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Urban Legends Beta vs VHS
Now this article does state that there was little, if any, difference between the two in available features (other than tape length) or output quality. It does state that the arms race was led by Sony (Betamax) and that VHS caught up usually in less than a year. So at any point during the (early) life of Betamax, VHS was a up to a half-year behind technologically. Obviously, comparison after (or at!) the demise of Betamax would be stupid.
So from the case for the prosecution I find evidence for the defence.
Your witness I think ...

The Guardian's Why VHS was better than Betamax
Now this article is trying to make a point about how perception colours (or colors for you Yanks) people's views. Because people say Betmax was better everyone believes it, but the article suggests this was an Urban Myth and links to the first article debunked above.
Interestingly, the article actually says ... and maybe it was, in a lab. This is what most people are talking about when they state that (they believe) Betamax was better. Obviously, if you wanted to watch a taped film or TV program, you purchased a VHS machine, because VHS won the battle! So this article proves a different point.
Let it also be Stricken!

I guess the point is that just because something wins a business battle it's not necessarily the best techonology (Mac vs Windows)

now I just had a bit of a google-fest and found the following, some of which simply reinforce the supposition that Betamax was better than VHS, such as ...

Chapter 5 of Beyond Engineering by Luke Rumsey and Rhonda Fetner.

Spend the $1 billion on better things. We should try and solve our own planets problems before going out into space.

Yes, the c. $400 billion being spent on the US military has a far better chance of furthering the lot of humanity. And Bush's tax cut of $1.4 trillon sure helped out all of those disadvantaged rich people.

C'mon, weigh it up: vast amounts of money are already being spent on things which are much further down the priority list than astronomy programmes. Surely it is these which should be considered ripe for cancellation, far ahead of projects which seek to understand our place in the Universe. To quote from a particularly aposite letter which appears in today's Guardian:

Abandoning endeavours of discovery because of alleged "wastefulness", whether the target be space exploration or medieval history, will not improve matters. It will only feed the underlying shallow thinking and barbarism that have created the problems in the first place.

Spend the $1 billion on better things. We should try and solve our own planets problems before going out into space.

Yes, the c. $400 billion being spent on the US military has a far better chance of furthering the lot of humanity. And Bush's tax cut of $1.4 trillon sure helped out all of those disadvantaged rich people.

C'mon, weigh it up: vast amounts of money are already being spent on things which are much further down the priority list than astronomy programmes. Surely it is these which should be considered ripe for cancellation, far ahead of projects which seek to understand our place in the Universe. To quote from a particularly aposite letter which appears in today's Guardian:

Abandoning endeavours of discovery because of alleged "wastefulness", whether the target be space exploration or medieval history, will not improve matters. It will only feed the underlying shallow thinking and barbarism that have created the problems in the first place.

• UK policy on Chilean refugees FCO 7/2421, FCO 7/2421/1, FCO 7/2422, FCO 7/2422/1
  
• Internal political situation in Chile FCO 7/2410, FCO 7/2410/1
  
• Export of military equipment from the UK to Chile FCO 7/2433
  

Too bad Saddam was too busy taking the money from that program and using it to build palaces or buy weapons.

Here are some related links:
US ready to seize Gulf oil in 1973

Was America preparing a war for the Gulf oil in 1973?


Britain Warned of U.S. Plans After War

U.S. Mulled Seizing Oil Fields In '73 British Memo Cites Notion of Sending Airborne to Mideast

And this news item found originally on Reuters ties up nicely to the above:
U.S. OIL (Operation Iraqi Liberation) Imports Set Record in 2003, Trend Seen Up

I imagine a place where students who protest for Freedom & Democracy get beaten is likely a place where a significant number of the population WISHES for the "destruction" of their government.

Most of the power from the royal prerogative is handed to the ministers, so I would doubt the general public would notice if they used half of them. Another of the things that I think is wrong about british politics.
Hmm, I'm not and arch-Monarchist but it is part of Britains character (and a tourist draw). But I don't really like or am interested in anything to do with monarchy including diana. I don't mind keeping them, but perhaps we should have a referendum on them to keep them on their toes.

