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Article posted on Apr 17

Reno Aces home opener

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on April 17, 2009, 9:04 am

Tonight, the Reno Aces play their home opener against the Salt Lake Bees, at the brand new Aces Ballpark downtown.

Last year, the city announced that it was bringing a minor league baseball team to Reno, and building a new baseball park downtown. I didn't pay much attention to it, because I assumed it was a low league. See, "Minor League Baseball" is actually a federation of leagues, grouped into 5 classes (Triple-A, Double-A, A, Short Season A, Rookie), with sub-classes in some classes (for example, A is sub-divided into High A and Low A), and each class with several leagues within it. A comprehensive list of classes, leagues and teams is available at Wikipedia.

For example, growing up in Green Bay, the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers (current name) played about a half-hour drive away. They are a Low A team, but were still pretty popular, and fun to watch, but still a long ways away from the big leagues. They played in what amounted to a municipal baseball field until 1995, when they build a decent sized (for their class, at least) enclosed stadium.

My attitude changed a few months ago when I found out that the Reno Aces would be a Triple-A affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Triple-A is the best of the best in the minor leagues, and is literally one step up from Major League Baseball. Without going into too much detail, Major League teams each keep a 40-man roster, of which 25 are kept on active for that team. Most of the rest are allocated to their Triple-A affiliate. So the people who play for Triple-A teams are considered good enough for the big leagues, but are playing in the minors, essentially as a reserve system.

(Sidenote: A big faux pas is to say something to the effect of "when do you expect to go pro?" Almost all of the leagues in MiLB are considered to be professional sports; even more so for Triple-A.)

This is good news for Reno. Nevada as a whole does not have any major league teams in any sport. Las Vegas has the 51s, another Triple-A team in the same league as the Aces, the Pacific Coast League. However, Reno has not had a minor league team for awhile before last year. The Reno Bighorns are a NBA Development League team that started last year. The league itself is fairly new, and from what I understand it's fairly equivalent to Triple-A MiLB, but for the NBA. The season ended last week, and I kept meaning to see a game, but never got around to it.

Reno has had MiLB and unaffiliated professional teams before, but none have lasted long, and none were higher than the (now defunct) Class C. And historically, the teams and the community have never put an effort into making it work. The last professional team, the Silver Sox of the unaffiliated Golden Baseball League, played at Moana Stadium, which can most generously be described as "aging". Ticket prices were high, attendance was low. To put it frankly, Reno has developed a passive resistance to professional baseball, due to the various false starts over the years.

This time is different, though. We've got a Triple-A team affiliated with a decent ball club, and a brand new, 10,000 seat Aces Ballpark. Opening day tickets sold out within 20 minutes. The owners have been promoting the Aces heavily, and there's been a LOT of buzz. Prices seem to be reasonable, between $7 and $23 for single-game seats. And there seems to be a much more accepting attitude, if still a little skeptical.

I wasn't able to get tickets to the opener, but I did get a ticket to tomorrow's game. Good one, too: first row behind the visitor's dugout, right next to first base. I'm excited to go, as the stadium pictures I've seen so far look amazing (by minor league standards). People are saying that while it's not the largest ballpark in the minors, it is the nicest.

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Article posted on Apr 15

Review: SpaceNavigator 3D mouse

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on April 15, 2009, 10:10 am

As part of my previously-mentioned Second Life-ish semi-addiction, I bought a 3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator 3D mouse. It's a $60 USB device about the size of a small fist, with a heavy bottom and a manipulatable knob. It supports three axes of spatial rotation plus movement in three dimensions. That is to say you can pitch, roll, yaw, move up/down, left/right and forward/backward, or any combination of these at the same time. For example, grab the knob and pull up to rise. To lower while barrel rolling to the right, push down on the knob while applying rotational pressure to the right. You basically have six axes to play with. (Yes, I know dimensional movements aren't considered axes, but just drink the Sony kool-aid for a moment.)

