All posts by Alistair Lattimore

About Alistair Lattimore

My name is Alistair Lattimore, I'm in my very early 30's and live on the sunny Gold Coast in Australia. I married my high school sweet heart & we've been together for longer than I can remember. Claire and I started our family in September 2008 when Hugo was born and added a gorgeous little girl named Evie in May 2010. You can find me online in the typical hangouts, Google+, Twitter & facebook. .

Antec TruePower 550w Power Supply

Hardware

I mentioned in July that I’d had a poor experience with my CoolerMaster 550w Extreme power supply and that recently the fan wasn’t working consistently, causing it to get hot, which resulted in my computer crashing or needing to shut down.

To resolve that problem, I dropped into the local computer shop on my way home from work and picked up some replacement parts. True to my word, I didn’t buy another CoolerMaster product – that many failures within a given brand just isn’t natural. I had asked Jacob for his recommendation and he suggested an Antec and I went with the Antec TruePower 550w version.

As soon as I began unpacking it, it felt as though it was going to be a good product. The packaging was well organised with good protection around the actual power supply unit. All of the cabling was pre-wrapped in cable tidy gear, making everything very neat. The power supply itself had a considerable number of leads on it but it also came with four other complete sets of detachable leads; fantastic as I don’t need them currently so it just reduces the clutter even further.

After getting everything back together, I booted it up and couldn’t even hear the power supply – just the way it’s meant to be. The computer had been running for a few hours and I couldn’t even feel the warmth through the top of my aluminium Lian Li computer case.

While only having had it in my computer for about four hours at this point, so far I am very impressed with the Antec power supply and hope that it continues to serve me well in the coming years.

Mantra Group: Stella Hospitality Group Rebrands

News, Work

Toward the start of August Stella Group announced that it had completed a major financial restructure, which would see the company split into two separate businesses and its debt comfortably refinanced into long term agreements. Stella Travel Services would assume approximately $40M, while Stella Hospitality Group would carry $245M.

Following on from the financial restructuring, Stella Hospitality Group announced on Friday 14th that it was rebranding itself to Mantra Group, to further distance itself from the embattled Octaviar, previously MFS Limited.

Now I’ll need to remember to tell people I work for Mantra Group and not Stella Hospitality Group!

100 Push Up Challenge, Week 5

Life

Last week was the fifth week of the 100 push up challenge and it was certainly a challenge. After making it through the fourth week with a reasonable amount of comfort in the end, I was unsure how the change in the personal fitness regime was going to work out. As I mention, session two and three from week five increased the number of sets from five to eight but with slightly lower repetitions.

Session one was a continuation from week four, still five sets but with all sets over 30 except one and at least 40 in the fifth. After getting through week four, this set didn’t prove too difficult and I managed to meet or better the minimum per set with 49 in the fifth for a total of 185. I’ve been trying to make sure I do more per set than required, which has been the plan all along to guarantee that I’d complete the next work out and its been successful, beating the previous peak total work output by 21 push ups.

Session two was the first of the eight set work outs in week five and as I mentioned in week four, I wasn’t completely sure if it’d go in my favour or not. As it turned out, my hunch was correct – more sets on a lower repetition count was definitely more comfortable as it was closer to the style of workouts I’d do at the gym. Set two required a minimum of 18 per set and not less than 45 in the eighth. I blasted through the eight sets, doing at least 20 per set and pushing out 65 in the eighth for a total of 220 – an increase of 35 from two days earlier and I was stoked.

The third session of the week was again eight sets, requiring at least 20 per set and not less than 50 in the eighth. While I managed to blow past the total work output in the second set compared to the first for the week, unfortunately I wasn’t able to accomplish the same feat in the third. I still beat the requirement for each of the eight sets but only managed 64 in the eighth for a total of 235. While not a bad effort, I was hoping to make at least 240-245 to put me in good shape for week six.

I’m looking foward to week six, first work out is five sets and the following two are nine! If I can make it through the third set, I’m quite confident that I’ll be able to do the 100 consecutive push ups as the third session has a required total output of 274 push ups!

100 Push Up Challenge, Week 4

Life

Last week saw the completion of the third week in the one hundred push up challenge. After a mixed bag of results in week 3 of the program and realising that the expectation was going to be lifted considerably – week 4 in the push up challenge felt like it was going to be a complete unknown.

The first session in week four required five sets and each set had at least 21 push ups in them with the fifth expecting not less than 32. After having a strong finish in the third set in week 3 and pushing more repetitions on each set than required – it meant that I only needed to match my previous total work output in a different format to reach the goal. Thankfully I managed to make scrape through but only increased my total output by 2 to 132.

Session two was again five sets and each set had at least 25 repetitions in it with the fifth requiring not less than 36. I was reasonably confident that I’d make it through session two, based on the logic that I’d improved in the last two sessions and that I should theoretically have slightly more endurance. The assumption was correct and I managed to match or exceed the requirements for each set, pushing out 45 in the fifth for a total of 152.

Third and final session for the week was a doozie, five sets with a minimum of 29 per set and at least 40 in the fifth set. This session was really quite difficult to complete and I had to work really hard for it. While I’ve been completing more total push ups than required, this session required more than my peak output from the previous push up workout. I still managed to match or better the requirements but only just – requiring a total of 160 and I managed 164 – the perfect workout.

Week five is going to be a blinder as the second and third sessions increase to eight sets instead of five. Thankfully, however each set is on a lower repetition count initially but for a higher total output. I think more sets but lower rep count is going to suit me more, as each session is closer to the power style exercise I’d normally do at the gym but I’ll wait and see how I go before making a judgement call!

Kyle Sandilands & Jackie O Debarcle

News

The media are always on the prowl for something to latch onto an nail and the current flavour of the week is Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O.

Kyle & Jackie O are known for pushing the boundaries of what is allowed on the radio and they are normally just labelled as stunts to get even more publicity. As a by product of their previous behaviour, while intentionally pushing the limits – it would seem as though their latest stunt which involved hooking up a 14 year old girl to a lie detector and asking her questions about her sex life went horribly wrong.

The media around the country are calling for their scalps after the 14 year old devulged that amongst other sexual activity that she’d been involved with – that she had been raped. The media are suggesting it should have been pulled immediately from air, however Kyle and Jackie O are saying that they don’t have that facility in their studio. I find that hard to believe, given that everyone else commenting on it suggests thats a common facility for a radio studio.

Whichever way it happened, their stunt involved hooking up the 14 year old the the lie detector, with her legal gardians permission to sort out once and for all whether she had been having sex. As it turned out, the mother not only confirmed that she’d been having sex but that she’d allegedly been raped as well – which supposedly wasn’t part of the expected outcome.

While it was poor judgement from the two and their radio station to allow a 14 year old to be hooked up to a lie detector, it wasn’t done in an interrogation style like you’d normally see in the movies. On top of that, it was done with the concent of the mother – who I believe suggested the idea in the first place.

I think that the media should be directing the majority of their anger at the mother and less at Kyle and Jackie O for their poor judgement. Should Kyle and Jackie O be repremanded, I think so as it was a gross error in judgement and in poor taste. Should they lose their jobs over it and their radio show, no I don’t think so. Should Austereo take a hit, absolutely as I’m quite sure they approved directly or indirectly that the stunt was okay for air and ultimately they are responsible.

Who do you think should be in the firing line and to what do you think their punishment should be?