K. Richards best put it to Mick Jagger [who also got knighted recently]: "If you're into this shit, hang on for the peerage. Don't settle for a little badge.".
Rock on Keith!

Not a troll. Wonderful bit of self-deprecation in a Grauniad article. "If there's one thing the British know how to snatch it is defeat and, unerringly, they know where to snatch it from." Watch out for the sneaky bit of optimism that made its way in at the end though.

according to The Guardian is the 1986 Vauxhall Belmont.

I can see the owners of those lining up to get one of these remote controllers fitted (not).

Newer vehicles are much less frequently stolen, presumably because it's getting much harder, what with improved central locking, engine management systems that mean you can't hot-wire the thing, and other anti-theft features. A spokesperson in the linked Guardian article is quoted as saying "it is virtually impossible to steal a new car without access to the correct keys."

I don't buy the argument that this remote control idea has much if anything to do with wanting to make it easier for police to stop joyriders. It won't help for the reasons above - joyriders don't, or simply can't steal the kinds of cars that have this technology on board.

It sounds to me like just another attempt to turn us all into good docile law-abiding consumers.

However, "firm commitments" by donor countries meeting in London this week was only in the range of US$700 million, said Nigel Roberts, World Bank's representative to the West Bank and Gaza.

He said US$1.1 billion would "maintain the very basic level of equilibrium in the economy."

Donors disbursed US$930 million in 2001, and just over a billion dollars in 2002, Roberts said. "Given the trends, this very high level of foreign assistance is roughly US$300 per capita, which on a sustained basis is the highest in any country in the world, in a developing country situation," he told a news conference.

The basic gyst is that the warming melts Greenland. This diverts the gulf stream; plunging Europe into an Ice Age.

To be more specific, the meltwater coming off a warmer Greenland will dilute the seawater at the terminus of the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream is driven in part by salinity differences (hence the term "thermohaline circulation), and if the dilution reduces the magnitude of these differences too much, then it is possible that the Gulf Stream will shut down. A good introductory discussion of this subject can be found here.

To see what Europe might be like without the Gulf Stream, consider that the British Isles are at the same approximate latitude as Newfoundland. Brrrrr!

The domino effect is what people should be concerned about. Short term toxicity is probably not a problem but you are obviously more knowledgable about that than I am since I am not a chemist.

It isn't death from pesticides on food you should be concerned about. It is the huge and growing dead zone in Louisiana on the Mississippi Delta that you should be concerned about.

It isn't death from air pollution you should be concerned about. It is the rising rates of Asthma you should be worried about. Or the global dimming or how about the disappearing ice cap on Mount Kilimanjaro.

Betamax was the better format. Yet VHS won; it set the standard.

That's a myth. Read here and here for more info.

a british high speed train that leaned into curves

It was pretty much doomed after the first real-world journey, when it induced vomiting in the assorted dignitaries and members of the press who had been invited along.

Another great British idea which died (at least as far as Britain is concerned) was the world's first magnetically levitating high-speed train, developed by Eric Laithwaite. I remember seeing his Royal Institution Christmas Lectures in 1974 (I think I'm too young to remember the 1966 ones). It's a real shame that this man's genius was spurned in his own country, while other nations have exploited his ideas with conspicuous success.

FYI, this year's Christmas Lectures are being broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK this week, starting tomorrow (Sunday).

I have noticed that the Beagle 2 may have a problem with its clock:

Another possibility is that Beagle's clock might have been reset during its descent to the Martian surface, and so it is trying to call home when nobody is listening.

Now this potential problem has a solution! The rovers just need to use the Marsdial to calibrate their clocks on landing.

while he re-examined my shoes

When some members of my family were in the US recently, they noticed that people's shoes were checked - except those who were wearing trainers.

Someone should tell the relevant authorities that shoe bomber Richard Reid concealed his explosives in trainers.

Anyway, for what it's worth, personally I have a notebook, and plan to soon buy a Shuttle to use as a home computer / entertainment centre.

Sort of the opposite of the "film trailer" for "Lucky Star" with Benicio Del Toro, which actually turned out to be a Mercedes advert directed by Michael Mann. Not sure if it appeared in the US, but it was shown in the UK a while back.

