New Neuralink News
5 February 2024
Making the news this past week was Elon Musk's announcement that his company, Neuralink, has performed its first implantation of their experimental Brain Computer Interface device (BCI) into a human.
Articles tagged with "technology"
Will AI take our jobs?
17 July 2023
As I talked about in my introduction, I managed to catch an episode of Black Mirror on Netflix - an episode titled Joan is Awful. I'm going to discuss various plot elements, so SPOILER ALERT!
Who is watching the artificial intelligence?
7 February 2023
No, I'm not talking Skynet here or robots overrunning the earth. I'm talking about the more subtle tools in the background that tend to do a bunch of boring administration. You probably haven't even thought of them overly much. But they might be responsible for what your doctor decided to prescribe you on your last visit, that job you never got shortlisted for, your acceptance into a programme of study, or the reason your bag was searched at the airport.
Don't forget to buy your conference ticket!
21 November 2022
Our annual conference starts on Friday, and for those of you who plan to come but haven't bought a ticket yet, you'd better be quick. I spent yesterday afternoon with Bronwyn and Daniel, running through a sound check at the venue, testing that the technology works as expected, finalising our catering and trying out our Friday night "entertainment” (we also had enough time to grab a quick beer at the Welsh Dragon bar, our venue for Friday evening's event).
Safe ICT NZ
21 November 2022
Craig wrote last week about his experience at the Auckland Go Green Expo, and I also mentioned that myself and Bronwyn, along with Daniel Ryan, attended the Wellington Go Green Expo a couple of weeks ago. As I mentioned briefly on last week's podcast episode, apart from the frustration of the fact that the vast majority of stalls have nothing to do with going green, one particular stall annoyed me more than any other.
Climate change topics
3 October 2022
This past week has been replete with stories related to climate change. Firstly, there's Hurricane Ian which has wreaked havoc and destruction and loss of life in Florida most recently, but previously in Cuba and Puerto Rico. It's fairly obvious that extreme weather events are exacerbated by climate change, and that living near the coast is going to be an increasingly risky proposition for large numbers of people.
Deepfakes, HPCA, and can we sell you a plot in Scotland?
21 March 2022
Welcome to the NZ Skeptics Newsletter.
Deepfakes
21 March 2022
With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, propaganda raises its head. Propaganda has always been a tool of war (and peace) but we're seeing escalation to new levels.
V2K - what is it?
29 April 2018
I've found another fun conspiracy theory - V2K. Weirdly, it stands for "Voice to Skull" and is a technology where voices can be beamed directly to your head. This is another conspiracy theory that until recently was new to me. The idea is based on the fact that microwaves can be used to create a clicking noise inside someone's head. This is known as the microwave auditory effect, and was discovered in World War Two by people who worked near radar devices. The likely mechanism for the clicking is that parts of the inner ear are being rapidly heated up by the radio waves. The microwaves can be varied to create what sounds like a human voice inside someone's head, which is pretty cool.
US Pastor says that Pokemon are "digital demons"
17 July 2016
Pokemon Go is a new game where people have to use their phones and walk around their neighbourhood catching Pokemon (little animals) and visiting pokestops. Many churches are pokestops, as places of worship have been registered.
NearZero Inc: A sadly prophetic company name
1 November 2010
Many people lost a lot of money investing in non-existent data compression software because well:established principles of information theory were ignored. This article is based on a presentation to the 2010 NZ Skeptics conference.
Forum
1 August 2004
I am finding it difficult to respond to Alan P Ryan's diatribe (Skeptic Autumn 2004) as it borders on the incoherent and self-contradictory. I wonder if it will help if I summarise my views on moral values, about which he seems confused.