[HN Gopher] Q&A with the developer of BetterDummy: from macOS se...
___________________________________________________________________
Q&A with the developer of BetterDummy: from macOS secrets to his
motivations
Author : laktak
Score : 89 points
Date : 2021-12-07 07:18 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theregister.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theregister.com)
| pembrook wrote:
| I think Apple is trying to force the hand of monitor
| manufacturers towards 4k or higher. The entire external monitor
| industry is such a no-innovation, customer-hostile dumpster fire.
|
| Buy the GHR1050PQS75-UHW204773! It's got garbage white
| uniformity, terrible black levels and IPS glow, cheap plastic
| housing and settings software that feels like it was created in
| 1994. Wirecutter recommended!
|
| Compare this to the TV industry, where you can get amazing
| picture quality with OLED and at least somewhat decent levels of
| software competence.
|
| Meanwhile desktop monitors (something most of us spend 8 hours a
| day in front of) are stuck using 30 year old LCD tech and most
| aren't even 4k yet.
|
| The entire PowerPoint/excel crowd seemingly has no problem
| spending most of their waking hours staring at giant pixels all
| day, even if the laptop screen they have sitting next to the
| monitor has almost 3X the pixel density.
| Nullabillity wrote:
| I don't give a shit about 4K, colour accuracy, ultrawide, or
| 120+Hz refresh rates. My cheapo monitors look good enough to
| me, and I have no interest in dealing with the dumpster fire
| that is HiDPI.
|
| Applications already know how to deal with subpixel AA, and
| dealing with one application with poor antialiasing is still
| vastly preferably to dealing with one application with broken
| HiDPI scaling.
|
| If monitors could just stagnate in ~2010-2015 tech for all
| eternity, that'd be great. It's a solved problem, let's
| collectively move on to problems that actually deserve the
| attention.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| >I don't give a shit about 4K, colour, ...
|
| I can't go back now, once I got used to high-dpi everything
| else looks like garbage.
| lostmsu wrote:
| I often switch between ~6" 2560px phone screen and ~7"
| 1920px one, and the later clearly can display more
| information at the same level of readability than the
| former.
|
| Same with 15" 4k hi quality laptop screen vs 40" 4k
| display.
|
| So in the only metric that matters, hidpi appears to be
| irrelevant.
|
| The only thing that I find to matter is the angular size of
| the display at a distance, that doesn't make your eyes
| strain. (as a dev)
| izacus wrote:
| > The entire external monitor industry is such a no-innovation,
| customer-hostile dumpster fire.
|
| I last few years we've seen a massive shift towards ultrawide,
| high (dynamic) frame rate and HDR screens from pretty much all
| manufacturers. Many of those technologies Apple just didn't
| support until recently. They still don't support DisplayPort
| MST for use of many bigger monitors in daisy configurations.
|
| So, what are you talking about? Did you even check the market
| outside the Apple store?
| sgjohnson wrote:
| > They still don't support DisplayPort MST for use of many
| bigger monitors in daisy configurations.
|
| The worst part about this is the fact that macOS does in fact
| support MST, but only for their 6K (and 5K on older machines,
| no longer requires MST since DP 1.3) display.
| pembrook wrote:
| Yes, I spent almost a month researching the entire market and
| every single offering available.
|
| Nearly every ultrawide you speak of has very poor pixel
| density. 4k spanned across 34+ inches diagonally looks pretty
| terrible when you view it at the distance most people sit
| from their monitors.
|
| I can't seriously be the only one who can tell the
| difference. Have you ever compared how text looks on your
| phone or laptop screen compared to most monitors available
| today?
| random314 wrote:
| Never thought I would see the time 4K isn't enough anymore!
| nickpp wrote:
| 4K was only ever enough for 24" monitors, where you can
| use a clean 200% scaling.
|
| If you've already moved on to 27" or higher, 4K was
| _never_ enough!
| skohan wrote:
| Ironically it's not easy to find a current-gen 4k 24"
| newaccount74 wrote:
| They stopped selling the Dell UP2414Q! What a shame. So
| it looks like the only option is the pricy LG Ultrafine
| 24MD4KL.
|
| There's also only a single 5k display on the market (also
| from LG).
|
| It's a shame that there are so few high res displays on
| the market, and they are all 16:9...
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| LG also has the 24UD58 for $300
| akvadrako wrote:
| That's why Apple makes their 27" iMac 5K. 4K is almost
| enough.
| lucian1900 wrote:
| It wasn't enough to start with for large monitors. High
| pixel density is important for text readability. A 30"
| screen at typical monitor distance has very few pixels
| per arcsecond.
| pembrook wrote:
| It all depends on how close you sit to the screen. What
| matters is pixel density, and that's a function of both
| the resolution and how close you're sitting.
|
| So if you have a 4k TV and a 4k monitor, there's actually
| quite a difference. If your monitor is bigger than 24"
| you're getting way worse pixel density and visible pixels
| at the distance you're sitting.
|
| On TVs it's typically never a problem because you're
| sitting far enough away.
| akvadrako wrote:
| Indeed, still nobody makes the monitor I want - a double-
| wide 4K (or 5K) 27".
|
| The closest we have now are some wide 5K's with good DPI
| and the Dell 8K.
| Gatsky wrote:
| Agreed, there are few/no options if you have decent
| eyesight and want high pixel density.
| bzzzt wrote:
| Even if you don't have decent eyesight crisper text is
| easier to read than a blurry mess of pixels representing
| letters.
| burntoutfire wrote:
| Yep, text looks nicer in 4k. So what? 1080p is still plenty
| workable. I remember the jump from my 1024x768 CRT Sony to
| my first LCD monitor (I think it was 1920x1200?). Now THAT
| was an upgrade. 4k is just trivial in comparison. I for one
| intend to use my 1080p monitors until they die and cannot
| be fixed.
| nickpp wrote:
| Not the OP but for me: I don't watch movies on my monitor so
| I don't care about HDR, I don't play games so I don't care
| about dynamic frame rate.
|
| What I need is sweet, sweet resolution! Those ultra-wide or
| high-frame rate all come at the expense of DPI which is the
| same with the DPI from 2K monitors...
