OT: Dr. Who

[Brian K. White]

On 7/26/2010 4:00 PM, Bill Campbell wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 26, 2010, John Esak wrote:
>> Thanks Bill.
>> This tells me to actually tune in though the SciFi channel lots more!.
>
> I would be happier if it was the SF channel as pedantic curmudgean that I
> am, I hate the SciFi designation :-).

I'd be happier if it was still Sci-Fi instead of what it is now "SyFy"
I can only guess this horrible new name has something to do with being 
able to trademark/copyright it more aggressively or use it in more 
situations because it's an invention?


>> Just another stupid question. Has there been the equivalent of the little
>> robot dog?  Was it R5 or Astro or something like that? No, wait, that was

K-9 of course :)

>> is the best idea of that whole series.  except, of course, Data is an Asimov
>> positronic robot from way back when

You are saying you think Data is modeled after R. Daneel Olivaw? More 
than passingly? In one sense it's hard to disagree because part of the 
character of most robots is that they don't have all that much 
character, so almost any robot will end up being very similar to any 
other compared to other characters. But I'd say even with that Data and 
Daneel are quite different in personality. Both are humanoid, 
dependable, admirable, and devoted to humans. It's pretty obvious Data's 
writers pay homage to Asimov. Data follows the 3 laws, perhaps even the 
zeroth law too, although I don't remember if that is ever explicitly 
stated. But Daneel is deep and wise where Data is pretty comical. I'd 
say Data was more modeled after Spock than Daneel. Daneel never got 
drunk or had difficulty judging how precisely to answer questions.

-- 
bkw