It’s Cucumber Time, Baby!

Is it just me or is the tech world really dull these days?

Usually, Techmeme is a source of interest and inspiration but the last few weeks have been dull, dull, dull. If it’s not another story about Apple, the MacBook or the iPhone, it’s TechCrunch putting the spotlight on a Twitter spoof featuring Hitler, or yet another story about nefarious computer viruses.

In the newspaper business, the dearth of news is called the “silly season”, although I prefer the Dutch expression “Komkommertijd”, which means “cucumber time”. When I was a reporter, “cucumber time” meant it was an opportunity to create stories by writing features that editors would normally dismiss as not being newsworthy or interesting.

Now, you can brush aside the slow news flow as seasonal given it is August and many people are taking vacation. But since I started writing about technology in 1995, there hasn’t really been a slowdown during the summer. Usually, the news keeps on coming throughout the year.

Maybe the lack of news is a sign we’re on the cusp of a technology slowdown, and that there’s less happening. I’m not suggesting the bubble is about to burst but there’s definitely less activity or, at the very most, far less interesting things happening.

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. So, what do you do when life gives you cucumbers?

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