My New Monitors - Research & Pricing

No game footage this evening, we have been playing, but we've also been working hard on the house.  Well, since its now a fortnight since my surgery, I've been forced out into the cold by the wife to get on with some jobs, the first of which has been to clip the rear conifers, they were getting... well I'd like to say out of hand, but that's an understatement, you know when you don't notice something?... Well we'd not really noticed they'd expanded at the base by 6 feet in diameter.

Clipping this excess away on the drive-way side has allowed us to move the junk from below them, and now fit the new van along with the estate car onto the drive way, result!

Next, I've been told to decorate the kitchen, this is on hold awaiting some tools I need (mate you know which ones I'm on about, hehe).

I also have to finish the plastering in the middle room and get on with painting it, so it's all go.

But, last night we spent a little over £114 at Ikea, we bought a new stainless steel standing lamp, the Klaab model, for the middle room, I got some LED down-lighters, and stuck them under the kitchen cupboards, to the kitchen is now lit at night not by the combines 120watts of overhead lighting, but just 0.6watts of LED lighting, and it's almost as bright at the worktop level, where we need the light of an evening.

We also have a new solid metal hat & coat stand, and I have a lovely new pillow for my office chair, which I'm sat on right now.

However, all this aside is not the exciting thing about the evening, no, for this evening I've had the green light to pick new monitors for my office...

My requirements here have been dual screen for a long long time, and I generally play on my Dell monitor and play video on my phillips monitor, they're both 1050p (no, that is not a typo, they're not even full 1080p).

Now, both of these screens are going to be retired, one will be kept as a spare, the other sold on ebay for a bare minimum.

But, the question is where do I go?... Now, I still need a VGA connector on one of these new beasts, and I need at least two... The rest is up in the air, I have dial DVI-D on my graphics card, a HDMI and a display port output, so I have the world of monitors at my behest....

Wait, wait, why VGA you ask?... Well, because I have to repair broken machines from other people, and I have a vested interest in older PC hardware.  All of which require a VGA port as a bare minimum for me.

This VGA requirement is most definitely not for my main screen, so lets ignore that for now and discuss more about what I require for my main screen.

MOOORRRREEEEE SCREEN SPACE!... Yes, it's as simple as that, with virtual machines, development pages, scripts and other junk open on the main screen; even with the second screen; I need more space in that my main work space, so I want a resolution of 2560 x 1440.  I'd also like the screen to minimum eye strain, so Low blue light, and a high view angle (IPS) would be good.

How big do I want the screen?... Well, the current screens are both 23.5 inch.  And we're upgrading... So lets say 27" as a minimum, now I want two of them, so that's a combined length of 54".  And looking at my screen any larger is not going to fit.

Right, our first milestone, we've picked a size... So, what have we got... Hitting the "Gaming Monitor" reviews, I want anything with a response time of lower than 5ms... I would say I'd love 144hz or 1ms but, to be honest, we running an nVidia 770 GTX card, so 144hz refresh rates at such high resolutions we'll have available are going to be impossible.

Now, searching, I got several options, my notes...

Asus seemed to be a top running brand, as does Acer, Benq and Samsung...

Samsung however, all seemed to be more expensive and less able, so I dropped them out of the mix.  This is a shame as I have all Samsung electronics screens for my TV's in the house, and I'm happy with them, but I'm not going to be paying a premium for lower spec screens here.

I did also, at this time, take a good look and have notes on 24 inch screens, and came across the Asus VX24AH, a 2560x1440 resolution 5MS IPS screen.  At only £200 this was a bargain, and is still a strong contender for my secondary screen, however, it's only 24 inches... 

I then considered three of these, in portrait mode, that would rock, even with the bezels in the way, however, the stand was not adjustable, it only provided tilt, so three of them was not going to be possible without also buying into a complete mounting system, but these desks could't support that, so I'd also have to be fitting to the wall, and the wall has old Victorian era plaster (yes 150 year old plaster!) which is about ready to come off.