| thefz wrote:
| Hot garbage is a pricey laptop that by design won't play well
| with very common peripherals to force owners into buying
| another pricey peripheral.
|
| There are absolutely zero reasons why an M1 shouldn't work with
| 1080p and above, except the usual Apple greed and lock-in.
| norman784 wrote:
| I have a 1920x1080 144hz display and another 3440x1440 60hz
| display with a Mac mini m1 without issues. Im curious on what
| issues do you have with 1080p?
| rpdillon wrote:
| Yeah, it's really interesting to read through a thread about
| MacOS not playing well with third-party displays turn into a
| discussion about how only Apple makes good displays. That's
| not the point: as a customer, I prefer vendors to enable me
| to put together a setup that works for me. Apple seems to be
| intentionally failing in this regard.
| eins1234 wrote:
| I've been in the market for a new monitor for quite a while
| now, but haven't found a good fit, precisely because most
| monitors evidently kinda suck for the price. My requirements
| are pretty straightforward:
|
| - 400+ nits peak brightness (my room gets really bright during
| the day, and my current monitor at 250 nits is practically
| unusable near noon)
|
| - 4k resolution at 32 inch size (so I can use it without
| scaling while not taking too much desk space)
|
| - < $500 (I refuse to pay more for a 32 inch screen than a 40
| inch+ screen in a TV with much better specs)
|
| As far as I can tell, this monitor doesn't exist (suggestions
| welcome!). Especially problematic is that brightness
| requirement, every monitor with more than 300 nits brightness
| I've seen has costed over $1000 for some reason.
|
| At this point I'm probably going to just end up settling for a
| 40-43 inch TV instead, plenty of those that meet those
| requirements within the $500 budget, but the last time I used a
| TV as a monitor, I remember being really annoyed at having to
| use my remote to turn on the TV after it goes to sleep (turns
| off?), compared to a monitor which can get woken up by inputs
| from the connected computer.
|
| Are there any other folks using TVs as monitors here? Curious
| if people have ideas on how to get around this issue in their
| own setups?
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| IIRC, if the TV supports commands via HDMI, it can be woken
| up from sleep without a remote. It requires extra setup on
| the computer to work.
|
| I "solved" the issue of my preferred screen size not being
| available by going retro. It turns out that 12+ year old
| formerly-expensive flatscreens are a bit rubbish with
| brightness and power consumption, but they are better than
| "modern" screens for my preferences.
| sgjohnson wrote:
| > Are there any other folks using TVs as monitors here?
|
| YMMV, but in my experience cheapo TVs tend to not support
| 60Hz refresh rate. Most often it's either 24, 30 or 50, and
| that's absolutely a dealbreaker. It's fine for a TV, not for
| a computer monitor.
|
| So if you're trying to save a buck, TV is probably not an
| option.
| eins1234 wrote:
| I definitely remember a time when this was something to
| watch out for (early 4k days), and made most TVs non-
| starters as computer monitors.
|
| I don't think it's true anymore though as most TVs I've
| seen, even the cheap ones, can do 4k 60hz over HDMI no
| problem.
|
| This one I've been eye'ing is $500 at amazon for the 43
| inch version: https://www.amazon.com/SAMSUNG-43-Inch-Class-
| QLED-Built/dp/B...
|
| According to rtings it does 4k at 60hz, 500+ nits peak
| brightness, and even has a 32 inch version (at a even lower
| $400 price)!
|
| https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/samsung/q60-q60a-qled
|
| It's an absolute steal in terms of specs/dollar compared to
| pretty much every 4k monitor out there. I'm just hesitant
| to pull the trigger because of the manual wake up thing,
| which has really frustrated me in the past.
| newaccount74 wrote:
| If that was the case, why doesn't macOS support 8k displays?
|
| If you want an 8k display at 60Hz, your only option is to use
| Windows.
|
| Microsoft is also the only company that offers a high res 3:2
| display (the Surface Studio at 4500x3000 pixels), a size that
| is more geared towards productivity rather than streaming
| movies.
|
| It's weird that if you want to get nice displays, Windows is
| today a better option than macOS.
| kogepathic wrote:
| _> I think Apple is trying to force the hand of monitor
| manufacturers towards 4k or higher. The entire external monitor
| industry is such a no-innovation, customer-hostile dumpster
| fire._
|
| Please stop apologizing for Apple's customer-hostile behaviour
| here. A $2 trillion company should be able to make an external
| monitor not look like blurry trash when connected to their
| hardware.
|
| The fact that it takes someone to make a third-party app to fix
| what Apple can't speaks volumes to how much they care
| about/understand their customer base. Apple should have tested
| M1 hardware with hot garbage external monitors, realized the
| customer experience sucked, and fixed it.
| nickpp wrote:
| Don't know about Apple, but maybe those external monitors
| shouldn't be such "hot garbage"?!
| kogepathic wrote:
| Not all external monitors are "hot garbage" and it was
| probably my mistake to use that term.
|
| Apple could always choose to add some "innovation" to the
| external monitor market by manufacturing their own line of
| displays. [1] For example, they have a nice 4.5K display in
| the iMac, but they won't sell it as a monitor for some
| reason.
|
| Instead, they offer exactly one external monitor that
| starts at $4999 USD.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Cinema_Display
| nickpp wrote:
| Oh, from my PoV all those 4K displays _are_ hot garbage.
|
| It'd be quite nice if Apple would upend the external
| monitor market but usually they prefer serving their own
| market instead. And as an Apple user today you are quite
| spoiled indeed...
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| Settings software stuck in 1994? Good. I want it stuck this
| way.
|
| The last thing I want in my monitor is any "software". It's
| meant to do one thing - display pixels. IoT-ization of screens
| will just turn them into another "smart TV" product category
| with unusable UX, ads, always-on connectivity and data
| collection, cloud profiles (see Razer mice), and 30+ second
| startup times.
| nickpp wrote:
| Maybe it'd be nice if the calibration data could be sent from
| the OS to be applied directly on the monitor instead of the
| Video Card?
|
| And I really don't mind when producers gather (anonymized)
| telemetry data of my usage: maybe that'll get them to improve
| those damn products.
| klodolph wrote:
| > Maybe it'd be nice if the calibration data could be sent
| from the OS to be applied directly on the monitor instead
| of the Video Card?
|
| That would not be nice.
|
| When you "calibrate" a monitor, you're really creating an
| output profile... a record of what signals create which
| colors. You can also calibrate a camera, and get an input
| profile, which is a record of which colors create what
| signals.
|
| If you display a picture on-screen with a color profile,
| and your monitor has a color profile, the software
| translates the image from the image's color profile to the
| monitor's profile, and displays that on-screen. The problem
| here is that different pictures on screen will have
| different profiles, so you can't just load a profile into
| the monitor and do the conversion there.
|
| For example, you might open a website, and see a bunch of
| pictures with sRGB profiles. And then you might open
| another website, and see pictures with Adobe RGB, which
| covers a wider gamut. The Adobe RGB profile pictures can be
| more colorful, if your monitor supports it, but both sets
| of pictures can be on-screen at the same time. Then there's
| the different ways you convert from one profile to another,
| depending on what you want (perceptual, relative
| colorimetric, absolute colorimetric).
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| I do mind telemetry, especially on something as private as
| my display (or keyboard).
|
| Realistically, why does it matter what the exact mechanism
| of applying calibration data is? As long as it works with
| the appropriate .ICM file, I'm happy. Or, (sounds crazy)
| just have monitors introduce a setting that treats the
| video input as a dumb, uncalibrated RGB stream and do the
| colour mapping internally in the monitor.
| mdoms wrote:
| I would just like to plug my very very expensive 2 year old Intel
| MacBook Pro into a monitor without the fans immediately running
| at 100% and cooking my desk. A problem that has gone completely
| unacknowledged by Apple despite the several hundred pages of
| forum posts all over the web about it.
|
| https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2019-16-is-hot-noisy-wi...
| niffydroid wrote:
| I had this with my mid 2015 macbook pro. Window server would be
| using 40% of my resources when using 2 external displays.
| Implicated wrote:
| Plug the charger in on the right side. [1]
|
| 1. https://www.imore.com/heres-why-you-should-probably-
| charge-y...
| smilespray wrote:
| Nice to know, as I'm at this moment charging my 2020 top-spec
| Intel MBP from the left-side port.
|
| No matter. I'm going to sell it anyway. What a fan monster.
| sgjohnson wrote:
| macOS still has a completely retarded implementation of
| DisplayPort MST (i.e. the only supported display is their own 6K
| display).
|
| It's been growing on me for years, as macOS is my favourite
| platform, but I could go on a full Linus Torvalds rant about
| this. Why the fuck can't I use my dockstation that has 2
| DisplayPort outputs and 1x HDMI to connect 3 external monitors?
| It literally works on Windows on the same fucking machine. On
| macOS all you get is mirroring.
|
| So ultimately the reason is that Apple is completely oblivous to
| the millions of people who don't use monitors that are made or
| sold by Apple. Either oblivious or they flat out don't care.
| thefz wrote:
| > So ultimately the reason is that Apple is completely oblivous
| to the millions of people who don't use monitors that are made
| or sold by Apple. Either oblivious or they flat out don't care.
|
| They are not strangers to limiting or breaking existing
| protocols or standards in favor of their own implementation,
| and then saying "see? Apple just works".
|
| Take their broken SMB implementation in OSX as an example.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| >Take their broken SMB implementation in OSX as an example.
|
| That doesn't make sense as they completely rewrote their SMB
| implementation to improve it.
| fredoralive wrote:
| Quite a lot of people would suspect that the the initial
| reason for reimplementing SMB on Mac OS X with smbx was
| that Samba chose to use GPLv3 for newer versions, rather
| than any direct technical reasons.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Unrelated but newer Macbook Pros (with M1 Max chips) as well as
| the Apple Pro Display XDR have entirely gotten rid of ICC
| profiles which seems crazy to me. Apple's definition of a
| professional is a more like a hipster. Real pros want no bullshit
| abstractions and hidden stuff, they want all knobs and switches
| exposed in all its glory. Btw, if you want to see how bad Apple
| Pro Display XDR is, look no further than the legendary HDTV Test
| channel on YT. Totally crushes Apple with straight up numbers and
| pure unadulterated objectivity:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtd7UzLJHrU
| iSnow wrote:
| Wait, do I get this right that M1 Macs cannot work with monitor
| calibration tools? I am not a graphics professional but my wife
| is and we are thinking about buying a M1 Mac - but she needs a
| calibrated display.
| lstamour wrote:
| ICC profiles still exist but maybe they don't show by
| default? You might need to option-click to view settings if
| they go missing compared to previous macOS versions, I've
| been noticing a bit of a streamlining or reorg of settings in
| recent macOS releases. It's still documented the normal way
| though https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/mac-
| help/mchlf3ddc60d/... - and I can confirm it works still: I
| needed a specific HDMI output to be rec.709 as it was the
| only way to get a DVD-quality stream to play correctly on an
| older HDTV. And it worked great. I also haven't heard any
| reports that X-Rite calibration software has stopped working
| or similar. As far as I know, works great. :)
| sunaurus wrote:
| > Totally crushes Apple with straight up numbers and pure
| unadulterated objectivity:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtd7UzLJHrU
|
| I don't know a lot about either of these monitors, but I don't
| find it surprising at all that a 30,000EUR monitor would be
| better than a 6000EUR monitor. Saying that the reviewer
| objectively crushes apple by using these two monitors in a
| comparison seems quite misleading.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| The author is just doing what the keynote said with the exact
| model of the Sony monitor.
| klodolph wrote:
| I mean, that video is comparing it against a Sony HX310, which
| costs $30,000. If you have a budget of $30,000 to spend on a
| single monitor, by all means, go for it.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Dude, did you watch the Apple Keynote when they released the
| Pro Display XDR?
|
| They literally claimed to be better than that $30k monitor.
| It is totally fair to compare it and prove that Apple was
| wrong.
| klodolph wrote:
| An Apple Keynote is marketing fluff. Nobody should be
| taking that at face value in the first place.
