Not all things connected to religion are bad - it's good to help the poor, feed the homeless, and strive for non-violence. But what if there's something that another religion has, but yours doesn't? Often when this happens to Christians, they'll simply label it as occult or demonic:
A couple of months ago, the YouTube algorithm (correctly) decided that I would be interested in several videos where YouTube content creators dunk on TikTokers. But instead of spilling cold tea on influencer gossip, YouTube gave me a conman magic show that would make Randi spin so fast in his grave that he would be considered a renewable source of energy.
Recently two different mobile AI devices have been released, and given all the overhyping of AI these days they've fared about as well as you'd expect them to - which is not very well at all.
I wrote a couple of weeks ago about how we had one of our YouTube videos removed from YouTube, due to Google mistakenly deciding that it was promoting medical misinformation - a rookie mistake, given that it was critiquing medical misinformation. I expressed my doubt that an appeal would change the outcome, but I was pleasantly surprised just after we recorded our last podcast episode to receive an email from Google letting us know that they had reversed their decision:
For every Bill Gothard who terrorises his followers into believing that music with a fast beat will bring them closer to the devil, there is a Sri Chinmoy who is driven to play music, albeit atonally, in order to get closer to god.
Back in the distant past of … *checks calendar*… March 2022, I first wrote of a long running scheme of Scottish souvenir plots. In brief, you pay a bit of cash for a square-foot of land, and in return you get a certificate declaring you a laird or lady and the dubious privilege of buying branded kitsch. You can read more about the loopholes that companies that sell souvenir plots exploit in that original newsletter.
The title of this one's a mouthful, and it's an interesting one to pick apart - it includes some of my favourite technologies, one that I think is going to be an important part of our future and the other which I think is a storm in a teacup, and unlikely to disrupt anything of note.
Dr Sam Bailey has been in the news this week, which involved in a court case petitioning the High Court to stop the New Zealand Medical Council from investigating her.
Hot off the press, International Law lecturer Amy Benjamin has resigned from Auckland University of Technology this week. I wrote about Amy back in August, at the beginning of our second national lockdown, when she started up her YouTube channel called “American Spirit” where she posted videos about COVID and lockdowns. Her opinions seemed somewhat fringe, and she talked about how the threat to people's mental health in lockdown was worse than that of COVID, that Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine could treat COVID, and that the government had criminalised peaceful protest.
Astroworld is an annual music festival run by rapper Travis Scott in Texas. There was a tragedy at this year's festival, a few weeks ago, when a crowd surge caused a crush and resulted in the deaths of 10 people - the latest being a 9 year old boy who died a few days ago from his injuries.
In the good news department, YouTube has de-platformed local misinformant Vinny Eastwood, also joining another local, Damien De Ment, also banned. Vinny Eastwood was king of promoting conspiracy theories, but it seems that various complaints have seen his channel now removed.
Thanks to some wonderful help from Susan Gerbic, we've now got a few of the 2019 conference talk videos up on our YouTube channel.
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.
As Skeptics we're not very fond of scammers, and we often try to protect the public from those who would rip them off with dodgy devices and ineffective products. The video below documents a feat of engineering, a device that targets the problem in the US of people who steal people's parcels - and it targets them in a pretty funny way. Although theft is not really a scam, it's still enjoyable to see unethical people get their comeuppance - and it's mentioned later on in the video that this device has also recently been used against scammers. And to be honest, I needed a good excuse to share this video!
Good news! We have found someone who has a copy of the video (VHS tape) taken of James Randi speaking at Canterbury University back in 1993. Next steps will be to check if it's good to digitise, and if so, we'll look to publish it to our YouTube channel. Keep posted.
Last week Craig promised that we would give you a link to a video Haunted NZ were producing about their recent investigation at a house in Pukekohe. We have now been sent a copy of the video that you can watch on YouTube. Craig also gave a good account to the NZ Herald of why the video, although slickly put together, contains no substantive evidence backing up Haunted NZ's claims that the house was ever haunted. Good work Craig!
Brittany Kara, from the US, is apparently a Christian author, NLP practitioner, hypnotherapist and nutrition coach. She's also an anti-vaxxer, and records herself speaking for a YouTube channel where she talks about her views.
Tom DeLonge, the guitarist of a rock band in the US which was popular in the early 2000s has denied rumours that he's quit the band to focus on research into UFOs and aliens.