100 Push Up Challenge

Life

I came across a personal fitness and exercise site named 100 Push Ups, which is about what it suggests – being able to do 100 push ups in a row.

Over the weekend I went through the initial test, which is to guage what your current fitness level is. The test is very straight foward, do as many consecutive good form push ups as you can in one session until you can’t push another one out. That number is used to place yourself into the fitness training program. I managed to get through 30 push ups in my initial test, which puts me into week three of the training schedule.

It wasn’t until I started reading through how the fitness program is structured to build strength that I realised that I was in for a bit of a shock. While at the gym, I’d normally do weights in sets of three with between 10-15 repetitions per set. At week three in the push up challenge, the sets start at 14 and go up from there.

As a matter of curiosity, a few months ago I thought it’d be useful to know how much weight I lift when doing a simple push up and it was approximately 55kg or slightly over 50% of my body weight. With that number in mind, I knew getting through the 100 push up challenge was going to be just that – a challenge and not something that I’d casually stroll through.

In the coming weeks, I’ll report back on how my progress is going on the challenge. I don’t expect it to be easy but I’m hoping that I build my arm strength up in a hurry, as by the end of next week the exercise program is expecting me to do 160 push ups over five sets with two minutes break between each set !

Metal Sculptures

General, Photos

Vladimir Bulatov metal sculpture Rhombic Triacontaheddron IIII came across some of the most magnificent metal sculptures by Vladimir Bulatov. The metal sculptures are amazing, not only because they are visually mesmerising, but you’re mind immediately starts thinking about how you’d create such an intricate and interweaving sculpture from metal. Vladimir provides a brief description of the construction process as:

The process of making my sculptures starts from mathematical idea.

I build a computer model to represent this mathematical idea in 3D world. At this stage I have some very rough understanding of how the object will look. Next I apply custom algorithms to give the model nice body and organic look. I write all software I use for this process. At this stage I have detailed computer image of the future sculpture which I can rotate and manipulate in real time.

Next step is to play with computer model and to select parameters of the model to make sculpture look most interesting. The selected model is saved in special 3D file format as hundreds of thousands of tiny triangles representing surface of the object.

The file is transferred to state of the art metal printing machine, which assembles real piece from thin (0.002 inch) layers of stainless steel powder, heats fragile porous piece in the furnace and infiltrates with molten bronze to make it solid.

On the final stage I hand polish pieces and burnish them in tumbles with steel shot for a day or two in tumbler.

My first encounter with mathematic fuelled artwork was at university, when a textbook was covered with the now famous, Umbilic Torus NC by Helaman Ferguson. While the Umbilic Torus NC is also compelling, the detail, smooth lines and complexity of metal sculptures by Vladimir Bulatov is hard to beat.

Roger Federer Wimbledon 2009 Winner & Greatest Player Ever

News, Sport

For those that didn’t get an opportunity to see the Wimbledon 2009 final between Roger Federer and Andy Roddick, you missed a spectacular match which is sure to go down in the history books.

Leading into the match, a lot of the press going on was touting Roger Federer as an easy win over Andy Roddick due to an imposing 18-2 win/loss ratio against him in the past. While it might have seemed a logical choice, you can never underestimate what a grand slam final will do to a player, drive them to greatness or crumple under the pressure.

Looking at how Andy Roddick had played leading into the final, I wasn’t confident that Roger Federer would walk over him to win Wimbledon 2009 at all – Roddick was playing some of the best tennis in his career. He dismantled Tomas Berdych in straight sets, ground out a hard fought five setter against Lleyton Hewitt with great shot making and knocked off the third seed Andy Murray in four – Roddick was a changed man and on a mission. While Andy Roddick played an extra five sets on the way to the 2009 Wimbledon final over Roger Federer, the previous two losses in 2004 and 2005 to Federer were sure to light the fire within for the third encounter.

Roger Federer had an impressive run in to the finals, dropping only a single set which was swiftly reclaimed without mercy 6-1 the following. Federer had been playing great tennis for the entire Wimbledon tournament, backing up from his first French Open win earlier in the year. Due to how the draw unfolded, Roger Federer didn’t come up against a top 10 seeded player before the final, the highest being the 13th seed Robin Soderling. There was speculation that the lack of a dominant oppontent was going to severely hinder the finals performance of Federer, however being a consummate professional and 14 open champion – I was confident that he’d find the muster if and when required.

After more than four hours had lapsed on centre court at Wimbledon, Roger Federer set the record books alight by claiming his 15th grand slam title and surpassing the long standing record of Pete Sampras. The match game score was 5-7, 7-6, 7-6, 3-6, 16-14.

The overall match statistics were incredible from both players, especially the serving statistics from Roddick with 70% first serves in averaging 203kph and a fastest serve of 228kph. Despite the blazing speed and a high percentage from Roddick, Roger Federer nearly doubled the number of aces at 50 and combined with an imposing percentage win ratio on service and return – handed Roger Federer the win.

  Roddick Federer
1st Serve % 168/239 (70%) 127/197 (64%)
Aces 27 50
Double Faults 4 4
Unforced Errors 33 38
1st Serve (Winning %) 140/168 (83%) 113/127 (89%)
2nd Serve (Winning %) 31/71 (44%) 42/70 (60%)
Winners (Including Service) 74 107
Receiving Points Won 42/197 (21%) 68/239 (28%)
Break Point Conversions 2/5 (40%) 1/7 (14%)
Net Approaches 42/69 (61%) 38/59 (64%)
Total Points Won 213 223
Fastest Serve 228kph 216kph
1st Serve Average Speed 203kph 189kph
2nd Serve Average Speed 168kph 152kph

Roger Federer was without question the greatest player of his era, which is a milestone that Rod Laver always measures a player by. However after winning his 6th Wimbledon grand slam title and 15th in total, which as restored his world #1 ranking, has now also rightfully earned the title of the greatest player in history.

Cheapest Domain Names In Australia

Internet, Websites

If you’ve ever gone looking to buy an Australian domain name in the past, such as a .com.au, .net.au or even a personal .id.au like this site uses – you’ll have been frustrated by the number of options and the wildly varying prices on offer for a simple domain name.

Previously, I’ve seen domains for Australian businesses range from $15 per 2 years all the way up to hundreds of dollars per year. A lot of domain registers purport to offer the cheapest domain names, however very few actually do and most are inflating the prices quite a bit.

Last year, I came across a very simple but fantastic Australian domain comparison site named What’s In A Name. The site is run by Josh Rowe and compares the retail price of the .auDA accredited domain registrars throughout Australia.

Next time you need to buy cheap domains, check out Whats In A Name to see if the place you’re intending to buy from is selling well over the wholesale price or not.

Queensland Department of Transport Online Services

General

Within the first year of Claire & I moving to the Gold Coast, I had the pleasure of experiencing first hand the pressure a growing city can place on government departments when I visited the Queensland Department of Transport in Ashmore.

In 2005, I couldn’t understand why so many of the common services that people require of Queensland Transport were not available online, which was forcing people to come into their service centres to tend to their matters.

Over the last two years, Queensland Transport have been making more and more of their common services available as an online form through the Department of Transport web site, such as paying fines, registration renew, requesting replacement registration stickers and many more.

This evening I took advantage of two of their forms at 11:OOPM, to renewed by drivers licence and change my address in a matter of minutes, error free and without any fuss or queues.

I’d love to see the service numbers from people throughout Queensland from the Department of Transport since they began providing convenient online services and the awareness of those services. I’m confident they’d have plummeted and the people that have a valid reason to go into the service centres are much happier about not having to wait over an hour to get served.