Author Archives: Stephen Dawson

Panasonic’s new projector

Posted on August 14, 2005 by Stephen Dawson

In early September Panasonic is taking me and another Australia writer to the United States for the release of its new home theatre projector, the PT-AE900, in Hollywood. You can see my reviews of its predecessors, the Panasonic PT-AE700 here, … Continue reading →

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Letters to the Editor

Posted on August 13, 2005 by Stephen Dawson

Back before I started writing for a living, I wrote letters to newspaper and magazines of the whinging, complaining kind one still sees. For those interested, I’ve posted the ones that were published here.

Posted in Admin, Rant | Leave a comment

The power of selection

Posted on August 12, 2005 by Stephen Dawson

Darwinism is often the subject of disbelief because one of its two important components is overlooked. The essence of Darwinism is evolution through natural selection. This requires variation between organisms, and a method of selecting the most suitable variants from … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, How Things Work, Rant | Leave a comment

More DVD Reviews up

Posted on August 11, 2005 by Stephen Dawson

Here are another eight Region 4 DVD reviews, originally printed in Australian HI-FI: Gattaca and The Truman Show To Kill a Mockingbird and Pleasantville Meet John Doe and Casablanca Starship Troopers (original and Special Edition) versions.

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A proper understanding of Starship Troopers

Posted on August 11, 2005 by Stephen Dawson

Robert Heinlein’s 1958 novel Starship Troopers is totally misunderstood by many, not least the makers of the 1997 movie of the same name. Take the issue of race, for example. The movie features pasty white Casper Van Dien in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Cinema, Rant | Leave a comment

DVD Reviews beginning to appear

Posted on March 26, 2005 by Stephen Dawson

For the past few years I’ve been writing reviews for Australian HI-FI. Rather than let them merely die, I’ve started loading up onto this site. Just go here. There are six reviews there now. But I’ve got another 42 which … Continue reading →

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Should you wait for the right DVD?

Posted on March 25, 2005 by Stephen Dawson

I have previously made reference (Frankenstein and Metropolis) to cheap and nasty, and good quality, DVD releases. The other day I bought one of the latter to replace yet another of the former. In this case it was His Girl … Continue reading →

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Andre Norton dies, aged 93

Posted on March 24, 2005 by Stephen Dawson

When I was in my final year of primary school (aged around 11), I applied for a bursary (a kind of small scholarship). A teacher asked me about my reading habits and suggested that, for the purposes of winning the … Continue reading →

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Randi gets his teeth into audio mysticism

Posted on March 24, 2005 by Stephen Dawson

I am happy to report that James Randi, best known as the magician/skeptic/author who eviscerates prominent self-proclaimed mystics, also spends the odd moment on audio mystics. For example, here on Peter Belt. Follow some of the links from that post.

Posted in Audio, Cables, Mysticism | Leave a comment

A-Weighting, the saviour of many a poor piece of equipment

Posted on February 21, 2005 by Stephen Dawson

The aim of makers of high fidelity audio equipment is — or at any rate, ought to be — to produce equipment that does not modify the signal, other than convert it (from a digital to analogue representation, or from … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, General Tech, Imperfect perception, Testing | Leave a comment