Electronic News Editorials
“It takes great self-confidence to write a newspaper column. Some might say it takes arrogance. Be that as it may, my willingness to pronounce on a great many matters of which I have little or no knowledge is one of my prime qualifications for this trade.”
– Russell Baker, The New York Times, Aug. 6, 1996
I confess one of the joys of my journalism career has been the opportunity to alternately pontificate righteously or be a snide smartass on the editorial pages of various publications (this was blogging before there were Web logs). Electronic News was no exception. In fact, some of the stuff I’m most proud of is here.
I wrote a lot of columns in my five and a half years at Electronic News; these few are just the best of the best (and I say that humbly, sort of — as much as an editorial writer can be humble). I was fortunate that my E-News keepers gave me carte blanche in terms of subject matter, and only rarely reeled me in, in terms of verbiage. Bless you sirs and madam.
if you only read one of these, read this editorial on the vagaries of Wall Street, in the guise of William Shakespeare. And let me take this occasion to offer my humblest apologies to the Bard; imitation (and satire) is, after all the sincerest form of flattery.
Saying Good-Bye to One of Our Own
Last week I learned that Electronic News lost a long-time member of the family. Bernie Levine, a fixture within the industry trade press who spent 26 years at Electronic News’ erstwhile print edition, died earlier this month, apparently the result of a rapidly advancing neurological disorder. I’m not one for long goodbyes, and absolutely loathe the very concept of obituaries; at best, even a novel-length biography can only scratch the surface of what really comprises a life, beyond the facts and figures. Nevertheless, I feel...
read moreRat Brain Flies Plane
OK, this subject was just too good to pass up, if for no other reason than using the above headline. We opted for a toned-down headline when we borrowed this story from our British counterparts (Electronics Weekly), but I just couldn’t let it go. After all, back in the day I coined the headline “Industry Gets Jiggy with SiGe.” A former Electronic News editor had to be convinced that it was not a naughty reference or otherwise some sort of vague sexual euphemism, but as you can see, it ran. As a newspaper refugee and...
read moreAlas! Poor Margin! I Knew Him, Horatio
Inventory correction or cyclical downturn? That is indeed, the question. Those of you who familiar with me know I have a some-time affinity for borrowing from the Bard — that’s William Shakespeare, for all you techie left-brained types — for this editorial space. So I can’t help but suggest that the chip industry is headed for the winter of its discontent. Of course, it really depends on whom you ask. Wall Street seems to be divided on the issue as to whether current market conditions are a correction or a downturn,...
read moreBlasphemy Runs Over Dogma
As if people didn’t have enough to worry about these days — terrorism, war, toilet-bound economies, mystery respiratory viruses, and the incomprehensible success of reality television — people are worried about Moore’s Law, too. There’s no quicker way to get people’s knickers in a twist here in Sillycon Valley than to intimate that Moore’s Law may get repealed in the near future. To add insult to that injury, just suggest that willingly adhering to the scaling suggested by Moore’s Law in this day and age is...
read moreRobust Solution Needed
Buzzwords. Public relations jargon. Robust, worldwide, revolutionizing time-to-market jargon that the industry can’t seem to avoid and leverages us in the trade press uniquely crazy. These are the words that make us audibly groan with pain when we see them. These are the words that we joke about around the office and in meetings. These are the words we forbid each other to say when socializing with one another on weekends. If we all worked in Texas Instruments’ marketing department, we would call these words our “key...
read more‘Twas the Night Before Semicon
‘Twas the night before Semicon, when all through Moscone, Technicians and marketers scurried, looking for coffee. The tchotchke were hung by display booths with care, In hopes that journalists and chipmakers soon would be there. The executives were nestled all snug in their hotels; Business was booming; they’d said good-bye to dry spells. And me with my laptop, my boss with her briefcase Were both gearing up for the crazy Semicon rat race. When out on Mission Street there arose such a clatter, I sprang from the Argent lobby to see...
read moreBut Soft! What Nasdaq Through Yonder Chasm Drops?
William Shakespeare had a thing about the fickle nature of things. Everything was fickle: women, pride, time, love — even whole countries. But nothing was as fickle as fortune in Elizabethan times. In King Henry V, Shakespeare tells us all about “Fortune’s furious fickle wheel.” In Romeo and Juliet, the Bard’s young heroine reminds us that “O fortune, fortune! All men call thee fickle.” One wonders what the Bard would think about the modern-day stock exchange. Here, even good news can spawn a Nasdaq...
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