The thoughts, opinions, happenings, and just plain ramblings of a seemingly boring person http://lucascosti.com/blog/ Tue, 15 May 2012 02:22:48 +1000 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://lucascosti.com/blog/ http://lucascosti.com/blog/2012/05/iron-sky-final-day-of-the-epl-season-e803/ Last night was a fairly eventful night. We started off by going to Southbank to see Iron Sky, which strangely enough, Des really wanted to see after hearing good things about it.

For the unaware, the premise is this: in 1945 Nazis went to the moon and set up a civilisation there to eventually come back and retake the Earth. It's a comedy, and whilst it dragged in portions, it was a very good laugh, but a lot of the jokes will probably only be understood by geek/nerd culture enthusiasts.

The special effects, including a pretty significant space battle, were fantastic for such a low-budget movie, which was apparently shot on the Gold Coast for the studio work. It's definitely worth a watch if you're into funny sci-fi.

Last week we also saw Dark Shadows, which is the latest Johnny Depp/Tim Burton film. Before I get to the movie, surely Tim Burton can cast other actors in a movie? Why always Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter? It really is getting quite tired. The movie itself though, was pretty enjoyable but did have it's shortcomings. I've never seen the TV series it was based off, so I really can't comment on how it related to that.

Depp was his usual weird and quirky role, no surprises there, same with Helena Bonham Carter. For me the stand-out performance was not Depp, but Eva Green. She portrayed her psychotically-lovestruck witch character flawlessly. The plot did have it's stops and starts, as well as some peculiar inclusions that seemed unnecessary, but in hindsight it might have been trying to satisfy some themes/devices in reference to the original material from the TV series.

Last night was also the final day of the English Premier League season. Arsenal got very lucky to finish in third and qualify for next season's Champions League. It was also one of the most exciting finishes at the top in over twenty years, with the oil money of Manchester City first throwing away the title, then just to score two goals in stoppage time to claim it back.

My thoughts on City (and also Chelsea) are well known in terms of them being cashed-up overnight from new billionaire owners. It's quite ridiculous and extraordinary that they've now won the Premier League after only being promoted to it in 2002, and before the Arab buyout never finishing higher than 8th in League and regularly being in the bottom half of the table. Money can buy trophies, and added to the unfairness is that City were gifted their newish stadium for nothing in 2003 after the Commonwealth Games were done in Manchester. In comparison, clubs like Arsenal have had to earn their success, and privately fund their own stadium constructions from solid real-world revenues, rather than being gifted them by governments and/or billionaire owners.

I think that's enough football ranting for today. Happy St. Totteringham's Day nevertheless! ;)
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View the original blog post. You can view or add comments on this blog post at LucasCosti.com]]> Football Movies Rants http://lucascosti.com/blog/2012/05/iron-sky-final-day-of-the-epl-season-e803/#comments Mon, 14 May 2012 16:22:48 +1000 http://lucascosti.com/blog/2012/04/the-avengers-expectations-met-e802/ On Friday night we went and saw probably the biggest movie of the year, Marvel's superhero conglomerate movie, The Avengers. From the sum of it's previously introduced parts, I had pretty high expecations for this movie and although it didn't fail to reach these expectations, it didn't exceed them either. That's not a bad thing though, it's not often that high expectations are actually met, and overall it was still a great movie.

The real accomplishment of this movie is not the special effects, the overarching storyline, or even really the all-star cast (all of which we really have seen before). The biggest feat and accomplishment is how Joss Whedon, in writing and directing this movie, has almost perfectly balanced the plot to give a fair exposure and attention to all the 'major' characters.

It's something you don't notice till after the movie has finished, but if you look at list of cast/characters it's phenomenal: Ironman/Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Loki (Tom Hiddleston), and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). Even for the more mundane and otherwise forgettable characters like Black Widow and Hawkeye, plot devices (which fit really well into the story) are introduced that give these lesser characters attention and significance.

The plot seems to centre more on, unsurprisingly Tony Stark/Ironman, but surprisingly also Banner/Hulk. However, as mentioned before, overall it's fantastically balanced with the other characters.

The only thing I didn't quite buy was the recasting of Mark Ruffalo as Banner, as apparently things were not well between Edward Norton and Marvel. The character has now seen three actors in as many movies, and really I haven't 'bought' any of them. Mark Ruffalo portrayed a bit of a 'nothing' character for Banner, but luckily The Hulk was the real star, and a lot of the best moments of the movie involved him in some way.