| niffydroid wrote:
| I've got 2 AOC monitors (2369M + 2490W1), On my mid 2015 macbook
| pro I had no issues (apart from window server using all my
| resources when they were plugged in). I'm the new M1 Macbook
| pro(work laptop) I'm finding quite often I am getting small
| vertical bands on both monitors randomly, these are more
| noticeably when using dark themes. I've changed cables and colour
| profiles and not really fixed it. I've not had this with my old
| laptop or even my desktop pc.
|
| I would swap them out for 4k displays but it's just too expensive
| for me. I have been using my glasses more to use my monitors
| thinking my eyesight is getting worse but it could just be the
| monitors...
| nickpp wrote:
| Still can't understand why I can't buy a 5k/6k at 27", 30" or 32"
| display in the non-Mac world.
|
| 4K is a rather low DPI, and using it at 150% OS scaling is not
| that great.
|
| Apple offers such great displays for the MacBook and iMac, with
| non-fractional scaling and such a good density that sub-pixel
| anti-aliasing is no longer needed for text rendering.
|
| Why do I have ZERO options for that outside Apple's offers?!
| bzzzt wrote:
| Dell has the UltraSharp UP3218K 8k screen for about 4 grand.
| pelorat wrote:
| Because you get what, 60Hz at best on those Apple display. 60Hz
| is not enough any more.
| nickpp wrote:
| I like high frame rates, but if I have to choose, I will go
| for high pixel density every time. But I'm not a gamer.
|
| Here's to hoping that someday we'll get to enjoy _both_!
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| 60 Hz is definitely enough. The vast majority of video
| content stops at 60 Hz. Applications and games may benefit
| from 120 or 144 Hz refresh rates, but for the latter, it also
| means that you're pushing a lot more pixels through your
| graphics card - which may well not keep up.
|
| IMO, 4K60 is a reasonable choice for those that prioritise
| resolution over refresh rate.
| skohan wrote:
| How close is your screen that 4k/27" seems like low DPI? What
| are you comparing it to?
|
| But I did monitor shopping recently, and what I wish I could
| get outside the mac world (or even in it) is the form-factor.
|
| Like there are a lot of very nice 4k HDR IPS displays out there
| today, but nothing I could find in the thin form-factor of an
| iMac or laptop display.
| nickpp wrote:
| Regular distance on my desk, 75-100 cm I guess.
|
| I have a 32" since I want larger text at my age. But it
| doesn't compare to the Retina display on my MacBook: I can
| often see the pixels and scaling artefacts.
|
| What I would've liked was 5k at 32" for a perfect doubling of
| my preferred resolution: 2560x1440.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| You can't even buy the Dell 4K 24" anymore. My guess is buyers
| don't know what they are getting so just go for size.
| DarthNebo wrote:
| I'm suffering with underscan on a 1440p monitor while using an
| intel MBA (2015). The mini-DP port would only work with a VGA
| adaptor & the 1080p resolution ends up with a vertical black bar
| on the left as a result of the underscan.
|
| No way to fix this either since macOS Monterey doesn't have any
| settings to change, ends up showing that a 40" HDTV is plugged in
| when it's just a 27" 1440p display...
| mgraupner wrote:
| Ever tried this EDID patch?
| https://gist.github.com/ejdyksen/8302862
|
| Had to run this script on every MacOS update till Big Sur or
| Catalina in order to get a perfect picture, otherwise MacOS
| would detect a TV and not a monitor.
| deeblering4 wrote:
| There's no need to make ableist comments in a thread about
| computer monitors.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Ableist? Why does the US always ruin perfectly fine English
| words (if it's the one I'm thinking of)? In French for example
| there's no negative connotation for the same word, it's what
| you use if you're late for something...
|
| There's also a lot of perfectly fine technical uses for the
| word: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/retard
|
| I mean, go on any highway in Canada and there will be sections
| where 'retarder' breaks aren't allowed. Those going to get
| cancelled?
|
| Edit - also associating people with mental disability with that
| word was a slang usage in the first place, it was never the
| primary usage.
| dang wrote:
| Please stop taking HN threads further into flamewar. You've
| done it a lot in the past, and your account seems
| unfortunately to be swerving back into it. It's not what this
| site is for.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| LightHugger wrote:
| This comment has no substance
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| Don't bring snowflake politics that redefine words to HN... HN
| is much better than that and sets it above other social media.
| deeblering4 wrote:
| Have you ever considered that some people here actually have
| disabled family members?
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| And what does that have to do with the original meaning of
| the word, as already commented, and ignored?
| dang wrote:
| Please don't post flamebait here or take threads further into
| flamewar.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| Gigachad wrote:
| The google definition for retard is "delay or hold back in
| terms of progress or development." This exactly matches what
| the OP was trying to convey about the mac displayport
| implementation.
| smilespray wrote:
| Look up "retarded" in Merriam-Webster:
|
| https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/retarded
| zingmars wrote:
| The first definition is "very stupid or foolish" which
| seems quite apt given the context. The second one talks
| about a disability, which does not really seem applicable
| since we're talking about monitors and not people.
|
| So where is the issue exactly? He used the word correctly
| as far as I can tell.
| deeblering4 wrote:
| You are overlooking the fact that the word is flagged as
| offensive. That is the entirety of the issue.
|
| Definition of retarded
|
| 1 informal + offensive : very stupid or foolish
|
| 2 dated, now offensive : affected by intellectual
| disability : INTELLECTUALLY DISABLED
| zingmars wrote:
| What issue? There's nothing wrong with being offensive,
| and again, in this case that was entirely the point. He's
| being offensive to Apple's implementation of monitor
| settings. He's not even wrong about it since it's a
| rather big pain point if you're mac user who wants a
| multi monitor setup.
|
| Posting the definition won't change anything. You're tone
| policing the guy with literally 0 legitimate reasons to
| do so.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Merriam seems politically biased imo as this fails to
| explain the meaning of many modern day uses like "fire
| retardant" or the numerous uses in physics. The google
| definition from oxford perfectly explains its formal
| meaning as well as hint at how it could also be used as an
| insult.
|
| Holding back a fire in terms of progress also seems like a
| perfect fit.
| sgjohnson wrote:
| They are biased. By their definition of "anti-vaxxer"
| people who merely oppose vaccination mandates are anti-
| vaxxers as well. [1]
|
| Which is, frankly, quite insulting to me, because I'm
| vaccinated, and consider myself by no means an anti-
| vaxxer, I oppose vaccination mandates.
|
| But Merriam-Webster says I'm an anti-vaxxer so I guess I
| must be one -\\_(tsu)_/-
|
| [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anti-
| vaxxer
| deeblering4 wrote:
| Sorry but I think you've lost the plot. This has nothing
| to do with anti-vaxxing.
