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Comment by mmcconnell1618 | Hacker News Reader

Humans have almost 180 degrees field of view horizontally and 135 degrees vertically. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_of_view) Wide screen makes more sense. Put two browsers next to each other on a wide screen and you're no longer have the empty bands shown in the article.

If you need to see more vertical real estate on a site use a higher resolution monitor or a larger one. Biology gave us a wide screen field of view. Use it.

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I disagree on the wide screen field of view.

From what I understand, reading comprehension actually improves with text in contained width (i.e. columns) [1][2]. My experience in using a higher res monitor is that it takes a bit more effort to read the (smaller) text. Larger + higher res combination might work though.

PS. I run a two-vertical / portrait monitor configuration and it makes my job a lot easier to orient myself within the code.

[1] - http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ColumnModeSometimesBetterThanWidespan [2] - http://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/3553/why-do...

Nope. Neutralized by the fact that our language is read top-to-bottom. Thus, so is all content. And eyes don't actually read lines of text well if they are 18 inches wide, it turns out. Which is why books are, by and large, printed in vertical orientations.

Though if you open a book, you actually have a landscape view of two pages, side-by-side.

Until you fold one half of it around back.

Assuming my eyes are normal, the actual field of view is wide and tall enough that it's pretty immaterial. A monitor will fit with plenty room to spare both vertically and horizontally.

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