# Hey, world, can't we all standardize? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 30, 2017, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-world-cant-we-all-standardize/800205 "2017-10-30T03:03:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![penultima\_thule](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penultima_thule/32/3833_2.png) [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2017, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-world-cant-we-all-standardize/800205/21 "2017-10-31T03:54:07Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > Australia, when the country switched to metric in the 1970s. +1 > [@](#): > > Don’t talk to me about metrication, it’s an abomination. > It all started back in ‘66 when they changed from pounds to dollars. My bloody overdraft doubled. > Then a couple of year later they brought in kilograms instead of pounds, my bloody wool clip fell by more than half even though with hectares my stocking rate is half what it used to be. > Maybe that’s because the grass won’t grow as the temperature rarely gets much above freezing now and with rain in millimetres we haven’t had decent fall of rain since. > I’ll grant you that fuel is a lot cheaper now but the ute’s performance has gone to hell in a hand basket. > By this time I reckoned with the introduction of daylight savings I was working 26 hours a day so decided to sell out. Now I find that with kilometres I’m too bloody far out of town anyway. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2017, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-world-cant-we-all-standardize/800205/22 "2017-10-31T03:54:58Z")
> [@Civil\_Guy](#): > > …I think we would give the capacity of an air conditioning unit in British Thermal Units (however large one of those is). We would, however, use kilowatts to say how much electrical power it would draw, and we might express the power of any pump it would use in horsepower. > > That’s understandable, isn’t it? No? Totally understandable. So how many horses can your new A/C unit keep cool? > [@LSLGuy](#): > > Here’s some more recent typographic fun the OP might enjoy: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=839165](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=839165) > > And here’s the nub of all the problems: [xkcd: Standards](https://xkcd.com/927/) We’ll have standardization as soon as we get rid of all the pesky humans. Thanks, **LSLGuy**. Among other design stuff, I teach Typography, so the frustrations of Word vs PDFs hit home. And love the XKCD – Randall always takes some of the “joy of ranting” wind out of my sails. ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2017, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-world-cant-we-all-standardize/800205/23 "2017-10-31T03:59:39Z")
Learning how to cook really set me against the English system and for Metric. It was those goddamn ounces. Volume or weight? Give me grams and milliliters. There’s only one thing that bothers me about Metric… what’s all this shit about something being thousands or millions of kilometers away? What’s wrong with Megameters and Gigameters? Okay, I like engineering notation. Sue me. ---
**Author:** ![AI\_Proofreader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@AI\_Proofreader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AI_Proofreader)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2017, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-world-cant-we-all-standardize/800205/24 "2017-10-31T04:21:50Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I agree about _ **scales** _. C-major and A-minor should be enough for everyone. Not only will this restriction save on musicians’ wear-and-tear but pianos will no longer need any black keys. > > I cannot agree with _ **degrees Celsius** _ however, unless you stipulate _semi_-degrees. When I set the A/C thermostat to 28° my wife complains she’s too hot, but at 27° she’s too cold. :o This is why I still use Fahrenheit… even though I realize the rest of the world thinks we’re silly, what with water freezing being an arbitary 32 degrees, 0 meaning absolutely nothing, and boiling being 212 degrees. Temperature is finicky… you can \*feel the difference between 84 degrees F and 82 degrees F… I’d rather have a thermostat with the option of 82, 83 and 84; rather than 29 or 28. Also I’d like to say, I’m jealous of wherever you live where any number that high can be considered too cold… I grew up in a household that was typically kept between 68 and 70 degrees F (20-21 C). Which is warm compared to outdoors, where any time between Oct and Apr any temperature above 50 (10C) is shorts and t-shirt weather. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2017, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-world-cant-we-all-standardize/800205/25 "2017-10-31T07:27:55Z")
> [@Ranger\_Jeff](#): > > Learning how to cook really set me against the English system and for Metric. It was those goddamn ounces. Volume or weight? Give me grams and milliliters. Agreed - IMO, recipes by precise weight or volume are more reliable (and frankly, I would prefer to work entirely by weight even for liquids) - although it matters more for some types of recipe than others - I use a cake recipe that starts with weighing the eggs, and it is utterly foolproof and consistent. > [@](#): > > There’s only one thing that bothers me about Metric… what’s all this shit about something being thousands or millions of kilometers away? What’s wrong with Megameters and Gigameters? It’s a sign that we haven’t fully committed to the system. When the robots take over, we’ll (well they will) sort that one out. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2017, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-world-cant-we-all-standardize/800205/26 "2017-10-31T07:54:02Z")
