An open letter to the BBC

I have written this in response to this article that I read today on the BBC website. I have filed an official complaint at their website, and to their praise, the procedure was trouble free.

Update: As of 11/5/2009, I still haven't received from them any reply. I don't think I ever will.

Dear BBC,

Regarding the article that you posted today about Egypt:

First of all, why is this news?! This is not posted as a BBC magazine article or an analysis of some sort by one of your excellent writers. This was posted news. I read it over and over and I am yet to see an informative thing about it. This is more of “propaganda machine” article than something I have come to expect from your prestigious company. The word BBC is associated in my mind with honesty and professionalism. Your news on the radio, TV and Internet gain my immediate trust and I value them more than any other news from any other source, whether it's local or international.

After reading the article I mentioned over and over, what is the writer trying to say? That Cairo lost its glamor and culture because we no longer have cabarets and pubs?! That we no longer have culture because belly dancing and alcohol consumption are being controlled? Is this what an entity as informed as the BBC refer to as culture? This is really a disgrace. I mean let me get this straight: You are claiming that Egypt is falling in the hands of extremists because it no longer has a Western nightlife? That we no longer have culture because our own culture is not compatible with your culture. Every nation has its own rules. Every religion has its own rules. The writer of your article needs to go to a library and look for an atlas to know that there are other countries in the world than his own, whatever and wherever that
is...

I just hope that any “trigger happy” person in charge of some Western nation doesn't read your article and then start a Holy Crusade to liberate us, poor Egyptians, and give us back the culture that you claim was taken from us by the fanatics, in the same manner that Democracy® and Freedom® were given to the Iraqis and the Afghans.

I have been a loyal reader, but not anymore...

Thanks BBC.

And the winner is... Blu-ray

Today, Toshiba admitted its defeat! They will stop producing their HD-DVD format that rivaled the Blu-ray one, backed by Sony and Co. Both Blu-ray and HD-DVD (high definition DVD) were competing for the succession of the aging standard DVDs. They offer superior video and audio quality than the normal DVDs and have higher capacities (50 GB for Blu-ray and 30 GB for HD-DVD).

The beginning of the end for Toshiba began this year, when Warner Bros. Studios went to the Blu-ray camp. The rest was like a perfectly orchestrated symphony that played exactly like Sony would have liked it to. Sony has lost a similar war with JVC in the 1980s. The Betamax vs. VHS one. And as we all know (because almost everyone of us has one in his/her home) VHS won...

The key to Sony's success is, undoubtedly, the PlayStation 3. There are millions of PS3s in millions of houses, and each one can play Blu-ray, out-of-the-box.

Microsoft, which opposed Sony and backed the HD-DVD format, issued a press release today saying that they "didn't care for HD-DVD's problems". I guess someone wants to cry but is too ashamed to do it. 2 or 3 years later, when the double layer standard DVDs that are used in the Xbox 360 are no longer sufficient, M$ will go crying to Sony so that they can license Blu-ray for use in their console. My pride hurts... You hear me Bill Gates!!!

Congratulations to Sony and hard luck to Toshiba, after all, both are friends. Toshiba is manufacturing the Cell processors for the PS3s, if you don't already know! Toshiba bought the Cell manufacturing plants from Sony some months ago.

If the assassin was an Arab...

I remember when Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. I was about 10 years old. We were moving flats then, so most of our stuff was packed in cardboard boxes or plastic bags. Beside some books in an old cupboard we had, there was some pages from the daily Al-Ahram wrapping something. I remember there was an article title printed in large font, saying in Arabic, If the Assassin Was an Arab.

Of course we know that the killer was not an Arab, but was an extremist Israeli. But, as the title says, what if the killer was really an Arab? I think all hell would have broken lose.

My good friend Falcon asked me to write about the recent massacre in Illinois, to demonstrate to the world (err, I mean to the handful who reads my blog!) that terrorist acts are done by other people than Arabs and Muslims.

Yesterday, a student in a university near Chicago opened fire on his fellow students and professors. He was armed with three handguns and a shotgun. The police found 48 empty bullet casings and 6 shotgun shells. He killed 5 people before he pointed the gun to himself.

As you see, this was an act of lunacy. A despicable act that claimed the lives of many innocents. The gunman was not a "raghead". He was not an Arab or a Muslim. He didn't have an explosive belt or a rusty AK-47. He was an American citizen.

Does this make all American terrorists? Nope! It doesn't. This is (I mean, was) a troubled person who did an unbelievable thing. The thing he did should be condemned but without generalizing. Without racial remarks. Without hatred to his kind.

In last year's Virginia Tech shooting spree, the shooter was South Korean, but American media didn't jump to the conclusion that all South Koreans are crazy terrorists, right?

So, dear reader, I ask you the question that haunted my memories for so long:

What if the killer was an Arab?

P.S. I hope that they don't blame the shooting on video games! Blame it on guns, people!!!

"Dave... I am afraid..."

Machines will achieve human-level artificial intelligence by 2029, a leading US inventor has predicted.

Humanity is on the brink of advances that will see tiny robots implanted in people's brains to make them more intelligent said engineer Ray Kurzweil.

He said machines and humans would eventually merge through devices implanted in the body to boost intelligence and health.

"It's really part of our civilisation," Mr Kurzweil said.

"But that's not going to be an alien invasion of intelligent machines to displace us."

Machines were already doing hundreds of things humans used to do, at human levels of intelligence or better, in many different areas, he said.

Read the full article here.

Scary!!!

HAL 9000, The Matrix, Metal Gear Solid and Arnold Schwarzenegger comes to mind...