Oh this sounds like it will be such a loss. The casting of Smith already hints at a typical "politically correct", trendy actor ladden, ball of crap hurled from Hollywood. It stinks of rotten adaptation

Any /.'s care to comment on this?

• imprisoning American citizen terrorists indefinitely without trial or even without access to lawyers,
• and for sending that Canadian Muslim (All Muslims are terrorists!) to be tortured by Syria.

• Tommy Chong's in the federal pen for selling glass pipes over the internet,
• and now that you've made it difficult for the terminally ill to get pot despite it being legal under California state law,
• and are making sure those terminally ill people can't die with dignity in Oregon

• imprisoning American citizen terrorists indefinitely without trial or even without access to lawyers,
• and for sending that Canadian Muslim (All Muslims are terrorists!) to be tortured by Syria.

• Tommy Chong's in the federal pen for selling glass pipes over the internet,
• and now that you've made it difficult for the terminally ill to get pot despite it being legal under California state law,
• and are making sure those terminally ill people can't die with dignity in Oregon

(joke, but at least i'm bringing this back on topic, plus he was making a serious point i think).

Apart from being OT you IMHO missed the point of Kill Bill but i'm not going to go there.. enjoy the Oscars heh :)

Story here, original data from ICM here (excel).

Story here, original data from ICM here (excel).

The space-sim 'Elite' did this in the mid 80's.

They didn't just do it for the novelty, however.. they had to have the computer generate stuff randomly, as they had no memory to store stuff permanently!

There's a cute article about how they developed it, and how the random engine created some pretty funny outcomes, including planet 'Arse'.

It really bothers me that people wrap themselves in a flag and refer to Kyoto and how CO2 is destroying the environment when they know DICK ALL about it and have not even done the most basic research.

If you read chapter 7 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) The Scientific Basis you will find that water vapour is typically ignored in most models. Yet it is ove 100 times more significant than CO2 is.

I quote: These aspects have been explored only to a limited extent in climate models. No studies deal with true intensity of rainfall... ...Accordingly, it is important that much more attention should be devoted to precipitation rates and frequency, and the physical processes which govern these quantities.

In fact a change of about 1% (or less) in average water vapour on the planet will have more impact on global warming than all the CO2 put together. Meanwhile we have massive irrigation projects and aquifer mining projects going on all over the planet - and these UNDOUBTABLY have had a significant impact on increasing atmospheric H2O.

One of the arguments against H2O's impact is the idea that H2O is short lived in the atmosphere. That may well be the case but at the same time the introduction of additional H2O is very constant.

So this is like saying my humidifier won't work because its effect is short lived. That may be true but I can refill it often and personal experiance tells me it actually does work.

We have similar bad science going on in the nuclear industry. ITER is decades away. In the mean time mankind is going to have to re-vitalize Nuclear Energy. So we hear disinformation all over the place about how fusion will be so safe and fission is dirty.

Fusion is a neutron source and it is these neutrons we are looking for to burn Uranium and Plutonium. Clearly the ITER core will be irradiated and clearly it will create high level wastes. But the most important fact is that we cannot count on it being available any time soon.

We will need a new energy source about as fast as we can bloody well build it and that is even if we fast track it. North American Gas prices are at a high and Oil is also high; meanwhile it was only a few short months ago the USA petroleum stocks were reported at a 27 year low.

The BP Statistical Review of World Energy shows North American gas production peaked in 2001 and that the North Sea feilds peaked in 1999. In fact it shows Saudi Arabian output is down since 2001 as well - but this might not be supply side. Long before new power plants are built there will likely be very serious blackouts and industrial shutdowns. The North AMerican Nitrogen fertilizer industry is the first of many examples to follow.

So lets start doing some real research and start checking facts instead of parotting the disinformation and bad science that is constantly spewed around in the media.

The Guardian

Gates may be a ruthless businessman, but he is giving away billions of his dollars in a dedicated effort to fight AIDS, develop vaccines for scores of deadly diseases, and improve educational and healthcare opportunities for millions of impoverished women and children. Yes, our right to have a choice in operating systems is important. But it is nothing compared to the right of a child in India or Uganda to live free of crippling disease. On the most important issue, Gates passes the test with flying colors.

