have been a very vocal critic of the BBC, which is still perceived by many as the Auntie that can never do any wrong and can also always be trusted (de facto stance). For a variety of reasons, the BBC has been aligning with many commercial interests and you are warned that the channel (like many other broadcasting/publishing companies including Fox News and CNN) are serving agenda, not news.

In my personal case of criticism, I am most aware of the BBC’s ties with Microsoft and battles against common rivals. Now that Ashley Highfield is out, it’s claimed that he has moved to a place where could do more damage, so we should keep an eye on him.

An official complaint that was served against the BBC was returned recently as they responded to the official complaint with a “F*ck Off”. The European Commission (Neelie Kroes’ departments) should investigate this further along with similar cases involving Public Broadcasters.

The reason for writing this is actually my return from a short encounter with the Chinese protest against the BBC. It’s still taking place in Manchester and about 1,000 people attend. The BBC seems to have rubbed many people the wrong way for their commercial slant and national agenda. They continue to portray the Olympics torch’s journey as one that is filled with loud protesters instead of focusing on the millions of protesters that rally along. In order to increase damage to the reputation of the Chinese nation, which seems like the next superpower of the world, there is also an inaccurate portrayal of the incidents in Tibet.

Keep an eye on what you watch and remember that most broadcasters, including the BBC, serve you propaganda (or personal point of views, approved by moderators and funding sources). To many readers, this won’t be news, but it’s worth a quick reminder. Don’t trust anyone. See different points of view for yourself and make a balanced judgment. It will make you smarter and will simplify your understanding of seemingly complex situations.

Quick status report

have not blogged here in a while because I keep awfully busy elsewhere (primarily Boycott Novell) and also because I have spent the past few weeks maintaining and upgrading this Web site’s different pieces of software. I shall return to posting more regularly pretty soon. Thanks for the patient subscribers, some of whom I haven’t heard from in a while.

I rarely bother to share personal stories here, but I’ll quickly make one exception. As you may know by now, I finished my practical work (comprising mainly experiments) on the PhD when I was 23/24. but I then slowed it down a bit… well, thereby neglecting my goal of obtaining a PhD at the age of 24. It would have been nice, but priorities changed.

On Friday I had my viva and I passed conditionally (just need to fix one chapter, and for that I have plenty of time). All in all, it’s all good news and all! Yes, it’s a messy sentence by design.