Archive

Turning off the enlightenment

Posted 4:31pm Sunday 13th April 2014 by Hadleigh Tiddy

Exploring the three main obstacles on the search for enlightenment, Hadleigh Tiddy ventures back through his experiences of a meditation-fuelled spiritual quest. At some point in my first year of University, during a particularly bleak mid-winter-hide-under-the-covers-for-two-days binge, I Read more...

Lovemaking preachers and salvation at the checkout counter

Posted 4:31pm Sunday 13th April 2014 by Martin Baker

The reverend Martin Baker has practised as a minister for several decades and currently holds a position as the Assembly Executive Secretary of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand. But, despite his experience (or maybe because of it), it is still a simple interaction at a supermarket Read more...

The immorality of magical thinking

Posted 4:31pm Sunday 13th April 2014 by Lucy Hunter

Frustrated by how frequently those suffering will be told to "think positive" and pray, or be blamed for having bad karma, Lucy Hunter delves into the struggles of Zoe, a young woman living with a chronic auto-immune disease. Zoe was 15 when she was diagnosed with Granulomatosis Poliangiitus Read more...

What Is Happiness, Anyway?

Posted 4:50pm Sunday 6th April 2014 by Allison Hess

As university students, we are at a defining time in our lives. We are furthering our worldly education, learning to be adults and earning degrees; all of which will propel us into the rest of our lives – jobs, careers and families. My own university career is very nearly coming to an end, which Read more...

The Great Wall of Internet

Posted 4:50pm Sunday 6th April 2014 by Loulou Callister-Baker

With the news these days constantly filled by reports of governments exercising power and influence over the Internet, Features Editor Loulou Callister-Baker takes a step back to look at a country with years of experience: China. As a tool for democracy, the Internet is a threat to Read more...

Where the Wild Things Aren't

Posted 4:50pm Sunday 6th April 2014 by Josie Adams

I am not a very good user of the library. I came once in first year for the comfy red couches, and I stayed because when you bump into people you vaguely know there and engage them in conversations, while they’re busy, they’re not allowed to yell at you – because you’re in a library. The library may Read more...

The Real Flatmates of Dunedin

Posted 7:01pm Sunday 30th March 2014 by Lydia Adams

When I asked students from around New Zealand what the first thing is that sprang into their mind when I said “Otago University,” the answers I received were all fairly similar. Most of their reactions were something along the lines of, “Ya’ll a bunch of Scarfies,” “Bad drinking culture,” and, Read more...

Journey Into "The Uncanny Valley"

Posted 7:01pm Sunday 30th March 2014 by Lucy Hunter

No person can claim they weren’t slightly disturbed by the near-human animation of the children’s film The Polar Express. Lucy hunter explores the mystery of something being both strange and familiar or, simply put, what it means to get "the creeps". Imagine coming home and putting your key Read more...

Life at a funeral

Posted 7:01pm Sunday 30th March 2014 by Loulou Callister-Baker

Loulou Callister-Baker explores the burial ritual and current, sometimes bizarre, trends within funeral industries around the world We reached Hamilton the day before Christmas. It was a reflective time - the drive was long and stuffy, another year was coming to an end and both of my parents’ Read more...

A House Without Books

Posted 5:30pm Sunday 23rd March 2014 by Sarah Ley-Hamilton

Unless you have been hiding under a rock for the past ten years you will have realised that there have been significant changes in the world around us. You will have heard people banging on about the “digital age,” or the “frontier” or “revolution.” You will have also heard that if you want to move Read more...

Antarctica On the Brink

Posted 5:30pm Sunday 23rd March 2014 by Thomas Raethel

New Zealand has never enjoyed a prime position in the international arena, and most of us are rather content with this. Our antipodean status has let us foster interest in unattended corners of the globe, and place great stress upon the importance of conservation. We have shot to the forefront of Read more...

Diary of Armageddon

Posted 5:30pm Sunday 23rd March 2014 by Josie Adams

Simon Pegg once said that being a geek is about “being honest about what you enjoy … It means never having to play it cool about how much you like something ... Being a geek is extremely liberating.” Armageddon is a national expo for New Zealand’s geek community; all these enthusiastic folk convene Read more...

Opinion entitled to hearing?

Posted 2:59pm Sunday 16th March 2014 by Loulou Callister-Baker

Troubled by recent stories of embezzlement in both government and university communities around the country, Loulou Callister-Baker addresses issues of corruption within New Zealand – ultimately advocating for the maintenance of transparency and for a turn away from complacency in the voting Read more...