The Second Life client (and any client based off it, such as the Hippo OpenSim Viewer) natively supports the SpaceNavigator, and supports three modes. While in normal avatar mode, it controls your avatar: dimensional movement to walk/fly around, and roll/pitch/yaw to control where you look. When in edit mode, the SpaceNavigator controls the movement and rotation of the object being manipulated. Personally, I don't like using the SpaceNavigator for either of these modes. Movement with the SpaceNavigator is OK, but can get tiring pretty quickly. Yes, physically tiring. You're actually applying a significant amount of pressure to get it to do what you want it to do, and it can wear down your hand pretty quickly. As for building, using the SpaceNavigator is way too imprecise. More often than not, building is a much more mathematical objective than just moving stuff around. I would like an option to be able to use the SpaceNavigator while in build mode so I could manipulate the camera relative to the object, but that functionality does not appear to exist.

The third mode is where it really shines. Press the left button on the SpaceNavigator, and the SL client goes into Flycam mode. The camera is now detached from the avatar, and you now have complete control over the movement and rotation of the camera. This is what you can do with almost no practice:

That video was controlled entirely by the SpaceNavigator in Flycam mode, and was basically me tooling around Undef Lagoon randomly. One thing I should point out is that in that video, you'll notice that I was going forward at a constant pace while moving around. You'd be tempted to think that Flycam mode operates like a plane, with constant thrust, but no, I had my thumb pushing forward on the knob for most of it. Toward the end I do fly backwards for a bit. It's also a bit easier to understand the controls in this next video I made, as it starts out with a pull-back, while moving up and pitching down:

That video had a bit more jerky movement, because as I said, it takes a fair amount of pressure to manipulate the SpaceNavigator. So if you're not going full-bore (as I was throughout most of the first video), it's harder to maintain a constant pressure. Still, it has a lot of potential for machinima, and is just plain fun to use.

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Article posted on Apr 14

Welcome to the show!

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on April 14, 2009, 12:03 pm

Welcome to the all new finnie.org! My personal domain is about to celebrate its 12 year anniversary (just old enough to drink!), but for the last half of its existence, it has been an Apache index page with a bunch of junk thrown together. In addition, I used to write on my LiveJournal since 2001. These two functions have been combined (with full history from my LiveJournal imported) into an Internet blogging extravaganza. I'll try not to wake the neighbors.

I've decided to try to manage this more like a traditional columnist: keeping a schedule, stockpiling ideas, thinking before I write. I'm going to work toward a goal of 5 daily updates per week, though I'm not firm on this. Wordpress makes it easy to keep unpublished drafts, and I've got a decent number of writing ideas to keep me going, so this shouldn't be too hard. One thing I will not do is writing for the sake of filler. There's already too much of that out there. I don't have deadlines or a syndication manager; no need to act like I do.

(That's not to say I'll be writing a Pulitzer-winning essay every day. Targeted inanity is not necessarily filler. Come on, I have standards.)

We'll see how long this lasts.

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Article posted on Apr 13

Open source furries.

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on April 13, 2009, 5:08 pm

If you caught my Finnix in Second Life post on the Finnix blog, you know I've been dabbling in Second Life as a whole. I've had an account for almost 3 years now, but before the beginning of this year, I rarely logged into it because, frankly, it was boring. But after I bought land and started building the Finnix Information Center, I found my hook: the exciting part isn't being in Second Life, it was building in Second Life. Making things. Creating.

However, once the Finnix Information Center was "done", my interest started waning again. Sure I could tweak things, but it just wasn't the same as full scale creating. That's when I started looking, and found OpenSimulator. It's open source software that re-implements the Second Life protocol (libsecondlife) and allows you to build regions and grids. While that doesn't mean you can just attach your own server to Second Life (although in theory Second Life could be run on OpenSimulator some time in the future), you could run your own grid, or attach to a public grid. The most popular is OSGrid.

I've had a simulator running for over a month now, and it's been... fun. It's definitely a challenge. OpenSim is very beta and a moving target, which means recompiling software every week or so, random crashes, etc. Nonetheless, I have a main region up (Undef Lagoon, used to be "Undef Island" (yes, that's a pun) until it was no longer an island), and have given out space to homesteaders. It's also allowed me to try some larger scale projects than I could do in Second Life itself. Well, with enough land and money you could do anything in Second Life, but this is "free".

First up is The Cube, a massive 64,000 cubic meter cube of girders and glass. The first level is hollow and can be explored (and is the default landing point for the region), but inside it is 4 more levels of smaller embedded cubes.

