The thoughts, opinions, happenings, and just plain ramblings of a seemingly boring person http://lucascosti.com/blog/ Fri, 15 Aug 2008 12:13:49 +1000 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://lucascosti.com/blog/ http://lucascosti.com/blog/index.php?entryid=623
The night before the holiday we went and saw Wanted. I had low expectations of the movie, but in the end i was quite satisfied in turning off my brain and enjoying the pretty explosions and senseless violence. So I was pleasantly surprised by that one. The last line of the movie was quite strange though: i felt as though the main character was asking the audience why they are wasting they're lives lazing about and watching corny movies like the one we just sat through. It could've been just my take though...

Last night we saw Star Wars: The Clone Wars. I didn't have too high expectations for this one, but after getting over the 'different' jerky animation style, I quite enjoyed it. If you go into it knowing that the thing is aimed at kids, and that George Lucas wanted it to resemble a Thunderbirds-esque visual style, then i think it's quite a good offering.

Seeing a Warner Bros. intro before the movie was quite surreal (as all previous Star Wars movies were distributed by 20th Century Fox), and some of the voices and lip-syncing weren't quite right. Even though I thought it was good, I don't think i'll see this one again at the movies.

The past few days at work has been a nightmare. I was doubly depressing coming after the last public holiday befor Christmas. It was kind of like the proverbial work-monster saying: "Now that you are out of your public holiday cards, i'm going to remind you that you are mine for the next four months!!!". That sort of sounds like something Gysdintu would say... *note to self: create a new monster for flash intro related to Gysdintu*.

The problem at work was that the entire external data connections for our organisation (the internet and WAN links) totally died. We're with Uecomm (Optus' business data provider), and boy in the last few months they definitely have not made too many fans around our office.

It took them four hours to diagnose and replace a faulty switch at their exchange, and after that we were still having intermittent issues. The next day (today), the issues were still occurring, and after some more cajoling it was diagnosed that the replaced switch was misconfigured in terms of its MTU settings.

That was only rectified this afternoon, over 26 hours after we first had issues. That is quite pathetic for a business-grade fibre-optic service under a SLA.

Anywho, i'm glad this week is over.]]> http://lucascosti.com/blog/index.php?entryid=623 Fri, 15 Aug 2008 22:13:49 +1000 http://lucascosti.com/blog/index.php?entryid=622 We're going overseas in a while, and quite pathetically, I can't stand the thought of going more than a week without checking my emails, Google Reader, or this website. I have my trusty 4 year-old laptop that served me well throughout uni that I could take with me, but the 15+ inch screen and 3+ kilograms would make it a severe chore to lug around through airports and public transport.

The solution was me getting a very cheap and very tiny Asus EeePC. I got the 4GB Linux version for $299, and for the intended purpose it is ideal. It has a 7 inch screen and weighs just over 900 grams, and for general web-browsing, Open Office, and a few games thrown in, it's a fairly nifty machine.

There's really no need for me to put Windows on it: i think the built-in custom Linux OS more than does the job needed. We'll see how it goes, maybe i'll even blog while i'm over there.

The other big event in the past week was the start of the Beijing Olympics. I watched most of the opening ceremony before falling asleep after the athletes started to come out.



The ceremony was pretty spectacular and covered a lot of Chinese history, but i couldn't help but notice that the most part of the last 200 years of Chinese history was largely omitted. That was of course unsurprising, because barring the last 40 years, China has pretty much been repeatedly humiliated for most of recent history by the colonial Western powers and also Japan.

This is the first Olympics since we've been married, so i'm looking forward to actually following and watching it quite a bit.]]> http://lucascosti.com/blog/index.php?entryid=622 Sun, 10 Aug 2008 19:31:21 +1000 http://lucascosti.com/blog/index.php?entryid=621 a pattern going on when it comes to finals, so I had expected to lose this one, not only because of the pattern, but also because our opposition was pretty good. Below is a pretty good action shot (that's me keeping).



It was a very tight game. They scored quite a lucky/awesome goal to take the lead, but Eric finished off a very nice equaliser. At the end of the first half I was on the floor after being palmed in the face.

The second half was as tight as the first; I ended up getting totally wiped out: as I was blocking a shot i stepped on the ball and fell forward and hit the ground with a bit of force. I felt my spine bend sideways and my head whiplash/ragdoll as I hit the ground. I just laid there for a while making sure I hadn't slipped a disc or broken anything.

I eventually got up and goal-kept the rest of the game. Ben scored an awesome goal to win the game about 5 minutes from time, and we held out the game from there. There was some nervous moments near the end as I almost fumbled the ball into our own goal, and Eric unnecessarily lost the ball a few times deep in our half.

So the pattern is well and truly broken. Our grand final record now stands at win-loss-win-loss-win--WIN.

Strangely, our premiership mugs aren't actually engraved: they are just a plain version of the big beer mug, which is slightly disappointing.]]> http://lucascosti.com/blog/index.php?entryid=621 Sun, 03 Aug 2008 21:33:32 +1000 http://lucascosti.com/blog/index.php?entryid=620 After much continued pleading from the Mrs., this week I bought her a Nintendo DS so she could get her hands on the Cooking Guide 'game'. In the end I thought I should be encouraging her as much as possible to cook, so i'm expecting a pretty big return on investment!

