At this point I am team “use phones less, use Linux PCs more” unless I am away from home.
I’m just chilling on my couch with my family. Having a nice ergo trackball and a monitor on an arm that can swing out in front of me is a game changer.
Oh I’m well aware! The TV actually has a dedicated PC connected to it that’s hidden behind the wall. I’m going to move that PC out of there to a desktop for my kid, but I digress.
I mentioned the family context because that’s what makes the swing-out monitor awesome. We can be watching a movie or even playing a game together on the TV, but in my field of view I have the monitor floating off to the side of the TV. It’s like playing on a phone, but it doesn’t occupy my hands, it has a 27 inch 144Hz screen, and it’s a proper open platform that’s running linux.
Plus having my monitor in addition to the TV means that there’s already a 2-player LAN ready to go at all times. If it’s something cross platform where my kid can use phone or tablet (like Roblox which seems to have great cross platform support) then it’s 3-4 players with their own screens.
Yeah, it feels like an actual life hack in the original spirit of the term, rather than the modern usage that just means a recommendation.
It’s such a simple thing, but one that’s easy to not think of because it’s just not that common to combine couch + desktop monitor(s). It is so damn nice.
And, if you’re middle aged like me, it’s even a bit nostalgic. It reminds me of the high school and college days where instead of doomscrolling on a phone for hours, we would sit at a desktop PC for hours enjoying that good old internet. That internet was old enough to be wild and free (not corpo-enshittified), but new enough that leaving home and going to college meant upgrading from <= 56kbps to 10Mbps.
At this point I am team “use phones less, use Linux PCs more” unless I am away from home.
I’m just chilling on my couch with my family. Having a nice ergo trackball and a monitor on an arm that can swing out in front of me is a game changer.
You know you can plug your PC into the TV right?
You ain’t need swing out monitor
Oh I’m well aware! The TV actually has a dedicated PC connected to it that’s hidden behind the wall. I’m going to move that PC out of there to a desktop for my kid, but I digress.
I mentioned the family context because that’s what makes the swing-out monitor awesome. We can be watching a movie or even playing a game together on the TV, but in my field of view I have the monitor floating off to the side of the TV. It’s like playing on a phone, but it doesn’t occupy my hands, it has a 27 inch 144Hz screen, and it’s a proper open platform that’s running linux.
Plus having my monitor in addition to the TV means that there’s already a 2-player LAN ready to go at all times. If it’s something cross platform where my kid can use phone or tablet (like Roblox which seems to have great cross platform support) then it’s 3-4 players with their own screens.
Oh dam I didn’t think that through.
I may be looking into getting a monitor arm now…
It’s like Picture in Picture but you know a whole lot better.
Yeah, it feels like an actual life hack in the original spirit of the term, rather than the modern usage that just means a recommendation.
It’s such a simple thing, but one that’s easy to not think of because it’s just not that common to combine couch + desktop monitor(s). It is so damn nice.
And, if you’re middle aged like me, it’s even a bit nostalgic. It reminds me of the high school and college days where instead of doomscrolling on a phone for hours, we would sit at a desktop PC for hours enjoying that good old internet. That internet was old enough to be wild and free (not corpo-enshittified), but new enough that leaving home and going to college meant upgrading from <= 56kbps to 10Mbps.