TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Image:  Designed by rawpixel.com / Freepik Recently I had cause to visit the after hours clinic in the emergency ward of my local hospital. Don't worry, I'm fine, thanks for asking. I'm not dying, or even at risk of dying (apparently). Anyway it was a Saturday morning and I was there for a few hours sitting in one of several patient bays all divided by curtains but with the entrance completely open. What I noticed is that everyone of the staff seemed to talk to each other like they were standing in a field, raising their voice just to be heard by the next nearest person (probably standing quite some distance away). Now I get that in a busy emergency ward it's important that staff can be understood and communicate clearly but I know this morning wasn't busy because one of the staff said as much in a phone call... "No, it's not busy, just a steady stream so far." I also know that the patient just down from me came in as a result of an allergi...

Photo: Powering Forward Website Following on from last week's article, Nuclear Power Won't Reduce Your Electricity Bill Like You Think , the Australian Government launched a new initiative and website called Powering Forward . The site serves two purposes, the first of which is to prompt individuals to take action over reducing the cost of their own electricity bills. Often individuals will simply stay with their current energy provider despite receiving impossibly high bills because it's perceived that changing providers is just too hard. A situation that energy companies definitely exploit, knowing that a good percentage of their customers won't take any action to find cheaper alternatives. Along with assisting individuals to find cheaper providers the site also lists government rebates and other schemes people may be entitled to if they're experiencing financial hardship. The other key function of the Powering Forward website is to outline the Governm...

Cooling towers of a nuclear power station. Photo: Petr Kratochvil Australian energy consumers are currently in a crisis, receiving some of the highest power bills in the world, making us a prime target for the nuclear energy vultures who claim their industry will bring the cost of electricity down. It's a smoke and mirrors argument when you consider the cost of actually producing electricity isn't the main reason for Australia's ever increasing consumer electricity prices. Hypothetically, even after the cost of installing nuclear power plants, the actual cost reductions won't be as dramatic as the nuclear energy industry would have you believe. According to this article,  A high price for policy failure: the ten-year story of spiralling electricity bills by David Blowers, published in January 2018, the two biggest factors are the cost of the network (transporting electricity), and the retailer margins (cost of billing and servicing the customer). These are...

As someone who really enjoys the Marvel movies, and has written about them quite extensively in previous posts , I feel I should make mention of the passing of Stan Lee last week. I wouldn't say Stan was a hero of mine, or that I grew up with him (though unknowingly I did to a certain extent). I really only became aware of who Stan Lee was when he started making cameos in Marvel films. Then I really got to know him through the various online web shows he had, interviews, and his own work promoting Marvel at almost any opportunity. He seemed like a great guy, and by all accounts he was. I never really bought comic books. Most of the ones I had were given to me. My avenue into the superhero world was Saturday morning cartoons through the 1970's and 80's. Marvel got me with reruns of their, kind of animated, more motion graphic, cartoons from the 1960's. They weren't great but boy did they have catchy theme tunes. For me Stan serves as an inspiration some...

Batman Ninja , the DC animated movie set in feudal Japan, written, directed and animated by respected Japanese artists, sounds like an amazing proposition. Unfortunately, from my point of view, it follows very closely in the footsteps of most of DC's straight to video animated movies, with a poorly thought through story. Which is a shame because the art and animation is really amazing. Seeing Batman and his rogues gallery in this anime style is something I'd watch all day, if the stories were actually good. Initially the movie had me hooked in with not only the art and animation but also through the use of time travel, as a plot device, to send Batman back through time to feudal Japan. How could it go wrong? Batman, Anime, and Time Travel are all things that pique my interest more than most. As well, you get a whole bunch of familiar characters redesigned for their new time and location. Which is an additional treat for the eyes. The movie fails because the initia...

Jodie Whittaker, The Thirteenth Doctor. I'm, what I would describe as, a casual Doctor Who fan (the long running BBC TV series if you've somehow never heard of the character or show). I grew up with the show in the 1970s and 80's but kind of dropped away when sixth Doctor, Colin Baker, took over the role - and definitely tuned out for Sylvester McCoy's turn). Colin was too much of a contrast to Peter Davison's fifth Doctor. I remember struggling to get used to his version of the character. Sylvester's Doctor was even harder to connect with, though looking at clips of him as the Doctor now, I can see his influence on several of the Doctors that came after him. When the show was rebooted in 2005 with Christopher Eccleston's ninth Doctor I was back in for his entire one season run. It was kind of a shame Chris didn't stick around for long because I really liked his Doctor. As I heard Colin Baker say in some Doctor Who Reunion show at one point, Chr...

Have you received an email with a subject line or content that contains an actual password you use either currently or at some point in time (likely it's one you've been using for a few years)? The email claims that the sender has footage from your webcam of you visiting a porn site for some 'fun' and threatens to release that footage to all your contacts unless you pay a specified amount to a supplied Bitcoin account. It also mentions your password was obtained by installing malware on a porn streaming site that basically gave the sender access to your keystrokes, desktop, and webcam. I've received such an email twice now. I've posted the second below. The first email requested a deposit of US$7000 to said Bitcoin account. This time that number has gone down to $1000 (Rude! are they saying I can't afford $7000? Spoiler, I can't but, rude!). The actual email I received. Password changed just in case I'm still using it on some site I'...