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| Indeed, it is a common word in the subject areas you
| mentioned. Strange they didn't have an inflammatory or
| hostile reply when given a legitimate example of correct
| usage of language.
| deeblering4 wrote:
| We're not talking about 'fire retardant'. The quote is:
|
| > macOS still has a completely retarded implementation of
| DisplayPort MST
|
| > completely retarded
|
| It's extremely frustrating how many people in this
| community chose to defend this comment as if it were an
| eloquent description of the issue.
|
| Calling attention to problematic language is not hostile
| or inflammatory. This term is flagged as offensive in the
| dictionary in this context. Don't shoot the messenger.
| least wrote:
| I think deliberately interpreting other people's speech
| only within the framework that _your_ mind works in is
| problematic. It doesn 't even matter if there's consensus
| -- you're choosing to interpret it as ableist despite it
| clearly not being used in that manner and you refuse to
| acknowledge that people different from you use language
| differently. How is this not a bigoted stance to hold?
| It's language imperialism.
| [deleted]
| deeblering4 wrote:
| And here's the google definition for the term 'retarded'
| which was the word actually used. They are not the same word.
|
| re*tard*ed /r@'tard@d/ Learn to pronounce adjective
|
| OFFENSIVE*DATED less advanced in mental, physical, or social
| development than is usual for one's age.
|
| OFFENSIVE very foolish or stupid.
| zingmars wrote:
| >OFFENSIVE very foolish or stupid.
|
| Still seems very apt, no?
| deeblering4 wrote:
| No. It's flagged as offensive in all caps. That means
| using it is the opposite of appropriate.
| zingmars wrote:
| Ah so because it's flagged as offensive you can't use it
| in an offensive manner on the internet. Got it. Makes
| perfect sense. THINK OF THE POOR APPLE MONITORS.
| [deleted]
| cto_of_antifa wrote:
| This feels like willfull ignorance, to be honest.
| [deleted]
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| At the risk of joining the dog-pile against your comment, not
| once have I used this particular insult with any "ableist"
| subtext in my life. I interpret it to be a stronger form of
| "stupid" or "moronic", and that is it. I am aware that there is
| a modern trend to mark usages of this word as ableist, but I
| simply disagree.
| deeblering4 wrote:
| Interesting that despite never considering it to be ableist
| you knew exactly which word I was referring to.
|
| > I interpret it to be a stronger form of "stupid" or
| "moronic"
|
| And why do you suppose that is?
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| > you knew exactly which word I was referring to.
|
| I have come across this issue several times in the past
| couple of years by the virtue of reading comments under
| articles. These criticisms are a part of the public record.
|
| > And why do you suppose that is?
|
| Most people learn words by figuring out what others call a
| certain thing, and then reusing that term to build a shared
| understanding of the world. This word is no different. At
| no point did this label acquire (in my perception) any
| connection to ability (mental or otherwise) until I first
| heard of it from US-centric English speakers. In my
| perception, it's the opposite: anything that is "retarded"
| is perfectly capable of being better designed/implemented
| or of making better choices, but instead actively chooses
| to do the worst possible thing for seemingly irrational
| reasons.
| deeblering4 wrote:
| So you have read several times that this term is
| criticized as offensive, yet claim that in your
| perception the word is the opposite of offensive. What
| more would it take to get through to you?
|
| > In my perception, it's the opposite: anything that is
| "retarded" is perfectly capable of being better
| designed/implemented or of making better choices, but
| instead actively chooses to do the worst possible thing
| for seemingly irrational reasons.
|
| This is a such strange thing to double down on.
|
| Not everyone is "rational" as you perceive them. That's
| the point. And it's not always an active choice. Some
| people are disabled. Some people think and act
| differently than you. You don't get to call them
| irrational any more than they get to call you intolerant.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| > So you have read several times that this term is
| criticized as offensive, yet claim that in your
| perception the word is the opposite of offensive. What
| more would it take to get through to you?
|
| Why do you want to "get through" to me? I heard the
| discourse, and disagreed with the arguments, it's that
| simple. I am perfectly capable of understanding a
| conflicting point of view without being convinced by the
| arguments.
|
| > This is a such strange thing to double down on.
|
| There is nothing for me to double down on, this is simply
| how I see the situation. Whether you choose to believe
| that I'm sharing my view in good faith, is up to you.
|
| > Some people are disabled. (...) You don't get to call
| them irrational any more than they get to call you
| intolerant.
|
| I already made it clear that I consider irrationality in
| the light of whether someone is capable of making the
| opposite (rational) choice. If they are not (for any
| reason, including disability), then there is no reason to
| call them rational _or_ irrational, because you cannot
| measure their behaviour with this metric.
| dang wrote:
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29470254.
|
| It's not a net win for the forum to have flamewars about this.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| mantas wrote:
| it's ok, people can swear on the interwebs
| cto_of_antifa wrote:
| They can, and they can also be rightfully criticized for it.
| disgu wrote:
| I remember having this issue a few years back with a 1080p
| display and a MacBook Pro from 2016. Connecting a Raspberry Pi
| Zero W yielded better display results than a $3k MacBook Pro,
| which was really disappointing. I can't believe it's still an
| issue to this day.
| aulin wrote:
| that's a different issue altogether, this one is about macos
| not supporting 2k and 4k monitors native resolutions, that one
| was about antialiasing. At some point, when Retina was
| introduced, Apple decided to completely disable their subpixel
| hinting so low resolution monitors (if 1080p can be considered
| low) that can render sharp text on Linux and on Windows look
| ugly and blurry on macos
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| >At some point, when Retina was introduced
|
| It was later than that, if I recall correctly it was
| available until Catalina although you did need to modify a
| config file to enable it.
