Thanksgiving is here so it’s likely to be a slow week in the EDA industry. Of course, like much else in our culture, this event has been co-opted by rampant media messages to shop and consume. Already I’ve seen lots of stories about Black Friday, mostly discussing whether the whole idea of a 24-hour window is now moot given Cyber Monday and the reality that the holiday shopping season now starts right after Halloween and stretches into January.
As a German I know I must tread lightly when writing about the most American of holidays. Turkey is not all that big on holiday menus back home and as I’ve written about in an earlier EDA Café post, football (or rather fussball) will always mean something different to me, no matter the success of the regional favorite Seahawks or my staff’s obsession with making their weekly fantasy picks. I’ll just say that I’ve grown to like some of the old-fashioned aspects of the holiday (a good meal with friends followed by a hike with the dogs, who demand to get out regardless of the weather). I can’t help but being thankful that EDA is not part of this annual shopping lunacy, at least not directly. Last I looked, the big three EDA vendors aren’t offering holiday-themed sales and I’ve never yet seen a line out the door for a piece of technical software. (That said, DAC attendees have been known to queue up for the free coffee, beer and wine that exhibitors offer almost every day — as I see it, much more reasonable behavior than waiting outside a superstore before it opens.)
