Guest Work

A running series from Statistics New Zealand helping us make sense of the Food Price Index and the Consumers Price Index… Priceshifting – What we buy In recent years, about one sixth of our household spending has been on food. But what about the other five-sixths? What’s in the Consumers Price Index (CPI) provides an interesting snapshot. The CPI measures … Read More

A running series from Statistics New Zealand helping us make sense of the Food Price Index and the Consumers Price Index… Priceshifting Statisticians are not particularly noted for their vegetarian inclinations, but they do exhibit an appetite for fruit and vegetables. They find lettuces especially fascinating. Source: Statistics New ZealandThe Food Price Index works on the basis of price per … Read More

Metservice’s weather ambassador Bob McDavitt has compiled his annual review of weather trends for the previous year. Click on the presentation below to view in full-screen mode or to download. [slideshare id=2772724&doc=2009review-091223221454-phpapp02&type=d] … Read More

A running series from Statistics New Zealand helping us make sense of the Food Price Index and the Consumers Price Index… Priceshifting 1          What food costs It paid to make your own New Year’s Day lunch this year. Unless your tastes have changed, your summer lunches should cost about the same as they did last … Read More

A paper by Dr George Preddey,  Physi­cist, futur­ist, ter­tiary teacher, dis­as­ter man­ager, edu­ca­tion pol­icy ana­lyst, inter­na­tional con­sul­tant (retired),  envi­ron­men­tal activist and marathoner Global Eco­nomic Cri­sis and Copen­hagen – missed chances for avert­ing a human catastrophe? ’If at first an idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.’ ’We shall require a sub­stan­tially new way … Read More

By Vicki Hyde, chair of NZ Skeptics Inc and editor of Scitechdaily.com It was appalling to see the Herald on Sunday swallow the claims that you can detect poisons in Haruaki Gulf marine life via a discredited electro-acupuncture technique (Sept 27). Their story ran under the heading “Samples positive for poison”*, citing campaigner Sarah Silverstar. Marine birds, oysters and dog … Read More

The phone book for a city is a dull read. The surnames, initials and addresses for everyone who lives in a city. For the truly bored, you might find some prurient entertainment in some of the more descriptive surnames. It’s not even complete, given that a significant number of the inhabitants choose not to have their names published. However, with … Read More

A personal viewpoint piece* by Garth Carnaby, President of the Royal Society of New Zealand. This paper was presented at the ARMS Conference in Christchurch last week. A          Questions to be Considered In presenting this paper, I am not putting myself forward as an expert on science funding systems, or how to evaluate them.  This is a … Read More