| aulin wrote:
| Yep, they made it gradually less discoverable, leaving an
| option in system preferences first, then removing it and
| allowing to enable it from cmdline, then removing it
| altogether. I believe it went away completely with Big Sur.
| albertopv wrote:
| These are issues I had with linux...so, I will just stick it :)
| aulin wrote:
| at least linux has subpixel antialiasing so text still looks
| crisp on perfectly good full hd monitors...
| Gigachad wrote:
| Gnome does have an option for fractional scaling but any legacy
| x11 apps will look blurry. Last I checked this was pretty much
| just electron and chrome holding things up.
| albertopv wrote:
| Ubuntu 21.10 doesn't recognise my asus qhd bought a year ago,
| max resolution detected is fhd, no issues with windows 10
| hollerith wrote:
| >just electron and chrome holding things up
|
| There are flags you can pass on the commandline to tell
| Chrome to bypass XWayand. I have been running Chrome (stable
| channel) that way for many months -- on Gnome 40 set to a
| fractional scaling factor. No blurriness.
| solarkraft wrote:
| My 4K monitor looks and works perfectly fine on my M1 Mac ...
| when it works. I've had many connection issues with the dongle I
| haven't had on another computer running Linux. Some days it just
| switches on and off seemingly randomly in the span of 10 seconds
| to 30 minutes. In the last few days it has been fine. I won't be
| surprised when it appears again.
| harha wrote:
| Using Citrix is also catastrophic both on the 5K iMac and the
| Retina MacBook Pro (and probably others too). Not sure who's to
| blame for that. Curious to see if this tool solves the issue.
| Gatsky wrote:
| BetterDummy solves mouse stutter on external displays as well!
| (M1 air with 1080p monitor)
|
| Does nobody at Apple use external monitors??
| nickpp wrote:
| I'm guessing the use the 32" 6K XDR...
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| On the MacBook Air of my wife we had also display problems. If I
| remember correctly you had to press the option key somewhere on a
| click to get better resolutions.
|
| https://osxdaily.com/2015/08/27/show-all-display-resolutions...
|
| "Under the 'Display' tab, hold down the OPTION / ALT key while
| you press on the 'Scaled' button". Talk about UI.
|
| Before that we had spend quite some money on HDMI cables and
| USB-C to HDMI adapters and stuff blaming 3rd party products along
| the way.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| I think this is probably intentional to try to get people to
| spend money on a Mac display.
| ldrndll wrote:
| When you say a "Mac" display, what are you referring to?
| Apple sells exactly one display - the XDR - and its pricing
| is such that no one casually buys because their $300 external
| display isn't working correctly. I very much doubt that is
| their motivation; it's likely just a (possibly misguided)
| effort to keep the UI simpler.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| It was more of a $1500 external display ;-)
| djhn wrote:
| I'm confused. If this isn't a joke I don't get, would you
| mind sharing some advice on how to get it for that price?
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| I have replied to
|
| "buys because their $300 external display isn't working"
|
| with the fact that our external display was $1500. I'm
| confused now :-)
| djhn wrote:
| I thought you meant that the Apple XDR Display could be
| had for 1500. My bad.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| No, sorry for being not more clear.
| cosmotic wrote:
| And here I thought this was going to be about the HDMI YCbCR
| issue. https://spin.atomicobject.com/2018/08/24/macbook-pro-
| externa...
| least wrote:
| I know this is at least somewhat a software issue; as in on many
| monitors options for display scaling don't even appear. My Dell
| U3818DW does have retina scaling options, thankfully, but my Asus
| PG278Q did not when I was using it. I ended up following along to
| this article [1] to get some retina display options for it.
|
| With that being said, I think the larger issue is that there
| simply aren't that many high dpi external monitors available, and
| the ones that do exist are expensive. There are a ton of options
| for 4k panels in PC laptops that are like 13-17 inch and Apple's
| retina displays on their iMacs and Macbooks are also high dpi but
| I can count on my fingers how many true high dpi screens there
| are for external display options.
|
| Gamers don't really want higher resolution since GPUs can't drive
| them well natively and games don't really need the sharpness and
| I imagine that corporations buying hundreds of monitors at a time
| don't really care about it, either, especially since Windows
| renders text on them quite adequately. Mac users are certainly
| longing for some decent monitor options that aren't 5000 dollars,
| though.
|
| [1] https://medium.com/comsystoreply/force-hidpi-resolutions-
| for...
| pedrocr wrote:
| Here are 118 different 4K monitors starting at 240EUR:
|
| https://www.worten.pt/informatica-e-acessorios/monitores/mon...
|
| I've bought 3 LG ones during the pandemic and they're great.
| What other options do you need?
| noir_lord wrote:
| Watch the corners.
|
| I bought 3 4K 27" LG ups ones, one the corners blew out
| (massive bleed til you can't see the pixels for the white
| shining through), one is going thr same way and only the
| newest shows no sign of it (yet).
|
| Going Samsung next time since LG make panels for everyone and
| I simply don't trust them now.
| least wrote:
| Almost no 4k monitors would be considered high dpi. To
| achieve 220dpi you need a 4k monitor to be 20 inches. 27 inch
| 4k monitor 4:1 pixel mapping makes it appear to be 1080p,
| which many people would not consider to be appropriate for
| that size monitor. You can use fractional scaling but that
| comes with its own sets of issues because the pixels don't
| map correctly.
|
| 27 inch 1440p at 100% scaling in Windows or MacOS is what
| most would be consider appropriate _sizing_ for UI elements
| and text by default, so in order to achieve high dpi you need
| a 5k monitor, like the LG UltraFine or the 27 inch iMac.
| aulin wrote:
| can you confirm they work in retina mode with macs? e.g.
| anyone tried 27UL500 and can confirm text looks good?
| 4ad wrote:
| No, I tried these 4k@27 inch displays, and you can enable
| scaling, but it looks really really poor compared to my 5k
| iMac. 4k at 27 inch is not retina-quality, period. This is
| the only reason I use an iMac, I simply can't get an
| equally good display without paying EUR5k+.
