I'm getting nothing done at home - behold, I am writing long and excursive LJ-entries instead, which is always a giveaway - and if this keeps up much longer I'll just do what I did yesterday, which is drive myself frantic with my own inactivity.
ETA: there is now snow in the rain. I don't want to go out in that. *sobs*
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-21 11:07 am (UTC)Here in Durham the sleet is turning into damp snow.
And if you check the times of the postings, you may see that I have written this before your original posting.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-21 11:09 am (UTC)And ain't time clever? You must be mysteriously ahead of us, being so far south-and-all.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-21 11:35 am (UTC)Now back to completing the tax return as Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs do not have elastic time limits...
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-21 12:42 pm (UTC)Simon M
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-21 12:54 pm (UTC)PS
Date: 2008-01-21 12:55 pm (UTC)Re: PS
Date: 2008-01-21 02:46 pm (UTC)And that damn bear can keep his paws off my whisky.
Re: PS
Date: 2008-01-21 03:00 pm (UTC)Do you always buy new jars for your jams & such? And if so, whence?
Re: PS
Date: 2008-01-21 04:00 pm (UTC)You can buy them also - Lakeland do them in small loads (otherwise you end up - like a container-load of chili or truck of cumin - with multiples of 100 jars).
Re: PS
Date: 2008-01-21 04:11 pm (UTC)Re: PS
Date: 2008-01-22 08:39 pm (UTC)Which reminds me, must check how the Sloe Grappa is getting on.
Screen sizes ...
Date: 2008-01-21 11:25 am (UTC)Virtual desktops are good, but I haven't seen one that works like the tiny screens on some smartphones, where you can zoom out to see a big desktop and then zoom in on an area to work with particular windows ... it seems so obvious, that way you could put email and word documents in one part of the desk, web stuff in another, database in a third, compilers and editors in a fourth etc. and then when you wanted to drag stuff from one to the other you'd start zoomed in on, say, email, click on the picture you want to put on the webpage, zoom out and then drag and drop onto the web editor and then zoom in to continue working on it. So much better than the multi-desktop systems I've seen where you can only see one at a time. And not requiring a second or third monitor on your desk (I have a second 19" monitor waiting for me to upgrade the graphics card in the PC to drive both of them!)
Re: Screen sizes ...
Date: 2008-01-21 03:02 pm (UTC)Oh - is that a standard difference between LCD and CRT monitors, or was it just that you had a better-quality CRT?
Standard difference ....
Date: 2008-01-21 03:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-21 01:55 pm (UTC)Some of us have endured the immense puddle that is the centre of fair Newcastle whenever it rains, so that you don't have to. The sleet makes the puddles very cold.
Ah, a green on black monitor. Cue Mary Hopkin.
A prize for identifying the almost quote.