So, quit the 24 inches, and look at Asus 27 inches... Ooo, ooo... I got a heavy high contender for the main screen... The Asus MX27AQ, it has ultra low blue light, IPS, it's 100M:1 ratio, 300cd/m2, 5ms response, 2560x1440 resolution and it has display port and HDMI, so can be driven easily from my card without need of a splitter or display port hub.  It come in at a little under £400....  Via amazon....That is very expensive, but I want to buy something of quality and then a lower priced utility second screen... However, I notice it's sold through Amazon by Scan, so what's their direct price... £375... Already £25 cheaper... I could potentially go pick this screen up too, that'd be £4.95 delivery saved... That's 5 litres of diesel paid for, which is more than enough to cover a 4 hour round trip... But, for now, we'll assume delivery from Scan at £4.95 on top, so we're at a price of around £380.

Next a secondary, the Asus appeal now is the small bezel, and this is going to be side by side, so what else do they offer... Well, in the MX series, there's the MX279H, a screen with rave reviews, AH-IPS, 300 cd/m2, it has VGA and 2 x HDMI, so is okay for my bare minimum connectivity, it's only 1920 x 1080 resolution, but it is 100M:1 ration, 5ms response time and AH-IPS.  It's a cost of £229 though, to very much too much with the main monitor included.  Though they'd look identical.

With Scan this second screen is £10 more than with Amazon, and with their delivery it's £14.95 more, so Amazon is the source there.  Two different screens from two deliveries, not ideal.... But, we're after cost here.  However, my budget for this is around £500, and I'm at a standing of  £609, that's definitively over budget.

However, in the Asus range I also spotted the VC279H, it's a much lower fidelity screen, 80M:1 ratio, I doubt from my old screens I'd see any difference, but it's a cost to performance challenge now, then the resolution is the same 1920x1080, and 5Ms response, the connectivity however is a little better for my needs, VGA, DVI and HDMI.  Costs, this is £172, that's bringing the main screen and this as an option in at £552, I think £52 over budget I can talk my way out of.

The question is with this lower priced VC series, is, "how different" is different looking?... And it seems, not very...

From the images I've looked at (which we can see above) the main differences are the bezel, on the main screen will be silver, whilst black on the secondary, and then the stand is a hollow sun dial style on the primary and a solid plastic on the secondary.

I think however, this is the end of my searching, and I'm going to the wife with a cost of £552.

In my defense, my current right hand screen is a little under 15 years old, whilst the second screen is around 7 years old.  I got both of these for around £125 each, so I've made that investment last... At this ratio, I need to make these new screens last well into 2022, and I think they'll do that with ease, I certainly see my needing to rebuild the whole PC before I buy anything newer than these screens.

Arma 3 - Coop - Medic by Night, Light Machine Gunner by Day

Today's coop round finds us running around as a medic by night, and then a light machine gunner by day...

I also get very grumpy with a certain helicopter pilot... or is that wanker who thinks he can DJ in a game?....

Arma 3 - Coop Play - Infantry Havoc

This stream saw us take up the role of medic for Alpha Squad, we were inserted into the AO via nighthawk and moved along the coast from the low ground, things went pretty much wrong from there on in, we lost our recon team, our A10 over cover was shot down, our support helo was shot down and when we were tasked with rescuing the pilot he was shot dead upon our arrival.

The stream picks up nearly an hour into this havoc, and finds Alpha pinned inside the perimeter of a small electric generating site, the roof of the generation hall has proven deadly, and we're running low on ammo...

After that hiccup the stream continues with the massive push by the enemy, so many soliders (rendered in ultra quality) are approaching the server is struggling to control them all, and my 770 GTX is struggling to render them all.

Finally the fire fight is over, Alpha Evac is ordered, we pop blue smoke, though the support pilot does not land on our marker... But we lived to tell the tale... Or did we?

Arma 3 - Coop Play

The wife and I have spent sometime, getting off of our dearth of playing PVP games, and we've been playing a lot of Arma 3 in cooperative mode.

We have also started to stream regularly on twitch, www.twitch.tv/xelous, so catch us there.

We bought Arma 3, as I think Arma 2 and it's mods are starting to look very old... It's been a great experience so far, however we are getting random crashes from the game client.

Proper nasty C++ object reference null pointer crashy horribleness.

My Surgery - True Experience of an Epidural & Arthoscopy

I'm back, I've had my surgery, and I'm feeling fine...

I had an arthroscopic investigation, which is key-hole surgery, to go into my right ankle joint and remove a load of gunk and file the bone away.

