Shaun Hendy

The poster, wearing a black Te Pūnaha Matatini shirt against the white dunes of White Sands National Park

Repping @tepunahamatatini.bsky.social in the desert of New Mexico.

Carl Bergstrom presents at the Capital City Complex Systems Symposium.

“What I’ve seen here has been wonderful and aspirational in many profound ways,” reflected @carlbergstrom.com, who joined us from the University of Washington.

Abundant energy for business Reinvigorating the private sector with rooftop solar

Good study by William & Peter Bisley: solar on 10% of NZ's available commercial & industrial roofs would cost $3b, earn $600m a year, and add 1.5 TWh of winter storage to the lakes – the same amount of energy the cracked LNG scheme is supposed to deliver.
bisley.substack.com/p/abundant-e...

Great piece from @dsquareddigest.bsky.social, which touches on one of the big theories for why English-speaking countries do especially badly at housebuilding:

Adversarial and litigious common law systems (Anglo) vs judge-led civil law systems elsewhere.

samf.substack.com/p/build-the-...

Looking forward to talking about this next week at CCCSS. I'll be asking how our pandemic response might have been different if we'd used complexity thinking. Without wanting giving too much away, it's a trick question ...

Keynote: Complex systems in action When models are applied to complex systems in action, they can influence decisions and trajectories, becoming elements within the systems they seek to represent.

Mathematical models are often employed as devices for prediction or optimisation. But when models are applied to complex systems they can become elements within the systems they seek to represent.

Explore complex systems in action with @hendysh.bsky.social at #cccss26 → https://bit.ly/3O4FNee

Government increases New Zealand space launch limit to 1000 But a physics professor says he does not trust the New Zealand Space Agency to make good decisions about a likely host of new space launches.

A physics professor -- namely me -- on the new launch cap. The biggest question is whether we trust the New Zealand Space Agency to do their job when no-one can see...

www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

We're hiring: Kaimanaaki Pāpāho | Media Advisor role The Science Media Centre (SMC) is looking for a media advisor to join our dedicated team working to improve the reach, relevance and accuracy of news media reporting on science and related topics in…

Want to work with a dynamic team helping connect scientists with the media? Applications close at 5pm tomorrow (12 Feb).
www.sciencemediacentre.co.nz/2026/01/27/w...

Weather forecast for Sunday 15: heavy rain with gale southerlies

Me, signing up for Round the Bays: February is Wellington’s nicest month

Wellington:

I will be looking for an RA soon as my amazing postdoc has got a permanent role on our team. I will be looking for an emerging Māori researcher who has a social science background preferably :) dm me if you know of anyone or want to kōrero

WHO membership doesn’t threaten NZ’s sovereignty – walking away from it would The World Health Organization is a global body, but decisions affecting New Zealand are made in Wellington, not in Geneva.

Helen Petousis-Harris's piece on how the WHO is vital for New Zealand just nails it. While I am here, can I also just say that @helenp-h.bsky.social is a national treasure. theconversation.com/who-membersh...

‘It was worth it’: Siouxsie Wiles on her employment stoush - NBR | Business news & analysis | Independent, ad-free reporting Read premium business news, economic analysis, and market reporting from New Zealand’s most trusted business newsroom. Subscribe to support independent journalism.

Morning all! I recently did an interview with NBR about why I took legal action against my employer despite knowing I was going to lose money. They’ve just made the interview free to view so here’s the link if you are interested www.nbr.co.nz/toil-and-tro...

Epstein Files Reveal How Pathetic Richard Dawkins & Other Men Are Transcript: Well, it happened again. I’m mentioned in the Epstein files. Again. You probably saw my first video on this topic and you came away thinking that I’ve spent the past decade being as awe…

Okay, you guys wanted some fun tea on Richard Dawkins? Here you go: one reason he may have gotten super duper angry about me talking about misogyny in atheism
skepchick.org/2026/02/epst...

Haeata Community Campus disputes MPI's mouldy school lunch claim The school says an internal investigation has found no evidence to support the Ministry for Primary Industries' claims.