95% of the Iraqis want us there while things get stabalized

That would be really encouraging, if you hadn't made it up.

If you bothered finding an actual poll you'd know 56% of Iraquis asked how much confidence they have in US forces said "None at all".

I think I shall assume the rest of your understanding of the situation in Iraq is equally valid.

Anytime anybody posts a link to the washington times I completely dismiss their entire post.

Thats pretty childish, don't you think?

How about these links, then:
http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2003/12/17122003 153543.asp
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2003/s1012216.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280 ,-3517412,00.html
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/200 3/12/18/2003080039
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/ 2001817106_iraqdig17.html

Those all say pretty much the same thing as the Washington Times, or do you dismiss posts that link to the taipeitimes or guardian, too?

The fact is we know what the iraqis think because there is an interesting poll made by Oxford Research International that somehow hasn't seem to be too much know in US. Wonder why, had to watch CNN :-)
Some quotes:
"50 percent said the United States will hurt Iraq; only 35.3 percent said the United States would help"
"while 42.3 percent of Iraqis say the best thing that happened to them was the demise of the Saddam regime, 35.1 percent said the worst thing that happened was the war, the bombings, and the defeat of the Iraqi army."
"Asked how much confidence they had in U.S. and British forces in Iraq, 56.6 percent of respondents said they had none at all and 22.2 percent said they didn't have very much confidence, while only 7.6 percent had ``a great deal.''"

Guardian article.
Boston article

I happened to notice this afternoon that this weblog takes issue with the same essay that the parent poster used for their diatribe. It's a depressing little editorial from the Guardian. I didn't read either the parent post or the editorial very closely, but after a quick glance at both I suspect you got to read the editorial in its entirety as you composed your reply.

Why does Bush get the trophy? He can't seem to find any WMD's he isn't building himself or planning to launch.

If you spent 1 second learning to read you would see the text "Your tools? a CD, a booklet of 10 clues, a matrix, and a map of Iraq" just below the picture.

Also:

Saudi is the most "obvious" country

Next!

We have this, too.

The US and UK governments: bringing freedom and democracy to the world.

There was a very interesting article in The Guardian yesterday, looking at the darker side of the history of the airplane. A particularly striking quote:

When Wilbur Wright was asked, in 1905, what the purpose of his machine might be, he answered simply: "War." As soon as they were confident that the technology worked, the brothers approached the war offices of several nations, hoping to sell their patent to the highest bidder.

There was a very interesting article in The Guardian yesterday, looking at the darker side of the history of the airplane. A particularly striking quote:

When Wilbur Wright was asked, in 1905, what the purpose of his machine might be, he answered simply: "War." As soon as they were confident that the technology worked, the brothers approached the war offices of several nations, hoping to sell their patent to the highest bidder.

That's the finest example of "two different meanings for the same phrase" that I've seen all year. Consumers have most of the "open system" they want right now.

Wankers.

Yes it did But it's not like anyone should care. The UN was, is and will continue to be a joke. The United States just demonstrated this. Why is unilateralism a bad thing?

I'd say your last three paragraphs here display a rather jaundiced and inaccurate view of life in the US, so, in the spirit of Jeane Kirkpatrick's witticism that it is important for Americans to `face the truth about themselves, no matter how pleasant it is', I'd like to address a few of the points you make there before speaking to the questions you raise earlier in your post.

You begin by saying:

Where is the liberty in our proportionally huge prison population bloated with nonviolent victims of prohibition? Too many people who go down the path Rush Limbaugh has end up in jail with manditory minimum sentences measured in decades. Is that more liberty than exists in England, the Netherlands, Denmark, etc., where prohibition is an afterthought and treatment for abuse comes first?

which is certainly an improvement in tone from a few posts back, when you were suggesting that any who disagreed with Dean's plan for tax hikes were themselves abusing prescription drugs, but still falls short of being a really weighty point. :-)

First off, we can probably both agree that some prohibition, particularly of marijuana is a bad idea -- no, don't bug your eyes out when I say that: remember that National Review and the Wall Street Journal are just about the only mainstream venues calling for decriminilization of marijuana -- but this is true not because of the number of people in jail for marijuana use, but because the criminalization of such a substance (whether or not it's use is a good idea -- it's not) is a bad idea, and one which, in the case of lesser drugs such as marijuana, almost certainly does more harm than good to the state of the rule of law in the US.

