Technology
China’s India Cyber-Attack a Stark Warning for NZ
As I’ve reported before, New Zealand is in dire risk of being isolated as the only of the Five Eyes partners to leave its critical infrastructure open to the Chinese Communist Party, by allowing Chinese telco Huawei to participate in building its 5G network. This is no small matter.
Beaming Power Down from Space
One of the major problems with solar power is not just its cost – both financial (which is usually hidden by massive, market-distorting government subsidies) and environmental (likewise conveniently hidden away in the Chinese boonies) – but its unreliability. The simple fact is that the sun doesn’t shine all the time.
The Horrifying Origin of the Chainsaw
Nothing sends a shiver up the spine quite like passing the glass display cases at the entrance to my local hospital, filled with antique surgical equipment. They look more like a props supply for the Saw horror movie franchise than a tribute to medical care. And if you’ve ever
Do Big Tech Companies Exploit Our Data?
Donovan Choy fee.org Donovan Choy is a research fellow at the Adam Smith Center Singapore and coauthor of Liberalism Unveiled. Do Big Tech companies exploit our data? This belief is so universally accepted at this point that it seems somewhat silly to even question it. The subject is a
Friday Fur
If you have a great Youtube or Vimeo video to share send it to videos@thebfd.co.nz
The Facebook Fracas
Sir Bob Jones nopunchespulled.com The Facebook-Australian furore drew world-wide media condemnation. I don’t get it. The claim that Facebook should pay for publishing traditional media news stories was fair enough if that’s what the tech giant was doing, but it was not. Rather, it acted as a
Introducing Eliza Kosoy; E-liza Dolls
Silicon Valley Robotics Women In Robotics robohub.org Eliza Kosoy is a Ph.D Student at UC Berkeley. She studied mathematics in college and then worked for Prof. Joshua Tenenbaum at MIT in his computational cognitive science lab. She then started on a Ph.D at UC Berkeley working with
How Modern Farming Fed the World and Is Saving the Planet
Environmental activists – especially climate activists – have a long track record of not just getting the problems completely wrong, but advocating the worst responses. The Paris Agreement is a typical example: not only does it explicitly assume that climate change is an immediate existential threat to humanity (it isn’t), but
Tech Talk: ICE (In Case of Emergency)
This series is designed to help people to understand modern technology, and become more confident in using computing devices. It is not designed to educate experts. The author is involved in tutoring older students at SeniorNet, a New Zealand wide organisation. SeniorNet hopes that students will feel more confident in
Making Meat Out of Thin Air
The Star Trek science fiction universe is a particular favourite of internet socialists. Partly that’s because of its ever-woker story-lines (Star Trek: Discovery, I’m looking at you), but mostly because of its “no money and all our stuff for free” utopia. But, tellingly, to realise such a utopia,
New Zealand Risks Being Isolated on Huawei
Under Jacinda Ardern’s prime ministership, New Zealand is being steadily estranged from its traditional allies as it cosies closer and closer to a genocidal dictatorship. From Ardern’s incessant public attacks on New Zealand’s closest neighbour and ally to her edging nearer to formally signing on to Xi
Facebook’s Problems Are Just Beginning
In the early 20th century, Anaconda Copper was one of the biggest companies in the world. In the early 2000s, MySpace was the most visited website in the US and the largest social networking site in Europe. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg might do well to ponder the fates of both.
One of These Things Is Not like the Others
Peter Martin Crawford School of Public Policy Australian National University Peter Martin is Business and Economy Editor of The Conversation and a Visiting Fellow at the Crawford School of Public Policy at the ANU. A former Commonwealth Treasury official, he has worked as Economics Correspondent for the ABC, as Economics