It's definitely worth a watch, and although the 3D was good, I wouldn't say it's a necessity for watching this movie in the cinemas.
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View the original blog post. You can view or add comments on this blog post at LucasCosti.com]]> Movies http://lucascosti.com/blog/2012/04/the-avengers-expectations-met-e802/#comments Sun, 29 Apr 2012 17:50:48 +1000 http://lucascosti.com/blog/2012/04/to-wordpress-or-not-to-wordpress-e801/ last did a redesign of this site, and even then it was really only some minor-ish changes from when I first began this blog in 2004. As the web has moved forward in the past 8+ years, the layout and structure of this blog has largely remained the same.

Although (in my opinion), this site doesn't look 'bad', I wouldn't really say that it is that 'good' either. So i'm planning on bringing a whole new look to this site.

However, what I must first decide on is what to do with this blog. Since the beginning, as the basis i've used the 'Plugged-Out' Blog Script, which has been pretty much abandoned since 2007. It was quite good at the time, but as the years have gone on, new features which have become default inclusions in modern-day day blogging platforms i've either had to do without, or add them to the script manually myself. Things that are now taken for granted, either weren't priorities or even thought of in 2004 when the script was created.

Some features i've manually coded into this script include: pagination for long lists of entries in 2007, proper CAPTCHA code for entering comments in 2008, comment email notifications in 2009, and friendly URLs and page titles in 2010. While i've enjoyed doing these additions as challenges, often there are better 'best-practise' ways of doing things or other features that I would like to include that are impractical for me to incorporate into the script.

So before doing this site redesign i've got to decide whether to stick with this script or not.

The obvious alternative is to move towards a WordPress-based blog. The WordPress platform has moved forward in leaps and bounds since I started this blog in 2004. Back then it wasn't even a year old, I remember I wasn't too impressed with it for what I wanted to do. Since then, it has pretty much become the de-facto basic blogging and CMS platform. Things that would take me weeks to implement in this script I could do with one of the many quality plug-ins that others have already created.

It is what I am leaning towards, as it will also allow me to use pre-made themes which I can quickly customise, so I won't have to design one from scratch for this blog, which is ashamedly based on a very ugly table-based layout in contrast to the lovely stuff people are doing with HTML5 and CSS3 these days.

The biggest challenge would be migrating across all my content to WordPress. As this script wasn't very widely used, there is no standard importer for bringing the content into WordPress. I've gone to great lengths to keep all my historical content throughout all the changes i've done to the script (mostly for my own benefit as a record of what i've done), so bringing it into WordPress and keeping everything working will be difficult, but hopefully not impossible.

I'm still not sold on it, but I might download WordPress and give it a go.
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View the original blog post. You can view or add comments on this blog post at LucasCosti.com]]> Geekery Internet Life http://lucascosti.com/blog/2012/04/to-wordpress-or-not-to-wordpress-e801/#comments Thu, 19 Apr 2012 09:43:23 +1000 http://lucascosti.com/blog/2012/04/nbn-rollout-announced-giving-dd-wrt-a-try-e800/
Firstly, in the past week NBN Co. has announced it's schedule for stage one of the wide-scale rollout of connecting areas. I was of course clamouring to see whether I could expect fibre-based internet within the foreseeable future. Luckily for us, our area is included in this three-year plan, and is due to "commence work in your area from Jun 2014 in phases with last work scheduled to commence in Jun 2015".

The news could be better (Ipswich and north-eastern Brisbane start getting it within a year), but it's a whole lot better than areas that haven't even been announced. Whether this timetable is something that NBN Co. can keep up with remains to be seen, and the other big question is what the current Opposition will to do with this schedule if they are elected into government next year.

The slightly related other topic is that I have installed DD-WRT onto my router at home. Late last year I bought a new router: the Netgear WNDR3800. I mainly bought it to replace my aging D-Link DIR-655, however I was interested in the current line of Netgear routers mainly because Netgear has opened them up and encouraged people to develop 3rd party firmware for them.

It took quite a while, but recently there was finally a BrainSlayer-developed (i.e. mostly stable and reputable) version of the popular DD-WRT firmware.

One of the biggest things that irritated me about the default Netgear firmware for the router is that they are starting to change the LEDs on their routers to be solidly lit when there is a device connected, rather than the traditional behaviour of the LEDs flashing on network activity. I can understand the trend towards this, as many 'normal' home users don't pay attention to, and are irritated by the flashing lights on a router.

However, for someone like myself, the flashing lights on a network device are an invaluable troubleshooting and general information tool. There are plenty of others who share my opinion, if the Netgear forums are any indicator.

It's astounding that Netgear doesn't simply provide an option in the firmware to enable the LEDs to flash on activity. Surely it doesn't require that much more development to enable this and make everyone happy.