The Information Center is a smaller version of the cube, for visitor/resident information.

This next one... well, took on a life of its own. I started by using Valve Source textures (CS:S players will instantly recognize them), and it sort of took off in its own direction. I now see what artists mean when they say that the ideas themselves come into being, and the artist is merely the conduit. That is to say, I accidentally created a cult.

The characters themselves (NOOBs) are an in-joke in Second Life, and OSGrid in particular. In fact, there is a 50-meter tall version of one in one of the OSGrid plazas.

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Article posted on Apr 12

Review: Reusable grocery bags

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on April 12, 2009, 10:29 pm

A few months ago, I got a set of four reusable grocery bags from Walgreens, on sale for $0.25 each. Look for deals, but even at full price (usually $1 to $2 per bag), they are well worth it. Before that, I was downing in plastic grocery bags. My not-so-little IKEA plastic bag dispenser was filled years ago, and I seemed to find plastic bags thrown in pretty much every corner of the apartment. But these new reusable grocery bags combine the best attributes of both plastic and paper bags.

They're much bigger than plastic bags, mine at 1.3 cubic feet each. I can't find any info about the volume of your average plastic bag, but I'd guess one of my reusable bags is just shy of twice the volume of plastic bags. They're rigid enough to keep upright, but still flexible, and most importantly, foldable. The handles are sturdy and comfortable, and do not bind up and cut off the circulation in your hands like plastic bags do. And since you're carrying almost half the number of bags per trip, it's even less of a bind on your hands.

They're economical, too. I spent a whopping $1 for 4 bags, but they'll end up paying for themselves eventually. That's because Save Mart (formerly Albertsons) and WinCo give credits for every reusable bag you use: Save Mart at $.05 per bag and WinCo at $.06 per bag. Presumably Safeway and Whole Foods do as well.

My Walgreens bags are bit larger than your average bag. The bags I've seen for sale at Save Mart and Wal-Mart have the same floor space, but are slightly shorter. But don't limit yourself to what your grocery store offers! There are many different styles available on the Internet. For example here's a much larger model designed for bicyclists. Whatever bag you do decide on, look for that little loop on one side of the top of the bag. It hooks onto the plastic bag dispenser at grocery stores, and makes loading groceries easier. Your checker will love you for it (unless you bag your own groceries, in which case you will love yourself).

So comfort, economy and, oh yeah, that whole Earth thing. The only downside is actually remembering to bring them to the grocery store.

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Article posted on Apr 7

Review: Dell 2209WA 22" E-IPS LCD

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on April 7, 2009, 1:36 pm

If you're a frequent reader of my blog, you know that the Dell 2005FPW 20" LCD was the best LCD made. Ever. It was an S-IPS display, and used the same LCD panel as the $1400 20" Apple Cinema Display (2004 model), but at better than half the price of the Apple, and with more peripheral features. For 4 years, I've had the 2005FPW as my primary desktop monitor, and I've been struggling to get something to complement it ever since. I bought a cheaper Dell SP2008WFP (TN panel), but ended up returning it within a week Last December I bought an HP w2408h 24" that, while still a TN panel, was supposedly one of the best TN LCDs on the market. I made do with it.

Earlier this year, Dell released the 2209WA, first in Australia/New Zealand, then later in the US. The 2209WA is a 22" widescreen matte LCD, E-IPS 8bpp panel, 1680x1050 maximum resolution, 300 cd/m² brightness, 1000:1 (up to 3000:1) dynamic contrast ratio, 6ms grey-to-grey response, and a 178° horizontal/vertical viewing angle. It currently retails for $279; I picked it up for $207 during one of their sales.

(If you are NOT a frequent reader of my blog, let me remind you that I am NOT a graphics professional. I am a Linux geek and amateur monitor snob, who happens to work at a marketing and design company. Graphics geek by proximity, you could say.)

What is IPS?

First off the bat, I'll explain a bit about what an IPS panel is. 99% of the LCDs sold today come with TN panels. TN panels are fast, usually have better contrast controls, and are above all, cheap. However, they suffer from bad viewing angles (the point at which the picture washes out or inverts) and low NTSC color gamut. And often, cheap TN displays are manufactured in cheap ways unrelated to the panel technology; a common occurrence is uneven backlighting. (Display a black image and look around your LCD. You can often see where the CCFL tubes are, and where they radiate light unevenly.) Many TN displays are also badly color balanced out of the box, usually preferring blue. (This is particularly bad in the LCD TV market, known as "showroom syndrome", where excess blue makes images look more "vibrant" in a television showroom.)

