[sdiy] Re: Hertz Wars !

[Don Tillman]

   > Date: Thu, 01 Aug 2002 03:40:35 +0930
   > From: "Batz Goodfortune" <batzman at all-electric.com>
   > 
   > Actually Australia uses 50Hz. It's impossible to get the rats to
   > turn the wheels any faster.

Yeah, and your water goes down the drain the wrong way too!  :-)

There are a lot of cases of differing standards that are set up when
other existing standards will work just as well.  Sometimes just to be
different.  Or for a business strategy to limit competition.  Or just
to be annoying.  I call them "anti-standards".  We see this all over.

In traffic laws, when some countries drive on the other side of the
road.  

The San Francisco BART trains with their non-standard track size.

Television standards (NTSC, PAL, etc.).

Heck, here in the 21st century, after almost 60 years of computer
development, we can't even agree on a newline character.  (Unix, the
PC and the Mac all use different newline characters.)  Or backspace
character.  Or endian-ness.  That's ridiculous.

And of course, we aren't helping any with our 1/4-inch, 1/8-inch,
banana plug war.  :-)

  -- Don

-- 
Don Tillman
Palo Alto, California, USA
don at till.com
http://www.till.com