Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

(Vanity) What superior products were defeated by inferior ones and why
01/13/03 | self

Posted on 01/13/2003 3:13:17 PM PST by rudy45

Some examples come to mind, such as Betamax vs. VHS. Can you think of others? I'm doing a presentation on how an inferior product, with the right strategy, can overome a superior one.

Thanks.


TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS:
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100101-112 next last
To: Brett66
My father bought a Tucker. Put $25 down on it but was never delivered. I have a model of a Tucker at home.
81 posted on 01/13/2003 4:00:41 PM PST by the_daug
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: theFIRMbss
Windows NT was OS/2.

That is true...sort of. At the time that NT was developed, OS/2 was a 16-bit OS co-developed by IBM and Microsoft.

They parted ways after OS/2 1.2, and Microsoft developed the sort-of-microkernel-based NT as their 32-bit offering, while IBM took a more gradual approach to removing Microsoft's 16-bit code from OS/2.

[C:\]

82 posted on 01/13/2003 4:00:55 PM PST by B Knotts
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: Tall_Texan
'You'll find few people with greater fondness for the Astrodome than I but it's hard to call it superior to Reliant Stadium as an NFL facility. '

you may have missed my tagline for that post.

still... while reliant stadium is a nice field, it was wholly unnecessary, as was minute maid field (park, stadium, etc.). come to think of it, the new light rail was unnecessary as well.

83 posted on 01/13/2003 4:00:59 PM PST by new cruelty (what are they planning to do with the astrodome anyway?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 73 | View Replies]

To: rudy45
In the world of food there are all kinds of examples.

Big fat tasteless blimpy things called bagels have made it impossible to find the real thing except in some NYC neighborhoods.

Real ice cream ( which is just that, iced cream) isn't available ANYWHERE, commercially.

Similarly to bagels, bloated fat chemical tasting things called pizza have replaced the thin crisp pizza with a simple tasty topping of plum tomatoes, olive oil, and parmesan cheese, baked in super hot ovens. This creation can only be found in certain badabing neighborhoods in north Joisey.
84 posted on 01/13/2003 4:01:14 PM PST by ricpic
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MonroeDNA
Nuclear power wins.

This conjures up a long list of good things ruined by irrational environmental or other liberal fears:

DDT
Asbestos (though one should be careful when manufacturing it)
Guns without "smart" chips (future)
SUVs (future)

85 posted on 01/13/2003 4:06:00 PM PST by Atlas Sneezed
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 37 | View Replies]

To: ThomasJefferson
>Any downside to downloading and installing Mozilla? Does it "take over" my PC or anything? Easy to remove and return to Explorer?

No, no, and yes. Mozilla is just an application, it doesn't integrate itself into the system like IE. It may ask if you want to make it your default browser, but that's about it.

86 posted on 01/13/2003 4:17:53 PM PST by ThinkDifferent
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 78 | View Replies]

To: rudy45
Henry and Spencer Rifles versus muzzle loading Springfields used by the US Infantry during the Civil War. Col. Ripley(Chief of Ordinance for the US Army) refused to order the superior firing rate and easily used repeaters because he believed the men would squander the ammunition. Ripley's misguided notions kept the Union Army from using the repeaters for the most part of the Civil War.

AM radio was used for the most part of the 20th Century because of a monopoly by an individual that orchestrated one of the large networks (NBC I believe) even though FM was available and practical early on. Not until the 1970's did FM go into common use.

Another inferior action that gets used is in sex. Most men and women use the missionary position when there are more other positions that are more satisfying to both partners except most of the time that is the only shot a man will get at it before the woman cools off. Noone are bad but some are better ;-).

87 posted on 01/13/2003 4:21:12 PM PST by vetvetdoug
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: PJ-Comix
Did they? I'll ask Mr. Spectre when he comes home tonight. The History Channel is his favorite.

sw

88 posted on 01/13/2003 4:29:20 PM PST by spectre (spectre's wife(No matter how many times we watch it, WWII still ends the same))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 79 | View Replies]

To: rudy45
OK, Rudy, let's get serious here.

Do a report on Saccharin.

Saccharin got a bad rap, because they said it gave the tiny little mice cancer, and replaced it with that nasty stuff called Aspartame.

It turns out, that Saccharin isn't so bad after all. The taste was superior to anything out there now and the after effects of Aspartame are still being investigated. (There's your inferior product)

You can use Google and find more information on the subject you can ever put in writing.

sw

89 posted on 01/13/2003 4:41:56 PM PST by spectre (spectre's wife)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Frohickey
The German army was 'superior' to the US army in World War 2, but who got beaten by who?

A common myth. They were better at some things and worse at others.

