Archive

Dreaming of Electric Sheep

Posted 8:23pm Sunday 14th July 2013 by Sam McChesney

Fantastical new inventions are just around the corner, and we enjoy an ever-increasing ability to solve the problems nature throws at us. But is the dream of a technological utopia realistic, and is it wise? Sam McChesney dons his sci-fi specs and his philosopher’s beret, and takes a hard look at Read more...

3D Printing is a Thing

Posted 8:23pm Sunday 14th July 2013 by Zane Pocock

3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, is the act of building three-dimensional objects from a digital model. As opposed to traditional manufacturing, which involves moulds and the removal of material, 3D printing produces no waste material – which seems so obvious when you think about Read more...

An Island is an Island

Posted 8:23pm Sunday 14th July 2013 by Loulou Callister-Baker

Stuck on an island that even a film crew for Survivor found too rugged (or dull) to film, Loulou Callister-Baker’s head has become swamped with thoughts of the existential-crisis variety. In a quest to maintain her relevance, Loulou explores what it means to be both psychologically and Read more...

A Weekend Trolling

Posted 6:05pm Sunday 7th July 2013 by Ines Shennan

Ines Shennan attempted to teach herself in a day how to become an Internet troll. Employing techniques from the utterly pretentious to the obviously ignorant, what follows is an account of what happens when someone tries to abuse Internet anonymity. It all started with Tunnel Bear. An Read more...

Life Online - It's a Beach

Posted 6:05pm Sunday 7th July 2013 by Loulou Callister-Baker

A MetaphorHow I use and regard Facebook is similar to the experience of driving alone down a very long street. A person alone in a car is isolated from society by the physical barrier of the car, but that person must still carefully abide by certain rules. The street, called Facebook, is crowded Read more...

www. Online Hookups 4 Students .co.nz

Posted 6:05pm Sunday 7th July 2013 by Brittany Mann

The concept of online dating has quivered menacingly on the edge of my consciousness ever since a friend of mine began using it a few years ago. While I am yet to overcome the mental hurdle of actually signing up to one of the numerous sites on offer, I found myself intrigued by fellow students who Read more...

Visual Intelligence

Posted 3:03pm Sunday 26th May 2013 by Brittany Mann

Visual Intelligence, a boutique, high-end tattoo and art studio located on the west side of Princes St, was established in 2004 and is a registered tattoo studio. Owned and operated by Aaron and Macaela Manuel, Visual Intelligence has a two-year waiting list that befits Aaron’s more than 15 years’ Read more...

Curious Insights

Posted 3:03pm Sunday 26th May 2013 by Ines Shennan

Ines Shennan chats with a handful of Otago University lecturers to find out what makes them tick. She discovers that exploring the local neighbourhood at a young age was a common theme, as is surfing and visiting the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Read on to discover some curious insights. Read more...

21st Century Fertility

Posted 1:24pm Sunday 19th May 2013 by Fertile Myrtle

One in six New Zealand couples has fertility problems, and many have turned to egg or sperm donation in the quest to have children. For these couples, the procedure is undoubtedly life-changing. But what about the donors? Fertile Myrtle (no, that’s not her real name) is a student who donated eggs to Read more...

May the sports be with you

Posted 1:24pm Sunday 19th May 2013 by Gus Gawn

On 25 May (6:45am 26 May NZ time), Europe’s top two sides will battle for the most prestigious prize in club football: the Champions League title. Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich are both in the final at Wembley after pulling off semi-final upsets – Dortmund saw off nine-time winners Real Madrid Read more...

Fairtrade Fortnight: Food for Thought

Posted 1:24pm Sunday 19th May 2013 by Baz Macdonald

It seems clichéd, but university is a good place to question things. I’m sure that for most of you, this very notion has conjured the image of wankers in berets writing in coffee shops, but this isn’t necessarily so. Many of the people we see trashed on Thursday and Saturday nights (this may be you) Read more...

Balls Deep in the Arab Spring

Posted 1:24pm Sunday 19th May 2013 by Matty Stroller

For as long as I can remember, I have had a weird infatuation with all things Middle Eastern. In late 2011/early 2012 – after a year and a half of soul-crushing wage-slavery – I excitedly embarked on a three-month tour of the “Arab Spring.” It is one thing to read about a situation on your laptop Read more...

Get Out of the Ghetto: Queenstown Edition

Posted 2:26pm Sunday 12th May 2013 by Brittany Mann

When Phoebe Harrop of “Get Out of the Ghetto” fame found herself unable to “research” this feature, she selflessly passed the torch on to me. Go to Queenstown for the weekend, I was instructed, and try out some of the fun stuff on offer. I was forcefully reminded of how awesome this job is. Read more...