Spot-mini can twerk and moon walk better than you. I've been monitoring the inevitable robot uprising in this blog for years so you don't have to. There's been a strange new twist in that it looks like the robots are planning a dance off. Boston Dynamics , the robotics company that is at the forefront of creating our demise, has released a video (embeded below)  of their Spot-mini , robot dog dancing better than at least 80% of the human population (and that number could increase as the fallout continues). Spot-mini has a battery life of about 90 minutes so it can maintain the rage in any dance competition without dropping pace. We really don't stand a chance. If one of these things signs on to Dancing with the Stars how is its partner and the other contestants ever going to keep up? With moves like twerking and the moon walk in its repertoire will there be a twist with Spot-mini actually busting out the Twist (like we did last Summer before the machines wen...

Free photo 86246960 © creativecommonsstockphotos - Dreamstime.com Travelling the world full time seems like an unattainable dream. Such an endeavour must be expensive, difficult to organize, and be filled with too many unknown risks to even contemplate? In reality, the biggest barrier to living the dream is thinking it's all too hard, so you never actually start. Vans, Boats, and Planes Van-Life Maybe your travel dream isn't quite as big as travelling the world? View this post on Instagram Be honest... Did I just catch you scrolling on the toilet?! #GuiltyAsCharged 📸: @robanzit A post shared by Vanlife | Eamon & Bec (@rebeccamoroney) on Oct 12, 2018 at 7:47am PDT Meet Eamen and Bec , who live and travel around Canada and North America in a converted van that is their home. They vlog about their travels and partially fund what they're doing through a small Chai tea business they started. The two ...

Photo by Josh Hallett from Winter Haven, FL, USA - Gnomedex 07 - Justin Kan , CC BY-SA 2.0 , Link The most popular post on TET Life of all time is Watch Justin, live 24/7  (April 14, 2007) with almost double the number of page views (16174 views) of the second most popular post getpaidtodraw.com - Your Questions Answered  (Note: getpaidtodraw.com no longer exists if I just piqued your interest). Both posts are from 2007 (FYI this site dates back to 2004) but no other post has come close to my article reporting on the establishment of Justin.TV , which would go on to evolve and merge into one of the biggest live game streaming networks, Twitch . Justin.TV, in its original form, was a single live stream of co-founder, Justin Kan's daily life as he set up a technology site that would make it easy for anyone to live stream. Kan wore a webcam on his hat everywhere he went and popularized the term 'lifecasting' as he broadcast his daily life. At the time I wasn't...

Super Sonica PVC 1/7 Figurine . I was not familiar with the Anime character  Super Sonico  created by Tsuji Santa of the Japanese computer and video game software company, Nitroplus , as the mascot for Nitroplus' annual live music festival event "Nitro Super Sonico". I was actually looking through the GearBest website for another Anime character and liked the look of this particular display figure enough to add it to my cart. (It also helped that the figure was on sale at a significant email only discount at the time). This particular version of the character features Sonico dressed in her Santa Cape and Swim Suit  complete with holiday trimmings. The hood/cape can also be removed and replaced with Sonico's headphone wire and trademark, long pink hair. When my purchase arrived I was pleasantly surprised by the quality and detail. Having since discovered the Anime character (and also TV series) the figure is based upon I can say it's a fairly faithful dep...

Halloween isn't really a thing in Australia but over the years it's been gaining momentum thanks to variety and party hire stores that stock up on all things spooky for the occasion. I dread Halloween every year because I never know if this is going to be the year some wide eyed group of costumed up kids is going to knock on the door and yell 'Trick or Treat' at me. A truly scary thought. Halloween is a fantastic idea for a holiday, completely ruined by the tradition of going door to door for treats. If you or your family does this, I sincerely hope you never knock on the door of houses that a) You've never met the owner in any capacity and, b) are clearly not participating in the festivities demonstrated by their lack of any Halloween decorations at all. If you're like me you probably hate door-to-door salespeople, a practice that has thankfully decreased but is still employed by phone and power companies from time to time. There's nothing worse t...

Yukino Yukinoshita Figurine from GearBest. I must admit I was not familiar with the Anime character  Yukino Yukinoshita , from the Japanese book and TV series My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU . I bought this figure because I was browsing for one that looked similar to an Anime avatar my partner used for a time on social media. Click to View on GearBest.com What actually sealed the deal for me to purchase, aside from how similar the character looked, was the little panda (Pan-san) with the black star eye, which I felt gave the whole figurine set a bit of an edgy look. When my purchase arrived I was pleasantly surprised by the quality and detail. Having since discovered the Anime TV series the figure is based upon I can say it's a fairly faithful depiction of Yukino. Standing (or is that sitting?) at 14.00 x 15.00 x 14.00 cm / 5.51 x 5.91 x 5.51 inches the figure is an ideal size for displaying on a desk or bookshelf without taking up too much room. The 1/8 scale al...