I also got Sonic Rush and i've ordered New Super Mario Bros. and a protective case from overseas. The good thing about the DS is that there is basically no region protection/divisions so you can pretty much buy games from wherever you please (and save a fair bit of money from getting ripped off here in Australia).

In geekery news, on Thursday we went into the IBM building in the city for work to check out some of their equipment; specifically the Blade servers. Some of the stuff was pretty impressive, but i was really expecting a bit more in terms of a demonstration.

Also doing the rounds recently is this website called the Mojave Experiment. Very interesting stuff, but it's a pretty sad indictment on Microsoft that they've had to go that far.

That said, i do think that, outside of a business setting, that what they are trying to convey is essentially true. In my opinion, as long as your hardware is good enough, Vista is a pretty good operating system if you approach it with an open mind. It is the preconceived notions and opinions that are largely crippling Vista from selling to the home-user market.]]> http://lucascosti.com/blog/index.php?entryid=620 Sat, 02 Aug 2008 00:17:09 +1000 http://lucascosti.com/blog/index.php?entryid=619
Unexpectedly our opposition today was the same side that beat us last week, finishing the season first, with us being second. With those final standings there was no way we should have been playing each other in the semi-finals.

Anyway, we shrugged that off and proceeded to absolutely annihilate them 8-1. The scoreline didn't really do us justice as we could have easily had about three times as many goals. I scored one lucky deflected goal as everyone else got at least two; my finishing was absolutely shocking: alone i probably missed at least 5 sitters. They barely threatened our goal throughout the match.

So again we make another final (that's the third in a row for us), and according to the pattern this final should be a loss for us. Of course I hope to break that pattern next week.

Other than that, there really hasn't been too much going on that's worth blogging. On Wednesday night we went to the first in a series of talks at Church on the seven Ecumenical Councils, and last night we ended up at Lonestar for dinner after Church.]]> http://lucascosti.com/blog/index.php?entryid=619 Sun, 27 Jul 2008 18:52:53 +1000 http://lucascosti.com/blog/index.php?entryid=618 The X-Files - all 61 DVDs worth - for a very cheap $180 off eBay. I saw Channel 10's airing of the first episode a few weeks back and was hooked again. I think it's so cheap because as of this week, it ceases to be a 'complete' set with the impending release of the new movie due out on Thursday.

The X-Files is one of the shows that I absolutely loved watching in the late 90s, but never saw the end of as uni prevented me from attending to my normal TV watching schedule. Along with the X-Files, i also stopped watching Buffy and Stargate among others.

So i'm watching the series' through from the start, and i'm almost through the first season.

We played indoor on Sunday afternoon and lost our final game of the normal season as we are pretty understaffed at the moment. The loss actually turned out good, as we now play an easier team in the semi-final next week because of it.

After the game i experienced a weird migraine that i've never had before. It was preceded by some strange vision problems in that the area just left of my central vision disappeared, but in a weird way: i couldn't see what was there, but it wasn't black; it's like the colours just blended in so that it looked almost normal. Very hard to explain... this wiki entry is very interesting though.]]> http://lucascosti.com/blog/index.php?entryid=618 Tue, 22 Jul 2008 21:46:18 +1000 http://lucascosti.com/blog/index.php?entryid=617 After having finally succumbed to the flu, i've spent the past day and a half sick at home. I'm feeling much better this afternoon, just in time to make it to see The Dark Knight at a free screening held by work's ISP company (quite ironic considering the pertinent events earlier this week and that they are a wholly owned Optus subsidiary).

I've never really liked Batman as a character, and i was mainly going for the Mrs. The movie wasn't that bad, but it wasn't all too good either. Without giving too much away, it felt like it rambled on from one climax to another, and the finale, well... wasn't all that climactic.

The plot went from very predictable at times, to illogical and unbelievable at others. At one point Batman had to beat up cops to stop something bad from happening when grabbing one and telling them the situation would have seemed a more obvious and effective solution to the situation. More action the better i guess.

A lot is being said about Heath Ledger's final role, and while very good, without being disrespectful it really isn't Oscar-winning material, although i'd bet he'll actually win it in 6 months time.

I can't say i'd want to see it again, although it is worth watching at least once to make up your own mind. ]]> http://lucascosti.com/blog/index.php?entryid=617 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 22:26:26 +1000 http://lucascosti.com/blog/index.php?entryid=616
Monday saw me driving down to the Gold Coast to replace a faulty computer in our small office down there. I didn't mind the drive, but it did take up much of the day just in transit.

Today was the real fireworks (not real ones of course), as a major Optus network outage not only severely affect our business, but much of the state in general.

We basically lost all connections to the Southern offices, and all our fixed and mobile phones were out too. Luckily enough, the internet in the Brisbane office was fine though.

This was pretty much a huge (especially PR) disaster for Optus. The local Telstra rep even contacted us trying to help us out (rubbing his hands with glee i can imagine). Our account manager at Optus even came to personally see us during the outage, as there really wasn't much else he could do because pretty much all of his telecommunications systems were on the blink.