But smoking a joint is hardly the most dangerous and damaging activity for the government to prohibit, so let's look at the state of civil liberties in the countries which you claim are `more free' than the US:

• England:

  Now don't get me wrong, I like England -- I value them as an ally, and I've lived and worked in London at several points. But if you think that England is somehow `more free' than the US, you're mistaken.

  We are, after all, talking about a country which has:

  • prior restraint and other restrictions on the press
  • extensive censorship of ISPs
  • the Official Secrets Act (compare the criminal penalties placed on newspapers publishing such information in the UK with the upholding of the free press in the `pentagon papers' case),
  • and is working on mandatory biometrics files for most of the population.

  England is also facing legislation which would eliminate the right to a jury trial for most or all offenses,

  conclusion: friendlier to drugs, perhaps -- but certainly not `more free'.

• Netherlands:

  While Amsterdam is certainly pot-friendly, the Netherlands are not otherwise a particularly civil rights utopia. To start with, the Dutch have extensive laws providing for punishment of unpopular positions in the name of preventing `hate speech' (one preacher, for example, was recently fined a substantial amount of money for advocating caps on immigration). And that's not even asking why the Dutch police refused to provide protection to a popular but controversial politician who had received death threats, and who was murdered shortly thereafter.

  Conclusion: drug-friendly for sure, but `more free'? Only if your opinions are popular.

• Denmark:

  Her

Arch hawk Richard Perle has admitted that the invasion was illegal under international law.

Perle : "I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing."

And on this (and this alone!) I agree with him - the invasion was illegal. The question is whether it was the right thing to do, and it is still far from clear what the answer to that question is.

No, you are wrong.

Interesting reasoning though.

Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called "20th hijacker", who survived the planebombings on the WTC and Pentagon, is a French citizen from a Moroccan family. An avowed al Queda terrorist, he is backed by a network that apparently has cells like the one caught in Morocco this year.

Morocco is a whole country, and of course al Queda operatives have lived and been apprehended in the USA, among other countries. And none of the Moroccans I've met in either Africa or NYC have seemed to me anything but just normally-adjusted people, or occasionally "intriguiging" if very ethnic. However, Wahabi terrorism is festering in the nooks and crannies of Morocco, and it does no good to be complacent about it.

On the other hand, these "terrorists" create only sabotage, until they get media cooperation, and terrorism exists only in the minds of the terrorized. When you fear the construction of something because "terrorists" will target it, then *you* are a terrorist, spreading fear. As we say in New York: don't get scared, get even. Harness your emotional reaction to turn outwards, embrace the world, and do something for harmony and progress. Learn something among strangers, and get them to know you. In our close-packed world, of ever increasing power over one another's wellbeing, making friends is becoming a matter of global survival. Intercontinental trains will go a long way towards salvation, if we use them well.

According to the Guardian, the sea is shallower along the proposed longer route than along the shorter route. The depth of the tunnel would go from 300m to 900m if the shorter route were taken.

Spain and Morocco to build train tunnel under sea

Spain and Morocco plan tunnel link

Tunnel to link Spain and Morocco agreed


Tunnel link for Africa and Europe


Spain, Morocco to build tunnel under Mediterranean Sea

Spain, Morocco plan undersea tunnel

DON'T MOD THIS UP. MY KARMA IS ALREADY EXCELLENT (has been for months!)

Mobile labs? You mean these mobile labs?

Sorry... no WMD there. Try again?

And moreover, the questions begs to be asked: where the hell is Osama? The man needs a DIALYSIS MACHINE!

Dunno, ask these guys.

No evidence to date has been submitted by ANY organisation which shows any involvement whatsoever by Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. According to all intelligence sources (except North America) that I have heard speaking about 9/11, they all insist no terrorist organisation is capable of carrying out a sophisticated attack of this nature, and it could ONLY have been done by high level officials within the US government itself! So the question is, why is nobody investigating the probability that elements within the US government did these acts?