Blog

The thoughts, opinions, happenings, and just plain ramblings of a seemingly boring person.

Geekery

New Year, New USB Drive

Categories Geekery, Technology

USB DrivesSo begins another year, and if you're counting, 2013 marks the beginning of my 10th (!) year maintaining this blog. Wow. I feel old, and marking another decade of existence next month isn't making me feel any younger!

The other day I bought a new USB drive. Along with my WD Passport external hard drive, my Sandisk Titanium USB drive is probably the oldest piece of technology that I'm still using (at 4.5 years old).

For it's replacement, I went for the Sandisk USB3 32GB Extreme. Pictured are it with my last 2 USB drives. Over 10 years, this new … Read more →

Tweets for 2012

Categories Geekery, Internet

Twitter2012I was thinking it might be good to have a new annual entry at the end of each year which lists all my tweets for the year. My Twitter account hasn't been given access to the new backup/export/archive feature, so all the external links contained in the tweets below are Twitter's 't.co' URL shortened ones.

  • Unfortunately I have have been moved over to the new @Gmail look 🙁 Twas good while it lasted classic look! Jan 04, 2012
  • @LiaParadissis You can buy the 3D bluray and watch it over my place if you want 😉 Jan 07, 2012
  • @LiaParadissis Hopefully
… Read more →

Wreck-It Ralph: The ‘Proper’ Pixar Movie of the Year?

Categories Gaming, Geekery, Movies

Wreck-It Ralph

Tonight we went and saw an 'advance' screening of Wreck-It Ralph. I put 'advance' in quotes because it was released in the U.S. a month and a half ago, so a screening five days before the Australian release is hardly 'advance' in today's connected world. Insert here my usual disgust of these archaic practises and so forth.

In short, the movie was fantastic.

Following the disappointment of this year's Disney/Pixar release that was the well below-par Brave, this movie as a purely Disney release hit more of the Pixar heights in all aspects. I'm not sure if Disney … Read more →

Disney Buys Lucasfilm

Categories Geekery, Movies

Star Wars DisneyThis is kind of old news now, but nevertheless it's going to be 'current' for the next few years.

Whilst we were in Hong Kong at the end of October, news broke that Disney had reached a deal with George Lucas to acquire Lucasfilm and all its subsidiaries and intellectual property for the sum of around $4 billion. I had to check multiple websites and multiple sources to make sure it wasn't some kind of huge practical joke.

Although $4 billion sounds like a lot of money, when you look at what Disney is acquiring it doesn't seem all that … Read more →

Cannon Upgrades: SSD Goodness

Categories Geekery, Technology

Intel SSD 330 SeriesIn the past few days I have upgraded the trusty old Cannon with an SSD (Solid State Drive).

Our main desktop computer (The Cannon) was getting pretty slow under all the bloat that had accumulated over the past almost-three years, so I thought a change was in order. If I were to follow tradition, the three year mark is usually when I would start looking at putting together a brand new build, especially with a new version of Windows coming out, but The Cannon build has aged really well over that time.

It's probably due to the fact … Read more →

Aus. Government Abandons Internet Filter Plans

Categories Geekery, Rants, Technology

It was 'shelved' as a policy prior to the last Federal election, but now the Australian Government has finally publicly abandoned its quite stupid policy of implementing compulsory internet filtering. I have been a quite vocal opponent of the policy since its announcement in 2008, and am not surprised by this backdown.

Since Julia Gillard's toppling of Kevin Rudd, following the 2010 election the implementation of the filter was never going to happen. Poll after poll showed its unpopularity, and internet experts and technology industry insiders' continuous criticism on whether it could be practically implemented, let alone be effective … Read more →

A New TA Successor on Kickstarter

Categories Gaming, Geekery, Internet

Planetary AnnihilationThe idea of crowd funding has really taken off in the past year or so. Headlined most prominently by US-based Kickstarter, it enables people who want to raise money for something to easily pitch their idea to anyone on the internet, who can in turn pledge a certain amount of money often in return for some rewards once the project gets off the ground. It's a great way to raise early capital for a project without having to go to banks, or relinquish part-ownership to venture-capitalist firms.

I hadn't yet previously supported anything on Kickstarter or on other crowd funding … Read more →

Getting Back Into Reading & Kindles Everywhere

Categories Geekery, Life, Technology

Kindle TouchWhen we got married over 6 six years ago, I stopped reading books. I'm not totally sure why - maybe it was being more busy and more tired - but other than a select few non-fiction books, I haven't read a single fiction book in the last six years since.

Recently, after going to bed at night it has started taking me a while to get to sleep, and I've realised that previously I would have used this 'non-sleeping time' to read a book.

So I decided to get back into reading.

I bought a Kindle Touch e-reader direct from … Read more →

Transforming Tablets

Categories Geekery, Technology

Asus Transformer PadLast week I gave in to the tablet culture and got one.

I've been increasingly using my phone to access the internet whilst watching TV for various live social and sporting events: recently I've been posting on Whirlpool while watching live Euro 2012 matches, and also used SBS's great social media effort for this year's Eurovision.

In my opinion this is where tablets or iPads really shine: as a couch-based internet access device. Where laptops are too clunky and cumbersome, and phones too small and finicky, a tablet is the perfect tool for quick internet or social media access … Read more →

LucasCosti.com Overhaul & Welcome to WordPress

Categories Geekery, Internet, Technology

Well I finally did it. Goodbye old site (pictured).

After mulling over whether or not to convert my trusty old blog to the WordPress platform for years, and recently actually thinking seriously about doing it, over the past few weeks I've spent a lot of time actually getting it done. It was about as painful as I expected it to be, which was unsurprisingly quite very.

Other than the drastic improvement in look,  the regulars will notice a lot of changes as I've simplified the whole site down to its core. Gone are the Gallery, Intros, Games… Read more →