4 August 2025
There we go. There's that word we hear so often as skeptics, 'quantum'. It seems likely Ky is referring to a state called 'quantum entanglement' that results in entangled particles (and photons) having their states correlated over theoretically limitless distances, through tiny wormholes.
9 June 2025
On 27 January POTUS (the President Of The United States) signed an executive order to create an “Iron Dome” of defence against ballistic, hypersonic, cruise missiles and other advanced aerial attacks. This was renamed “Golden Dome for America” on 24 February. Surprisingly, the renaming isn't about POTUS' preference for golden things. Apparently “Iron Dome” is a registered trademark, owned by an Israeli defence firm.
14 April 2025
I just got back last week from my third experience riding in the Cavalcade. This year it was held in Twizel and, the same as last year, we rode with the heavy wagons. To clarify, we rode our horses alongside and around a bunch of wagons, carts, and buggies of all shapes and sizes. Part of the deal when you get to ride with the wagons is you should be ready to jump off and assist at times. For example, when a buggy with no brakes had to ascend a steep slope, another person and I had to jump off and be the brakes by hanging onto a rope tied to the back of the buggy. I can feel the anxiety just recalling the memory.
17 March 2025
This week I will comment on two articles. The first is an article from Science Advances by Richardson et al. 9 from 13 September 2023. This is a research article with the title “Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries”. This article is a collaboration between multiple climate scientists, including those from the renowned Potsdam Institute (Rockstrom et al).
3 March 2025
The Christmas before last, I received a work email informing me of the holiday dates during which our office would be closed, and that for these dates I would need to book annual leave. I guess in an attempt to soften the blow of people needing to use over half of their annual leave on days outside of their choosing, management decided to let us know of the benefits of taking leave:
18 February 2025
The IPCC report of 2022 notes that climate change is a major risk to planet Earth. (IPCC 2022). New Zealand's Net Zero Carbon Act has been passed by parliament, and has been accepted by the National party, Labour Party, Green party, ACT party and Te Pati Maori. The NZ First Party is ambivalent. This would suggest that very urgent and far-ranging changes are necessary to our society in New Zealand within the next six years, to try to get to 1.5° C of global warming by 2050 - or preferably earlier. It should be noted that we are already close to that target in 2024, and atmospheric greenhouse gases have increased rather than decreased year by year since then. These have led to year-on-year increases in record temperatures, with associated increases in floods, droughts, wildfires, strength of storms, sea level rise and catastrophic effects in many countries including New Zealand. The most affected countries are in the “Global South”, yet they produce the least greenhouse gases. New Zealand is the 7th highest producer of greenhouse gases per person in the world.
19 August 2024
Kahneman's book Thinking Fast and Slow (2013) is a good starting point for thinking about the strengths and limitations of human thinking processes. There is no good substitute for the use of “educating gossip”, as Kahneman describes it, for training in effective judgement and in decision making.
27 May 2024
Forgive me this short item, as it's been a pretty busy weekend. I had good intentions, but today my wife and I decided that we needed some more shelving space in our garage. I'd mentioned putting in another shelf below one that I had already installed some time ago, but she managed to convince me that it would be better to extend the Elfa wire rack system that we already have in our garage. What was intended to be a half hour job turned into a couple of visits to Mitre 10, and several hours of moving stuff around and installing everything. Still, we're very pleased with the result and we now have considerably more space to store various garage essentials.
20 November 2023
I've recently become aware of a controversy surrounding the discovery of Homo naledi, which was the subject of a Netflix documentary film: Unknown: Cave of Bones
24 October 2023
I trust you all voted in our recent fractious election, even if your vote was “None of the above”, as democracy is more precious than some people realise. Democracy is under fire in many parts of the world, as people become sceptical about its benefits, or as some awful leaders and their parties come to power, or (as is the case in the US) threaten to. But there is another way of looking at the purpose of democracy, as proposed by the eminent philosopher Karl Popper.