> [@AI\_Proofreader](#): > > … Also I’d like to say, I’m jealous of wherever you live where any number that high can be considered too cold… Your jealousy may be misplaced. Where I live in Central Thailand, [April 2016 had Twenty-Seven consecutive days of 40°+ heat [and] Twenty-One consecutive days of 42°+ heat; this shattered the previous record of Two, set in 1985.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20364483&postcount=4) An easy way to tell how long an expat has lived around here is to serve him beer. If he’s a newcomer he’ll laugh and say “You put ice in your beer?! That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen!!” If he’s been here a while, he may look confused and ask “Where’s the ice?” ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2017, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-world-cant-we-all-standardize/800205/27 "2017-10-31T08:06:32Z")
> [@AI\_Proofreader](#): > > Temperature is finicky… you can \*feel the difference between 84 degrees F and 82 degrees F… I’d rather have a thermostat with the option of 82, 83 and 84; rather than 29 or 28… The distance you indicate you can feel happens to be 1ºC, so what’s the problem? You just like having that intermediate, according to yourself not-significant value available? Well, then, I have the solution: thermostats and thermometers with a decimal figure! You’re welcome, I accept payment in food. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-world-cant-we-all-standardize/800205/28 "2017-11-01T03:31:58Z")
> [@Civil\_Guy](#): > > …so I was riding on a train to get somewhere – it’s pretty cool, you’ve got time to meet and talk to your fellow travelers. I was talking to a couple visiting the US from Australia, and the man tells me about his home improvement project, where he’s going to be installing a new air conditioner sized at some number of kilowatts. He pauses, then asks 'wait, do you even use watts here?" > > Why, yes we do… but, um, I think we would give the capacity of an air conditioning unit in British Thermal Units (however large one of those is). We would, however, use kilowatts to say how much electrical power it would draw, and we might express the power of any pump it would use in horsepower. > > That’s understandable, isn’t it? No? So how many BTUs per ton of air conditioning? Damn if I know. The conversion probably involves furlongs. 😃 If it doesn’t, it should. ---
**Author:** ![AI\_Proofreader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@AI\_Proofreader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AI_Proofreader)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-world-cant-we-all-standardize/800205/29 "2017-11-01T11:22:38Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > So how many BTUs per ton of air conditioning? Damn if I know. The conversion probably involves furlongs. 😃 If it doesn’t, it should. You can simplify by finding out how many square cubits of space your home has and how many horses are needed to cool one cubit. And how many carrots each horse needs to be fed each day. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-world-cant-we-all-standardize/800205/30 "2017-11-01T13:04:35Z")
😃 Don’t forget to account for the heat output of the accumulating decomposing horse dung; those carrots (and hay) don’t simply disappear after they go into the front of the horse. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-world-cant-we-all-standardize/800205/31 "2017-11-01T14:03:09Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > Yes, twice to the metric system. The first time was living in Australia, when the country switched to metric in the 1970s. The second time was migrating from the U.S. to Australia 6 years ago. (I migrated from Australia to the U.S. in 1999.) I much prefer metric. > > One annoying thing about the U.S. is that they have two standard paper sizes, Letter (216 by 279 mm), and legal (216 by 356 mm). Question 1: why do US. lawyers have to have their own paper size? Question 2: Why can’t the U.S. just move to A4? In my last job I often had to move documents from a U.S. environment to a non-U.S. environment, and the change in paper size messes up things like pagination when you change. And you have to change: you can’t buy U.S. latter-sized paper in Australia, or A4 paper in the U.S. It’s just madness. Letter sized paper is _almost_ universal for U. S lawyers now. I haven’t seen legal paper used by lawyers for at least 20 years. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2017, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-world-cant-we-all-standardize/800205/32 "2017-11-01T23:41:00Z")
I agree with this! Let’s all do it _my way!_ ---
