Category Archives: Rant

Do you call that a review?

Posted on May 18, 2007 by Stephen Dawson

Today I embarked upon a begging mission. I wrote to eight different purveyors of projectors and asked if they’d like to lend me one for at least several months. Odd behaviour? Here’s why. I shall henceforth be writing four HD … Continue reading →

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‘Dynamic Peak’

Posted on May 17, 2007 by Stephen Dawson

I’ve been reviewing a lot of subwoofers lately and for almost all of them the manufacturer quotes two power specifications for their built-in amplifiers: the continuous output power (sometimes erroneously labelled ‘RMS’), and ‘dynamic peak’ or similar words. The latter … 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.

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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 →

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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 →

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A great review of The Passion of the Christ

Posted on February 7, 2005 by Stephen Dawson

As a professional writer, I can’t help but feel skittish about the world class amateur writing appearing so prolifically in Blogs these days. Take this review of Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ for example. None of the reviews I … Continue reading →

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Apple iPod Arrogance?

Posted on February 6, 2005 by Stephen Dawson

Busy doing reviews of hard disk based portable MP3 players. You know the thing. The Apple iPod and its competition. Except for one small problem. Apple, here in Australia, has a policy of not providing review samples of the iPod … Continue reading →

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Weird scenes in the musical mind

Posted on October 16, 2004 by Stephen Dawson

One of my favourite LPs, way back when I was at school, was The Doors’ Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine. This was a two LP best-of compilation of previously released tracks, plus one otherwise not-existing track. I recall taking … Continue reading →

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The problem with DVD+R

Posted on August 11, 2004 by Stephen Dawson

Whenever I’m writing a short piece on consumer DVD recorders, I have to pick and choose what I will actually talk about. That means leaving out some of the things I consider are probably of less importance to the target … Continue reading →

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Radical Technology – but is it for a niche only?

Posted on April 18, 2004 by Stephen Dawson

This article from MIT’s Technology Review discusses directional sound devices, based on using ultrasonic (above 20,000 hertz) emitters. The two separate developers are talking the usual junk about how they could replace loudspeakers. This is junk for several reasons. One … Continue reading →

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