Diary of Armageddon

Posted 5:30pm Sunday 23rd March 2014

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...

Interview: Deborah Lambie

Posted 3:19pm Monday 17th March 2014

Deborah Lambie is a stereotype-smasher. She’s a medical student here at Otago, a beauty queen, and an award-winning speaker. Josie Adams sat down to talk to her about the jet-setting life of a pageant pro: talents, inner beauty, and demilitarised zones. Why did you enter Miss New Zealand? Read more...

The Future is Dead Humans

Posted 4:35pm Sunday 9th March 2014

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...

Student Jobs Uncovered

Posted 6:57pm Sunday 23rd February 2014

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...

When Duty Calls: A Noob's Journey

Posted 1:51pm Sunday 8th September 2013

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...

Big Brothers-At-Arms

Posted 2:29pm Sunday 11th August 2013

We live in an age of surveillance, in which our lives are policed by social norms and groupthink. These social norms can use technology to imprison us – but we can also use technology for our own ends, and fight back. “You can do better than that,” barks Winston’s telescreen in 1984. Read more...

The Ends of the Earth

Posted 6:30pm Sunday 24th March 2013

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...

Goble Gobbles Pussy

Posted 5:59pm Sunday 7th October 2012

The year is coming to an end, and so is the career of one of the country’s foremost stars in student journalism: Howie Staples. During his illustrious career at Critic, which spanned a single year, Howie had his own column, graced the cover, recovered from a narcotics addiction, fooled some into Read more...

Alligator Attacks Terrorise Dunedin

Posted 4:25pm Sunday 23rd September 2012

There is a strange and terrifying underbelly to Edinburgh’s progeny that we are only just discovering. This week, in news from Dunedin FL, we reveal the insider’s scoop on the alligator attacks that have been terrorising the city. Like its Celtic namesake, the alleys of the city have become a Read more...

Students Engaging in Hubba-Hubba with no Rubber

Posted 4:57pm Sunday 16th September 2012

Results are in from a 2009 University of Otago Department of Preventative and Social Medicine survey which questioned nearly 3000 17 – 26 year old university students across New Zealand about their sexual practices. With no update in national sexual health and behaviour data for over 20 Read more...