It has left me, absolutely elated, I can walk again!

The above is an image of my bed in recovery, I was the only guy in there that day whom didn't have a general anesthetic, I had a spinal block, or epidural.  And I thought I'd come to these pages and let anyone out there having to have an epidural how I got along.

First of all, I was very squeamish of their working on my spine, I told them so, but really, I was panicking over nothing, if I had to have any work done on my legs or feet again, a spinal block would be my first choice, having a baby?... Get a spinal block!

The injections into the spine start with skin numbing, I had to have alcohol sterilization of the skin too, but you may get iodine (yellow) sterilization.  You then get a plastic cover taped into place and they work on the skin, numbing with a ice cold freeze spray... these are perhaps the most immediately shocking things, they're cold, they're on wide aware skin, and you're heightened by anxiety, but really they are the worst bits!  Which is fab, because the rest is so easy compared to being prepared.

Next you get the injection into the spine, you have to hold very still, let your shoulders be very slack, this is very important, you will be on a heart monitor, so listen to it beeping and try to breath slowly and deeply to slow that beep, you will feel strong pressure, just them pressing on you... It doesn't hurt, but they're pressing you... Get someone to press their finger as hard as they can into the palm of your hand, same thing, but in the bottom of your back... it's uncomfortable.  And this pressure will leave a nice bruise later.

The needle going in, you should not feel, if you do, just say and they freeze spray again, but generally you can't feel a thing, if you're lucky they go in once and you start to not feel anything.

The key feeling is your bum going warm, a hot flushing feeling going down your body, it's very peaceful, and they remove the sticky wrapper on your back and lay you down quickly, because your legs are about to be paralyzed... but it feels nothing but warm and fine.

You get to wait now a moment or two, and they will check you again by spraying more of that freeze spray; I had three stages with the spray, I felt it and it was cold, I could feel it but had no idea if it was cold, and I couldn't feel it at all... At this last stage you can not move your legs, which is a really strange feeling... 

You don't feel anything, you don't know you have legs, there's no feeling of phantom limbs, nothing no weight, nothing... You can reach down and touch your legs, they're warm soft yours, but immovable, but you cant' even feel your own touch.

I couldn't feel my privates, nothing... 

They did the surgery with my awake, I could watch, but felt nothing.

Recovery, well that took longer, nearly 2 hours... As you sit to recover, you start to feel the reverse, the warm feeling starts to wash down out of your bum into your legs, you can feel your buttocks again, make sure you clench them a bit to make sure you can feel them...

About an hour later you can pull your knees up and down, but not lift your foot up at all.

Next you can flex your knee and lift your foot of the mattress.... and finally you can wiggle your toes.

Plenty of fluids is key, hence in the image above, unlike the other patients, I got a saline drip.

Female Developers

I've just read this on BBC news....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35559439

And I'm sorry to say gals, I've had the opposite experience with you female coders, I've worked with three in my current job, this is closely worked with them, I've also worked with a very good web developer whom was female, and female testers... The tester was mediocre, no real grasp on how development worked, but would get the job done.

The developers however, the more recent I worked with had come from over seas, had come into the role alongside myself from an academic background.  Her idea of good code is still being stripped out of the system whenever it's found; remove by myself I'm afraid to point out.  I was not part of hiring this person, but personally, if I had had a veto it'd have been used, they were simply not very good, and I've spent more time than they worked at the company combined, undoing bad ideas she implemented.

The other main female developer I worked with, was not a bad programmer because she was female per say, her main problem was she was a rude, arrogant, obtuse, and above all close minded fool.  She'd come into a high-speed embedded electronics based system, and thought a good idea for signal propagation, you know the signals that have to go really really fast, was to insert them into a database table, and then have another threaded application running to query them from said table and post them off to where they were required.

Needless to say, this system was always fatally flawed.

This is again not to say the men I've worked with, or I myself, have always been the bests in the world, far from it, I've built some total crack pot program in my time, but as I've matured as a programmer I've made better and better software.... Just the two females I mention here, neither of them seemed to learn anything from experience... It was very much "if A does not work, blame B where B is not Me!"

Gerty - Lunging

Gerty has been doing very well with her lunging, and training.