neonleonb

We found my dad a cheap 28" monitor, but as a Black Friday sale, it sold out before he could order it. The best alternative is probably two normal-sized monitors.

However, I'm confused by the "maximum resolution" of the video card. It claims the max resolution is 2560x1600. The card has two outputs. Is that the max resolution per output, or the max resolution total? If it's the total resolution, that's pretty restrictive--he couldn't combine two 1900x1200 monitors.

The internet suggests it's the total resolution. My reason to doubt that is my own laptop. It has a 2.5-year-old Nvidia card, and it regularly drives a total resolution width of more than 3000. There's no way my old laptop card is better than his brand-new state-of-the-art card.

Can someone help clear this up for me?

Harry Potter was obviously written by a woman. I've been reading/listening to book 5, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," and I've just passed the point where Harry goes on a date with Cho. They go to a coffeeshop and sit surrounded by couples holding hands and kissing, and Harry's thought is, "she'll expect me to do that too--how terrifying!"

What. The. Fuck.

Have you ever had a chance to hold the hand of someone you had a crush on? Did you lack the desire to do so? If so, you weren't a young man, because I can assure you, the desire to touch and kiss is extraordinary, matched only by the enormous fear of the consequences if you do so and she's unhappy about it. I can't imagine anyone missing that drive; it's so visceral and all-consuming.

However, I'm told that women often engage in sexual behavior that makes them uncomfortable because they feel societal expectation, and so I theorize that this is the reaction a woman might have--indifference mixed with expectation and fear. How else could you explain such a bizarre set of emotions? It's just such an alien reaction to me, though, that I can't understand how it made it into the book. Wouldn't most anyone who read the book immediately wonder, "Why didn't Harry want to kiss her?"

So, my question to you: when you were young, say, 16, and had the chance to kiss someone, were you excited about it or just expected to do so?

In general, I tend to appreciate validation more than I ought to. I think that has a real relation to the fact that it's impossible to judge oneself objectively.

I have known many people who don't correctly understand how they're perceived. There are people who are annoying, seemingly without being aware of it. There are people who are mocked without knowing it: For instance, there was a geeky kid in high school who was nominated for homecoming king as a gag, and he had no idea that it was mockery. I know that I do some of these things: I project more geekiness than I like to admit (seeing myself on video is always embarrassing), I'm annoyingly talkative, and I am fairly self-centered.

My reaction to most of these events is to wonder how I am perceived. Am I annoying? How are people mocking me? It's impossible to tell from the inside, and even when I can guess from the inside my estimate is likely to be flawed.

So, the question: people advise not to worry what other people think about you. How can you do that when their evaluation is more accurate and more objective than your own? Who can trust their own biased opinions of themselves?

This is a long rant, so I put the body of it under a cut. But there is a question at the end, and I welcome your input. So feel free to skip to the bottom to read and answer the question.

( Cut for length )

This has worked out for me longer than it might have. As an unusually capable person, letting capability determine my happiness has been generally pleasant. However, it can't really last--as I get older, I'm sure to be less and less able, so I'll have to draw happiness from other things. What other sources of happiness are viable? What drives your sense of well-being?

(I already reject the idea of being happy over my general good fortune, as I think we can all agree that will go sour much more easily than being happy over my abilities--a lost game wouldn't bother me as much, but the law of averages would be against me.)

All right. So in the show last night, the guy told a story about how once on Password, the word to guess was "money," so the clue-giver said "dough," and the black woman responded "knob." And everyone had a good laugh. Then the performer joked about the white guy in the audience looking around wondering what the joke was. Well, that was me. I don't get this joke. Does anyone care to explain it? Some discussion here and here suggests that "dough" sounded like "door" in her dialect, so that's why she responded that way.

BTW, the story might have the details wrong. Some say it was on the Newlywed Game, some on Pyramid (with Alan Alda), etc. Some discussion here.