No matter who is to blame for the moldy school lunches, the programme is clearly not meeting food traceability standards. Hard to understand what MPI is up to here www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

Visiting academic to address spread of misinformation For Carl Bergstrom, misinformation is like a living organism — it can travel across networks and spread through populations like pathogens. The...

Landing in Dunedin Aotearoa in about 90 minutes for the start of a trip that represents the culmination of a dream I’ve had since I was ten years old.

A cartoon by Toby Morris showing pink-haired scientist Siouxsie Wiles standing with her right arm extended, holding a very long pink worm that reaches almost to her boots. It is accompanied by the words Vote noke waiuu, the North Island worm for Bug of the Year bugoftheyear.ento.org.nz

For the next couple of weeks, I'm championing noke waiū, the North Auckland Worm, for the Bug of the Year competition. Thanks to Toby Morris for this great little cartoon, which shows one reason I think you should give it your vote: it can grow up to 1.4 metres long!

A drawing of a green wheelie bin with a worm laid alongside to show how long it is

Have you voted for your favourite 3 critters for Bug of the Year? If not, show some love for noke waiū, an enormously long hairy noodle that can glow in the dark! Head to bugoftheyear.ento.org.nz to vote by Feb 16th. @tepunahamatatini.bsky.social @siouxsiew.bsky.social

Possible, although I’ve never heard of anyone doing that before. Would suggest he knew who he was dealing with, which he claims not to have.

But to be clear, it still makes no sense given he’s directing funds to his personal bank account.

He’s talking about teaching buyout, which would normally attract overheads, so if it weren’t for the fact he’s directing the funds to his own personal bank account I’d say this checks out, once you convert to NZD.

Yes, he does suggest that when he’s fishing for more $$, but in detailing his estimate of $50k he seems to be suggesting that it would be buyout for his teaching. This would need to have been arranged through the UoA.

Also, he makes out to Epstein that the money will be used to buy him out of teaching (i.e. will go to the UoA), but then offers a personal bank account for payment.

Yuck.

'Pretty icky': NZ professor named in Epstein files says disgraced financier offered $75k for book on Lolita Brian Boyd says he did not know about Jeffrey Epstein's crimes when they first met.

I shouldn’t be surprised, but Listener 7 fellow traveler, Bryan Boyd, appears in the Epstein files: www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/wellingto...

Dr Vincent O'Malley Auckland and the Invasion of the Waikato Dr Vincent O’Malley argues that it was in the invasion of Waikato in 1863, and not either world war, that was the defining conflict in New Zealand history.

As my first talk at Devonport Library filled up very quickly, I have agreed to do a second session a few days later, on 22 February. Link to book free tickets here:

events.humanitix.com/dr-vincent-o...

Nice that the #TheCovidResponse has made the longlist, but the competition looks absolutely stellar.

We're hiring: Kaimanaaki Pāpāho | Media Advisor role - Science Media Centre The Science Media Centre (SMC) is looking for a media advisor to join our dedicated team working to improve the reach, relevance and accuracy of news media reporting on science and related topics in Aotearoa...

Want to work at the interface of science and journalism - helping make complex topics accessible to the public of Aotearoa New Zealand? Then check out our new job opening here: www.sciencemediacentre.co.nz/2026/01/27/w...

I’m rapt that @tepunahamatatini.bsky.social is bringing Carl’s science and voice on important issues to NZ 🧪. Join us at the Capital City Complex Systems Symposium in late February in Wellington, for a friendly and exciting discussion - when hopefully the weather will be settled.

He will be speaking about:

→ The impediments to high-risk, high-return science
→ Problems with the peer review system for scientific literature
→ The ways that social media and LLMs such as ChatGPT are changing society
→ How to live, learn and thrive in a world where LLMs are ubiquitous

Scatter plot of fatalities per million versus policy costs for NZ if it had followed other OECD country policies (constructed using the Oxford Index). The plot shows a positive correlation between fatalities and cost.

In the meantime, here is a plot of fatalities vs cost for a set of counterfactuals for NZ had we followed other OECD country policies (via the Oxford Index and our cost function). There is a no-policy counterfactual as well (red dot).