Not bad bringing up something that happened in 2005 with the scandal having impact to 2007. Yes Sony BMG was IMHO stupid to put what is called a "root-kit" on a PC running a Microsoft OS. Although that root-kit was benign and Anti-virus firm F-Secure concurred, "Although the software isn't directly malicious, the used rootkit hiding techniques are exactly the same used by malicious software to hide themselves". This is not to say that this absolves Sony BMG however the finger of blame should also point at AV protection software and the Microsoft OS as well that allowed the root-kit to be installed in the first place.

You may not like Sony and that is fine, however extortion is a crime and carries a fairly stiff punishment. It is definitely not something to be applauded.

Have you ever thought of sizing your work window to the appropriate aspect ratio. You know you can get fairly cheap screens that have a vertical hight greater than A4 if you really need that height. You may have "real estate" left over but is that such a big deal.

You should know that 16:9 screen aspect ratio is really a compromise out of all of the other aspect ratios out there. Personally I have never had a problem with working on a 16:9 aspect ratio screen since all you need to do is resize your windows (I use Fedora 20 with KDE) to the appropriate aspect ratio that suits what task(s) you are currently doing. So you may have some so called "real estate" left over is that such a big deal.

I have for many years going back to the very early 1990's used multiple virtual screens which allow me to create tasks particular to what I want. It must be noted that a particular task may take up one or more virtual screens out of which I can create or delete (normally I have four default virtual screens) accordingly in less than a second. Switching between virtual screens takes approximately half a second and if I want I can display all windows on my physical screen, again within half a second.

So all this ranting about how people would like a specific aspect ratio screen is to me rather childish since it is possible to be comfortable with any reasonable aspect ratio screen providing it it of a size that will let you do what you wish to do. Basically aspect ratio, pixel density and screen size are all important however there is still a need for compromise.

Careful you may give the poor guy a brain aneurysm with that logic and whatever you do don't mention the command line much less a visual editor ... Oh! sorry. :)

It's pretty hard to do this with a 28in 4k monitor so is vertical letter-boxing OK on an A4 document ?

Ah but do you predominately watch shows with a 4:3 aspect ratio or 16:9 or 2.4:1 or 2.35:1 or ..? Well you get the picture :)

I take it you have never heard of video and image editing, software development or even video gaming. Not everyone uses their monitor to create, edit and view documents. As to why the industry chose a 16:9 aspect ratio well that is basically a compromise since there is no perfect solution. As a customer you are certainly entitled to purchase the monitor that suites you however remember that just because you buy a monitor that suits you that same monitor may not suit everyone.

When you say "more scrolling" (I assume up and down) then why don't you get yourself a larger monitor. 27in 1080p IPS monitors are not that expensive, you can even get 4k 2160p 28in monitors for around $500 now if you need the higher resolution although why you need a high resolution for documents is beyond me since even typesetters (been there done that) don't really need that resolution unless it is for bragging purposes.

If all we did was read papers on our monitors then maybe portrait (you really can get them) monitors would be the norm however a monitor can be used to display lots of different things so it is more practical to display on a landscape monitor. In fact any monitor that has an aspect ratio of greater than one is in effect a landscape monitor.

As for why most HDTV's and modern monitors have an aspect ratio of 16:9 that is a compromise between the many competing aspect ratios that are currently available. For a better understanding read this and there are many other sites that discuss this as well.

There are 4k (3840x2160 pixels for a 16:9 aspect ratio) monitors out there although you will pay for them. A simple web search will find them. Now if you really want to be an elitist and have more money then sense then how about an 8k monitor.

Why would they need to know? Although they may need to know what the version of the software is.

Quite right, however they don't write the applications. It is really up to the application software writers to know.

.While a programmer may not be interested (although many are) in marketing they need to know the kernel version and the versions of the API's that they are going to use with their software if they are going to be programming under MS Windows. If they are going to be programming under Unix or Linux then they need to know what the version of the kernel is and the versions of the libraries that they are going to use with their software.

MS Windows 95 had a 7.0 version of MS-DOS. MS Widows 98 had a 7.1 version of MS-DOS and MS Windows ME had a 7.0 Version of MS-DOS. See here.

Actually MS Windows 10 is supposed to have an NT 6.4 kernel

If developers can't tell the difference between MS Windows NT and MSDOS then they really should get out of the IT industry and take up say "basket weaving". After-all the world would be a much safer place although I am a bit worried about the quality of the baskets that would be produced. :)

This is informative? Jaw meet deck!

You mean MS Window programmers are that bad they cannot determine a kernel or library version without drawing a y2k pentagram and mumbling incantations to the great old-ones? Be afraid, very afraid.

Next you will be telling me that Firefox is up to version 33. .... Oh wait it is, however you can easily tell what version it is. /(*o*)\

Short answer. No!

Long answer. People do have separate likes and dislikes, what may be interesting to one group of people may not be interesting to another group. Name any gaming genres and you will have some people who like that and some that don't, even within specific genres you still will have likes and dislikes, the same is true for gaming mods and indie games.

How many low range PC's have 8 CPU's and 8GB of memory? I would concede that the PS4 and XB1 fail into the category of the upper end of a modern mid-range PC but putting them into the low end range is definitely trolling.

You can get 4k HDTV that are usually 16:9 aspect ratio which is 3840x2160 pixels and they are not that much more expensive than the 2k or 1080p HDTVs. What is really important as well in choosing a screen is the refresh rate and the frame rate the screen can support.

The problem you have with games and movies is they can be made with different aspect ratios and depending on your screen you may see what is called pillar-boxing. While this can be annoying there is little you can do since the physical display screen has a specific physical aspect ratio which cannot be changed. There are some interesting articles on this and why the compromise of the 16:9 aspect ratio was chosen for most HDTV's.

Which aspect ratio is the best? Difficult to say since that depends on the predominate content the viewer likes to display on their screen.