Jack The Scribbler

iPod Nano 6G watch by MINIMAL, a design house (from The Unofficial Apple Weblog)

Apple’s Macintosh, which used to have more than seventy separate computer chips, is now down to fewer than thirty. In two years, a Macintosh will have seven chips. Two years after that, the Mac will be two chips, and Apple won’t be a computer company anymore. By then Apple will be software company that sells operating systems and applications for single-chip computers made by Motorola. The MacMotorola chips themselves may be installed in desktops, in notebooks, in television sets, in cars, in the wiring of houses, even in wristwatches. Getting the PC out of the box will fuel the next stage of growth in computing. Your 1998 Macintosh may be built by Nissan and parked in the driveway, or maybe it will be a Swatch.

— from book published in 1992 entitled Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can’t Get a Date by Robert X. Cringely [See: Accidental Empires, Robert X. Cringely]

Shown is the short front page essay of Ma. Ligaya Nava, the Collegian's first-ever front page columnist

It is a joyous time in UP. The air is filled with Christmas music, the Lantern Parade beckons just around the corner, and everyone is brimming with good cheer. Yuletide season is here, bringing with it the promise of cold lazy mornings and raucous Christmas parties. the denizens of UP Diliman can hardly wait.

But I, for one, am not in the mood.

Call me a killjoy, call me a female Scrooge, call me humorless and anti-social — but really, I can’t get into the spirit of the season.

Take the Lantern Parade for instance. It’s supposed to be some hallowed tradition in UP to express just how merry we all are. But in this parade, we have to march to Quezon Hall and present our lanterns to UP’s cabal of officials; we have to pay homage to the University’s overlords — people who, the rest of the year, don’t really give a damn about us. They don’t consult us, they don’t listen to us, they don’t trust us, they don’t respect us, but on this one day, we come to them like supplicants, bearing offerings which they graciously accept. The sincerity is overwhelming.

The parade is also supposed to express our unity as a university — students, faculty, personnel, residents, administration. But what unity are we expressing? Three hundred sixty-four days a year we all go on our stiff-necked ways: The Collegian does this, the USC does that, the community does this, the workers do that, the admi does another thing, and the faculty sit on their well-padded behinds. It’s all a sham if you ask me.

Still, I’m not planning to miss the Lantern Parade. For all the thick hypocrisy, it’s still a great opportunity to go guy-watching. Just try and avoid the Chancellor.

— From Dimming the lights, written by Ma. Ligaya Nava, the Philippine Collegian’s first front page columnist for her column entitled Disturbing the Peace published on December 11, 1995. Artwork by Arvie Villena.

With Plenty of Money and You (which is a title of a Tony Bennett song with the Count Basie Orchestra) Photo by Michael A. Keller/Corbis

When the dollar moved, it was usually because some other central banker or politician somewhere had made a statement. (The markets would be far more peaceful if politicians kept their views on the future path of the dollar to themselves. In view of the high percentage of times they end up apologizing for, or modifying, their remarks, it is a wonder they don’t stifle themselves.)
But there was no such news.
I told Alexander [a client] that several Arabs had sold massive holdings of gold, for which they received dollars.
They were selling those dollars for marks and thereby driving the dollar lower.
I spent much of my working life inventing logical lies like this.
Most of the time when markets move, no one has any idea why.
A man who can tell a good story can make a good living as a broker. It was the job of people like me to make up reasons, to spin a plausible yarn.
And it’s amazing what people will believe. Heavy selling out of the Middle East was an old standby.
Since no one ever had any clue what the Arabs were doing with their money or why, no story involving Arabs could ever be refuted.

— Michael Lewis from his book, Liar’s Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street [see: Michael Lewis, Liar's Poker]