Anywho, by putting DD-WRT on the router I have gotten my precious flashing LEDs back, and without sounding too geeky, it's awesome ;).

However, there were a few teething issues that were quite difficult to solve. Most notably there was the issue where the DHCP reservations form accepted characters in the reservation name that crashed DHCP and DNS on the router; but the thing that threw me off was that it only started to affect the router on it's next reboot. So a few hours after entering the reservations I did the first reboot, and that's when the issues started. It took many more hours and a few resets to figure out what exactly was going on.

Other than that it's been very stable, and i've been quite happy with it overall.
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View the original blog post. You can view or add comments on this blog post at LucasCosti.com]]> Technology Internet Geekery http://lucascosti.com/blog/2012/04/nbn-rollout-announced-giving-dd-wrt-a-try-e800/#comments Wed, 04 Apr 2012 19:40:29 +1000 http://lucascosti.com/blog/2012/03/mass-effect-3-epic-gaming-epic-ending-disappointments-e799/ I've just finished playing through Mass Effect 3, and I really enjoyed 90% of it. But like almost of the entire internet, the ending was just abysmal. Abysmal writing, abysmal plot, abysmal closure. The ending was such an epic disappointment, and like many others have mentioned, it's mostly counter to what the 2.9 games leading up to it were all about. I'll attempt to write this entry devoid of any big spoilers to the ME3 endings, but no promises if you are spoiler allergic!

I belatedly got into Mass Effect at the start of last year. At the time I was a little bored gaming-wise, and Mass Effect 2 was cleaning out all of the 'Game of the Year' awards for the previous year.

After playing through the first two games back-to-back, I was hooked. I wondered how I managed to not to play them earlier, as generally being a sci-fi geek it was right up my alley. I loved the universe, the plot, the characters, and also very importantly the choice. What the player chose had ramifications for all the plot and characters after it.

I unwillingly let Wrex get killed in the first game, and it's haunted me and my character for all the subsequent games, and also damaged my relationships with all the Krogan race since.

That's what ME3 was continuing so well up until the last 10 minutes, when it was all thrown out the window. If you want specifics on what was disappointing about the ending: this video sums it all up perfectly: 10 Reasons We Hate Mass Effect 3's Ending (spoilers). Almost all my issues with the ending(s) are there in that video.

The bewildering thing about Mass Effect 3 is that, minus a few cliche overtones and forced multiplayer gameplay for single-player reward, it was an absolutely fantastic experience leading up to the last ten minutes. In ten minutes at the end, it almost ruined 5 years, 3 games, and 100+ hours of gameplay.

There is hope though: the Bioware CEO has acknowledged the endings and all the negative reactions, and that they are "planning to directly address it". More info will apparently be available in April.

The cynic in me suspects that this was all part of an evil Bioware/EA plan to upset fans of the series, as a way to make us buy extra DLC following the game's release in order to get a satisfactory ending...
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View the original blog post. You can view or add comments on this blog post at LucasCosti.com]]> Rants Gaming http://lucascosti.com/blog/2012/03/mass-effect-3-epic-gaming-epic-ending-disappointments-e799/#comments Sat, 31 Mar 2012 16:50:22 +1000 http://lucascosti.com/blog/2012/03/modern-borefare-3-e798/ I've finally started to catch up on the gaming season releases, and the first that arrived in the mail: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. After being largely disappointed with Modern Warfare 2, I wasn't really expecting much at all from the latest in the series.

After playing through the game over the past week or so, I wasn't at all surprised that it didn't exceed those expectations.

The game isn't "bad" per se, but it isn't all that good either. It really is just more of the same continued on from MW2. The graphics are mostly identical (and imo seems to be a bit behind Battlefield now), the plot continues on from the nonsensical stuff MW2, and overall there was almost nothing to 'wow' me at all. The only stage that was somewhat memorable was a brief zero-g firefight in a nose-diving plane.

I'll mention a bit more about the plot. I thought the idea of Russia carrying out a full invasion of the US in MW2 was unbelievable, and the unbelievability continued in this game because immediately following invading the US, the Russians also somehow mustered enough resources and troops to do a full invasion of Europe too.

A lot of other things didn't make sense with the plot too, but I won't really go into those; if people actually think Russia invading the USA and Europe almost simultaneously isn't an absurd plot device, then the other terrible plot points won't bother them much.

All in all, i found the game to be rather boring. Probably borne out of the terrible plot over two games now, there wasn't really any excitement at all for me. It really is so disappointing considering how good the first game was.

Moving onto the next title, I've just started playing probably my, and probably most others, most anticipated recent release: Mass Effect 3.
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View the original blog post. You can view or add comments on this blog post at LucasCosti.com]]> Geekery Gaming http://lucascosti.com/blog/2012/03/modern-borefare-3-e798/#comments Wed, 21 Mar 2012 21:55:46 +1000 http://lucascosti.com/blog/2012/03/windows-8-beta-upcoming-ms-disaster-e797/ Windows 7 and Vista previously, I like to get my hands on the public betas or release candidates of upcoming Windows releases to have a bit of a play.

Right now I'm having a play of Windows 8, and to be frank I'm still trying to comprehend what's sitting in front of me. Some would say this beta is a revolution in Windows interface design, others would say it's a catastrophe. I'm more inclined to the latter. But before I get into it, here's the obligatory screenshots.



With Windows 8, Microsoft is attempting to develop an operating system that will work well on both touch-screen tablets as well as traditional computers. They're keen not to let the tablet market get away from them towards Apple's iPad iOS and Google's Android.

With this in mind they have made some pretty drastic changes. The most obvious and jarring change is the scrapping of the Start Menu, and replacing it with the Start Screen as part of what MS calls 'Metro UI'. Starting Windows 8 for the first time, you're presented with this new interface without so much as a tooltip or explanation as to how this 'Start Screen' works or how to navigate around it.

Even more baffling is the complete reliance both in 'Metro UI' as well as the traditional 'desktop interface' of hovering over unmarked corners of the screen to switch between the two interfaces, as well as just to do basic operations like searching, adjusting volume, or even shutting the computer down.

As opposed to regular buttons, I am a big opponent of 'hovering' options in user interfaces (especially with unmarked areas), and even more so for such critical uses as they've implemented them for in Windows 8. Added to that, it is insanely difficult to use these unmarked corner 'hover areas' in windowed environments like using a virtual machine (which I am using to try Win8 ) or remote desktop, as there is usually a seamless edge for the cursor to go in and out of the guest/client computer.

Another thing is that Metro UI seems very bland and dull. What you see in my screenshots for the homescreen is the limit of personalisation at the moment. You can pick from a set list of colours and patterns, and that's it. No background images, or custom colours, nada. They don't even have any standard set of user account pictures (for previous Windows betas/RCs at least had a standard collection to choose from).

One thing about Windows 8 that I did love though: the new task manager. It really is an overdue overhaul, and the amount of information there for diagnostics and troubleshooting is fantastically good.

There is a lot more I can go through regarding the changes (especially in regards to the Metro UI), and without even going into those details and other major unintuitive intricacies, I really can't see how this is going to turn out well for Microsoft. As a tablet OS, the Metro UI seems pretty decent, but not fantastic. It's slick, simple and geared well to touch-based input. However as a PC OS with a keyboard and mouse, it's a nightmare to use and look at. From the 'desktop' mode to have to go constantly go back and forth to the Start Screen just to do basic functions like starting a program is a jarring, unpleasant, and unfriendly experience, and the whole Start Screen is mostly obtrusive and unfriendly with a keyboard and mouse.

For regular keyboard and mouse users, Metro UI just adds an unnecessary layer of complication and hassle without any benefit at all. What was wrong with the Windows 7 Start Menu, and conversely how is the Windows 8 Start Screen an improvement for keyboard and mouse users doing basic PC functions like internet browsing or word-processing work? (for some fun, google for videos of people putting their mostly computer-literate older parents in front of Windows 8 and seeing them struggle in how to use it)

In my opinion, for Microsoft to win in a Windows release they have to convince professionals that it's good to roll-out in an office or corporate environment, where most of Microsoft's money is made. That's what didn't happen for Vista and was a crucial part in why it failed. Conversely, that's what they got right for Windows 7. I can't imagine any situation administering a corporate network where I'd be rolling Windows 8 to end-users on regular PCs.

It really is so frustrating to see how Microsoft could get it almost so right with Windows 7, yet seemingly be heading towards screwing it so badly with Windows 8. Yes this is only a beta, but fundamental things like the interface should be pretty much final at this point. Short of Microsoft reinstating the Start Menu and implementing an option for 'PC or Tablet' use, even for my home use there's no way i'd be upgrading to this on a keyboard and mouse computer.

Microsoft is trying to simultaneously go after the PC and tablet market with Windows 8, but I fear that they will capture neither market with this OS which seems to be stuck in between serving both but not satisfying either.

