Maybe so. I really like some of his less-known stuff, like "Martian Time-Slip" and "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch."

Sounds like you haven't read the book, which is not at all one of "those" stories. It is not a "what-if," or at all historically motivated, that's not the point at all. It's about something much deeper, the nature of reality as both objective and external, and as a collective, disjoint hallucination of multiple subjects.

Dick's struggle with schizophrenia, which you trivialize, did involve drug addiction. You're wrong about his ambitions however - he always craved mainstream popularity for his work.

"High Castle" is widely considered his most masterful work. "Do Androids" is really well-known now, because of the movie adaptation.

I think it's my favorite work by Dick, and one of my favorite books period. I would love to see a good film adaptation (and the miniseries format is probably well suited to it). The complicated story (with all of its bizarre, but essential, elements) does pose a challenge. I'm also worried about how Imperial Japan will be handled. Contrary to some other comments here, the Nazis are basically a non-presence in the book, and the relations between the Californian characters and Japanese occupiers are racially fraught. I think there's a risk they might swap Nazi Germany for Imperial Japan, which to my mind would be a huge mistake.

The book seems pretty dystopian to me, but in retrospect Dick probably wished for things like the emotion controlling device. The Wikipedia article makes it sound even more dystopian than I remember. Does your comment only apply to the movie script?

Yeah, me too. The message has only become more relevant in the decades since the war in Vietnam, and the interlude on crime-ridden future Earth and commentary on human sexuality could resonate with mainstream audiences now. Plus there are plenty of opportunities for explosions and effects in the original story (unlike "High Castle").

Which version of Blade Runner?

There is the original version, without the noir-style internal monologue, and the director's cut, which has it. It makes a big difference I think. Harrison Ford supposedly was against the monologue, and performed it poorly on purpose. Then Scott / the studio cut the bad monologue from the theatrical release.

It's rare to find internet users who think slower speeds and greater congestion are "in their interest." Thanks to you we know there's at least one.

Your statements seem calculated to dismiss to the reality of food insecurity in the United States without including any relevant factual information. Here you - or any earnest reader - can find the USDA's 2012 report on domestic food security, which is (in contrast) an excellent source of such information.

I think we're just potentially post-scarcity. That we could feed and clothe the needy, at least domestically, doesn't mean much when we don't want to do that. (We can tell that we don't want to, since more food is wasted than is needed to eliminate domestic food insecurity. About 20 million Americans suffer from some level of food insecurity, but Americans in aggregate waste about 40% of their food).

Wolfe even anticipated that the material would make folds, wrinkles and creases invisible, just as described in TFS.

I started re-reading The Book of the New Sun last week and there are numerous references to this aspect of cloth of fuligin, the color darker than black.

I want a raise.
I want to go home.
I want sex.
I want a cookie.

I think they mean, the first carbon fiber. (Not really, but certainly prior to synthetic carbon fiber).

Some pieces of software are intended to be feature-complete replacements for competitors. Others approach the same or similar tasks using very different methods. This doesn't change the relative merits of the software and soda analogies to books. Software is a much better analogy than soft drinks.

The rareness of feature-complete replacements for books, except in certain non-fiction areas, detracts from the software analogy to be sure. It still makes a lot more sense than 'coke vs. pepsi.'

The bottom line is that Google Search doesn't work very well - at least, not anymore. While it previously supported search expansions which could be taken advantage of by skilled searchers, it's since been focused on quick, lowest-common-denominator responses to the most common questions. As a result, searching for slightly abstract notions is virtually impossible, and some searches which should be straightforward also fail.

One example of a simple failure: "fireworks today" or "fireworks today san francisco" returned nothing after I chanced to see fireworks the other night. Using the date ("fireworks san francisco may 21 2014"), the only relevant result was a set of Coast Guard and DHS documents describing safety precautions for the event (Giants game). Of course, fireworks games are well publicized outside of interntal government safety documents.

A more abstract example: try to design a search for articles about names which are or have become insults, such as "Dick."

Software is a MUCH better analogy than soft drinks. Pepsi and Coke are really interchangeable except for personal preference. Software or books are not interchangeable because different pieces of software have different features, and different books contain different information.