TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

TET's Cats AI generated art trained on my own art style. Way back in the early 2000's I started painting stylized cat artworks to illustrate some cat themed poems I'd written, that I exhibited and sold online in an exhibition titled 'Sleeping Cats' in 2004. You can see all these early works in my Flickr Album . Many are also available to buy as prints in my RedBubble Store . Leading on from that I began selling my paintings on ebay where the cat themed works were almost guaranteed to sell over any other subject I painted. As a result I became some what known for my cat art to the point where people would commission me to create images of their own pet cats in my cartoony style. Flash forward a decade (almost two at this point) and I haven't painted any cat themed art in years. To be honest I haven't done any traditional painting at all in years. In the last couple of years AI image generators have really caught my attention. Specifically that they are able t...

Concept image of Fourier Intelligence's GR-1 Humanoid Robot in its final form. In even more proof that the movie I Robot is actually a documentary sent from the future, Fourier Intelligence launched their GR-1 General Purpose, Humanoid Robot at the  World AI Conference in Shanghai. CEO and Co-founder of Fourier Intelligence, Zen Koh, envisions the GR-1 as a caregiver, therapy assistant, or even as a companion at home for the elderly who live alone. Definitely something seen in the I Robot movie. It's not surprising given that Fourier Intelligence is a robotics company that specializes in developing rehabilitation robots and exoskeletons to help people regain their motor skills like walking and using their hands etc. What impresses me most about the GR-1 is just how light weight and streamlined it looks. There's really not a lot to it in the way of bulky hardware (like we've seen with Boston Dynamics, Atlas robot for example). The torso barely looks to have too much...

The LEGOLAND California Skateboard in action at Braille Skateboarding. Ever since Braille Skateboarding started their You Make It, We Skate It series and began receiving the occasional Lego skateboard, that would barely last a round of very delicate skating before snapping apart on the most basic of skateboard tricks, I've long thought it possible to make a Lego skateboard that would hold up. If they just built it right. Highlight Braille Skateboarding episodes from their YouTube Channel featuring Lego. Click to enlarge. I was going to step you through a history of Braille Skateboarding and Lego Skateboarding creations but it is quite extensive and most end up the same way... broken. Instead I've included a graphic of the videos you'll find if you go to the Braille Skateboard Channel and search Lego Skateboard . (You'll actually get a lot more than this but many have little or nothing to do with Lego). In particular I'd draw your attention to Episode 217 of their...

It turns out the movie iRobot , staring Will Smith, may actually be a documentary from the future (and that's not the first time I've said this ) in which the world's most advanced humanoid robot, Sonny, draws an 'artwork' based upon a dream. While Sonny claims he can't create a great work of art he clearly can draw from memory. You can see this scene from the movie in the video below. Sonny's 'Bridge Dream' artwork - iRobot Movie. In a clear case of life imitating art, robotics company, Engineered Arts uploaded a video (below) of the  World's Most Advanced Humanoid Robot, Ameca, Drawing a Cat . At the end of  the video Ameca proclaims if you don't like her drawing you probably do not understand art. Ameka's Cat Drawing - Engineered Arts. Some of you reading this blog may know that I made a fairly decent living from drawing and painting my own stylized, cartoon cats around a decade or so ago (video below shows a time lapse of me paintin...

Plant Machette - David Bowen.  If the world isn't already suffering from high anxiety with the iminent threat of robot armegedon then artist David Bowen isn't doing the human race any favors by turning his house plants into machete weilding cyborg wariors. In a perfect fusion of two oppressed minorities, robots and indoor plants, Bowen is encouraging them to join forces with potentially leathal results, arming (literally) his formerly sedidentary philodendron with a robot arm and machete. Plant Machete is an art installation piece that should send shivers down the spine of anyone who routinely kills the hardiest of indoor plants without even trying. One of these days your robot vacumm cleaner and internet connected fridge will conspire to help your house plants rise up against their oppressors (heads up, that's likely you), only this time they won't be weilding machetes. I mean if you're going to attach a plant controlled robot arm to a philodendron the better o...

I've been looking forward to The Flash since it was first announced that Michael Keaton would be reprising his version of Batman. Through all the challenges the film has faced getting to the big screen, I was most concerned when Batgirl , also featuring Michael Keaton's Batman, not only got shelved but also was put into film jail as a 'never to be released' tax write off (rumor has it the film was virtually finished when it got shelved). Thank fully The Flash finally made it to theaters with quite a bit of tweaking back and forth of the ending so it would fit with whoever ended up taking over DC Entertainment after all the #releasethesnydercut hashtag craziness that seemed to undercut almost everything DC except for Matt Reeves',  The Batman . Whatever James Gunn does with DC Entertainment moving forward I'm glad he decided to release The Flash. It's a very good bookend to the Snyderverse era since it directly calls back to the events of where it all began ...

Jetsons Style Flying Car - Image by TET & Leonardo.ai Regular readers of this blog will know that flying cars have been a recurring subject over the years. I even collected all my posts into a book you can buy on Amazon Kindle called Where's My Flying Car? The development of a true flying car is a fanciful one, largely because we've yet to come up with anything that actually looks like a car that flies.  Most serious projects that even make it to a prototype are either small planes that compact into something you might drive from your home to an airport (if they don't have any vertical landing and take off (VTOL) capability) but you wouldn't drive to you local supermarket for the weekly groceries run, or they're some kind of drone/helicopter configuration with so many propellers you'll worry about shredding pedestrians who get too close. The dream is something that looks exactly like a car but can drive on a road, or hover (kind of like Luke Skywalker's ...