Five surprising things I learned about psychopaths

Posted 2:59pm Sunday 16th March 2014 by Lucy Hunter

From James Bond to Hannibal Lector, individuals with psychopathic tendencies continue to captivate people around the world. Lucy Hunter explores the defining aspects of psychopathy and ponders whether she risks adopting the dark and charismatic traits she obsesses over. I wish I were a little Read more...

Barter, Banter and a Condom

Posted 2:59pm Sunday 16th March 2014 by Max Callister-Baker

While trading a good for another good of similar or equal value used to be an everyday practice, this type of exchange has now largely become a thing of the past. In a burst of nostalgia, Max Callister-Baker goes on a quest to resurrect bartering in the modern context of the Dunedin student Read more...

How to navigate the deep web

Posted 4:35pm Sunday 9th March 2014 by Zane Pocock

With Edward Snowden, the NSA and Bitcoin all gaining popular attention recently, you are almost certain to have heard of the “deep web” by now: the huge, anonymous mass of the Internet that you can’t reach conventionally. Whether you see it as a network for human traffickers, a threat to Read more...

The Future is Dead Humans

Posted 4:35pm Sunday 9th March 2014 by Josie Adams

Technology is advancing at a stupendously quick rate. We still don’t have flying cars, it’s true; but maybe that was a stroke of genius, an idea that’s just a little too crazy to be realised. We have the know-how and the wealth to produce a myriad of future gadgets: thin-as-air graphene armour; Read more...

Navigating Relationships in the Digital Age

Posted 4:35pm Sunday 9th March 2014 by Sarah Ley-Hamilton

We Tweet, we Snapchat, we’re friends on Facebook and, hell, we even match on Tinder – but where has that left us? Navigating the social media swamp isn’t easy, and that raises the question: has technology really been helping or is it hindering our romantic pursuits? Sarah Ley-Hamilton looks to the Read more...

Brothel

Posted 4:44pm Sunday 2nd March 2014 by Hadleigh Tiddy

What I remember specifically about the first time I went there – not the first actual time but, like, the preliminary meet-and-greet type thing – was the lemon. Sliced, floating pale in a cool glass of water. The glass it was in was crystal and heavy and felt moneyed, somehow, cylindrical and Read more...

The Transfiguration

Posted 4:44pm Sunday 2nd March 2014 by Hadleigh Tiddy

Now you’re dead. Lying facedown on the gravel somewhere along the Desert Road at four o’clock in the afternoon, skies overcast, your car wrapped around a power pole, your neck twisted too far backwards, your eyes still open. No one has come yet. You were driving alone. It happened so quickly– Read more...

Ross

Posted 4:44pm Sunday 2nd March 2014 by Hadleigh Tiddy

Up through the swerving Brooklyn hill and over the crest past the dozy corner shops and winding all the way down through Happy Valley road; down past the gorse and toitoi, speckled sedge, chickweed, kawakawa, nasturtium, wild fennel, wild mint, borage, and flax; all the way down to the sea, behind Read more...

Happy Avatar; Dead Human?

Posted 4:44pm Sunday 2nd March 2014 by Loulou Callister-Baker

Frequently jolted awake by the various early morning sounds of her brother, Loulou Callister-Baker takes a deeper look at the misunderstood phenomenon of gaming addiction. It is 3pm. My parents are still at work; the house is silent. A tired groan suddenly reverberates throughout the house. Read more...

Why I Hate Psychics

Posted 4:44pm Sunday 2nd March 2014 by Lucy Hunter

I used to believe this psychic shit. When I was 17 I worked as an usher at the St James Theatre in Wellington. I ushered for a show by psychic medium Tony Stockwell. There were about six hundred people in the crowd. Predictably, I was convinced that the spirit of my beloved aunt had come through. Read more...

Student Jobs Uncovered

Posted 6:57pm Sunday 23rd February 2014 by Josie Adams

I might just become a stripper,” sighs every 19-year-old girl with a student loan and a half-empty bottle of Corbans. She then continues with her life: she dances at 10 Bar, and saves hard for a new MacBook. Her friends tell her she’s hot, and this year she’ll pash at least five people; her ego Read more...

Yu-Gi-(Makes Me)-Oh

Posted 6:57pm Sunday 23rd February 2014 by Loulou Callister-Baker

He had straight, shoulder-length blonde hair and iridescent blue eyes. He was tall and slender. His feminine facial features were offset, but also strangely complimented, by his voice (later I learned it was the voice of Christian Bale). His name was Howl and when I saw him for the first time I was Read more...