Getting Around the Orthodoxy

Posted 2:26pm Sunday 12th May 2013 by Loulou Callister-Baker

There is a possibility that I wrote this entire feature in order to begin with the fact that I was in New York over the summer break. With that in mind, I was in New York over the summer break. One night, I found myself in a SoHo loft, deep in conversation with an architect. In an alignment of Read more...

Mann vs. Wild

Posted 2:26pm Sunday 12th May 2013 by Brittany Mann

Although the prospect of doing so was all that got me through the experience, it has taken me months to work up the nerve to write about what I now refer to, usually in a sepulchral whisper, as “the worst eight days of my entire life.” The following is an account of my experience climbing Mount Read more...

The Boston Marathon

Posted 4:00pm Sunday 5th May 2013 by Carys Goodwin

University of Otago student Carys Goodwin is on exchange at Boston College. In true Otago style, she was engaging in some mid-afternoon drinking when she heard about the bombings just five miles away. She gives a first-hand account of the aftermath. It was my mum who first informed me about Read more...

A Game of Faculties

Posted 4:00pm Sunday 5th May 2013 by Anonymous

The Seven Kingdoms of Dunderos and the Free Cities of Taerios are lands of sadistic mediocrity. When you play the Game of Faculties, you neither win nor die: in the end, there is only the swift abandonment of convenient tutorial-based friendships and dismal remuneration. School of Business Read more...

The Great Annual Critic Pub Crawl 2013

Posted 4:00pm Sunday 5th May 2013 by 2013 Interns

At last! It is time – the Great Annual Critic Pub Crawl has arrived. Last weekend, the Critic staff set off on a magical journey to ruthlessly assess the bars and watering holes of Dunedin, while welcoming Critic’s four news interns of 2013 – Josie Cochrane, Jamie Breen, Jack Montgomerie, and Thomas Read more...

My Summer in Corporate Purgatory

Posted 4:00pm Sunday 5th May 2013 by Callum Fredric

On Thursday, the big law firms will make offers of summer internships to students across the country. Callum Fredric gives the young clerks-to-be an unglamourised account of what a summer in a top-four law firm is actually like. Congratulations, aspiring summer clerks. On Thursday, you’ll Read more...

Baby Boom and Bust

Posted 3:14pm Sunday 28th April 2013 by Anonymous

With a readership of 269,000, the Listener is New Zealand’s most widely-read current affairs magazine – but it’s also the home of three tragically in-decline columnists. Callum Fredric and Maddy Phillipps document the writers’ undignified transformation into commentators both one-note and off-key. Read more...

Among Criminals

Posted 3:14pm Sunday 28th April 2013 by Loulou Callister-Baker

The criminal justice system has a complex set of rules and procedures, which many students experience first-hand every year. Loulou Callister-Baker interviewed several students who have come into contact with Dunedin law enforcement. Nothing in this feature (or Critic generally) should be treated as Read more...

Brittany Mann and the Abortion Protestors

Posted 3:14pm Sunday 28th April 2013 by Brittany Mann

In my other life, I moonlight as a receptionist at a medical centre. Arriving at work one afternoon, I found the building surrounded by men holding enormous signs emblazoned with disingenuous slogans and graphic photos of aborted foetuses, not dissimilar to the subject of Maddy Phillipps’ Read more...

Maslow's Hierarchy of Facebook Needs

Posted 5:13pm Sunday 21st April 2013 by Anonymous

Maslow’s pyramid illustrates the stages that human motivations move through as we satisfy increasingly sophisticated psychological needs. The most basic needs are at the bottom. The less urgent but still important needs are at the top. Previously, a couple of 100-level PSYC papers would have been Read more...

Lonesome World - Dunedin

Posted 5:13pm Sunday 21st April 2013 by Anonymous

Why Go?Most guides to New Zealand will tell you that Wellington has the culture, Auckland has the luxury, and Queenstown has the beauty. But savvy travellers have long since known that dynamic Dunedin does all three far better than the big, scene-stealing tourist traps. Home to the University of Read more...

The Little Foetus in the Pink Cap

Posted 5:49pm Sunday 14th April 2013 by Anonymous

Earlier this year, a series of photos were posted on Reddit showing a woman holding a stillborn male foetus in her arms. The foetus was dressed in a pink knitted cap. This is his story. (See the foetus at critic.co.nz/NSFWfoetus – if you dare.) Once upon a time in the small hamlet of Gore Read more...