|
| I understand that not everybody understands hiDPI displays,
| but it really grinds me gears to see low-resolution
| displays advertised as solutions to people who _do_
| understand hiDPI.
| aulin wrote:
| Ok, I understand it cannot be comparable with a 5k iMac.
| But is text good enough? with EUR5k+ I can build a pretty
| serious linux rig with a couple of 4k monitors and keep
| the macbook air m1 just for mobile use. It's a shame that
| my 10+ years old macbook pro with High Sierra can render
| text better on any external monitor than my brand new air
| m1.
| a_chris wrote:
| I have a 4k 27" LG monitor and it is awesome with my Mac.
| I use it with 150% scale and the font is ultra sharp,
| best monitor I've ever seen so far
| rerx wrote:
| Have they fixed the performance issues with non-integer
| scaling?
| 4ad wrote:
| Please check your eyesight. I can _easily_ tell the
| difference between a 220ppi and a 280ppi display when
| viewing text even at _one meter_ viewing distance. 4k@27
| '' is only 163ppi. And my eyesight is not even what it
| used to be.
|
| To me, 163ppi looks more similar to how old ~100ppi
| displays looked that to my 224ppi iMac.
| 4ad wrote:
| In my opinion, text rendering on 4k@27'' is _nowhere_
| near sharp enough. In my experience there isn 't a
| continuum from low-dpi to high-dpi, but rather there's a
| sharp transition where text suddenly becomes sharp and
| 4k@27'' is below that line.
|
| In fact, once you see these new 280dpi displays, even
| 5k@27'' _barely_ makes the cut. I wish it were sharper.
| pedrocr wrote:
| Angular resolution is much more important than the actual
| surface DPI. Depending on you viewing distances and the
| quality of your vision 4K on a 14" laptop is needed or
| 1080p on a 27" screen is more than enough. Your
| requirements are extreme compared to most.
| 4ad wrote:
| Yes, angular resolution is all that matters, which is why
| books, which are supposed to be used closer than any
| screen have been _at least_ 300dpi since we have invented
| phototypesetting.
| pedrocr wrote:
| We can discuss how much angular resolution is enough but
| we clearly don't need 300dpi for a billboard. To get the
| same font quality when looking at a phone, laptop or
| external screen a different dpi will be needed.
|
| Here's Apple's range of Retina displays:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retina_display#Models
|
| The DPI difference between highest (iPhone 12) and lowest
| (Pro Display XDR) is 2.2x. The angular resolution
| difference at typical viewing distance between those two
| screens is 1.1x. Clearly the angular resolution at
| typical viewing distance is a much better definition of
| what's good enough resolution than the DPI.
| 4ad wrote:
| Yes, and with the exception of a discontinued LG monitor,
| and a $4k Dell display that doesn't work on macOS, nor on
| Linux with OSS drivers, no external non-Apple display can
| provide the required angular resolution.
| pedrocr wrote:
| That totally depends on what angular resolution you
| require and what distance you are comfortable with. Using
| that list Apple's Retina concept starts at 57 and 4K 27"
| is ~60. And even that is assuming you place a 27" screen
| the same distance away from your eyes as a 24" or even
| 21" screen as all the iMacs use the same viewing
| distance.
|
| But I'm glad we got over the idea that 220dpi is a
| magical number. Otherwise not even the iMac or the Apple
| Pro XDR displays counted as HiDPI.
| 4ad wrote:
| Sorry, but those are not hiDPI. For hiDPI, you need at least
| 5k at 27 inch. There was a single (!!) LG display (27MD5KL)
| that met that criteria, but it was discontinued.
|
| The only external hiDPI displays that exist are the Apple Pro
| XDR (only works on macOS), and the Dell UP3218K (doesn't work
| on macOS).
|
| Of course the iMac is hiDPI, but it's not an external
| display.
|
| It's bewildering how manufacturers keep pushing for this low
| resolution 4k crap 10 years (!!!!) after hiDPI displays first
| appeared in laptops.
|
| Reference: https://geizhals.eu/?cat=monlcd19wide&xf=12018_200
| pedrocr wrote:
| We need better definitions then. Apple uses 1440p/1600p on
| laptop screens. At normal viewing distances using that on a
| 14" laptop and 4K on a 27 inch external screen works
| perfectly with the same scaling. I know because that's what
| I use with just font scaling that's the same across
| screens. With my work 14" 1080p Windows laptop 2x scaling
| is needed on the external screen. If 4K 27" is not HiDPI
| what do we call 1080p in that size which is still the
| normal resolution for those screens?
| radley wrote:
| 4K 24" will be HiDPI because it's 2x 1080p.
|
| 5k 27" is HiDPI, because it 2x the old 1440 screens.
| pedrocr wrote:
| 4K 27" is also 2x1080p. 1080p panels come in all sizes,
| including 27". And Apple uses 1600p on their laptops,
| when most laptops these days are 1080p. I guess Apple
| laptops are also not HiDPI as 1600p is not 2x1080p.
| Angular resolutions matter much more than surface DPI.
| You don't use a 27" screen at the same distance as a 24"
| one the same way you don't use a 14" laptop screen the
| same distance as your phone.
| 4ad wrote:
| Yes, angular resolution is all that matters, which is why
| their small displays are now 254ppi, while the iMac and
| the Pro XDR is 218ppi.
| pedrocr wrote:
| Don't take it from me, you can read Steve Jobs himself on
| the introduction of the Retina term:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retina_display#Rationale
| 4ad wrote:
| Do you really believe that people use these 4k@27''
| displays at a different distance than mac users use their
| 27 inch iMac?
| pedrocr wrote:
| I use a 4K 27" screen at a distance where it uses the
| same scaling as a 1440p 14" laptop. Looks great to me,
| but if your vision is better or you're using it closer
| then it may not be enough. Other people use 4K TVs or 65"
| screens to be able to set them farther and keep their
| vision more rested for the same angular resolution.
| Resolution requirements depend massively on how you setup
| your workspace and the quality of your vision. There are
| plenty of people that use software scaling for 1080p 14"
| laptop screens as they consider normal sizes too small
| for example. The range of configurations is very high and
| you're on one extreme of that range. There's nothing
| wrong with that but that's probably why you're frustrated
| with the lack of options on the market. For most people
| even 4K 27" is already overkill and 1080p external
| screens sell well instead.