It is desperately unlucky that both their fibre links to NSW managed to be out at the same, but I guess that your redundancy is only as good as major damage it comes up against, and this pretty much hit the spot in terms of that. Maybe they will invest in a third link down to Sydney, or possibly one to hook up with the NT/SA part of the network for a looping kind of redundancy.

Either way, I can see a lot of people losing their jobs over this. Also, this revelation on Whirlpool could cause a ruckus if true. It basically means that the Queensland Government is ultimately responsible for the dug-up cable, which is a total laugh considering Premier Bligh's already stupid comments this afternoon.

We'll wait and see on that one, but I hope the contractor and/or the Queensland Government's insurance is up to date, as one would expect Optus to come down extremely heavily on whoever cut that cable.]]> http://lucascosti.com/blog/index.php?entryid=616 Tue, 15 Jul 2008 22:35:28 +1000 http://lucascosti.com/blog/index.php?entryid=615 Friday's news saw the 3G Apple iPhone get released, and thus crazy people queuing in the cold night and wetting themselves to get their hands on one. The Cult of Apple got their fix early that morning. As an aside, a friend who was there in Brisbane said that because Optus opened early to sell these things that they actually bypassed their standard credit history checks because that agency wasn't yet opened. Wait for the headlines of iPhone-induced bankruptcy.

Last night we actually had a quick play with one, as the same Mac-occult-membership-holding friend that queued up and got one shared it around a bit (see the comments in the previous entry for the fun of 3G browsing and commenting). My quick thoughts: it seems like a reasonable enough device (especially for the price), but it really isn't for me.

It's too big for my liking, and I really prefer to have a keypad rather than dialling numbers on a touch-screen. The touch-screen seems pretty responsive and accurate, although it does take some getting used to. I still don't know why they go for a high-gloss finish for a device that you need to hold in your hands: the fingerprints really do show quite easily. And why the heck they don't let you change batteries yourself is quite bemusing.

Other than that, even though it's not for me I can really see why there is going to be a lot of demand for it. If it only makes Nokia et al produce better and cheaper phones then all the better.

In the past week there really hasn't been that much blogworthy stuff happening. We saw Hancock at the movies on Friday night; it was a decent movie. Today we played a non-competition indoor game because a team pulled out of our competition. The points awarded by default should see us make the finals, which is a really big achievement considering how we started the season.]]> http://lucascosti.com/blog/index.php?entryid=615 Sun, 13 Jul 2008 21:54:42 +1000 http://lucascosti.com/blog/index.php?entryid=614 Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 for the Wii for a very very cheap $35 in K-Mart's toy sale. I haven't played it that much yet, so we'll see how that goes.

The weekend went quickly enough. Saturday morning I got a haircut and then spent about an hour or so writing a script to fix some errors on this blog. A few weeks ago, after i got comment-spammed, i deleted the offending spam comments directly out of the database itself, and thus it didn't update the 'number of comments' value for each entry (because it is stored manually for performance reasons).

The script that i wrote basically checked that value against the actual database count for the number of comments per entry, and if inconsistent with the stored value, it updated it. It's been a while since i did some productive coding, so I actually quite relished and enjoyed the challenge.

Today I spent a fair bit of it doing the monthly maintenance for work, which was interrupted by our indoor game. We were playing the top team, and after our recent streak of good games we were quietly confident of picking up a win.

Although I was confident, I wasn't "8-1" confident, which was what the final scoreline was to us. We absolutely hammered them. Undoubtedly they had a bad day, but the extent to which we dominated and controlled the game in almost every way was quite surprising. We haven't played that well in a long time.

The only let-down for me was me missing about 4 or 5 dead easy chances which i put over the bar. I'm not sure what happened; the ball always seemed to kick up from the ground just when i was about to connect with it. I did get one goal though, but after the fourth shocking miss i played the rest of the game mostly defending.

They never really had a look in, and Ben especially was absolutely on fire, scoring 5 goals. The win might put us top of table (which is absolutely amazing considering we started the division way behind in 7th place (out of 8)), and hopefully should put us in a real good position to make the finals.

In IT news of the past few days: if anyone is using the free version of AVG Antivirus 8.0, i strongly recommend that you uninstall it and use the free versions of Avast or Antivir instead. The main reason for it is listed in these Slashdot and Register articles.

AVG, though it's users, are basically bringing many websites to their knees by end-users pre-crawling search-engine results to scan for threats. This is really dodgy and not only causing many websites to under-perform, but also unnecessarily wasting your bandwidth and download quota. Although in the past I have recommended AVG as a free AV program, I've never really been a fan of it (especially with it tagging every email that you send through Outlook noting it's been scanned). Dump it and get a better free Antivirus.

Edit: I see (on Whirlpool no less!) that it seems AVG are backing down from this ridiculous practice. Nevertheless, if a AV company thinks that it would be good to do that kind of thing, i still say dump them and go for something better. For the record, i use Avast. ]]> http://lucascosti.com/blog/index.php?entryid=614 Sun, 06 Jul 2008 21:34:54 +1000