Year: 2020

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Remodeling a garage

Finished garage, with all tools and stuff except for the Kayak safely put away behind cabinets and out of sight. 180° panoramic shot.

We'd been mulling over garage remodeling for a decade. The garage remained the same way we found it from the previous owners, for ten years. As cliché as this may sound, we decided to spend vacation money and time that we couldn't spend this year due to Covid-19, on home-remodeling. We pulled the trigger, and are very happy about the end result. Whereas tools and stuff were strewn about previously, now they are safely put away inside or behind cabinets. The garage floor is now coated with epoxy for ease of maintenance. I agonized over a few decision points during this remodeling process. I have documented the entire effort, with pictures showing every step along the way. Hopefully this article will help the next person going through the same process.

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Geometric distortion in a triple-monitor setup for MSFS 2020, compared to XPlane 11

Microsoft released its new flight sim 2 days ago, on August 18th. This long-awaited launch got simmer really excited. I moved my flight sim equipment last month to a dedicated room in the basement, now with a triple-monitor setup, in anticipation of this launch. I set up XPlane 11 with these triple monitors, to make sure I got the hang of triple monitors. But all I wanted was the new Microsoft flight sim. I even took this week off from work, so I would not need to choose between work and enjoying the new simulator.

There is, however, one fatal issue, for someone who has gone through the trouble of setting up three 43″ monitors, for the express purpose of re-creating a 180° surround view around the pilot.

At this time, it is not worth sacrificing visual effects and frame rates for two extra side monitors that show greatly distorted views of world objects. Triple-monitor setups are no common. And it’s not clear to me when Asobo will care to fix this problem for a niche market. Until then, the public remains confused as to whether MSFS can be said to “work as is” for triple-monitor setups. There isn’t a source online that compares distorted views in MSFS 2020 against expected, clean views in, say, XP11. Thus this article.