experiment: LCD monitor

Dang. That was quick.

This afternoon I asked if I could borrow one of the LCD monitors from a test lab for a few days. I have the impression that they're easier on the eyes, which bears investigation, but since I seem to have so many stupid finicky vision issues with monitors, I want to use one for an extended period before deciding anything.

That experiment lasted about 30 minutes, as it turned out. :-( I could not find any combination of settings that wasn't harsh, and the fonts were fuzzy besides. It looked like the fonts got better if I increased the resolution (to 1280x1024) and switched the OS to "large fonts", but I would have also had to make changes in every application, so I didn't go down that path too far. And things were still fuzzy even with those settings.

It's possible that my current machine and/or graphics card is just too old for this kind of monitor; I don't know. I believe this machine is about three years old. (The video card is an NVida Riva TNT2, according to the device manager.)

On the CRT monitor, I have maximum contrast (100) and low brightness (20). It makes some colors a little wonky (photos usually don't look good), but this is my work machine and I'm not doing graphic design. At home, where the lighting properties are a bit different, the settings are both closer to the midpoint. That might be due to lighting diffferences or different monitors (I have a 19" flat-panel CRT at home) or something about the machines; I don't know how to evaluate that without shlepping equipment. So it's possible that an LCD monitor at home would actually work out just fine even though it didn't at work, but if I try it I should buy one locally from a place that takes returns. (Returns with mail-order are way too much of a PITA.)

I guess I was hoping for a more conclusive answer, preferably in the positive direction. Oh well.

weekend

We had an infusion of gamers Saturday. It was a fun day. We had some people who could come early but couldn't stay, and others who could come late, and some who could come for the whole day, so we did some juggling to make it work out. We ended up playing Settlers of Katan in the afternoon and then switching over to two longer games, with dinner in there somewhere. Dani really wanted to play Republic of Rome (and I didn't -- but we had eight people anyway), so four of them played RoR and the rest of us played McMulty. RoR is a longer game, so our group ended up with a fair bit of socializing before the other group finished and joined us. Long day, but fun. (It's just as well that we bailed on the group brunch the next day, though, even though that would have been fun.)

Sunday evening we had dinner with friends from my synagogue (the same folks whose seder I went to last year when Dani got sick; they've also invited us to other parties). It was a fun evening. Another couple (also from the synagogue) was there too. I worried a bit that Dani would feel left out even though he's met all these people on many occasions, but it wasn't a problem. There was enough of a geek density to work. :-)

I think it may be time to give up on Andromeda. It's been a while since the show was actually good; Sunday night I fell asleep during this week's show and found that this didn't really affect my enjoyment of it. Um, yeah. There was a change in creative control about a year ago (I think) and things went downhill then, but I held on in case it was just transition pains. But now, two of the most interesting characters are gone (for all practical purposes, in the case of Rev Bem -- the character as shown this week is not the one we know), and the stories have been more and more about action at the expense of plot. Yawn.

A few months ago the Contractor Who Rarely Returns promised to find the source of the water damage to the ceiling in the front hall and deal with it. (This damage is almost directly below a spot in the bathroom that is, in turn, damaged from an apparent roof leak, but he thinks that's a coincidence. We have been hypothesizing a bathtub-related plumbing problem, though a plumber we had in a while ago hadn't found anything suspicious.) In both cases, we were probably snookered by the sellers; the CWRR pointed out places where problems had been covered up rather than fixed.

So anyway, the contractor hasn't done anything yet, though some supplies have moved around so we know he's been here. We still have the crack in the ceiling.

Sunday the toilet overflowed (sigh), and we heard the unmistakable sound of running water coming from downstairs. (New experience for us.) Oh joy. The good news is that we didn't lose a chunk of ceiling; the bad news (on reflection) is that the water stopped after several minutes and did not return on subsequent flushes. Why is that bad news? Because plumbing problems are probably easier to fix; it sounds to me like our bathroom floor is suspect (which may, of course, be caused by a plumbing problem too). I was hoping for, say, a cracked supply pipe, or even a broken seal on the toilet, that we could fix and be done with. So I guess it's now time to (1) poke the CWRR and (2) call someone else because we'd like the work to be done sooner rather than later. Not that this is a sure bet, of course; we wouldn't still be depending on the CWRR if contractors in general showed up when they said they would and did the work they said they'd do.

(In case you're wondering, the CWRR replaced the Conractor Who Never Returned, who disappeared off the face of the planet mid-job about half a year after we bought the house. Fortunately, while he owed us work, he had about the right amount of money from us when he vanished, so we eventually decided to call it even.)