TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Julie Bishop, Member of Parliament of Australia during the Session "Opening Plenary: Globalization 4.0" at the World Economic Forum, Annual Meeting of the Global Future Councils 2018. Copyright by World Economic Forum / Benedikt von Loebell Did you know that you can join The World Economic Forum ? True. You don't have to be a billionaire, CEO of a corporation, or even a high level member of your government. You can sign up for free on the WEF website and be kept up to date with what this mega evil, mustache twirling, elite organization is doing. If you want to keep an even closer eye, and maybe even have some input into what the WEF is doing in your part of the world, they have some very affordable paid subscriptions (which you can even trial, free for 30 days - imagine... a whole month free of keeping your beady little eye on this very shady organization that wants to control what toilet paper you buy... probably? #notsponsored). While much of the high level partner/mem...

As fascinating and exciting as the world of robotics is companies like Boston Dynamics , Disney Imagineering , and Engineered Arts (which I wrote about their very human-like robot, Ameca , in my previous post ), have demonstrated it's very possible to create human like robots. That is, something along the lines of C3-PO from Star Wars , or Sonny from iRobot . Arguably, what isn't possible at this time, is creating a sentient robot i.e. something that can think for itself, develop its own ideas, and even have emotions.  I say 'arguably' because being 'sentient' is a somewhat relative term. If we're talking the equivalent of human sentience then current robots and artificial intelligences (A.I.) are a long way off. However, we can create robots that are capable of learning on their own.  You could, conceivably create a robot that starts out following its programming then, over time, learns behaviors and problem solving in ways never conceived by its creator...

Engineered Arts, Ameca Robot. I mean, it doesn't look out of place in an apocalyptic wasteland, right? It's been a while since I checked in to see how our robot overlords are coming along. While Engineered Arts Ameca Robot is not new by this point I haven't yet written about it in the context of what happens once they attach laser guns to it and teach it to say "Dead or Alive, you're coming with me." While Ameca may look the part in photos, fortunately it can't actually walk... yet. However from the waste up it has very natural, human like movement, most impressively with its extremely natural human face. See it in action in the video below. Ameca is built as an Artificial Intelligence, Human/Robot learning platform and, while it does contain 'intelligent' systems to control its various functional body parts, it doesn't contain any kind of true A.I. that would make it sentient. Engineered Arts are leaving it up to Universities and other A.I. ...

Abbie Richards - creator of The Conspiracy Chart. I've never heard of Abbie Richards until today, while I was trawling the internet for something to post to this blog. She claims to be professionally obsessed with TikTok, a mis and disinformation researcher, and a research fellow at @TheARConsortium but she may just be an A.I. bot programmed by the far left to annoy right wing keyboard warriors, probably? Anyway Abbie produced an updated version of her Conspiracy Theory Chart to reflect more recent thinking (up until November 23, 2021 at least). Whether or not you believe anything listed to be a conspiracy or 'truth that will come out as more people wake up' the chart is a great starting point for anyone investigating 'new, enlightened thinking' with dubious connection to actual facts to draw their conclusions. Conspiracy theories are everywhere and people don't understand how harmful they are. I made the original Conspiracy Chart over a year ago. An update was ...

Probably like me you've been keeping an eye on the war in Ukraine. No doubt you're aware of the hypocrisy of the United States culminating this week with Joe Biden's gaffe:  Joe Biden says ‘butcher’ Vladimir Putin ‘cannot remain in power’ . Anyone who's followed even recent history of this millennia knows that the United States are in the business of 'war', often taking on the role of 'world police' to protect its interests. It's no secret that civilians have often been caught up in these conflicts 'accidentally'. Particularly if the US has been taken to task over these deaths. Which one could then make the case that Russia is deliberately targeting civilians, as opposed to 'accidentally' targeting them. That aside, I've seen a few ridiculous responses to America's hypocrisy with random comments along the lines of: The U.S.A. are hypocrites. I support Russia! Oh really? You support deliberate targeting of civilians? I presume ...

I have not read the Reacher books. My interest in Amazon Prime's original series, Reacher , was purely based on the lead actor, Alan Ritchson, who I first came across watching Netflix's superhero show, Titans  (which I really enjoyed). My understanding of the books is limited to Alan being a better representation of the character's physical size than depicted in the Tom Cruise movie ... and, of course, he's some kind of bad ass. After hearing good things from different sources about the show I decided to give it a watch to see if Alan's decision to leave Titans for Reacher was a good move. Turns out, it definitely was, with the first season being much better than I expected. I thought it would be all action but the series also takes time to develop some of its lead characters too. Plotwise, Reacher finds himself in a small, rural town on some personal business. It's not long before he is identified as a possible murder suspect and arrested in dramatic fashion. F...

When I first heard that director, Matt Reeves wanted to focus more on the 'world's greatest detective' aspect of Batman a little part of me went 'finally!' The Batman  is a complete reimagining of Batman and his rogues gallery, unrelated to any other Batman or DCEU film released thus far. Basically it's film one in this continuity. Robert Pattinson is Batman/Bruce Wayne in his second year of donning the cape and cowl. Batman's reputation is such that criminals can never be sure if he might just appear out of the shadows to deliver his style of 'vengeance' on crime. Meanwhile, high profile murders begin to occur around Gotham city by a killer who leaves calling cards for the Batman containing riddles. As the stakes get higher Batman and Detective, Lieutenant James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) work together to track down the Riddler (Paul Dano). Along the way they cross paths with Cat Woman (Zoë Kravitz) and the Penguin (Colin Farrell). Overall this is ever...