[PLUG] Runt monitors

[Michael M. Moore]

On Sun, 2009-05-24 at 22:46 -0700, Keith Lofstrom wrote:
> 
> Monitors are measured by the diagonal dimension.  a 4:3 20inch
> monitor is 16 inches wide and 12 inches high - more or less,
> usually less.  For those of us using web browsers and text
> editors and similar tools, we are usually looking at portrait
> format pages, taller than wide.  So an 8.5 x 11 image, displayed
> on a 21 inch monitor, only fills half the screen.  Panels and 
> status bars, running horizontally (and why the heck is that,
> anyway???), cut down the size of displayed pages even more.

I think it is because most panels and status bars display words, and
words are most easily read horizontally (well, in many languages,
anyway).  Vertical bars either have to be thick enough to contain at
least short words without clipping them, or contain no words at all,
which limits their usefulness.  At least with a widescreen monitor (not
that I'm endorsing them), you can set a fairly thick vertical panel
without losing more of your already compromised horizontal space.

What we really need are flexible monitors that can be resized like a
window on the monitor.  Push in on one side and increase the vertical
while decreasing the horizontal; push down on the top and do the
reverse.  Or better yet, resize the monitor with the keyboard or mouse.
Or at the least, seamless foldable monitors with panels that can be used
to change the aspect ratio.

Our grandchildren are going to wonder how we ever survived with such
clunky, inflexible technology.  "What, you lived in houses without video
walls?  You had to buy a special devices to watch a movie?"

-- 
Michael M.