December 3, 2009
MarkBernstein.org
 

Black Screen

Over Thanksgiving weekend, a little-known security company published a vague report about a Microsoft security patch that, reportedly, sometimes cause “black screen of death”. Monday, the tech press picked it up, got Microsoft to say “we’re investigating it”, and reported the investigation. Then Microsoft turned up nothing, and the tech press reported the denial. Typical Windows story.

Problem is: there was no problem. There was nothing wrong, nothing to investigate, nothing to deny. Nothing was wrong.

Our tech press is both corrupt and silly, forever chasing the expected narrative without understanding, or even trying to understand, the underlying technology. The costs to everyone are frightening.