DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

I learned something important about LCD monitors today. I’m not sure I’m happy about it.

Before I go on I’ll make the disclaimer that I’ve experimented with exactly 1 LCD monitor, the Samsung 770 TFT. My experience is not universal, and my analysis may not be correct.

LCD monitors seem to have a “native” resolution, and any other signal is simply scaled to fit. This monitor’s native resolution is (AFAICS) 1280x1024. At that resolution, letterforms are crisp and sharp. At any smaller resolution, the image is scaled up to fit into 1280x1024 pixels, making letters smeary. This is more noticable (more annoying) in some fonts; probably I could tweak my font choices for a few weeks until I’m happy. But I’m tending to leave the monitor at its highest resolution, even though this makes text (at small point sizes) too small to read comfortably.

The monitor’s built-in menu allows me to disable scaling, but then the desktop floats in the middle of the screen; all the remaining pixels (to fill 1280x1024) are dark. This isn’t exactly what anyone used to a multisync CRT will expect.

All in all it’s not the miracle solution I was expecting it to be.

Also, Samsung’s support for MacOS simply sucks. The monitor works with my Mac — both have a standard VGA connector — but the CD of calibration software is Windows only. For that, I give Samsung my special Brainwashed by Wintel salute (hint: I only need one finger).

This groove is amazing. It’s not original; I programmed it as written in John Xepoleas’ book, Lessons with the Greats, and he’d transcribed it from something Steve Gadd played.

I’ve included the MIDI version at two tempos to show how the feel of it changes with the tempo.

        1e+a2e+a | 1e+a2e+a
        --------------------
 2  RC  O O oO O |  oO OO O
 -  SD   o o  o  | O    O  
 4  KD  O   OO   |      O   

Patronize these links, man:

• Virtual Drummer loop
• MIDI (60bpm)
• MIDI (110bpm)
• MP3

We returned to the local pub tonight to see if we’d get lucky with a second good band in as many weekends. Ultimately we failed, or rather the band failed, but we saw some interesting characters nonetheless.

A tall, skinny woman was dancing with some ferocity. Fast songs or slow, loud or quiet, she was all about impact — sharp, jabbing motions that (like Bruce Lee attacks) come straight from the solar plexus.

The intensity was shocking. Later I was not surprised to see her dominate every conversation she became involved in. It seemed to fit with her dancing.

My wife remarked, “dancing shows your personality.” I had to laugh — I do not dance, at all. Draw your own conclusions here!

When I was in high school, I volunteered at a local hospital during our Senior Service project. I spent two weeks pushing metal gurneys down long carpeted hallways, and nearly electrocuting myself when I reached for the elevator button. Very quickly I understood why the wallpaper surrounding the buttons was always rubbed bare — it was not due, as I’d previously concluded, to the poor aim of spastic patients, but to the methodical rubbing by the staff to rid their bodies of latent static electrical charges. For years, I subconsciously rubbed my hand on the wall before touching an elevator button.

Today I was proofreading a scholarly paper and a mental alarm went off when I saw a paragraph begin with the word “From.” Anyone who has been online as long as I have, or who has written as many emails, may realize the cause of the alarm: email clients of yore, or perhaps email servers of yore, would prefix the word “From” with “>” at the beginning of a line, to distinguish it from the email header “From: “. Being somewhat pedantic in my insistance that software programs do not modify my emails, I learned over time to never begin a line with the word “From”.

A quick test of my current mailer indicates that it no longer adds the “>” character. But I wonder if this conditioned response will ever end. Think how much more efficient I could be if I could convert all the bits of my brain that worry about wall-rubbing near elevators and sentence-construction when the word “From” falls near the beginning of a line into productive pursuits. Maybe, for example, I’d one day finish this damn journal software.

Based on a glowing review from Joel Spolsky, I ordered a Samsung 770 TFT LCD monitor today. I’d like to say it will replace this 200lb 20'' Apple display I’ve been using since 1995, but the sad truth is it will only displace the beast by about 17 inches. I’ve needed a two-headed system for years and finally I’m going to get one.