But the biggest criminal change in Windows 8 I haven't even mentioned yet: in Windows 8 they have not included Minesweeper. Unforgivable.
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View the original blog post. You can view or add comments on this blog post at LucasCosti.com]]> Technology Rants Geekery http://lucascosti.com/blog/2012/03/windows-8-beta-upcoming-ms-disaster-e797/#comments Sun, 18 Mar 2012 19:15:52 +1000 http://lucascosti.com/blog/2012/03/remotes-mmorpgs-e796/ We're still currently settling into the new house. Most things have found a place, but there's always those annoying items that you use, but not nearly often enough, that you can't throw away but have got to find a place for that is out of the way but still accessible for when you do on the odd occasion need it.

Anywho, one geeky thing that I have picked up recently is a new Logitech Harmony remote (I got the 650). Now that we have a AV receiver in addition to the TV, PS3, and WDTV, this remote is the best thing since unsliced remote controls.

One button-push 'Activity' actions turns on/off the relevant devices depending on what you want to do. If I am playing the PS3, pressing 'Watch TV' turns off the PS3 and the receiver and switches the TV's input back to DTV. Conversely, if I am watching TV, pressing the 'WDTV activity' turns on the receiver and selects the right input on that, turns on the WDTV, and switches the TV to the view the receiver's output.

Very neat and efficient If I do say so (although I did have to buy the Harmony PS3 adapter because the PS3 only receives Bluetooth and not IR commands).

Now that the house is almost finished I have really got to start catching up on a lot of gaming that I have mostly missed over the past 6 months. In the past couple of months I have only played a few hours worth of online BF3. So I have really got to properly get into that, and soon Mass Effect 3 will be arriving in the mail.

However the biggest thing that I will have to resist in terms of games, is the recent Star Wars MMORPG, The Old Republic (SWToR). I don't think I've mentioned this before, but I have a particular issue with games that require an ongoing subscription to play in addition to the game purchase price. Usually these types of games are MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games).

It's been relatively easy to resist World of Warcraft and the other big ones, but SWToR is proving a little more difficult. The obvious reason why is that it's Star Wars (duh), but the other reason is that it's pretty darn good and seemingly everyone is playing it (even a friend of mine that does not have internet at his house!).

Even with all that (and jaw-droppingly awesome cinematics), I can't bring myself to pay $13-15/month just to play a game, and I really doubt whether my wife would stomach my removal from the normal happenings of the house and society that would consequently result if I were to get into it.
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View the original blog post. You can view or add comments on this blog post at LucasCosti.com]]> Gaming Geekery Life http://lucascosti.com/blog/2012/03/remotes-mmorpgs-e796/#comments Thu, 08 Mar 2012 19:16:18 +1000 http://lucascosti.com/blog/2012/02/moving-in-e795/
The first few nights were a bit strange, but it really is already starting to feel like home. There is still a lot for us to do before everything will have settled down, but most of the important stuff is here (like the computers ;))

Of course one of the things that I am really enjoying from a geek point of view is the network. It's so darn good not to be at the mercy of the unpredictable nature of wireless any more, I'll take a wired gigabit connection any day of the week over a wireless one.

I'm just about to hook the laptop up to the TV to watch the Arsenal derby game on it via the Fox Sports Premier League On Demand service; it won't be HD, but I think the quality will be good enough. Here's hoping for a good result!
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View the original blog post. You can view or add comments on this blog post at LucasCosti.com]]> Football Geekery Life http://lucascosti.com/blog/2012/02/moving-in-e795/#comments Sun, 26 Feb 2012 23:07:50 +1000 http://lucascosti.com/blog/2012/02/3d-star-wars-house-finishing-ordinations-e794/
The first big one was a Star Wars movie back in theatres and in 3D no less. Yes, I know it was 'only' Episode I, and how much that is the worst Star Wars movie (no arguments there), but I still nevertheless enjoyed it. I'll never pass up an opportunity to see a Star Wars movie in the cinemas, and this was no exception.

Although the 3D projectors at the cinema I was watching it in I don't think were aligned properly (it was a little out of focus in 3D), it was definitely the best quality 2D-to-3D conversion that I have seen. The space battles and pod race were particularly good.

The next huge event was that on Friday our new house was officially certified, and thus now habitable. It's been a long long process (well it's at least felt like it), and now there's only a few minor things to finish before we move into it in the very near future.

Finally but by no means least, Saturday was a big event as the ordination of the now Deacon Andrew. It's great to see someone we've actually known and grown up with get married, and now also ordained. Congratulations and many years! :D
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View the original blog post. You can view or add comments on this blog post at LucasCosti.com]]> Geekery Life http://lucascosti.com/blog/2012/02/3d-star-wars-house-finishing-ordinations-e794/#comments Sun, 12 Feb 2012 22:26:24 +1000