3 March 2025
Microsoft released a video last week claiming they have created a new state of matter, a base building block for their efforts to make a new type of quantum computer using “topological superconductors”:
9 August 2021
This one surprised me a little. I fed GPT-2 about a dozen holy texts, with the intention of generating some text that was their distilled, combined wisdom. Instead, what I received each time I ran the generator was an attempt to recreate text from just one of the books I'd trained it on. The results are impressive - although the text generated by deep learning doesn't always make a huge amount of sense, I think it could be reasonably argued that the same is the case for genuine holy texts!
1 February 2015
Luke Oldfield discusses the art of engaging with a 'Non-Opinion'
1 November 2011
Having a basic knowledge of the principles of chemistry can help one evade the pitfalls of many pseudosciences - but it's not infallible. This article is based on a presentation to the 2011 NZ Skeptics Conference.
1 August 2005
Apparently mediums and the paranormal have replaced cop shows as the latest television drama genre of choice -- if you are to believe TV3's marketing, whether news or promo puff pieces, there's fact behind the fiction. Yeah right....
1 November 1991
On the National Programme recently, Vicki Hyde mentioned a claim that a bird had changed one element to another inside one of its vital organs.
1 August 1991
Zealand Publishing House, Tauranga