Just wait for a bit and that problem will solve itself handily. And then you'll be wishing for the time when you could see pixels.
So the ideal (for me) is a large high res monitor sitting 3 or more feet away from me. The first hint you're on this path is when your arms start to be too short for reading books and when you are 100% sure that the gray squiggles on that chip used to have meaning.
I’m not an expert here (I had to look up the Harmon Distance), but from what I understand from other reading about eye strain, this should be rephrased as:
“Reading gets less comfortable if the material is any closer than the Harmon Distance, with some variation depending on age and individual differences between people.”
In particular, there are two factors that make focusing at close distance uncomfortable: (1) you need to flex the ciliary muscles to focus the lens (this is called “accommodation”), and (2) you need to flex the medial rectus muscles to rotate the eyes inward to point at the same spot (this is called “convergence”).
Both sets of muscles start getting strained if you look at a very close object for a long time with no breaks.
Looking at further away objects, even all the way out to the horizon, isn’t really a problem though.
[1] http://oculusrift-blog.com/oculus-rift-faq/492/
No anchors in the page, I'm referring to: "Will the Oculus Rift cause eye strain after extended use?
The Oculus Rift causes very little eye strain, particularly compared to other standard displays or headmounts.
Normally, when you take a break from using a monitor or TV, the idea is to give your eyes a chance to focus and converge on a distant plane. This is a natural position of rest for your eyes.
With the Oculus Rift, your eyes are actually focused and converged in the distance at all times. It’s a pretty neat optical feature."
(This is assuming the task at hand doesn't require a high refresh rate of course - a reflex based game like an FPS would be a no-go)
What "30Hz" means in LCD terms is that if you go to change a pixel, the fastest you can do that is once every 33 mS but during the whole time it isn't changed, it stays the same intensity.
I just did a test: Over 5 seconds I moved my mouse to the top of my monitor and back down 15 times, which works out to 12000 pixels per second, or 396 pixels per frame - which seems about right for how far the mouse seems to jump per frame. For comparison, Chrome's Close Tab button is 15x15 pixels, and HN's upvote button is 8x7 pixels. Framerate really is the limiting factor for how long it takes me to move my mouse onto the kinds of click targets common in computers.
Another test: it takes around 6 seconds to close 7 tabs with a mouse in Chrome in 30fps, and 4 seconds to close the tabs in Chrome in 60fps.
Quickly moving in the target's general direction: it's a lot easier to track a 10x20 pixel cursor when it's jumping 150 pixels per frame than if it's jumping 300 pixels per frame. (These are my own numbers, judging by people's reactions to my mouse sensitivity settings, it's likely yours would be lower.)
Slowly moving to the target's exact position: if the click target is 8x7 pixels like HN's upvote button, I can't move any faster than 2-3 pixels per frame, which is obviously half as fast in 30fps as in 60fps.
> There are two parts to moving a cursor to a click target: quickly moving the cursor in the target's general direction, and then slowly moving to its exact position
This is a pretty basic usability issue and one of the reasons we put clickable things on the edge of the screen if we can.
See also:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000063....
(note that this is a great example of mouse and touch screens having completely different usability requirements)
Even scrolling text on a terminal becomes and 'issue' at 30fps. It get's 'blurry' is the closest I could say, Again, it drives me crazy.
Maybe this wouldn't bother me any more personally, but I bet I would have noticed it when I was 23!
Fair enough, but it does for most people. The claim I was disagreeing with is that >30fps only matters for action games. It is noticeable for most tasks that use a mouse.
The same could be said for things like color accuracy: it's annoying that it's wrong, but it doesn't really matter for my work.
That said, when it's fixable (and in the author's case it is), you should fix it.
The only computer display I’m more impressed with at the moment is the 5k “retina” iMac display.
My desktop is where I spend the most time, yet it was the last remaining device I use where there were visible, ugly, distracting pixels everywhere. Now I never see pixels in my daily life, and reading and writing on my desktop have become significantly more pleasant. I highly recommend switching to a high-DPI monitor for anyone who spends much time on the computer (which is probably almost everyone here).
Oh, most software works just fine once I manually set the DPI in KDE's system settings. Upgrading to Plasma 5, the only software I use that isn't scaled properly is Chrome. Apparently they're working on it, but I only use Chrome for Netflix, and it's not too bad having tiny browser tabs for that one use.