The PingMag Standards Wish-list

18 Apr 2006 Category: Features, Technology, Worldwide

The PingMag Standards Wish-list

Nowadays every web designer / developer worth his salt knows the virtues of standards; better cross-browser compatibility, more shareable code, and that “bring on the upgrades, ‘cos I’m future-proof” feeling when the W3C gives your source the green light. Standards make our lives easier – less time spent weighing up alternatives, less converting between competing approaches, things just working “out of the box” as it were. But whilst all is improving online, we’re still left struggling with a load of half-baked conflicting systems out here in the real world. Here’s PingMag’s top 5 standards wish-list…

Written by James Bowskill

1) Shoe Sizes

How hard can it be? From Frankfurt to Fukuoka, feet are pretty much the same the world over, yet there appears to be a grand total of 11 different systems worldwide, based on measurements ranging from the good old imperial inch to the mysterious Paris point. Whilst they all look innocent enough printed on the shoe box, there are in fact some devious formulae at work behind the scenes. Pay attention class, and repeat after me: One determines ones shoe size in the United Kingdom by taking the length of the last, measured in barleycorns, and subtracting a constant of 21.5.

four different shoe sizes in a shop in Shibuya: English, Continental European, Japanese and American

PingMag Standard Recommendation [PiSR 0001]: The “mondopoint” for its pseudo-italian style.

2) Emergency Service Numbers

Be it putting out your flaming tempura, rescuing next door’s chihuahua or catching those infamous Japanese underwear thieves, there are times when we need help from the emergency services. But the question isn’t who you gonna call, it’s what’s the bloody number? Watch enough American Reality TV, and you’ll have 911 etched on your brain, whereas the Australians have been brought up with 000. Here in Japan it’s 110 for police, and 119 for fire and ambulance, whereas most Europeans go for 112. Cool-headed South Africans in medical emergencies somehow manage to remember 10177!

Know the emergency number of the country you are in?

PingMag Standard Recommendation [PiSR 0002]: The British “999” for its maxed-out panic value.

3) Cups of Coffee

So what’s your poison then? Grande Latte? Cappuccino Classico? It’s bad enough queueing up on Monday morning to get your caffeine fix without the humiliation of taking an Italian for beginners lesson infront of the “barista”. Just when you think your pronunciation has earned you a gold star, the trick question sneaks in whilst you’re counting out loose change: “What size would you like?”. Flash of panic as you scan the board to find an endless matrix of grandes and talls, ventis, piccolos, and classicos, regulars, shorts and the elusive demitasse.

How big is your coffee?

PingMag Standard Recommendation [PiSR 0003]: Small. Medium. Large. Enough of the branding!

4) Memory Cards

Carefree were the days of film photography. Wherever you went, you could be sure of finding rolls of 35mm film, with little more to do than choose over 24 or 36 exposures. But then we all jumped on the digital bandwagon and a few years down the line we’ve enough formats to make the 80’s VHS Vs. Betamax wars look like a gentlemanly game of dominoes. So take a deep breath, and ponder the pros and cons between… PCMCIA , CompactFlash I and II, SmartMedia, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick Micro M2, Multimedia Card, Reduced Size Multimedia Card, MMC Micro Card, SD Card, miniSD Card, microSD Card and XD-Picture Card.

Memory cards! What size? What price?

PingMag Standard Recommendation [PiSR 0004]: We’ll follow market trends and back SD as the one to win.

5) Electricity

We have Harvey Hubbell the 2nd to thank for inventing and patenting the electrical plug and socket in 1904. This was followed by a century of electrocution-preventing developments resulting in today’s global pick and mix of 13 plugs, 8 voltages 2 frequencies and 7 wire colours. As every techno tourist in Akihabara knows to their gadget-buying cost, electrical appliances aren’t compatible the world over.

Israeli 3-pin plug spotted on Ehud Rosenberg’s Flickr set Thanks a lot!

PingMag Standard Recommendation [PiSR 0005]: Type H (Israeli 3-pin) plug for its cheeky little face.

Please let us know if you can think of some more things for our wish-list in the comments! Thanks!

14 Comments

  1. These eletricity plugs in Brazil are a problem! :p Here the police number is 190, to the fireman is 193 and well… there are a lot of numbers! Arghhhh! So much…

    Posted by: Eriksen on April 19th, 2006 at 12:04 am

  2. Someone once noted that the one & only true int’al standard for power plug was… the car cigarette lighter socket! Why can’t we have this for a start ?

    Posted by: YGG on April 19th, 2006 at 2:23 am

  3. Interesting. I was reading a text by Steven Pinker in which he claimed “There is no good reason for people to drive on the right side of the road as opposed to the left side, or vice versa, but there is every reason for people to drive on the same side.” So the conformity of choice within each culture is the important thing. I personally don’t mind the little differences. How boring the world would be if everything was the same!

    Posted by: Christoph on April 19th, 2006 at 4:04 am

  4. batteries and chargers? practically, whenever i need to travel around, i’d at least have to bring my : mobile charger, portable computer charger, digital camera charger, video cam charger, ipod charger, you name it….

    Posted by: Gisela on April 19th, 2006 at 1:42 pm

  5. oh! good point! chargers are really a pain in the neck!

    Posted by: Uleshka on April 19th, 2006 at 4:57 pm

  6. I always hate that there are so many types of inkjet printer cartidges - even when the manufacturer is the same!!!! Oh, and the big one: Metric vs. Imperial!

    Posted by: James on April 19th, 2006 at 5:48 pm

  7. [...] PingMag. esp. The real life standards wish list. [...]

    Posted by: (Several things) this week #2 on April 19th, 2006 at 7:14 pm

  8. I totally agree with everything, specially the shoe sizes. when I go purchase shoes, sometimes the sizes don’t fit after buying them - really bad in my case.

    Posted by: aaron on April 19th, 2006 at 8:54 pm

  9. Now that’s a neat list of things to be standardized, right. But, where’s #1 black man, the metric versus imperial system problem.

    Posted by: Jens Meiert on April 19th, 2006 at 9:31 pm

  10. Ahhhh…if only recipe/food measurements were standard. Cooks across the world would be so happy. I guess we’ll just have to make do with the Fruit Converter for now.

    http://www.dazbert.co.uk/sites/fruit/index.php

    Posted by: Kung Foodie on April 20th, 2006 at 2:47 am

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