General > General Technical Chat
I despise the modern phones and internet
tooki:
--- Quote from: PlainName on December 16, 2022, 02:13:10 pm ---I wonder if the high resolution screens make things worse, in that they tempt you to look at smaller things that you should be comfortable with.
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While I understand what you mean about the risk of making things too small and then struggling to focus on them, that is far outweighed by the improved readability of text at high resolution. One shouldn’t be aiming to fit more on the screen, but to use scaling to use more (smaller) pixels to draw the same thing.
At work I now have two 28” 4K displays, with Windows configured to 150% scaling. And it’s gorgeous. Text is just plain easier to read.
--- Quote from: PlainName on December 16, 2022, 02:13:10 pm ---They sure look good, but you have to focus better.
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Our eyes always seek to optimize focus. Blurry low-resolution images cause eye strain precisely because our eyes are working hard attempting to find focus that cannot be found because the image itself is blurry.
A sharp image (or sharp text) has high contrast and thus makes focusing easier, reducing eye strain.
Low light reduces contrast, which is why reading with insufficient light is tiring. (To the point that there are workplace regulations regarding minimum light levels.) Wildly excessive light is also tiring, but this is rarely a problem, since indoor lighting tends to be insufficient, not excessive.
--- Quote from: PlainName on December 16, 2022, 02:13:10 pm ---A book tends to be lower resolution (even though it's printed at 600dpi or whatever, the text is low-res)
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This is the diametrical opposite of how it is. Maybe you’re using “low-res” to mean something other than what it actually means.
(Talking about traditional offset lithography printing and direct digital press.)
Books are printed at very high resolutions: either 1270dpi or 2450dpi. Especially on good, smooth paper, text is exceedingly sharp. And because of how offset printing works, any microscopic jaggies that theoretically could be present get smoothed out by the time the ink is transferred to the paper.
Laser and inkjet, which are sometimes used for small-scale book printing (especially on-demand), while varying substantially in sharpness, are never quite as good as offset or digital presses — for text. (For photos, inkjet beats every other surviving technology that prints using ink or toner onto paper. Only silver halide is really superior, and dye-sub is no longer made in larger print sizes. But I digress.)
--- Quote from: PlainName on December 16, 2022, 02:13:10 pm --- whereas a computer screen has many tiny things to attract your eye.
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Are you referring to pixels, subpixels, or GUI widgets?
Siwastaja:
--- Quote from: james_s on December 14, 2022, 08:15:17 pm ---But that's mostly because the vast majority of the population prefers to operate this way. I don't want to walk into my bank and talk to a teller, I want to pull out my smartphone, open my banking app and manage my money that way.
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True, but you have to separate the two cases:
(1) helpful digitalization,
(2) harmful digitalization.
Former is done to reduce the mental or concrete load of tasks. Latter is to increase it, by either making existing things more difficult, or introducing completely new tasks. Highly confusing, because on surface, it can be hard to say whichever it is!
For example, filling in tax forms online is obviously helpful, compared to filling in paper forms, especially when you also have the paper form option available. On the other hand, having to install an app on your phone so you can go to LIDL and then instead of simply paying, you are now playing with your phone, wasting everybody's time, just to get a reduction in the price increase that was associated with the introduction of said bullshit app. It was total 180 deg, before that LIDL was actually proud of their concept of having no such bullshit, but selling to everyone for decent price.
The day they introduced it, the public reaction was almost 100% rejection, everybody hated it. They realized it and had to make long and cringeworthy TV ad series where they made fun of the situation, basically their argument was "we know you hate it, but it's not too bad, and you don't have to use it if you don't want, just pay more for your shit, PS. **** you".
But such public rejection was never seen with online banking. Everyone was so relieved they save a lot of time and effort.
PlainName:
--- Quote ---
--- Quote from: PlainName ---A book tends to be lower resolution (even though it's printed at 600dpi or whatever, the text is low-res)
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This is the diametrical opposite of how it is. Maybe you’re using “low-res” to mean something other than what it actually means.
--- End quote ---
Yes, couldn't think how to describe it better. Text tends to lack tiny detail, so although it's high DPI it's could also be much lower and still be readable. And, in fact, we can even read it when we can't really see it perfectly enough to distinguish the letters.
--- Quote ---
--- Quote --- They sure look good, but you have to focus better.
--- End quote ---
Our eyes always seek to optimize focus. Blurry low-resolution images cause eye strain precisely because our eyes are working hard attempting to find focus that cannot be found because the image itself is blurry.
--- End quote ---
Yes, that's part of my problem. I have long focus, so something close than arm's length needs glasses. I can normally manage a phone screen by deliberately not focusing, but sometimes I relax and my eyes try to focus on something that's too close, so I get eye strain and the next day it's all headache. So a high DPI screen looks great but that greatness encourages focusing on the tiny detail you really don't want to.
--- Quote ---
--- Quote ---whereas a computer screen has many tiny things to attract your eye.
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Are you referring to pixels, subpixels, or GUI widgets?
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Er, by GUI widgets do you mean anything that isn't text? The window furniture, single-pixel wide lines, etc. That kind of thing which you don't find in books.
AndyBeez:
Well here's a real world example of why the internet is becoming sh** : A delivery supply company of ours is ceasing their tried and tested mobile text and email tracking notifications in favour of push notifications on WhatsApp. So no more texts and no more emails. Instead we need to load WhatsApp on compatible devices and then join their WhatsApp group to receive information about our deliveries. For compatible devices read not a PC, not a laptop, not older mobile that can receive text messages, and certainly no other device on the network that's been popping emails since 1992. Their rationale is customers only ever use WhatsApp on iPhones these days. :-//
Did you know WhatsApp was a messaging service conceived to be ad free? And that now, owned by Zuckernerd's Meta [data for sale] company, it has replaced Facebook Messenger? Which is why WhatsApp is now the most prolific push advertising platform on the web? So why the change from our soon to be ex-delivery supplier? That old excuse; the IT supplier is, "doing an upgrade." They are, we're not.
james_s:
--- Quote from: AndyBeez on December 16, 2022, 08:32:35 pm ---Well here's a real world example of why the internet is becoming sh** : A delivery supply company of ours is ceasing their tried and tested mobile text and email tracking notifications in favour of push notifications on WhatsApp. So no more texts and no more emails. Instead we need to load WhatsApp on compatible devices and then join their WhatsApp group to receive information about our deliveries. For compatible devices read not a PC, not a laptop, not older mobile that can receive text messages, and certainly no other device on the network that's been popping emails since 1992. Their rationale is customers only ever use WhatsApp on iPhones these days. :-//
Did you know WhatsApp was a messaging service conceived to be ad free? And that now, owned by Zuckernerd's Meta [data for sale] company, it has replaced Facebook Messenger? Which is why WhatsApp is now the most prolific push advertising platform on the web? So why the change from our soon to be ex-delivery supplier? That old excuse; the IT supplier is, "doing an upgrade." They are, we're not.
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That really is ridiculous. I've never used WhatsApp and don't intend to start now. SMS is universal, all mobile phones support it.
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