Another 15 minutes

Since movie streaming lags sometimes when streaming HD videos to my Playstation 3 from my fileserver, maximizing CPU usage when transcoding the stream with TVersity, I decided to upgrade the CPU of the fileserver from an Intel Core2Duo 1.8 Ghz (1066 FSB) to a 3.0 Ghz (1333 FSB). I just had to upgrade the BIOS to get support for the new CPU and then replace the CPU. It proved to be pretty hard to get the cooling unit fastened though, it just wouldn’t stick on all four plugs, son of a bitch, my thumbs are sore now, but after alot of screaming and swearing it finally stuck.

I tested some HD video streaming with TVersity again, and the CPU still peaks with regular intervals, but there are no lags at all in video or sound. I guess this new CPU can handle it. Very nice :). Hopefully they RAID will also operate abit faster now too since it utilizes the CPU for some calculations.

I previously installed TVersity on my Windows server at home to use as a media server where the Playstation 3 could read data such as photos, music and movies, and it worked fine with ordinary formats such as Windows Media Video and AVI/Xvid etc, but now I wanted to try out HD videos (720p). I read some forums about it and many talk about issues with either video or sound not being able to keep up when using transcoding. Transcoding is basically when TVersity is recoding the stream to a format and resolution that is supported on the viewing device, in this case the PS3.

I decided to give it a go and start out with the basic setup and then take it from there…

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We arrived in Turku (Åbo) by boat early on Wednesday morning, then we waited for our Finnish collegues and went by bus to a place called Herrankukkaro, which is an old traditional fisherman’s village with old wooden cottages and also ofcourse saunas and hot tubs.

We started out by some welcome drinks and then lunch, fish ofcourse. In the afternoon with had the meeting and some presentations etc, followed by some team building exercises and games, the team I was in didn’t win though, but I don’t really trust that :). Then before dinner we had a few hours for sauna and hot tubbing, which is very nice. I’m not a big fan of seafood, but the dinner was pretty nice and there was alot to choose from. The evening agenda ofcourse included alot of beers and mingling, talking to both new and old collegues. We have a very good team-spirit in the company and the IT-department in particular, which is very nice, we were about 55 people attending this “jamboree”.

The next day, after a few hours of sleep, there was a presentation by IBM about their collaboration tools followed by lunch and then everyone was heading back on the bus, except us from Sweden who stayed a few hours more sleeping before heading back to the Silja Line cruise ship and sailed back to Sweden over night. We were abit tired so most of us turned in early after a nice buffé dinner and taxfree shopping. But I had a drink and also tried some black-jack but that didn’t turn out well, played two rounds and lost them both, I wanted to play more but you can’t get cash from credit card anywhere on these cruise ships, which just sucks to be honest. I slept for a few hours and then when arriving to port early Friday morning I just took a cab home and went to bed since I had Friday off.

It was a nice trip and a relaxing break in the everyday work. Here are also some pictures from the trip.

Early this morning I arrived in Turku, Finland, by cruise ship. Me and my collegues are going to attend our annual department conference at work to discuss goals and also get to know one and other over a few beers and sauna. We’ll be around 40-50 people total I think, 9 from Sweden. Our cruise ship left Stockholm yesterday evening so we haven’t had much sleep tonight, we had to get up freakishly early to get some breakfast before port arrival at 06:00. I hope we’ll be able to stay awake and also enjoy todays evening, we’re going to some fisherman’s cottage/small village outside Turku where I guess there will be fishing, boating, sauna and hot tub. I will add some pictures from this trip when I get back home on Friday morning, luckily I don’t have to work on Friday, unlike the rest of my collegues.

I played my first online freeroll of Texas Hold’em today with a real money prize pool (50 euros). It was free to register and play, so a friend recommended it since you can’t lose anything. There were about 1200 people participating and I was holding on but I really got shitty cards in the beginning of the game, but then I got a very nice pot. I got Q-Q and went all in before the flop, two other players called me and I got abit nervous when I saw their hands, knowing my luck. 

My hand: Their hands:       and     The flop, river and turn:

You can imagine my joy with this hand and the win of over 10,000 in chips (over trippled up). That hand got me through to the next round. But in a later hand I got A-K, went all in and lost against 7-7, bummer. I finished on 36th place in the tournament, not so bad for my first one. I will definitely try my luck on freerolls more often, you never know when one might win some extra spare change :).

“You don’t mess with the Zohan” is a movie with Adam Sandler, he plays an Israeli special forces soldier with super-human fighting skills whos real dream is to become a hair stylist. So he fakes his death and escapes to New York City to pursue his dream.

It’s a funny movie, kind of the same humor as in the “Naked gun” and “Dodgeball” movies combined with the sick humor of Adam Sandler when he tries to fit in in his new trade and in the American soceity and uses his sex appeal to older women to help him. I have always been abit annoyed with the childish voice Adam Sandler uses in many of his movies, in this one the voice and accent of Zohan didn’t bother me so much I’m glad to say. The movie also has a political message in the story that rejects the idea of war for silly or even forgotten reasons.

Today’s movie was “Batman – the dark knight”. I always thought this movie is hyped because of the death of the actor playing The Joker, Heath Ledger. I’ve heard mixed critique about this movie, some say it’s brilliant and some say it’s not very special. The success of the movie in the box office though must count for something, pretty amazing for a Batman movie.

My opinion of the movie is that it’s very good, probably the best batman movie yet, not saying too much since the movies from the late 1990′s were more like children’s movies, but anyway. I still think it’s very hyped though, even though Heath does a splendid job indeed.

This movie also doesn’t fit in the timeline with the original Batman movie from 1989 with Jack Nicholson playing The Joker, atleast not how I can see, but I guess we can disregard that. Towards the end of this movie it shows the revelation of another villain, who has also been seen in an older Batman movie. And oh, the voice of batman is totally embarrasing, what were they thinking with that?