Farang Inbox

Posted 6:57pm Sunday 23rd February 2014 by Max Callister-Baker

Every New Year, thousands of youths from around the world flock to Thailand to attend the notorious Full Moon Party. Joining the migration, Max Callister-Baker experienced two weeks of massages, exceptional dart blowing and pissing out the side of tuk-tuks. “Why are there blue stains across Read more...

From Urine Cake to Modern Jury: Trials Through The Ages

Posted 4:26pm Sunday 6th October 2013 by Ines Shennan

Ines Shennan looks at the various ways humans have established guilt over the ages, be it feeding supposed witches cake or encouraging dastardly defendants to pluck stones from hot oil. It makes our well known modern day jury trial seem beyond reproach – but is it really all it’s cracked up to be? Read more...

New Zealander of the Year

Posted 4:26pm Sunday 6th October 2013 by Zane Pocock

There is a medium to strong chance that if you’re currently residing in New Zealand, you know some New Zealanders. Hell, you may even be a New Zealander yourself! If either is true – congratulations! There aren’t many New Zealanders in this world, but the New Zealanders that do exist are odd, Read more...

Prole Life

Posted 4:26pm Sunday 6th October 2013 by Jack Montgomerie

Short of cash and facing a dreary job market, Jack Montgomerie put his BA(Hons) to good use and took on a series on menial factory jobs. From shaft-mastering, to sorting the crackers from the shitties, Jack faced a crash course in how the other half lives. “It’ll only be a few months,” I Read more...

Restorative Justice in Dunedin

Posted 4:26pm Sunday 6th October 2013 by Brittany Mann

Restorative justice is a victim-centric process in which victims meet with their offenders to discuss the crime and its effects. Brittany Mann interviewed three facilitators, as well as an offender and a victim, about their experiences of the process. What she heard were stories of communities being Read more...

From Innocence to Sexual Commodification

Posted 2:29pm Sunday 29th September 2013 by Ines Shennan

Ines Shennan untangles Miley Cyrus’ Video Music Awards performance and considers the awkward transition from child star to adult. Why do some survive it, whereas others are considered impure “bad girls” when they shed their childlike image? We have a sick relationship with celebrities. We Read more...

The Genital Composer

Posted 2:29pm Sunday 29th September 2013 by Loulou Callister-Baker

The music scene, particularly its more alternative elements, often claims to be a progressive force that tramples sex and gender underfoot. Despite this, female musicians still struggle with discrimination on a daily basis. Loulou Callister-Baker asked Dunedin musicians about their experiences with Read more...

Hey Babe, Let’s Make Art

Posted 2:29pm Sunday 29th September 2013 by Alex Lovell-Smith

At his flatmate’s behest, Dunedin photographer Alex Lovell-Smith signed up to hook-up app Tinder. After one pleasant but uneventful date, Alex got bored, and decided to use Tinder for an art project-cum-social experiment. Could he convince any of his Tinder “matches” to meet him, not for casual sex, Read more...

Was Marx Right?

Posted 1:47pm Sunday 22nd September 2013 by Socialist Simon

Socialist Simon used to be a Marxist. Then he got a life. Here, he picks through the detritus of his wasted youth to uncover the fleeting scraps of wisdom that Marx left him. Campus Marxism is an odd beast. Anachronistic, repetitive, and often demonstrating a startling lack of basic logical Read more...

New Zealand’s Refugees

Posted 1:47pm Sunday 22nd September 2013 by Brittany Mann

So much for a fair goFor as long as Australia has been a go-to destination for “boatpeople” from places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Sri Lanka, the issue has been used as a political football to score points with the growing xenophobic constituency in that country. Indeed, Australia recently Read more...

DCC Elections: Who Are the Most Student-Friendly Candidates?

Posted 1:47pm Sunday 22nd September 2013 by Staff Reporter

Student voting turnout in local body politics is traditionally abysmal. The elections are seen as small-fry compared to their national equivalents, candidates are unfamiliar to the average student voter, and there are a variety of demographic impediments to students enrolling and voting. Read more...

OUSA Electoral System Referendum

Posted 1:47pm Sunday 22nd September 2013 by Staff Reporter

An upcoming OUSA referendum, tabled by our illustrious leader Francisco Hernandez, is seeking the change the voting system for OUSA’s future elections. The question is “Should the Otago University Students’ Association (OUSA) adopt a Single Transferable Voting (STV) system for its elections?” Read more...

Hungry For Change

Posted 2:39pm Sunday 15th September 2013 by Brittany Mann

In the wake of Live Below the Line (last seen taking over Facebook), Brittany Mann takes a look at the impact that Western aid is having on impoverished societies. Are campaigns like Live Below the Line helpful, or do they stand in the way of development? What Is LBL?Beginning in Australia in Read more...