Three fables of Dunedin's forgotten flatters

Posted 5:49pm Sunday 14th April 2013 by Callum Fredric

Over the years, Dunedin has been home to hundreds of thousands of students from across the globe. Earlier this year, a friend discovered a basement full of historic letters and books that, taken together, paint a picture of the lives of some of Dunedin’s previous inhabitants. Armed with some Read more...

Evidence of a Mid-life Crisis

Posted 5:49pm Sunday 14th April 2013 by Loulou Callister-Baker

Loulou Callister-Baker’s flatmate discovered some mysterious boxes in the attic, full of the possessions of a man who clearly experienced a textbook midlife crisis. Impressed by his adherence to Mills & Boon-level stereotypes, she tells the story of the man’s life. Sometime last month, I walked Read more...

Mapping Out the Friend Zone

Posted 4:40pm Sunday 7th April 2013 by Sam McChesney

“You waited too long to make your move and now you’re in the friend zone ... if you don’t ask her out soon you’re going to end up stuck in the zone forever.” – Joey Tribbiani, Friends “The great irony is that the friend zone really doesn’t exist. The notion that once people make friends, they Read more...

The Strange Phenomenon of Christian Flatting

Posted 4:40pm Sunday 7th April 2013 by Brittany Mann

With Easter behind us and the mid-year break just around the corner, soon it will once again be the time of year to embark on that perennial venture we all love to hate: the flat hunt. For some, particularly newly-rounded freshers, decisions on flat group formation will involve fraught, Read more...

U Late

Posted 4:40pm Sunday 7th April 2013 by Bella Macdonald

The launch of U late on 1 April sent a flurry of joy to insomniacs who have been deprived of late-night entertainment ever since That Guy vanished off our screens. Critic reporter Bella Macdonald caught up with U late presenters Guy Montgomery (Left) and Tim Lambourne (Right) to ask them about the Read more...

Dunedin Gives Birth to Fashion

Posted 6:30pm Sunday 24th March 2013 by Loulou Callister-Baker

Writing an entire feature about events that you, the reader, either couldn’t afford to go to or would never be seen at is difficult. Fashion is also difficult, but then again, fashion is a fundamental part of all societies and completely governs the way we interact and progress. Arguably, Read more...

The Ends of the Earth

Posted 6:30pm Sunday 24th March 2013 by Josie Adams

One way or another, the world is doomed. Josie Adams got apocalyptic and assessed the most likely causes of the Earth’s inevitable demise, from the Robot Revolution to catastrophic climate change. In the past, our planet has had mass extinctions (dinosaurs R.I.P.), And it could just be a Read more...

What/Wear/Why???

Posted 5:43pm Sunday 17th March 2013 by Elsie Stone

In honour of iD Fashion week, Critic hit the pavements in search of Dunedin’s answer to Alexa Chung. Instead, we found these guys. Honestly, I do not know why someone would want to wear something that makes them look puffier than they already are. But on cold days in Dunedin it Read more...

In The Company Of Style

Posted 5:43pm Sunday 17th March 2013 by Loulou Callister-Baker

With iD Fashion week recently catwalking by, Critic took the chance to get a further insight into the fashion world. Loulou Callister-Baker ventured out into the city to interview four Dunedin designers who are each at different stages of their careers, from studying at Otago Polytech’s Fashion and Read more...

Marriage 101

Posted 5:43pm Sunday 17th March 2013 by Brittany Mann

It may be 2013, but plenty of students are still getting engaged, married, and even divorced. Brittany Mann tracked down six married Otago students to ask them the why, when, and why? With my debut as a bridesmaid for a friend’s wedding looming menacingly on the horizon, I have found myself Read more...

Sequencing The Feminazi Genome

Posted 4:23pm Sunday 10th March 2013 by Anonymous

In 1869, DNA was discovered. In 1953, the first correct double-helix model of DNA structure was proposed. In 2012, the existence of the Higgs Boson was proved. But this year comes a scientific breakthrough of far greater complexity and more global significance than any of them. Finally, in 2013, the Read more...

The Critic Legal High Review

Posted 4:23pm Sunday 10th March 2013 by Matty Stroller

Yesterday afternoon I was surprised by an unusual proposition from Critic: consume and review five different types of legal highs over the course of a night. After two minutes of mental deliberation – involving some ninja-like backwards rationalising my way out of prior commitments – I decided that Read more...

Two Straight White Males Talk Politics

Posted 4:23pm Sunday 10th March 2013 by Sam McChesney

Political talk is 99% bullshit. Nobody ever tells the real truth about their political views, for fear of damaging their reputation or being labelled an “EXTREMIST”. Sam McChesney tracked down two hardcore politicos from both ends of the spectrum, promised them total anonymity, and asked them the Read more...

