Roundup: Some tidbits about New Zealand

It was another terrible week in news, with the announcement that Vice is ditching its website and planning to lay off hundreds of people, on top of the continuing layoffs at other outlets. It’s hard to see much of a bright future for media at all, and that prompts even bigger concerns for how we live in a democracy when there’s less and less reliable information and well-resourced institutions to hold power to account. It’s pretty grim.

This week in the Roundup, I’m doing something a little different. I’m recently back from a few weeks in New Zealand, and figured I’d throw together some links on (critical) tech-related topics down there, on issues like the film and rocket industries, along with some billionaire antics.

Before we get into that, I was interviewed by BusinessDesk NZ’s Business of Tech podcast when I was down there last week. I also interviewed Grafton Tanner on Tech Won’t Save Us about how the need to keep IP constantly present in our lives is distorting our culture.

On March 8, I’m also doing a livestream with Ed Ongweso Jr. and Brian Merchant to discuss the Dune films. In Dune, there was an event called the Butlerian Jihad where the “thinking machines” were destroyed. We’ll be talking about that in relation to what’s happening today — in addition to digging into what we thought about the new movie! Sign up to be notified on YouTube.

Have a great week!

— Paris