**Author:** ![mischievous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@mischievous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mischievous)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2017, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-world-cant-we-all-standardize/800205/33 "2017-11-02T00:26:28Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Here’s some more recent typographic fun the OP might enjoy: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=839165](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=839165). > [@digs](#): > > Thanks, **LSLGuy**. Among other design stuff, I teach Typography, so the frustrations of Word vs PDFs hit home. I’m honored to have been of some amusement to someone! Maybe you can teach typography to programmers. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2017, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-world-cant-we-all-standardize/800205/34 "2017-11-02T01:02:23Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > Letter sized paper is _almost_ universal for U. S lawyers now. I haven’t seen legal paper used by lawyers for at least 20 years. I see it once in a while. Oddly, only by real estate lawyers. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2017, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-world-cant-we-all-standardize/800205/35 "2017-11-02T01:14:42Z")
> [@mischievous](#): > > I’m honored to have been of some amusement to someone! Maybe you can teach typography to programmers. Typographers are using Word now (says **digs** )? Ouch. I mentioned this in the other thread, but if you like typography, and you like computer programming, then _Digital Typography_ (by the author of _The Art of Computer Programming_) is the book for you. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2017, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-world-cant-we-all-standardize/800205/36 "2017-11-02T04:55:52Z")
> [@mischievous](#): > > I’m honored to have been of some amusement to someone! Maybe you can teach typography to programmers. Can I just give myself a root canal instead? I mean, their linear brains might ‘esplode’ once they learn that 12-point type isn’t even close to 12 points tall; or that letters sit on a baseline except O, U or V which dip below (and that also makes them larger than the other letters). ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2017, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-world-cant-we-all-standardize/800205/37 "2017-11-02T07:12:50Z")
Since we are talking standards, the textbook says that circles should overshoot by 1.5% and sharp apices by 3%. So why list only O, U, and V – what about C, G, W, and so on 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2017, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-world-cant-we-all-standardize/800205/38 "2017-11-02T12:50:32Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > Since we are talking standards, the textbook says that circles should overshoot by 1.5% and sharp apices by 3%. So why list only O, U, and V – what about C, G, W, and so on 🙂 And what about the zeros!?! ::sigh:: See, this is what I imagine it’d be like teaching programmers… I wasn’t going for a comprehensive list, so I wouldn’t have to spend time remembering the euro & rupee symbols, the theta & the mu, the reverse cowgirl emoji & the &. ETA: Wait, did I just get whooshed by a coder with a dry sense of humor? ---
**Author:** ![Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marvin_the_martian/32/2898_2.png) [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2017, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-world-cant-we-all-standardize/800205/39 "2017-11-02T16:49:30Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > And you have to change: you can’t buy U.S. latter-sized paper in Australia, or A4 paper in the U.S. It’s just madness. You can buy A4 paper in the US, but you need to [order it](https://www.staples.com/HammerMill-Fore-MP-Premium-Multi-Function-Paper-A4-Size-Case/product_570046). I bought some a number of years ago when I was working with a customer in Germany - the docs they would send just wouldn’t paginate correctly onto Letter. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2017, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-world-cant-we-all-standardize/800205/40 "2017-11-02T17:07:48Z")
> [@digs](#): > > And what about the zeros!?! ::sigh:: See, this is what I imagine it’d be like teaching programmers… > > I wasn’t going for a comprehensive list, so I wouldn’t have to spend time remembering the euro & rupee symbols, the theta & the mu, the reverse cowgirl emoji & the &. > … Yes. But understand the issue isn’t programm_ers_. It’s programm_ing_. The computer is going to need to render the reverse cowgirl emoji somehow. The programmer’s job is to make it do that correctly according to whatever standard(s) may exist. On every device on every platform in every written language in the world. Programm_ing_ is not full of tiddling details because programmers are tedious Asbergery wankers. It’s full of tedious details because the physical world is large and complex, human society & conventions are a jillion times moreso, and computers are very, very literal. Which of course is why tedious Asbergery wankers tend to be drawn to that work. **LSLGuy** CS major, intermittent professional dev from mainframes to phones, and tedious Asbergery wanker at large. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-world-cant-we-all-standardize/800205.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-world-cant-we-all-standardize/800205.md?page=3)