You're half right. More vertical space is great, but the ratio doesn't matter. For the work you are talking about what matters is the height.

There's a funky Dell out now that has an even wider aspect ratio, it's around 2.33:1 I believe. Now I'd like that, if it had more pixels. It's 2560x1080. That's a detriment. But imagine if that was more along the lines 3350x1440. Would you still complain that was too wide? You could have three documents, web pages, whatever up, side by side, and still have a lot of vertical space.

Overall resolution and pixel density are what's important. Far more so than ratio. Hell, if height is the only thing that matters to you then get the biggest monitor you can afford and turn it on its side.

Frankly I want both, height and width. But if the cost for a wee bit more height is substantial, well as long as I have enough vertical resolution I'm not going to get too caught up on the ratio. 1440 is great for me. Would I like 1600? Sure. Would I rather spend that $300+ on something else? You bet.

I bought a Gateway open-box 21" monitor back in the late 90's for about $1k. I think it could do 1600x1200, but it wasn't real solid at that. That was one heavy beast to move around. I got rid of it some time ago, don't remember how. I got a Dell 19" Trinitron from one employer in 2000. That was sweet, although it had those two strange horizontal lines, but other than that the image was solid. Eventually its color started to go though. I also bought a 17" NEC monitor in '95 or '96 for just under $700 on sale at Best Buy. Checked Computer Shopper and saw that was about $300 off list. Ah, those were the days.

Of course those CRTs didn't have the viewable size they were listed at. So that 21" was probably under 20". My LCDs are all within a fraction of an inch of what they claim. And of course they way a fraction of what those old CRTs did.

A 4K 50" display 4' or 5' away would give you a pretty damn immersive experience. Wouldn't that be nice?

I'm sitting with my eyes about 3' from my 27" 2560x1440 display with about 108ppi. I can make out some pixels as it is in the text. I'm not wearing my glasses, so that helps some. If this was a 4K 27" display, that would be 163ppi. That's a 50% increase right there.

Wasn't that long ago that running 1280x1024 on a 17" LCD was pretty damn nice, and that was 94ppi. So for a decade we've barely improved when it comes to density. Hell, a 24" 16:10 display that so many people love so much has the same density as a 17" LCD.

Of course my very first PC games ran in CGA, and I thought VGA was a huge step up. But at no time have I ever thought to myself "Nope, more wouldn't be better". Not when it comes to graphics, RAM, harddrive size, etc. Give me more and I'll use it.

I heard at one time that 16:10 came out of the video editing industry. Basically they were working on 16:9 video, so they had displays with extra space at the bottom for controls. These displays then were adapted to the higher end computer market. However once 16:9 displays were being manufactured in large quantities for consumer TVs, I imagine that drove the price down for manufacturing 16:9 computer monitors. I'm fairly certain the decision to use 1920x1080 in the TV industry had nothing to do with computer displays.

But what does the ratio really matter? Isn't it about the pixels? I used a Samsung 24" 1920x1200 for a long time, and I loved it. But I'd seen higher pixel counts, and I wanted it. So when I had the spare cash last year the decision for me was 1 30" display or spend a slight bit more and go for 2 27" displays. I don't care about the ratio, I got plenty of height now. That's what matters.

Why? Why does 16:10 make a difference at that resolution? I mentioned the 2560x1600 displays, but you know what, they cost hundreds more and they have lower pixel density. The premium for 160 pixels is 30% or more, hell with Dell on Amazon right now it's 50% more.

What exactly are people doing that requires 16:10? I've used 'em, I like 'em, but I'll take 2560x1440 over 1920x1200 any day of the week. Likewise I'll take 3840x2160 over 2560x1600.

If the premium for 16:10 was in the neighborhood of 10-15% for the same pixel density, then yes, it's worthwhile. Otherwise, what's the big deal?

That's really the important thing. We've been stuck in a rut with display sizes for a long, long time. It's time to move pixel density forward. The 27" displays that have been on the scene for the past 2 years or so are great, but so far the price hasn't dropped a great deal (disregarding the generic Korean Dell/Apple rejects).

Once 4K TV production ramps up that should lead to more higher density monitors at reasonable prices. Sadly I have to admit that it really seems like Apple was the company that pushed forward into higher density displays for smaller devices. Fortunately other companies picked up on that pretty quickly. Once people get used to those kind of displays on their tablets and phones, they're going to want something similar on their desktops and laptops.

1920x1200 have been around long before the Dell U2410, so it's silly they ignored this. But would you really reject a 2560x1440 display because it's 16:9? How about a 4k display? That's just silly.