IPS displays have better viewing angles (often 179° horizontal, and 170° to 179° vertical) and high gamut, but at the expense of a higher response rate, and of course, higher prices. S-IPS was the standard for high-end displays, but the 2209WA is an E-IPS display. E-IPS includes the same features as S-IPS, but a slightly lower viewing angle (178° versus 179°) and a lower gamut than S-IPS (but still much higher than TN).

Physical Characteristics

The 2209WA features a square design with sharp lines. The base includes tilt, swivel and raise ability, and includes a hole in the back to route cables through. All three adjustment methods are relatively easy to do by hand, and stay in place well. The viewing area is matte, as is the outside of the bezel. However, the inside of the bezel (closest to the panel) is glossy for some reason, and as a result, it tends to reflect bright objects on the display that are close to the display edges. It's minor, but can be distracting.

The menu/adjustment buttons are square, the width of the bezel, from the bottom-right corner of the bezel. While this breaks the flow of the otherwise continuous bezel, it is useful, as the on-screen display's control legend lines up with these buttons. A chrome mirror Dell logo is at the bottom center of the bezel.

The 2209WA accepts d-sub VGA or DVI inputs, and can be configured to auto-sense signal from either port. It has a USB B (uplink) port to your PC, two USB ports on the underside, and two more on the left side of the monitor.

Calibration

I borrowed a Spyder2PRO from work and calibrated the 2209WA. Out of the box, the 2209WA was set to 6500K, though it doesn't actually list the color temperature, just modes like "cinema" and "gaming" that adjust the individual RGB ranges, and also fiddles with the brightness and contrast. Since I had the Spyder, I opted to start with the factory default settings, and adjust RGB by hand.

The 2209WA was fairly well balanced out of the box. It was a bit heavy on the green, but was easily adjusted. My final numbers at home were 100 red, 92 green, 96 blue, to get an even balance, and the final color temperature measured 6506K.

On the left is my 2005FPW, on the right is the 2209WA. Color representation is pretty well matched, but notice that luminance matching was NOT performed, and using default brightness settings, the 2209WA is noticeably brighter than the 2005FPW, though not overpoweringly so.

The backlight is excellent. Out of the box, I saw some barely visible vertical discolorations about 1/3 and 2/3 of the way down the display when on a black background, but after I calibrated the monitor, I couldn't find them again. There is virtually no light bleed from the sides, tearing is non-existent during full motion video, and ghosting is barely perceivable.

Miscellany

One of the biggest feature omissions is the lack of 1:1 pixel support. This personally is not an issue to me, but could be a deal breaker for some.

The behavior of the built-in USB hub is also a problem. With the 2005FPW, the USB ports were always powered, even if the monitor was off. Every Dell monitor I've seen since then (SP2008WFP, and now 2209WA) has switched to a model where if you power off the monitor, the USB ports are also powered off.

Impressions

The bezel looks a bit clunky; I still prefer the rounded bezel design of the 2005FPW. The lack of 1:1 pixel mapping and the USB issues are annoying, but not deal breakers. Also keep in mind that there is no composite/s-video/hdmi ports, nor any audio support. This is a monitor for graphics work, and is quite well suited for that task.

It's no 2005FPW, but hey, what is? But this is, hands down, the best value in IPS displays you can get right now, so I definitely recommend it.

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Article posted on Apr 5

That's DOCTOR Impostor to you!

• Posted by Ryan Finnie on April 5, 2009, 12:58 am

A few months ago, after reading the fine print on a burger menu (no, really), I vowed to use "Dr" anywhere a web form asked for my salutation. (I did do some research first. Apparently in Nevada, it is not illegal to call yourself "Doctor" without having a doctorate, UNLESS you are a pharmacist. Go figure.)

Today was my first opportunity. Dr Ryan Finnie will be in attendance opening weekend for the new Reno Aces.

Yes, it even printed that on the ticket.

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