Global Skeptics in Cyberspace

Mark Honeychurch - 22 July 2024

From 7pm on Friday night we opened the first ever 24 hour Global Skeptics in the Pub, an online event in the run-up to the SkeptiCal conference, hosted online by skeptics in Northern California. The event coincided with our usual four-weekly Skeptics in Cyberspace meeting, so it lined up nicely.

It was great to be able to kick the event off with a great turn-out of New Zealand skeptics, and also to hang out with Australian and Hong Kong skeptics as the night went on and new groups joined. A day later we were there for the close of the event at the end of the 24 hours, joining some bedraggled Americans and Canadians who had managed to stay awake until midnight or later, a few straggling Europeans, and the Aussies again. We ended up letting the meeting run past 24 hours, but by the 25th hour things had descended into an argument about American Politics so I made the call to end the call for everyone, and thanked those who were still there for having attended. There was talk of running the event regularly, but it remains to be seen if, in the cold light of day, there’s an appetite for it - maybe it’ll end up being an annual event, and I’m sure we’ll be keen to be a part of it again.

In this week’s newsletter, Dan Ryan starts us off with a fun tale about a rabbit hole he’s been down while researching his family tree. Dan also says to tell everyone: I’m still working on part 2 of the haunted doorbell article. Thanks to Robin Bodley, we are doing some in-house device testing! Katrina’s written about Paper Mills - no, not the ones that make paper, the ones that churn out bad quality “scientific” papers. Bronwyn has started looking into the Divine Light Mission, and promises there’s more to come next time. And finally I’ve had some fun taking the idea of transubstantiation way too far, and I’ve also finally remembered to share some fun QR code images I made a year ago.