Bill Thompson ...

... is increasingly looking like a columnist whose subject has deserted him. Check out his latest piece of vacuous nonsense:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6973069.stm

I used to enjoy his Bill Board column on the BBC website but it has become increasingly irrelevant of late, and now this? A homily to his own milestone *shock horror* five years of BBC columns ...

Sometimes I manage to surf the zeitgeist with the consummate ease of a native-born Hawaiian, drawing people's attention to issues that might otherwise have gone unnoticed - like the way software developers disclaim liability, recently highlighted in a report from the House of Lords, or the security problems that can face smug Mac users. At other times I call it wrong, most notably when I refused to accept that Apple's Steve Jobs was serious about moving away from digital rights management for songs sold through the iTunes music store, or when I claimed that wi-fi wasn't going to change the world.

Is it just me, or is there a yawning gap between the magnitude of his 'successes' and his 'failures'?

I agree, In the last year or so this articles have become weird. I remember he did one writing about how the internet was missing a 'social place'. Given that the latest generation of internet start-ups seem to focus on social networking such as Facebook and old sites such as this are still going strong and show no signs of slowdown it was a very bizarre article to write. Of course, he never defined exactly what he meant by 'social place'.

The 'Steve Jobs' article was flawed in the first place, it's common industry knowledge that Apple were initially against DRM when they were trying to get record companies to commit to the store, but the record companies insisted. Credit to him for admitting he got to wrong after some songs became DRM free on iTunes but he could have researched his article more before making such statements in the first place!

Also, his idea that developers should face more software liability is a joke. While it is a nice idea from the point of view of the consumer, it is unfair to expect companys like Microsoft to have to pay out to someone should a windows bug corrupt or damage some software. Even more of the nightmare for independent developers to suddenly have to face lawsuits because their software crashed and they lost work.

The rest of the time he just talks about meanless nonsense. Far too abstract from the reality of the net at the moment to pay any attention too. It's a shame, he used to be a good read

[downquark1]

Sometimes I think the mainstream journalists are on another planet. Ones that spring to mind is the report that wireless networks are used to share neighbours internet connections... years after they became commercial. I thought of that application the second I knew of the technology, and I must have been 14 at the time.

Another one is this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6971904.stm

As for software liability, I would like to see that in some major cases, such as why NVIDIA drivers were so poor on vista dispite the huge amount of time they had to develop them, I suspect responsibility lies more with the managers.

But most bugs are going to be too expensive to track down. A lot of bugs that appear to be faults in windows are often the fault of third-party software that has altered something it shouldn't have.

Originally Posted by downquark1

Sometimes I think the mainstream journalists are on another planet. Ones that spring to mind is the report that wireless networks are used to share neighbours internet connections... years after they became commercial. I thought of that application the second I knew of the technology, and I must have been 14 at the time.

Another one is this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6971904.stm

As for software liability, I would like to see that in some major cases, such as why NVIDIA drivers were so poor on vista dispite the huge amount of time they had to develop them, I suspect responsibility lies more with the managers.

But most bugs are going to be too expensive to track down. A lot of bugs that appear to be faults in windows are often the fault of third-party software that has altered something it shouldn't have.

Exactly, Also, it's hard to envision how users will use your software. More so than any other product, software can be used in many ways. It's stupid to expect software companies to ensure that it 100% works otherwise they have to pay out

So we're agreed that this is another example of Bill having his head in the clouds then?

Originally Posted by Chris T

So we're agreed that this is another example of Bill having his head in the clouds then?

Yep

The problem is, like you say, he has no idea. He seems to just write what seems obvious and popular without any background research into it. Social place, Software Liability, and iTunes are all examples of things that sound good to many people but are wrong/misunderstood if you do understand the background.

Originally Posted by Damien

Yep

The problem is, like you say, he has no idea. He seems to just write what seems obvious and popular without any background research into it. Social place, Software Liability, and iTunes are all examples of things that sound good to many people but are wrong/misunderstood if you do understand the background.

Furthermore, he seems to think the fact he uses a Mac gvies him licence to throw phrases like 'smug Mac users' around with impunity, and the sum total of his understanding of social networking seems to be derived from peering over his daughter's shoulder while she's on MySpace.

Still, it's a good gig if you can get it. I wonder how much of our licence fee the Beeb bungs his way in exchange for their weekly ration of techno-drivel?

Originally Posted by Chris T

Furthermore, he seems to think the fact he uses a Mac gvies him licence to throw phrases like 'smug Mac users' around with impunity, and the sum total of his understanding of social networking seems to be derived from peering over his daughter's shoulder while she's on MySpace.

Still, it's a good gig if you can get it. I wonder how much of our licence fee the Beeb bungs his way in exchange for their weekly ration of techno-drivel?

The problem is that he has to have a 'view' and he has to have one every week or so. He properly has to think up concepts and write about them, and may not be interested in the subject. Ars Technica have much better articles and I suspect it's down to opinion articles coming up less often per writer and a genuine interest.

That Mac article he did took the mick however. Most mac users would say their machine is safe (it is) and their no viruses in the wild (their are not). It's not smug to mention that. Also, most of us do take security provisions and understand we could be in danger at any point.

The way he did a follow up article on the response was stupid. He picked up on the vocal minority of idiotic mac users and made a article on it. I could do the same for idiotic windows users.