[PLUG] Runt monitors

[Keith Lofstrom]

> On Sun, May 24, 2009 at 10:46 PM, Keith Lofstrom <keithl at kl-ic.com> wrote:
> > The math is harder to
> > do for 16:9 ratio, but an honest 20 inch diagonal 16:9 is 17.432
> > inches wide ( 8.9% wider ) and 9.805 inches tall (18.3% shorter).
 
On Mon, May 25, 2009 at 10:12:00AM -0700, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
> Since when is the Pythagorean Theorem (or the law of sines or cosines,
> for that matter) more difficult to solve for rectangles with different
> aspect ratios? :)

I can compute the square root of 3*3+4*4=25 in my head.  9*9+16*16=337,
not so much.  It is precisely this difficulty that causes average people
buying widescreen monitors to think they are getting more square inches
of pixels, when in fact they are getting fewer.  The math is too hard
for the average person (that is, the person who makes stuff for, and
feeds, us L33T H4XORs) to have a gut feel for.  

Perhaps if we explain it to them properly, our fellow citizens will
lynch some LCD monitor marketing scum, and the chastened companies
will start making non-Runt monitors again.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs