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User: William+R.+Dickson

William+R.+Dickson's activity in the archive.

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Comments · 55

  1. Re:Do This To This Federal Judge & See What He on Federal Judge Rules Against Intelligent Design · · Score: 1

    This would hardly be surprising, since he is a church-going Christian. Not all religious people are blind to the difference between faith and science.

  2. Re:Not the right question on Do You Want to Live Forever? · · Score: 1

    I should. All the rest of you shouldn't.

  3. Re:Doom for Social Security on Do You Want to Live Forever? · · Score: 5, Funny

    "If you were "immortal" you could just keep working and wouldn't need SS."

    Oh.

    Yay.

  4. Re:Rick Berman and Star Trek on 'Star Trek: Enterprise' Cancelled? · · Score: 1

    There was a Voyager episode in which Jeri Ryan had to play, at various times, Seven of Nine, the Doctor in Seven's body, and the Doctor in Seven's body attempting to impersonate Seven. It was comedy gold. Make fun of her costume and high heels all you want; she and Robert Picardo had good comedy chemistry, and on the rare occasions that the writers decided to exploit it, good things happened.

  5. Re:Sad if true on 'Star Trek: Enterprise' Cancelled? · · Score: 1

    The bit of broken history that bothered me the most was the bumpy-headed Klingons. It was brilliantly established in DS9's "Trials and Tribble-ations" that Klingons had previous looked as they did in the original series, and now looked like Worf. Worf's explanation: "It is a long story. We do not discuss it with outsiders."

  6. Re:No Radio on iPod on Creative Gunning For the iPod · · Score: 1

    First, if you listen to both Stern and TAL, you probably need a psych evaluation, because there's just something very strange about you. Sort of like people who claim they're both a dog person and a cat person -- it doesn't happen in a healthy individual. Second, you listen to them while working out? That's just plain weird. "Yeah, that segment from 'Other People's Mail' where they talked with the guy who hordes scraps of handwriting he finds on the ground totally got me pumped!"

  7. Re:Wrong on How to Get Music Off Your iPod · · Score: 1

    It doesn't so much refute the point as pooh-pooh it, without being terribly convincing.

  8. Re:More info on New Apple iPod with Photo Capabilities · · Score: 1

    60 gigs would be just about enough for all of my music and my nightly backup data. I wouldn't be able to include any photos. So, nah. Not overkill.

    I don't plan on replacing my 40 gig iPod until they produce a 60 gig iPod Mini, though.

  9. Re:John Carter definitely R-rated on Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow · · Score: 1

    With his earthly thews propelling him across the Barsoomian landscape in great leaps and bounds.

    One thing I could never figure out in that series -- why did anybody trust themselves to those one-man fliers? As I recall, they invariably had their buoyancy tanks punctured by a lucky shot from a green martian while passing over some dead city, and then the eight ray leaked out all over the place and they had to set down in the middle of nowhere. I'm not sure anybody ever actually successfully went from point A to point B in one of those things.

  10. Re:John Carter of Mars! on Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow · · Score: 1

    I've been looking forward to this, too. My uncle gave me the whole hardcover set when I was a teenager, and I reread them every 6-10 years; they're just a blast. Well, up until the last couple, anyway; then they're just kinda tired (and, in one case, unfinished).

    I was terribly worried when I heard the project was alive yet again that it'd be horribly massacred, but having seen the previews for Sky Captain, I think this guy may have just the right sensibilities to do it right.

  11. Re:bite me asshat. on Michael Moore Seeks TV Airing of Fahrenheit 9/11 · · Score: 2, Funny

    I've actually been keeping the terrorists away by keeping this banana stuck in my ear...

  12. Re:Flames? Here's some on Dell Offers $100 For Old iPods · · Score: 1
    I've read in places that the Rio Karma UI is better, or equivalent, to the iPod.
    Hell, man, I've read in places that aliens endorsed Clinton in '96, that Satan appeared in a volcano, and that Alligator Boy and Bat Boy were planning to open a freak-themed coffee shop just outside of Graceland, with a mysterious sideburned silent partner.

    I've read all kinds of crazy shit in places.
  13. Re:$0.99 ?? on Audio Lunchbox: Music with no DRM · · Score: 1

    Well, there's only about a minute of music in four minutes of trance, so I can understand you wanting to pay less for that.

  14. Re:Slashdotters==Curmudgeons? on iPod Mini Sells Out · · Score: 1

    There's a big difference between "it doesn't suit my needs" and not being able to see a case being made for the Mini's size and price point. As they're flying off the shelves faster than Apple can supply them, it's pretty clear that Apple's made a resounding case for the Mini, whether you can see it or not. And that's kind of the point of the article, isn't it: it ain't Apple who's out of touch with the demands of consumers (at least, not this time).

    I saw one in the store myself a couple weeks ago. Holding the Mini in my hand while my 40GB iPod knocked around in my pocket made me feel kind of jealous. Frankly, the form factor is absolutely perfect; small enough and light enough to go in my pocket much more comfortably than the full-size model, while big enough for easy operation. And shaped very nicely to fit the hand. In 2-3 years, when the Mini's available in considerably larger capacities, I expect I'll be looking to replace my 40GB model with one.

  15. Re:250?!? on Rumors of iPod mini, 100 Million Songs, Xserve G5 All True · · Score: 1

    If someone's willing to spend an extra $50 to jump up from a flash player to an iPod Mini, Apple wins. And if they're willing to jump up another $50 to a regular iPod, Apple still wins. I don't see how Apple ends up unhappy.

  16. Re:BSG a network tv production on New Battlestar Galactica Premieres Monday · · Score: 1

    Many of the Clint Eastwood Dollar films (Tashira Mafune Ronin character).

    Which was itself based on Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op character, specifically the novel Red Harvest. Oddly enough, the movie that came closest to the source material was 1996's Last Man Standing starring Bruce Willis.

  17. Re:NPR on iTunes music store on Who Needs Radio? · · Score: 1

    At the very least, This American Life has a number of programs available on the iTMS. I'm sure other shows will follow.

  18. Hardly. on Who Needs Radio? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    NPR's funding breakdown. An excerpt:

    The only direct government funding NPR receives is through competitive grants from government agencies for specific projects. Such grants are awarded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Science Foundation, and the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities, and typically represent only 2% of total revenues.

  19. Re:Seed 7B85 on Panther Released into the Wild · · Score: 1

    I need Classic to back up my Newton.

    Seriously.

  20. Re:Problems with iTunes for Windows on iTunes for Windows Reviews · · Score: 1

    iTunes for Mac does do that if you limit the current selection of tracks to exclude the next-playing track. Example: I select "Wall of Voodoo" in the library and hit play. I then select "Jazz Butcher Conspiracy" in the library and edit to my heart's content. When the song that was playing before I switched artists ends, it stops playing, because I have selected a set of tracks that excluded Wall of Voodoo. I see this happen mostly when I do my playing in the Library, because that's also where I do my tag editing and the like.

    However! If you select a source other than the library, such as a CD or a playlist (smart or regular), you can tell it to play and then switch to the library and mess with things to your heart's content. Basically, if you set a source to playing, and then limit its track selection such that the next-playing track isn't available, it'll stop. If you set a source to playing and then switch to another source, the playing source will continue to play.

  21. Re:Cover Art is Available with Purchased Tracks on iTunes for Windows Reviews · · Score: 2, Informative

    I have cover art for the vast majority of my stuff, because as I encoded the CD's, I grabbed art from allmusic or Amazon and added it to the files when I was done. The art is stored in the files themselves, along with the tags; if I were to send you a copy of one of my files, you'd see the cover art I pasted in.

  22. Re:Albums on Evaluating a System for Selling and Delivering MP3s? · · Score: 1

    I think it should be up to the artist or band how they want the music sold. If they don't mind selling individual tracks as singles, fine. If they feel the album is an integrated whole, and want it sold that way, fine.

  23. Re:Are you mostly a chimp? Okay, but not me. on Chimps Belong in Human Genus? · · Score: 1

    Linguists have long considered the Washoe and Koko "signing" claims to be utter fraud -- the experimenters are almost criminally liberal in their interpretation of the signs. One example went something like this: Koko signs "banana banana I banana you banana banana me banana me me banana". The researcher interprets: "Koko says, 'I would like a banana.'" The apes hadn't learned that the signs were symbols, or any sort of grammar that could qualify what they were doing as using language. They had simply learned that making certain signs increased the likelihood of achieving some particular goal -- getting a banana, in this case. More complicated than a mouse learning to press a plate to get food, but not very different.

    As I understand it, the jury is out on cetaceans and elephants, but the matter's considered pretty well closed on apes.

  24. I never understood how anyone could trust KITT on Battlestar Galactica to Return · · Score: 1

    ...when it was so obviously a Cylon car.

  25. I've switched back and forth a few times... on Five Years Later, Newton Still Going Strong · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I started with a Newton MP100, upgraded to a 120, upgraded again to a 130. The 100 is framed on my wall (it's a beautiful machine). The 120 was handed down to my then-girlfriend. (I bought all of these used; I'm not rich.)

    I sold the 130 about three years ago and bought a Visor Deluxe. My feeling then was that Palms sure as hell weren't as good as Newtons, but given the smaller size, they were good enough at the things I wanted to do.

    A year ago, a bunch of MP2100's went up for sale on eBay at ridiculously low prices; my wife bought me one for my birthday. I played with it for a couple days and immediately shelved my Visor. The 2100 had so much more speed and power, not to mention storage, that the elegance of the system didn't merely compare favorably to the more simplistic Palm, it totally destroyed it. Since I had to carry two devices anyway -- PDA and cell phone -- I didn't mind so much if the PDA was larger, as long as it was much, much better. The 130 wasn't enough better to justify the size; the 2100 was, and then some.

    Over the past year, I've added an 802.11 card and ethernet, synced the Newton with my OS X box from twenty miles away via TCP/IP, and generally been extremely blown away by the inventiveness and support of the Newton community.

    Now, I'm in the process of switching back to Palm -- someone put SprintPCS visorphone modules up on eBay, and I got one for $7. It's not as good a phone as my old Samsung, but it's a good enough phone. It's not as good a PDA as the Newton 2100 by a long shot, but it's a good enough PDA. And the fact that I can now carry one device rather than two clinches the deal.

    But I'll be carrying the 2100 when I travel; its large screen (with excellent backlighting), speed, and network capabilities make it a perfectly viable substitute for a laptop when I go on trips; the Visor doesn't come close to that.

    I wish Newton, Inc. had been left to stand or fall on its own, rather than being spun back into Apple. A Newton OS device the size of a Palm, or even a bit bigger, combined with a mobile phone, would be a dream come true.