Standards are useful for many things. The question is how they come to be.

One approach is to have some institution arbitrarily impose the standard. This usually doesn't work. Technology evolves quickly, so industry will leapfrog the standard before it can be widely deployed. Standards tend to obstruct development because they cost a lot to deploy, so people are reluctant to make improvements that would lead to more costs. A good example is the standard for ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) that was promulgated by the UN back in the 1970s. It was expensive to do, and companies kept on producing better ideas. It was eventually swept away by TCP/IP (the Internet protocol). Had ISDN been successfully imposed, we wouldn't have the internet today. For this reason, standards are best where a technology has matured, and there's little expectation of change. (Of course, this expectation is often proved wrong. Think of the frequently changing technologies for sound recording/storage/transmission.)

The other approach is to let standards evolve on their own within industries, in response to market pressures for consistency (Betamax or VHS?) and financial pressures to reduce development, marketing, and manufacturing costs. This may take a few years, but it works. The people who say, "why don't they just ...," will be frustrated, but they'll eventually get a stable usable standard.

Whichever way, do you think we could get somebody to impose standards on fucking staplers?

Arab Nights (imported) wrote: Wed Dec 30, 2009 7:50 pm Whichever way, do you think we could get somebody to impose standards on fucking staplers?

good point. all my shop staplers take different sizes. hate that.

screw sizes when working on a PC, it uses one to attach the board to the case, a different one for the disk drives, yet again a different one for the CD, and finally a different one for putting in boards, then of course one for the case its self.

Would it be out of line to have one standard size one size fits all screw?????

River

I thought that there are only two sizes of screws in PC. (the one's that are used for CDs and fastening of motherboard to the case, and the second type for hdds, parts of the case itself, etc.)

fhunter wrote: Wed Dec 30, 2009 10:33 pm I thought that there are only two sizes of screws in PC. (the one's that are used for CDs and fastening of motherboard to the case, and the second type for hdds, parts of the case itself, etc.)

I have this little box, it has 6 or 7 different sizes of screws, they all came out of PC's, it drives me crazy. I even have three different sizes of stand offs that you use to put the mother board on when attaching it to the case.

River

Use staplers.

The parts of a computer are made by different companies, then assembled. That's why different screw sizes. The company that does the assembly can't impose a standard because the same parts are used by many different computer brands, so all of the assemblers/brands would have to agree on a standard before they imposed that standard on the parts manufacturers. I guess it's easier to screw users.

bobover3 (imported) wrote: Thu Dec 31, 2009 1:19 pm The parts of a computer are made by different companies, then assembled. That's why different screw sizes. The company that does the assembly can't impose a standard because the same parts are used by many different computer brands, so all of the assemblers/brands would have to agree on a standard before they imposed that standard on the parts manufacturers. I guess it's easier to screw users.

And that was my point, don't look for it to happen.

River

bobover,

I had a friend who worked in marketing for AT&T before the breakup. He was involved in ISDN then and told me that ISDN does not stand for Integrated Services Digital Network like commonly thought by outsiders but really was It Still Does Notwork by those on the inside!