Time for a new adventure

After 25 years of tech journalism in print and web, it's time for a pivot

Feb 18, 2023

Welcome to my new newsletter, “After Hours with Jason Perlow.” For those of you who have been following me for the last 25 years, I thank you for sticking with me for this long.

It’s been a heck of a ride for me since the golden days of technology journalism — I started back in the mid-1990s when we had these things printed on dead trees called “magazines.” By the mid-2000s, all of that went the way of the dodo bird, and we became “bloggers,” and it all came down to pageviews and monetization, forever changing how we would write and target our audiences.

But I have always been a bit different from your average tech writer; as for me, this was (and still is) a hobby or a side-gig for the longest time — I was a working technologist at companies like Unisys, IBM, and Microsoft for the balance of my professional career, and also an independent consultant on Wall Street before that. I’ve been Editorial Director at the Linux Foundation for the past three years. So I’ve always looked at tech through the lens as both a practitioner and a technology enthusiast, and with a different level of appreciation and understanding about these products and services than most industry writers.

Who is this guy?

For 15 years, I wrote a column at ZDNET called “Tech Broiler," a mix of Op-Ed type commentary and product reviews. I wrote it in old-school style, which is to say it was long-form (you want me to do less than 1000 words? HA!) and thick with analysis. I was also not the guy that worked off deadlines and needed to get my commentary in with the rest of the crowd; it takes me weeks or even months to get a good sense of what a product is, and I like to go deep; you’re not going to get the TL:DR version of things if you stick around.

Many of you may also know me from my background as a food writer, which is another side-gig and a huge passion of mine. So you’re going to see a bit of that and a healthy dose of amateur mixology in this newsletter: Think of this place as a seat at my home bar, where we talk shop after work and have a few drinks together.

Why am I doing this now? Well, my main writing gig at ZDNET came to an end a few weeks ago due to changes in US labor laws. My colleague, Ed Bott, who is in the same boat, explains this on LinkedIn. He also has his own Substack, which I recommend you read, especially if you’re a Windows and Microsoft user.

I may very well resume with ZDNET this summer, but nothing is written in stone, and frankly, I like the idea of being able to write about things that a publication might not necessarily want to cover. So view this newsletter as the “B-Side” for those who want to see the other things I’m interested in.

RIP Raquel Welch, The Hottest Girl Ever With a Laser Gun

This week, I was a bit taken by the passing of actress and sex symbol Raquel Welch, who died at 82. Her first film role was in the 1966 Sci-Fi classic Fantastic Voyage as Cora Peterson, a medical technician in a tight white SCUBA wetsuit (video) and crewmember of the miniaturized submarine Proteus on a race against time mission to the inside of a Soviet scientist’s injured brain. Albeit dated, it’s a great movie, and if you have HBO Max, I encourage you to watch it if you’ve never seen it.

Raquel Welch as Cora Peterson in *Fantastic Voyage* (1966)

In addition to being notable for giving young boys heart palpitations with her bombshell figure and coyish smile, she also wielded one of the first film examples of a realistic laser gun (the first was in 1964’s Goldfinger) as the technology had only been demonstrated in 1960, just six years earlier.

With her passing, I decided to make her a special cocktail, the “Fantastic Voyage”. Welch was born in Illinois in 1940 Jo Raquel Tejada, the daughter of a aeronautical engineer from Bolivia, so I felt it was appropriate to make this cocktail out of Singani, a white Muscat brandy of Bolivian origin similar to Peruvian/Chilean Pisco. If you can’t find a Singani, it’s ok to use Pisco (especially a Muscat one) for this.

FANTASTIC VOYAGE

2oz Singani 63 (for Raquel Welch, intoxicating and Bolivian)
2oz POM Wonderful pomegranate juice
2oz Cranberry Juice Cocktail
.5oz Lime Cordial

Shake with ice