Arriving here, I decided I wanted a new monitor for this house. The laptop is great for reading newspapers, writing something, but it's not so good for photo or art work. The colors never come out right when I get back home and see them on the home monitor. Buying a new inexpensive monitor seemed an easy fix.
All the monitors I saw were wide screen and that sounded good. More room to work on the photos. It seemed good right up until I saw my first photos on it. Good grief, had I gained that much weight? My face looked round too. Something wasn't right. Then I saw my husband looking short, stocky and round-faced-- none of which are true.
It appears that the new monitors with older laptops give somewhat of a fun house mirror look to everything on the screen as they stretch to fill the space. I am told if I had a newer laptop, which I do not, I'd have options to correct for that, but as it stands, I have to just accept the width as the price I pay to get the color right. I can put up the laptop and the new monitor at the same time and see the actual perspective when I am curious what it might be-- do not eat those french fries.
Someday when I buy a newer laptop, evidently the monitor can then be adjusted to look 'normal' whatever normal is...
Which seemed an apropos analogy to how perception works. Listening to talk radio on the way south made me once again aware how differently we all see the world. How can we not all (at least in one nation) see the world, a statement, or an event the same way? But we don't.
I read something Hillary Clinton, John McCain or Barack Obama said and think everybody else will understand it as I did only to listen or read a totally different slant. The interpretations turn what happened night to day. Spin machines in all sides start interpreting, and perhaps we each believe the interpretation that suits our prejudices best. The same event is stretched into a new shape as much as my new monitor stretches (might I add the wrong way) the image from what is seen on the laptop.
It happens again and again with countless things from religion to a family argument to a cultural issue. I recognize it; and yet, it still amazes me as much as the monitor difference. The only thing I can say is that we need to be aware of the fact that much of what we interpret to be fact is perception. Unlike buying a new laptop someday, I don't think the problem of perception can be adjusted to have us all seeing the world the same way.
Buying the new monitor made me aware that just as the words I write here are often seen differently than I intended so too are the images-- viewed in each case through the experience set or tool being used.
8 comments:
On the technical side. I was wondering in your shopping for a monitor did you notice if you can easily just buy a computer tower without the monitor now since so many people are buying monitors by themselves. I have not shopped for a computer for a while, but need a new desktop and plan to merge an older desktop filled with photos and music with an older laptop also filled with photos. But I already have the new wide screen monitor I bought at Costco not long ago. Off topic but just looking for other peoples perspective on that one.
All the words we write, the pictures we display, yea verily, even the things BETWEEN the lines are all interpreted differently ba every reader,depending upon their culture, education, etc.
Just another way of saying "You can't step into the same river twice" ;-)
I know what you mean about that stretch thing. We just bought a new HD LCD TV for the living room. One of the options when setting it up is how do I want it to handle the older formatted shows, like when watching non-digital channels. I thought it would be interesting to see how it does the stretch so went that way. Now I have to find where that was and reset it as neither of us likes it. By the way, you can buy LCD monitors that still have the other format and you may be able to take yours back to swap for one of those.
Perceptions sure can be different for different people. Remember the old party game where one person starts with a "secret" told the one next to them and you see what comes out at the end of the circle? I realize many will intentionally embellish what they heard as the message goes around the circle, but this happens in real life, too. You experienced a lot of that while listening to those talk shows.
I love what A Course in Miracles talks about with perception being a key in the difference between fear and love.
I guess so much of civil law is about how people perceive things differently.
I knew that about older computers and newer monitors but I guess it does the trick--and the fun house effect does make you think twice about those french fries.
The new wide-screen monitor has an aspect ratio (W:H) of probably 1.6:1, with a native resolution of 1440 x 900. The laptop screen probably has standard aspect ratio of 4:3 with native resolution of 1024 x 768. And the video graphics adapter in the notebook, the gadget that runs the monitors, produces only standard aspects (4:3 and 5:4) and resolutions.
All of that is techie talk for it ain't gonna work. Ever. Best thing to do would be swap it for a standard aspect monitor if you still can.
thanks for the added information. At the price I was willing to pay for a monitor I don't use often (ie cheap) wide screen is all there is. Since my laptop is about 5 years old, it will be replaced eventually; so I am keeping the cheap monitor knowing that someday the computer will come along that can work with it. It's not a huge problem, as it would be if this was the home monitor, given I have a laptop where I can see how the actual composition works and I do get the color accurately with my new monitor. It might even encourage me to lose some weight. Plus it can be funny on a newspaper where I see a picture of Tiger Woods looking plump *s*
The picture you see sounds like what happens to people on TV where they automatically put on quite a few pounds -- unless that's changed with digital.
We don't even perceive colors the same, along with most everything else in life. Maybe that's what makes life interesting, but why do we argue so much about those differences?
What the widescreen does is a lot more than the usual put on 10 lbs, Joared. It really distorts the face and the body to a look like those old fun house mirrors. and if you put the figure horizontal when it should be vertical, it stretches you also and you look 20 lbs less than usual. I am adjusting to it and it is kind of funny with the newspaper photos to see someone turned roly poly who is not. With having the laptop also, I can check for accuracy but it has made me wonder if my screen at home has done some of this as I always look thinner when I print photos also than when I looked at them on the monitor. I think the laptop monitor is probably the best as it's with the machine for which it was made to be
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