| aulin wrote:
| For most people not using macos 4k is overkill and 1080p
| can be enough not by itself but because the other two
| major OS (windows and linux) have antialiased text with
| subpixel hinting. I.e. they can exploit the pixel
| internal structure to display sharp text even on low
| resolution monitors. Apple deliberately decided to ditch
| their own implementation as you don't need it for retina
| displays and they only sell and care about retina
| displays.
| 4ad wrote:
| Please answer the question I posted. "Do you really
| believe that people use these 4k@27'' displays at a
| different distance than mac users use their 27 inch
| iMac?"
| pedrocr wrote:
| Yes. I do believe an external 4k 27" on a laptop is used
| differently than a single screen on an iMac. I also
| believe people use iMacs in ways that are different than
| what you use, which was the whole point of my answer.
| People use screens in all sorts of different ways. Most
| of them have resolution requirements much below yours,
| which is why the market apparently doesn't cater for your
| needs.
| 4ad wrote:
| > We need better definitions then.
|
| We have a definition, it's ppi, and you need at least
| 220ppi.
|
| > Apple uses 1440p/1600p on laptop screens.
|
| No, it doesn't.
|
| The current 14'' screen is 3024x1964 and the current 16
| inch is 3456x2234 (both 254ppi).
|
| The previous generation used about 220ppi displays.
| pedrocr wrote:
| The current 13.3" screens are 1600p, the original Retina
| displays were also 1800p on 15". Only the last generation
| is a little higher and still not 4K like in PCs. Apple
| itself has always branded "Retina" based on angular
| resolution and not surface density, so viewing distance
| makes a huge difference.
| 4ad wrote:
| No, their 13'' screens have been 2560x1600 (226ppi) since
| _2012_. You are confused because the nomenclature like
| 1080p refers to _vertical_ resolution while 4k refers to
| _horizontal_ resolution.
| pedrocr wrote:
| No to what? I know what 1080p/1600p/1800p is. Here's a
| direct quote from the Macbook Air tech specs:
|
| Retina display: 13.3-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit display
| with IPS technology; 2560-by-1600 native resolution
|
| If 1600p on 13" is not Retina you need to argue this with
| Apple instead.
| 4ad wrote:
| > If 1600p on 13" is not Retina you need to argue this
| with Apple instead.
|
| It's 226ppi display. Why would it not be a retina
| display?
| detaro wrote:
| 1280x720: 720p
|
| 1920x1080: 1080p
|
| 2560x1440: 1440p
|
| 2560x1600: ...
|
| EDIT: if you're going to edit your comment once called
| out on talking nonsense, at least have the decency to
| note it.
| [deleted]
| radley wrote:
| _> There was a single (!!) LG display (27MD5KL) that met
| that criteria, but it was discontinued._
|
| It was updated in 2019 as the 27MD5KL-B, specifically
| designed for Macs:
|
| https://www.lg.com/us/monitors/lg-27md5kl-b-5k-uhd-led-
| monit...
|
| I saw it listed on apple.com two months ago, but it was a
| month+ back-ordered. I ended up buying one via eBay (for my
| Mac Mini M1).
|
| EDIT: it's still available on apple.com:
| https://www.apple.com/shop/product/HMUB2LL/A/lg-
| ultrafine-5k...
| 4ad wrote:
| Sadly it's out of production, everything you can find (if
| you can find it) is new-old stock.
|
| And also unfortunately, the build quality is very, very
| bad.
|
| But yes, better get that one while you still can! But be
| warned, my friend recently got one, and had to go through
| about 10 retailers until he found one that could
| _actually_ sell him one. Many retailers put these on
| their websites in the hope that LG will be able to
| deliver stock, but LG can 't deliver stock.
| radley wrote:
| Uhm well, I upgraded from a Cinema Display. Granted the
| LG has a plastic frame, but I've paid for 3 replacement
| glass screens for my Cinema Displays because they chip so
| easily.
|
| Color-wise, the LG is fantastic - and I was very
| skeptical about getting it. The old one wasn't very good
| when I compared it side by side with an iMac Pro (Apple
| Store, Union Street, SF). I'm not sure if they changed
| the screen quality, but it seems on par, if not better
| than my old Cinema Display.
|
| EDIT: yeah, my first purchase was via Amazon as "Used -
| Like New", which turned out to be a 2 year old model that
| couldn't talk to the Mac. I found a new one at a great
| price via eBay which works great, but the manual was in
| Cyrillic...
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| >And also unfortunately, the build quality is very, very
| bad.
|
| I think the early models had some problems. I've got the
| later version and it is rock solid.
| sgjohnson wrote:
| Make that an IPS panel and it's only 7 monitors under EUR300
| skohan wrote:
| So basically what you're complaining about is that high-end
| products are expensive? How many 4k IPS displays would you
| have found at the $500 price point even a few years ago?
| sgjohnson wrote:
| Irrelevant, the point was that they are hardly
| "affordable"; if you're going to get more than 1 external
| monitor, viewing angles are going to be a concern, and
| that leaves IPS as the only viable option.
|
| I'm personally running 3 24" external monitors, and I'm
| fairly sure that I'd have a viewing angle issue had my
| panels been TN.
| lostmsu wrote:
| Why are viewing angles concern with a multimonitor setup?
| Don't you turn every monitor to face you directly, so
| that the viewing angle is 0?
| rpdillon wrote:
| This is what I do with two 1080p monitors; I don't need
| IPS at all, since I'm always viewing them close to
| perpendicular to the screen. Has worked just fine for me
| the past couple of years.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| How is IPS high-end, exactly? It's table stakes for the
| modern-day. The technology is over a decade old, and TN
| is a strictly worse tech. If it isn't cheap, it should be
| cheap.
| sgjohnson wrote:
| And ultimately this, there's no way 4K 60Hz IPS panel
| could be described as "high end".
|
| High end for 60Hz these days is OLED, IPS is the de-facto
| standard, and TN or VA aren't worth buying.
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