"Breaking Bad." Tenchu, thanks for more details on the Micron/Intel deal over the years.
Thanks also for liking my historical articles. Ironically, last night the best episode in television on the best series ever to air on television (or, arguably, in the movies) won the Emmy Award. It was for "Ozymandias," the third to last episode of the epic series "Breaking Bad." (The series swept most of the awards, as you can check). "Breaking Bad" has been the best drama I've seen, surpassing any films and even any television series. (I'm of the now-popular view that some series like "Lonesome Dove" and "The Sopranos" and such generally surpass what can fit into a 90- or 120-minute movies Having 50-80 hours to tell as story makes a big difference.. Anthony Hopkins recently called "Breaking Bad" the single greatest drama he has ever seen. I concur.)
Saturn V, whom I worked with so closely at Intel during a critical phase, liked the "Ozymandias" reference of a few weeks ago. The statue in the sand being swept over is not meant to refer to Univac, or IBM, or DEC, or anyone else. Rather, it's about the march of time, the tides of sand, the burying of empires.
The poem itself could've referred to any of the ancient ruins from Cambodia west through Burma through India through Persia through Mesopotamia through Egypt and perhaps even beyond. Nobody knows what Byron had specifically in mind.
And while we have seen many versions of Ozymandias in the past several decades, it shall forever remain unclear to what it refers.
Or which CEO will today be Ozymandias daring those to look upon his empire and despair.
(A low-class, catty remark: I used to think it was Jerry, then Hector. Now, who will arise to be Ozymandias?)
--Tim May