4 September 2023
Abi Loeb, who went against the tide of the scientific community back when the asteroid Oumuamua passed earth, and claimed it was an alien artefact, has struck again. This time, YouTube alerted me (presumably because I've been watching the UAP nonsense unfold on credulous American news channel News Nation) to the existence of a News Nation interview with Avi about his recent discovery of small spherules of alien origin dredged up from the seabed.
12 December 2022
At this very moment, there is a war going on in my body.
15 November 2021
I'm sure everyone is aware of the protests that happened last week. I watched them from the comfort of my home, and didn't feel the need to visit the march on Parliament on Tuesday or experience the “gridlock” in Wellington central on Saturday. There was one thing at Tuesday's protests that really struck me. The protesters, under the banner of the Freedoms and Rights Coalition (created by “Apostle” Brian Tamaki), have been asking for our best protections against people dying of COVID to be removed - lockdowns, vaccine mandates, MIQ, and all other restrictions. A frequent message throughout the day was about the government needing to listen to the public - the speakers outside parliament talked about how a government should heed the people.
10 November 2021
I'm sure everyone is aware of the protests that happened yesterday. I watched them from the comfort of my home, and didn't feel the need to visit this particular march on Parliament. There was one thing at yesterday's protests that really struck me. The protesters, under the banner of the Freedoms and Rights Coalition created by "Apostle" Brian Tamaki, have been asking for our best protections against people dying of COVID to be removed - lockdowns, vaccine mandates, MIQ, and all other restrictions. A frequent message throughout the day was about the government needing to listen to the public - the speakers outside parliament talked about how a government should heed the people.
13 September 2021
Billy Te Hakiha is in the news again. You'll recall that he was recently arrested, with his “partner in crime” Vinny Eastwood, for violating the lockdown, and holding a protest. Billy and Vinny spent some time in jail, but are now out on bail awaiting trial.
5 July 2021
An anti-vax paper was published recently in the open access Vaccines journal. “The Safety of COVID-19 Vaccinations - We Should Rethink the Policy”. The paper has now been retracted, though just getting it published is likely to fuel anti-vax misinformation.
1 November 2019
By Chester Borrows, former Chair of Te Uepū Hāpai i te Ora - the Safe and Effective Justice Advisory Group, which recently completed its work to inform the Government on reform for New Zealand's justice system. He is a former Minister of Courts
1 February 2014
Siouxsie Wiles takes a look at a new medical journal - available at all good supermarkets.
1 August 2005
Bob Metcalfe (Skeptic No 75) might have been reading New Zealand Tone magazine: Bringing Technology to Life, Sept-Oct 2004. The front cover promises "Hi-fi cables: science or hocus pocus", and on page 46 there is an interview with Bob Noble, "sales manager for respected cable manufacturer Chord". On page 47 there is a review of three Chord cables. The only science in the interview is the importance of screening to cables since cheap electronics in homes today are "leaking interference back into the same mains power ring that supplies the hi-fi. This degrades the final sound considerably. If you don't believe me, turn all those other appliances off and see what it does to your hi-fi sound." Nobody puts the case that there is any hocus pocus to cables.
1 November 1999
When the Holmes programme showcased the new "healing touch" service operated by Wellington Hospital, we swung into action with the following fax:
1 May 1994
Vicki Hyde suggests (Skeptic 30) that we are in for a lot more doomsday predictions as we approach the year 2000. I am afraid she is right, but why should fundamentalists get so excited about a round number of years?
1 February 1991
Dr Michael Evans, a former student of Atlantic College, came last week to give a Friday evening lecture on anthroposophical medicine (A.M.). From what J can gather, it seems to be a system of medicine founded at the instigation of Rudolph Steiner, who claimed that a science limited to what was perceptible by the physical senses and using only analytical thinking would not be capable of understanding the fundamental life processes of man. A.M. believes that many illnesses are not wholly or ultimately explicable in terms of disordered physics and chemistry, but that the subject of the illness is lacking in some "vital essence" or that the vital essence has been disturbed in some way. It questions the reductionist approach of breaking down processes to the cellular or molecular level because: :
1 August 1989
THE Lotteries Commission has been accused of tacitly supporting crackpot lucky number schemes to boost the sales of Lotto tickets.