People need to get over this 16:9 vs. 16:10 garbage. What matters is the number of pixels. Once you get past 1200 lines or thereabouts, it's all gravy. I'm happily using two 16:9 displays, a pair of Dell U2711, and I'm well pleased with that. The extra cost to get an additional 160 lines from a 16:10 30" screen just isn't worth it.

I too prefer a pair no matter the size. When developing in something like Visual Studio I have to run it in full screen. So the second monitor gets used for e-mail, web browser, references, etc.

I use 2 U2711 at home and it's wonderful. I also use a 17" alongside those. I use the smaller monitor for consoles or running something like uTorrent. Some people get caught up on the whole 16:10 vs. 16:9 issue, but at 2560x1440 there's plenty of vertical resolution there.

At work I use a pair of 22" 16:10 monitors. That's an ok setup and I've been using something similar at three jobs now. I'm considering picking up another pair of 27" monitors to use at work though. Either the 2713HM or perhaps some of the cheap Korean ones. Perfect color isn't a must for me when coding, so I don't need the 2711 or the better 2713 model.

2560x1440 is great too. It's just a matter of getting to a good overall height, and the 27" monitors have that.

I think Lego is onto this. After all, if you go to their website and check out the sets they are selling now, they mark certain ones as "Exclusive" or "Hard to find". Also, most sets are sold for 2 to 2.5 years, and if they are made again they are different. It does seem that they are feeding this part of the market purposefully.

I've been collecting Star Wars sets since the big Millennium Falcon came out a few years back. I'm buying mainly OT sets and have them on display, I'm not worried about resale. In the time I've been collection I've seen two different X-Wing sets produced, and I know there was an earlier one, also one of the earlier sets was sold in two kits, one standard, one wrecked on Dagobah. Each of these sets is different, and comes with different mini-figures.

There's also been 3 or more Slave 1 sets, with one of those being Jango's. I believe the main difference between that and the other was just color. Naturally anything involving Boba goes up in value quickly, so I only own the one that was released recently.

Mini-figures is a key marker of value. Some people buy the sets, and then sell the sets and the figures separately on e-bay. It's a good way to pick up extra sets if you aren't worry about collectability and value.

A few years back Lego started producing a line of very nice modular town buildings that snap together to form a long European city style street. These are all about 3 stories, come with lots of little extras and several figures, and retail for around $200 each. One of the early ones, and this is only maybe 6 or 7 years old, now goes for about $1,000 on ebay. I've read a post from someone at Lego that says this very desirable set will never be produced again, and one reason is that the molds for some of the doors/windows doesn't exist anymore. So doing something like that certainly makes it seem like they are helping inflate the value of the sets. They even publish books detailing all the Star Wars mini-figures. Turns out they make minor changes set-to-set for even the major characters. I don't think the books mentions any value, but it's obvious the purpose is to help collectors track which figures they have.

The thing is, Benoit had a 22 year career as a wrestler, Belcher was only 25 years old. And so far I've heard nothing about steroid use in the Belcher case.

Long and the short of it is I think it's presumptuous at this point to say that the Belcher case is relevant in this discussion. Now perhaps there's a larger issue about the lifestyles of pro athletes as well as college athletes, and how they are treated by coaches and a society as a whole. But that a whole other mess.

Of course maybe this guy took way too many hard knocks and continued playing in the game. Hopefully they can still test his remains.

Belcher killed his girlfriend, that was the motivation for his suicide, either from the grief over what he'd done or the realization he'd be going to prison for a long, long time. Also, he'd been in the league a much shorter time than many of the other notable suicides, who often killed themselves after retirement. Belcher was just in his third season.

If he was suffering from a brain disorder from too many hits, it had clearly affected him in a much different manner than any of the others. Has there ever been another murder/suicide or some other violent act attributed to a football player suffering from this disorder?

Einstein wasn't religious. In fact he did not believe in a god. Religious people like to pull select quotes from him to make him appear to be religious, to use as an argument from authority against atheists, but there is a detailed letter that he wrote in which he categorically denied believing in god.

Here in Texas Verizon was charging for touch tone service for longer than most other companies in the rest of the US. I believe I was paying for that even after 2000. I cancelled my home phone service several years back so I don't know if they have that still or not.

They were also charging monthly for "number portability" or something like that. Basically that service they are required to provide where you can move your phone number from one service to another. Whether you move it or not, you pay monthly to have the ability to do it.

I have Verizon FiOS for TV and internet, but I pass on having a land-line. While there are numerous fees and taxes applied to FiOS, none are as blatantly a rip-off as some of those old phone fees were.

I thought, but I may be mistaken as I've only played D&D sporadically over the years, that AD&D was essentially D&D 2. With D&D 3 they dropped Advanced from the name. I've not run across any books published under that name in many, many years.