TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Ninja Blocks There's been new developments in machine uprising known as 'The Internet of Things' which is not new in its self but has become easier to fall victim to as we, unwittingly, connect house hold gadgets to the internet so we can be informed of their progress. Imagine being PM'ed by your washing machine when it finishes its cycle. Never heard of 'the Internet of Things'? Well all is explained in this Mashable article, Your House: The Next Great Digital Network . Here's an extract: The Internet of Things has been around for a while. It includes gadgets like connected scales and the Nike+ shoe, as well as identifying technologies as simple as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags. Over the last few years, however, the hardware involved in putting objects online has become more accessible — and The Internet of Things has made a beeline toward the mainstream. Startups are creating hardware that makes it easy for anyone to connect an obje...

Ever since Marvel starting setting up The Avengers team up film with the character's solo films I knew I'd be going to see it. From the moment I saw the first Avengers trailer, there was no doubt I'd be seeing it in the cinema rather than waiting for DVD. I was mostly going to see Robert Downey Jr. play Ironman again. He's just pure entertainment as Ironman and Tony Stark. Even though Ironman 2 was largely unnecessary, as a film leading up to the Avengers, it was still great to see Robert play Ironman in it. I thought all of the solo films were pretty good. You can read my thoughts on Captain America and Thor's movies  before continuing if you like. I never reviewed Ironman's two movies (though I own them both). I have seen and enjoyed both of the Hulk movies - however only the second one really has some relevance to the Avengers film. As it turns out, the two movies you really should see before Avengers is Captain America and Thor, as both contain im...

In the lead up to seeing The Avengers movie in theaters I wanted to see the only two Avengers solo films I'd yet to see, Thor and Captain America - The First Avenger . As per usual this is not a review of either film and if you want the story synopsis follow the links above. What follows is just my thoughts on both films. Be warned there could be spoilers so don't read if you haven't seen either film. Like Batman I've never really read any of the comics. Most of the Marvel characters I followed through  The Marvel Super Heroes  cartoons from nineteen sixty six and much repeated through the seventies of my childhood. Captain America - The First Avenger. Captain America was my favorite Marvel superhero of the cartoons so I was looking forward to Cap's solo film. However when I found out Cap's origin was through the development of 'super soldier' for the US army during World War II I was a little disappointed. It just reminded me of the Hulk...

Asking people to donate money to get my Frog Van fixed may not sit quite right with some people. It's not like I'm a charity, right? No doubt plenty of you work hard to keep your own cars on the road with your own money too, so why should you give money to me? So here's the thing. I'm not asking you to just give me your money so I can get my car fixed. I'm saying, if you've enjoyed reading my blogs, found a tutorial or advice column in them useful to your own life,  been entertained by my writing, art or animations or found one of my tutorial videos very informative then, by donating to my Frog Van fund , you have the opportunity to do something that would really be useful to me, more than just a nice comment or message saying thank you can. Not only that but, once I get my van back on the road, it'll give me more opportunity to write about and share my experiences with you in this blog because I will be able to travel much further away from my hom...

Mashable's blog this week asks Do People Really Want Self-Driving Cars?  which includes a video of several examples of how close this technology is getting to being a reality. Several commercially sold cars are already self parking. I say forget all this self-driving stuff, it's 2012 already, where's my flying car?! The self-driving car is just a way for drunks to get back in their vehicles and keep on drinking between venues on a Friday night. You just know those idiots are going to be so speech impaired by the end of a bender that the car's voice control won't understand them and they're just going to go "F. it, I'm switching to manual control!". The rest of us kind of enjoy driving... well I do anyway. Do you really need a self driving car in a traffic jam? Really? You know how you are in a traffic jam... "No way is that b**tard cutting in front of me!!" Can you imagine the frustration of watching your self-driving car being po...

The South Australian Government seems to have  made a point of honouring the Australian's who fought in the Vietnam war by naming crossover points of an expressway after various famous battles during the conflict. Possibly the most famous being the battle of Long Tan. Being born at the very beginning of the 1970's it's a war most people of my generation probably know very little about. It's not like the World Wars that get taught in most schools - especially the history behind ANZAC day (which is on April 25th). It's more like the Korean War, except without the comedy of TV shows like M.A.S.H. to popularize it in modern culture. The most my generation really knows about the Vietnam War (unless they've actually done research) is that it was a massive failure for the U.S.A. and by default Australia. People protested it. There's was some chemical called Agent Orange  that was extremely toxic to just about everyone and that many war heroes in movies cla...

A Fire Scout Drone. Just a couple of weeks after I speculated that The Machine Uprising Begins with Quadrotors , tiny autonomous helicopters that could wipe out all life as we know it once they attach lasers, Mashable reports on the U.S. Navy developing Robot Helicopters to Hunt Pirates with Lasers . See the video below. From Mashable's article here's what these 'Fire Scout Drones' are capable of in their mission to identify pirates... These helicopters will use high-definition cameras and sensors, including laser-radar technology (LADAR), to collect 3D images. The technology is called Multi-Mode Sensor Seeker (MMSS) and will be attached to a robot called Fire Scout. Fire Scout and its advanced recognition software will sift through boat images captured by the camera and see if they match targeted pirate boats. Yeah right! These autonomous helicopter drones aren't called 'Fire Scouts' for nothing. You just know that someone...