The Three Worst Threesomes

Posted 5:18pm Sunday 3rd March 2013 by Anonymous

The threesome demands respect. Like yoga pants it has the potential to go very, very well, or very, very badly. Unlike yoga pants, though, a bad threesome has the potential to induce trauma far more serious than the eyeball-searing sight of a sagging labia and cascades of dimpled flesh vacuum-packed Read more...

Lex: Coffee Cowboy

Posted 5:18pm Sunday 3rd March 2013 by Ines Shennan

For almost two decades Lex has been making strong, hot coffee at the University of Otago, currently in the East Lane of the Information Services building. Ines Shennan had a yarn with the man himself and extracted a goldmine of opinions, ranging from the political to the unusual personalities of his Read more...

What We Really Mean

Posted 5:18pm Sunday 3rd March 2013 by Ines Shennan

With a critical and cynical eye, Ines Shennan elaborates on her deeply-held concern that media campaigns rely on and exploit social norms in order to achieve their corporate agendas. The ability of broad media campaigns to reinforce cultural hegemony is enormous and we must scrutinise the Read more...

The Coolest Otago Uni Papers You've Never Heard Of

Posted 9:40pm Sunday 24th February 2013 by Zane Pocock

It’s lucky that you’re allowed to change subjects within the first two weeks of study. If you suddenly realise that no one really becomes a doctor, or that LAWS101 is a waste of time, check out Critic’s guide to setting up an interesting and varied six-paper year that will make you both a master of Read more...

#Pride #Prejudice #Hashtag @Critic

Posted 9:40pm Sunday 24th February 2013 by Loulou Callister-Baker

Where the fuck is the city? I whispered to myself as the airplane landed in a patchwork of green and yellow fields. Were we still in New Zealand? How much more land can there be south of the Bombay hills? Was Kim Jong-un actually the world’s sexiest man? Questions filled my head. While I panicked Read more...

Three Dunedin North MPs

Posted 9:40pm Sunday 24th February 2013 by Brittany Mann

Michael Woodhouse Michael Woodhouse is a Dunedin North-based National MP. So it has been about a year since you last chatted to Critic and I understand you’ve undergone some professional changes. You’re now a minister, congratulations. Thank you. So when I spoke to Read more...

How Wack Is Crack?

Posted 9:40pm Sunday 24th February 2013 by Anonymous

Poor, poor methamphetamine. It’s the Tourism of the drug world – condemned, stigmatised, and used by the dregs of society. Despite a vast array of fresh-faced, apple-cheeked ambassadors, including the Luftwaffe, Antonie Dixon, and that dilapidated whore from Breaking Bad, it’s been Read more...

New Zealanders of the Year

Posted 5:59pm Sunday 7th October 2012 by Staff Reporter

Bromance Of The Year Harlene Hayne and Logan EdgarHarlene Hayne and Logan Edgar, BFFLs. As the only two people who would deign to let me interview them, I thought they should be given the privilege of telling you about their awesome friendship themselves. How does it feel to be selected as Read more...

The Future Freaks Me Out

Posted 5:59pm Sunday 7th October 2012 by Zane Pocock

Over the next 20 years, a lot is set to change in the world of technology. Electric cars will drive themselves, robots will interact with us better than humans do, and augmented reality (the interaction between computer-generated sensory input and our visible reality) will become commonplace. Chief Read more...

The Little Scarfie Who Could

Posted 5:59pm Sunday 7th October 2012 by Joe Stockman

When Harriet Geoghegan mysteriously resigned as OUSA President in the middle of 2011 (Critic has always suspected it was following a failed illicit affair with a fellow execie, or possibly some sort of Dan Stride-Francisco Hernandez-related love triangle), no one thought that the self-proclaimed Read more...

Going Going Gone

Posted 5:01pm Sunday 30th September 2012 by Katie Kenny

We live in a predominantly sedentary, appearance-obsessed society. The media alternates between promoting food products and bombarding us with idealised images of thin, toned figures. Obesity is the First World’s leading cause of preventable death, but despite this, a small population are bucking Read more...

A Beginner’s Guide to the American Presidential Elections

Posted 5:01pm Sunday 30th September 2012 by Michael Neilson

WARNING: This article is an attempt to decipher the American Presidential elections. Depending on your level of interest in politics, it will either provide you with entertainment or act as a light sedative. Regardless, it will contain violence, drug use, and offensive language.DISCLAIMER I Read more...