Disumbrationism: A Beautifully Executed Hoax

Posted 2:39pm Sunday 15th September 2013 by Ines Shennan

What follows is a tale by someone who loves art galleries but has an elementary understanding of art. Someone who can say “I like that” but has no clue why. Ines Shennan unravels the disumbrationist movement, and is almost fooled by the beauty of banana skins and bears drooling rainbow saliva. Read more...

Contemporary New Zealand Artists to Know and Watch

Posted 2:39pm Sunday 15th September 2013 by Zane Pocock

As an art lover, it comes as a constant disappointment that the names of New Zealand’s greatest and, for those who follow the art scene, most renowned contemporary artists don’t even ring a bell in the minds of most people I talk to. To be fair, some older (i.e. not contemporary) examples, such as Read more...

The Emperor's New Art

Posted 2:39pm Sunday 15th September 2013 by Loulou Callister-Baker

“What does it mean?” is a common refrain when it comes to contemporary art, not to mention the classic “my kid could have drawn that.” Loulou Callister-Baker explores the modernist and postmodern turns in the art world, and debunks the idea that contemporary art is merely lazy and pretentious. Read more...

Profile: Sir Geoffrey Cox (1910-2008)

Posted 2:39pm Sunday 15th September 2013 by Thomas Raethel

When Geoffrey Cox first attended Otago University, foreign periodicals took over a month to reach New Zealand, travelling by sea through the Panama Canal. Amateur radio broadcasting had only existed for five years and was seldom heard by everyday New Zealanders, who still often referred to Great Read more...

The Mysterious World of Bronies

Posted 1:51pm Sunday 8th September 2013 by Thomas Raethel

In recent years, a bizarre new subculture has sprung up, based on fandom of the television series My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Its predominantly male, adult membership call themselves bronies. But what do we really know about this group? Thomas Raethel investigated the subculture, and found Read more...

Monopoly: The Poor Man's Arsenic

Posted 1:51pm Sunday 8th September 2013 by Tristan Keillor

Nerds like video games, everybody likes drinking games, and nobody likes board games. I wish that sentence had come naturally, but it’s taken a week of Facebook rejections, face-to-face rejections and people “losing their phone” to teach me that no matter how much beer is on offer, it’s not worth Read more...

When Duty Calls: A Noob's Journey

Posted 1:51pm Sunday 8th September 2013 by Josie Adams

Every epic journey has a beginning. Every great champion was once a noob. But how would Josie Adams, Critic’s resident gaming ignoramus, fare in Call of Duty’s brutal domain, let alone the cutthroat environs of World of Warcraft? With a knowledgeable guide by her side, Critic pitched Josie headfirst Read more...

The Great Debate: Do Video Games Make Us Violent?

Posted 1:51pm Sunday 8th September 2013 by Baz Macdonald

The latest instalment of the controversial video game series Grand Theft Auto is to be released on 17 September. Critic’s Gaming Editor Baz Macdonald tackled the question of whether GTA and other video games are making us violent. On 8 December 1980, a 22-year-old Texan man finally succumbed Read more...

Me and My Genome

Posted 3:48pm Sunday 1st September 2013 by Lindsey Horne

Genomics offers incredible new possibilities in preventive medicine, and it is now possible to have one's genome sequenced for under $100. But how much do we really want to know about ourselves, and is this information safe? Remember a time before mobile phones? My mum used to stand on the Read more...

The Great Annual Critic BYO Review

Posted 3:48pm Sunday 1st September 2013 by Ines Shennan

Taking one for the team, Ines Shennan bravely volunteered for Critic’s annual culinary foray to find Dunedin’s best BYO restaurant for the discerning student palate. “Hey Ines, can you do the BYO review?” Give me a moment to … yes. The thought of strolling off to local eateries after numerous Read more...

Blood Donation and Gay Probation

Posted 3:48pm Sunday 1st September 2013 by Dr. Nick

If those filthy Aussies can have equitable blood-donation laws, why can't we? Dr Nick takes a look at the barriers to blood donation that gay men still face in New Zealand today. Australia: it’s a land where the government encouraged child abduction for a century, and only just got around to Read more...

Imperfect Memories

Posted 4:47pm Sunday 18th August 2013 by Loulou Callister-Baker

“During the 1980s, Dunedin gained global fame as a centre of musical excellence, and the 80’s now enjoy an almost mythic reputation in Dunedin's collective consciousness. Loulou Callister-Baker speaks to some of the figures from the period to find out if this nostalgia is justified.” Dad Read more...