NZ Skeptics Articles

Protesting for Dummies

11th January 2021

Happy New Year!

I can’t help but wonder what 2021 is going to bring us, given that we’ve already started the year with the US Capitol being invaded by right wing extremists and QAnon conspiracy theorists. Closer to home, Billy TK’s Public Party appears to be coming apart at the seams, with staff members taking over the party’s website to detail Billy’s financial mis-management.

The new COVID strains - both the UK and South African variants - are looming large around the world, and we can only hope that we are able to keep ourselves protected against them here in NZ. Thankfully we have trusted science advisers to help protect us, rather than homeopathy, prayers and wishful thinking.

Mark Honeychurch

Beware of JP Sears

Mark Honeychurch - 11 January 2021

Beware of JP Sears

I'm sure many skeptics have enjoyed JP Sears' parody videos of the wellness industry, such as How to Become Gluten Intolerant and How to be Ultra Spiritual. It was a surprise to me, just before Christmas, to read that despite poking fun, JP Sears has for a long time been a seller of nonsense. An article from the Office for Science and Society at McGill University in Canada details JP Sears' history of selling unregulated therapy sessions and useless supplements, and sadly also his recent descent into COVID-19 science denial.

Musical Vaccine

Mark Honeychurch - 11 January 2021

An image that has been making its way round the internet recently purports to be a circuit diagram for a 5G chip which is inside COVID vaccines. However, those who are technically musical minded have pointed out that the image is actually that of a guitar effects pedal called Metal Zone from company Boss.

A Faraday Cage to protect you from WiFi

Mark Honeychurch - 11 January 2021

On the popular tech news YouTube channel Linus Tech Tips, Linus has evaluated a couple of small faraday cages that are sold in the US as a way to protect home users from the harmful radiation coming from their WiFi base stations. At around NZ$120 a piece I'm not sure which of the findings I think is the funnier - that they do a really bad job of blocking WiFi, or that they turn out to just be repurposed wire paper trays with a couple of modifications to allow wires to be inserted, and that they cost less than NZ$10 each to buy from China.