Our commanders, better. Our command structure, better. Our intellingence, better. Our equipment, worse early, better late. Our soldiers were the match of even the best Wermacht, and vastly superior to most of their troops (on the western front) whose ranks were riddled in a meaningful way by conscripts, old men and youngsters by the time we were up against them. Early on they had superior weaponry in tanks, cannons and machine guns, later the gap was closed.

In short, they had a bad plan and they were nuts to declare war on us. Hitler did it himself without any consulting anyone else. They are mostly in hell now.

90 posted on 01/13/2003 4:48:13 PM PST by Protagoras
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 68 | View Replies]

To: isthisnickcool
So you are saying your second wife in inferior to your first wife? LOL, you better find a good lawyer quick, looks like the second wife may walk off with all your money after all.
91 posted on 01/13/2003 4:51:04 PM PST by Robert DeLong
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: ThomasJefferson
Wars are won by the most cowardly side.
92 posted on 01/13/2003 6:41:47 PM PST by bvw
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 90 | View Replies]

To: bvw
Piston gasoline engines beat out Steamers.

In what way is the piston engine inferior to a steamer? While continuous combustion has definite advantages over pulsed combustion, a steam engine is limited by the ability to transfer heat into the steam.

An approach I'd like to see used would be to combine the concepts of internal- and external-combustion engines by having an engine where fuel and air are pumped into a combustion chamber and the combustion products power a piston engine (which in turn powers the pumps). I would think that there would be a potential for quite reasonable efficiency in such a system (this principle, btw, is how turbine jet engines work).

93 posted on 01/13/2003 9:04:13 PM PST by supercat (TAG--you're it!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: cruiserman
Why is VHS inferior to Betamax? You have to give a context.

VHS's color encoding is pretty crummy. Essentially, what happens is that the NTSC video signal is converted into YUV (which is fine--it's what component video is) but then the U and V are amplitude-modulated onto the Y signal. This means of encoding video wouldn't be bad if it were the only one used (even though U is only modulated at about 2.something megahertz, compared with 3.579545Mhz for NTSC, the phase-independence of the signal would be a major plus) but conversion to and from NTSC is quite lossy.

I forget how Betamax encodes its color, but I recall it's something a bit better. What's particularly interesting, though, is that there's a format called Betacam which was used in many television stations until it was displaced by digital formats. Betacam captures each line of video in YUV format and then records the Y component at double speed and the U and V components each at quadruple speed. The net effect is that not only are the U and V component bandwidths now only limited to (tape_bandwidth/4), but more importantly they no longer have the relative phase lag effects of other video formats.

94 posted on 01/13/2003 9:11:28 PM PST by supercat (TAG--you're it!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: PJ-Comix
Once you learn QWERTY your fingers are PERMANENTLY hard-wired.

A few years ago, I set my computer for Dvorak, posted a chart over my monitor, and was typing moderately decently (about 40WPM) in a couple hours and even better (about 50WPM) a few hours after that. If I could find a keymap which would put the uppercase, lowercase, and "Alt" letters in Dvorak format but keep the control characters in QWERTY (so the ZXCV group work for Windows stuff, and the ctrl-letters around the ESDX diamond (any idea what might use those?) work as they should, I might like to give it another go.

95 posted on 01/13/2003 9:15:48 PM PST by supercat (TAG--you're it!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 72 | View Replies]

To: Neanderthal
The only advantage of front drive, except lower weight and smaller size, is better control on snow and ice.

There is absolutely no advantage to front wheel drive on ice. With rear wheel drive, you can steer your way out of a spin, with front wheel drive, all you can do is pray. However, front wheel drive is much better in heavy snow.

96 posted on 01/14/2003 12:14:41 AM PST by fellowpatriot
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 42 | View Replies]

To: rudy45
I was thinking more of the toy industry...now are kids have so many toys they don't know what to do with them.

What was wrong with tinker toys or lincoln logs? now there are probably a thousand different sets of building toys and some kids have a 100 of them and play with none of them.

97 posted on 01/14/2003 5:47:26 AM PST by alisasny
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: rudy45
Contender vs Whitewater
98 posted on 01/14/2003 5:56:15 AM PST by Sam Cree
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: supercat
Good points. And many steam engines are piston driven -- such as the old railroad locomotive.

However a gasoline internal combustion piston engine has the following drawbacks:


99 posted on 01/14/2003 6:00:43 AM PST by bvw
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 93 | View Replies]

To: supercat
Also broadcast video standards -- NTSC versus PAL, etc.
100 posted on 01/14/2003 6:03:48 AM PST by bvw
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 94 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 41-6061-8081-100101-112 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson