Why World different?

[Kaustubh G Sharma]

Its really hard to live in a world, which is very different country by country. Not only there's color, race, language or cast different. But when you move to different countries you'll found that kilo change to lbs. kilometer to miles, left hand drive to right hand, even you don't find similar plugs and sockets.. Why they did this to us??? don't we have enough different to live with ???

[Ulf Dittmer]

Who do you imagine is "they"?

[Hussein Baghdadi]

Imagine a world with only one color, one cars type, one music note, one football team and one language.
Differences enrich the world we live in.

[Kaustubh G Sharma]

Ulf Dittmer wrote:Who do you imagine is "they"?

No Idea Ulf

[Kaustubh G Sharma]

Hussein Baghdadi wrote:Imagine a world with only one color, one cars type, one music note, one football team and one language.
Differences enrich the world we live in.

Well that would be really bad.. customization is not the problem, but you totally change something that really bad. like changing socket size or car drive side or unit doesn't make any sense to me...

[Tim Holloway]

Kaustubh G Sharma wrote:

Hussein Baghdadi wrote:Imagine a world with only one color, one cars type, one music note, one football team and one language.
Differences enrich the world we live in.

Well that would be really bad.. customization is not the problem, but you totally change something that really bad. like changing socket size or car drive side or unit doesn't make any sense to me...

It's good for the economy. I have both US and metric wrenches, for example. Twice the number of toolmakers employed!

Seriously, making sense isn't something humans do. If you want to make sense of it, consider that for thousands of years, human beings lived in isolated communities. When a person made a funny joke in Persia and it became a byword, it was not likely to propagate to Kenya. Of such things are language divergences made. Differences in automobiles and electric sockets (or even what names we call electrical sockets) are due in large part to the fact that they emerged from experimental periods where people were just trying to get anything to work at all, and these are just the ones that got accepted out of the winners. Different locales usually picked winners from somewhere nearby. Or in the case of some of the international standards, from whichever country happened to be dominant when the standard was adopted.

Different breads and beverages are greatly dependent on local climate. Neither wheat nor rice nor any cold-weather grain grow commercially in the region where I live, but maize can literally grow up from the weeds. Likewise people are shaped by where they live.

It may make life more complex, but at the same time, a crushing uniformity blinds one to other alternatives. And when the very world itself is mutable, failure to consider alternatives can be fatal.

[Maneesh Godbole]

Tim Holloway wrote: When a person made a funny joke in Persia and it became a byword, it was not likely to propagate to Kenya.

Not if one believes Multiple discovery Great minds think alike and what not.

[Steve Luke]

Tim Holloway wrote:...It may make life more complex, but at the same time, a crushing uniformity blinds one to other alternatives. And when the very world itself is mutable, failure to consider alternatives can be fatal.

I don't buy it. Monopolies are the best of human endeavors. Microsoft Rules!

[Henry Wong]

Kaustubh G Sharma wrote:Its really hard to live in a world, which is very different country by country. Not only there's color, race, language or cast different. But when you move to different countries you'll found that kilo change to lbs. kilometer to miles, left hand drive to right hand, even you don't find similar plugs and sockets.. Why they did this to us??? don't we have enough different to live with ???

Of the four you named, I think that the first two mostly affects Americans. The US is one of the few remaining countries (and I think the only large country) still on the english system -- heck, even England is on the metric system. So, yeah, it does slow me down in conversations all the time -- and stuff like the cost of gas, which is dependent both the difference in currency and the difference between the liter and the gallon, is kinda impossible to compare without using a pen and paper.

All electronics seems to run on both 110V and 220V, so that is not a concern anymore. I do, however, have a lot of adapters for the different socket formats though.

Henry

[Matthew Brown]

Henry Wong wrote:heck, even England is on the metric system.

We're a bit inconsistent about it, though. Road distances and speed limits use miles rather than kilometres. I'd buy things, and weigh stuff for cooking, using kilograms but I'd still give my weight in pounds and my height in feet. Weather forecasts use Celsius but plenty of people think in Fahrenheit.

And most importantly, we still drink in pints!

[Matthew Brown]

Hussein Baghdadi wrote:Imagine a world with only ... one football team

I can definitely see an obvious problem with that one.

[Kaustubh G Sharma]

What I want to say is- pick the best and easy from it and generalize it. Better to avoid confusion. Also on currency why they give more priority to some and neglected other. If you have dollar or pound you'll shop anywhere, while I can't shop with other currency, I need to convert it into dollar or pound. IMHO currency must be common everywhere/ oil price do not have huge difference from country to country.. food, culture people can be different .. no issue about it

[Kaustubh G Sharma]

Matthew Brown wrote:

Hussein Baghdadi wrote:Imagine a world with only ... one football team

I can definitely see an obvious problem with that one.

not going to buy that match for sure :P

[Henry Wong]

Matthew Brown wrote:
And most importantly, we still drink in pints!

And the pints are different between the US and England, which my British friends keeps complaining about. I don't have a problem with it though -- nothing wrong with a "super-sized" pint of beer when I am in England...

Henry

[Hussein Baghdadi]

Kaustubh G Sharma wrote:What I want to say is- pick the best and easy from it and generalize it. Better to avoid confusion. Also on currency why they give more priority to some and neglected other. If you have dollar or pound you'll shop anywhere, while I can't shop with other currency, I need to convert it into dollar or pound. IMHO currency must be common everywhere/ oil price do not have huge difference from country to country.. food, culture people can be different .. no issue about it

Bitcoin to the rescue?

[Kaustubh G Sharma]

In 'zeitgeist the movie' they show that soon Mexico, USA and Canada unite as a country and they have common curreny and system. Similar way some Asian and european countries follow the same lead ...

[Martin Vashko]

Henry Wong wrote: and stuff like the cost of gas, which is dependent both the difference in currency and the difference between the liter and the gallon, is kinda impossible to compare without using a pen and paper.

The most interesting is gas consumption -- measured either as "distance per quantity" or as "quantity per distance". Apparently people think about transportation in vastly different means.

[Henry Wong]

Hussein Baghdadi wrote:

Kaustubh G Sharma wrote:What I want to say is- pick the best and easy from it and generalize it. Better to avoid confusion. Also on currency why they give more priority to some and neglected other. If you have dollar or pound you'll shop anywhere, while I can't shop with other currency, I need to convert it into dollar or pound. IMHO currency must be common everywhere/ oil price do not have huge difference from country to country.. food, culture people can be different .. no issue about it

Bitcoin to the rescue?

Keep in mind that the issue isn't the conversion. The issue is the cost to do the conversion. If I want to feel like there is only one currency today, I can just use credit cards (they work everywhere). These days, all bank credit cards seems to charge a 3% fee to do the conversion -- it feels like collusion to me.

Henry

[Kaustubh G Sharma]

Henry Wong wrote:

Hussein Baghdadi wrote:

Kaustubh G Sharma wrote:What I want to say is- pick the best and easy from it and generalize it. Better to avoid confusion. Also on currency why they give more priority to some and neglected other. If you have dollar or pound you'll shop anywhere, while I can't shop with other currency, I need to convert it into dollar or pound. IMHO currency must be common everywhere/ oil price do not have huge difference from country to country.. food, culture people can be different .. no issue about it

Bitcoin to the rescue?

Keep in mind that the issue isn't the conversion. The issue is the cost to do the conversion. If I want to feel like there is only one currency today, I can just use credit cards (they work everywhere). These days, all bank credit cards seems to charge a 3% fee to do the conversion -- it feels like collusion to me.

Henry

Well Henry Someone design this system and we're using it, that person definitely put advantages on his side, but it is unfair to other part of world. If smoking weed is crime in US it might be legal to some countries. Means if police caught you smoking weed in US, you'll become criminal, but in some country its cool and legal to do that... (smoking in injures to health :P and don' try this in US)

[Tim Holloway]

Maneesh Godbole wrote:

Tim Holloway wrote: When a person made a funny joke in Persia and it became a byword, it was not likely to propagate to Kenya.

Not if one believes Multiple discovery Great minds think alike and what not.

"Alike" isn't always "identical", however!

Matthew Brown wrote:


Henry Wong wrote:heck, even England is on the metric system.



We're a bit inconsistent about it, though. Road distances and speed limits use miles rather than kilometres. I'd buy things, and weigh stuff for cooking, using kilograms but I'd still give my weight in pounds and my height in feet. Weather forecasts use Celsius but plenty of people think in Fahrenheit.

And most importantly, we still drink in pints!

And weigh people in stone! Even Americans don't do that!

[Tim Holloway]

Kaustubh G Sharma wrote:What I want to say is- pick the best and easy from it and generalize it. Better to avoid confusion. Also on currency why they give more priority to some and neglected other. If you have dollar or pound you'll shop anywhere, while I can't shop with other currency, I need to convert it into dollar or pound. IMHO currency must be common everywhere/ oil price do not have huge difference from country to country.. food, culture people can be different .. no issue about it

Because the best is the way we (insert your country name here) do it! What do you mean nobody else uses lakhs and crores?

Certain currencies do carry weight. That's generally because they are relatively stable while still being freely tradeable (unlike, save Soviet Union rubles). It helps if it has a big stable country or something backing it, since currency stability tends to depend on the stability of the financial institutions that deal in it.

As it happens, the Euro was intended to do some of what you are so keen on. England, however, opted out, and they're a major currency that they didn't want being affected by outside influences. On the flip side, the recent troubles with Greece have shown the downside of a common currency when all of the participants don't have common circumstances.

Going the next step and doing something like combining the Dollar and Euro is unlikely. The USA has a whole host of tinfoil-hat people who claim that there's a global "World Order" conspiracy out to make America less Free and take away their guns. Currency control is just one more encroachment to them. But then, they also claim that the government is keeping track of where they make their phone calls from.

[Steve Luke]

Kaustubh G Sharma wrote:What I want to say is- pick the best and easy from it and generalize it. Better to avoid confusion.

As has been said, these things developed in isolation, independently. Groups/countries grew to use one standard or another. Now that we are no longer isolated it might make sense to unify things into a single standard, but (1) which standard? Should the world do it your way or should you do it someone else's way? This matters on the local scale because (2) it costs money to change standards, and noone wants to be the one to spend that money. And the cost can be huge. Not to mention that (3) when you change to a different standard you will (temporarily at least) increase confusion in the people who grew up and learned in the first system. So you will have a bunch of people resistant to the change because it will increase confusion and cost more money, and the only benefit being some other people will be less confused. So there is not really a good reason politically to push for a universal standard (on just about anything).

Kaustubh G Sharma wrote:Also on currency why they give more priority to some and neglected other.

Noone has more priority than anther. They might have different values. Which is fine, reflecting the national economies of the system.

Kaustubh G Sharma wrote:If you have dollar or pound you'll shop anywhere, while I can't shop with other currency, I need to convert it into dollar or pound. IMHO currency must be common everywhere/ oil price do not have huge difference from country to country..

Imagine a world were the cost of living in Kenya was the same as the cost of living in New York City. That would be a great way to starve a bunch of people whose livelihood does not stand on the trading of money. How would a small family farmer in a remote nation be able to afford milk when the cost is set by the same currency value in Tokyo? If the price of milk was deflated to match local economy then there would be a purchase-boom in the poor local communities to sell at a higher price in a more advanced economy. The market would explode and the cost would increase anyway. But keeping local currencies the prices and costs remain manageable to the local economies and the conversion rates prevent exports like that from being effective.

Also, the cost of oil and other commodities in a given country often is more related to national policy (trading partners and subsidies). Are you suggesting that there should be one 'standard policy' for every country related to anything which affects economies - which is basically everything? If so, which country do you think you should relieve your national sovereignty to?

[Ulf Dittmer]

Kaustubh G Sharma wrote:IMHO currency must be common everywhere/

<sarcasm>Yes, we're just seeing how well that works here in Europe.</sarcasm>

[Henry Wong]

Ulf Dittmer wrote:

Kaustubh G Sharma wrote:IMHO currency must be common everywhere/

<sarcasm>Yes, we're just seeing how well that works here in Europe.</sarcasm>

And I still have some Deutsche Marks and Greek Drachmas (and maybe even a few French Francs) sitting in storage, awaiting for their return ...

Henry

[fred rosenberger]

Kaustubh G Sharma wrote:Wpick the best and easy from it and generalize it.

Who gets to decide what is "best"? American manufacturers are going to say theirs is the best, European will say theirs is, etc. Remember Betamax? How about HD-DVDs? Heck, we still have slotted screws, even though Phillips heads are clearly better from a user point, but I'm sure manufacturers will tell you slotted are easier/better.

And let's not forget the huge financial cost to switch. How much would it cost every household in the U.S. to switch to 220v - replacing outlets, wiring, breakers...So it would be best for the U.S. if everyone else switched to what we use, but worst for them.

I don't think there is an easy answer to what is "best". It is too subjective.

[Matthew Brown]

fred rosenberger wrote:Heck, we still have slotted screws, even though Phillips heads are clearly better from a user point, but I'm sure manufacturers will tell you slotted are easier/better.

Off topic...is that really true? I have problems with Phillips heads a lot more often than slotted ones (usually in terms of the edges wearing off the screw making it impossible to unscrew). And you're much more likely to be able to improvise a slotted screwdriver if you don't have one to hand.

[Tim Holloway]

Matthew Brown wrote:

fred rosenberger wrote:Heck, we still have slotted screws, even though Phillips heads are clearly better from a user point, but I'm sure manufacturers will tell you slotted are easier/better.

Off topic...is that really true? I have problems with Phillips heads a lot more often than slotted ones (usually in terms of the edges wearing off the screw making it impossible to unscrew). And you're much more likely to be able to improvise a slotted screwdriver if you don't have one to hand.

Phillips heads were originally designed for Cadillacs factories and fast assembly. The crosspoint slot keeps the driver from slipping off-center while turning and its taper is designed so that when the screw torques into place, the driver pops out of the screw, preventing over-tightening.

One thing I've learned about Phillips screws is that they're actually more likely to strip the slot when turned by hand than if you use a power driver.

I forget the virtues of straight slots beyond what is mentioned, except that they do find preferential treatment in woodworking. And all of my electrical plates. I suppose that it's easier to clean gunk out of a straight slot than a Phillips pit.

Beyond that, we have square slots for drywall, Torx screws thanks to Apple Computer, and an increasingly complex array of tips used mostly for security purposes.

[fred rosenberger]

Matthew Brown wrote:Off topic...is that really true? I have problems with Phillips heads a lot more often than slotted ones

Actually, you have proved my larger point here. What is best for me is not the best for you.

I have issues with slotted screws in that while using a power driver, the bit works its way off-center, and eventually pops out of the slot. If I am doing woodworking, the screwdriver then digs a large gash in the wood.

[Jayesh A Lalwani]

I don't know why standard hex screws are not more popular for home use. Almost every "assembly required" product uses hex screws nowdays, and they even provide a hex keys along with the other parts. It's nearly impossible to strip a hex screw, and you can even make the key fit into the screw by feel. However, it seems like the hex screw sizes is not standardized. Also, the screwdriver sets that you get at Home Depot/Lowe's don't come with hex bits. So, I have to keep the hex key of each product that I buy. SOme of them are the same size, but not all of them are. So, eveytime, I have to try out couple of them till I get the right one.

[Tim Holloway]

The downside of hex-slot fasteners is that it's very easy to over-torque them. Most hex keys, if you'll notice, are "L"-shaped, which gives them extra leverage.

I've got several sets of loose keys from sets and from consumer purchases. What would work better would be one of those "Swiss Army" keysets or at least a keyring. But I'm not going to buy even more keys.

What's really been murder for me is the screws in PC cases. There are typically 2 sizes of hex-headed Phillips screws, one for the case and one for the PC cards. A hexdriver actually is easier to use than a Phillips driver for these critters, and I can usually find a driver for the case screws. The PC card screws appear to be an odd size, though, and I can never find a hexdriver for them when I want it.

[Jayesh A Lalwani]

Tim Holloway wrote:The downside of hex-slot fasteners is that it's very easy to over-torque them. Most hex keys, if you'll notice, are "L"-shaped, which gives them extra leverage.

Right, the L shape provides extra leverage. So, it is easy to screw them in, but can cause overtightening. However can't they make hex shaped attachments for screwdrivers. I haven't seen a set of hex shaped bits. Maybe, I haven't looked at the right place. I think my ratcheting screwdriver set has one hex shaped bit but it doesn't fit any of the hex slot screws. It has couple of star shaped bits, but I have never seen a star shaped screw.

[Steve Luke]

I work on non-computer hardware all the time. These usually use hex screws in two different systems (metric and imperial, of course). I do have a set of tips which work on drills, but they aren't very common. I have another set which are used for an interchangeable screw driver, and these bits are a combination of hex and stars which fit the standard and imperial sizes (respectively) very nicely.

But they are far from standard. I currently work on a system that requires something on the order of 18 different sized hex wrenches (intermixed imperial and standard) and a small flat head driver. Not all the hex sizes come from the 'normal' sets of wrenches you can get at Home Depot, so I have 3 wrenches I had to pull from other sets (or in one case, yank from a microscope repair kit).

[Pat Farrell]

Kaustubh G Sharma wrote: kilo change to lbs. kilometer to miles

Is there any other country in the world, other than the US, that still uses the arcane and stupid Imperial measurements?

I find it interesting that most US industry has converted to Metric, but the public has rejected the idea.

Metric nuts and bolts have been used on most imported cars and motorcycles for decades. I did work on a friend's 1974 Volvo that had a mix of metric and imperial nuts and bolts -- most strange.

Electrical plugs are different because they were standardized by country back 100+ years ago. Back then, most people spent their entire lives within 20 miles of where they were born, so a "nation" was a huge and appropriate place to standardize. Japan has two separate electrical systems, one 50 hz and the other 60hz.

[Tim Holloway]

Jayesh A Lalwani wrote:

Tim Holloway wrote:The downside of hex-slot fasteners is that it's very easy to over-torque them. Most hex keys, if you'll notice, are "L"-shaped, which gives them extra leverage.

Right, the L shape provides extra leverage. So, it is easy to screw them in, but can cause overtightening. However can't they make hex shaped attachments for screwdrivers. I haven't seen a set of hex shaped bits. Maybe, I haven't looked at the right place. I think my ratcheting screwdriver set has one hex shaped bit but it doesn't fit any of the hex slot screws. It has couple of star shaped bits, but I have never seen a star shaped screw.

I have a Maytag dishwasher. It has a cheap flimsy door latch that breaks about every 3 months. I ordered several of them last time because while the latch is only $4.50, minimum shipping is $10. To replace the latch, I have to remove the door, which is secured with hollow 6-point star screws. The dish racks rusted out prematurely as well.

I do have some hex driver bits. I picked up 2 or 3 of these catch-all bit sets that they like to dump in the discount bin at the local hardware store.

[Henry Wong]

Four years ago, I had to do a field replacement for my company. It was a one-off, software upgrade and parts replacement, weekend field replacement -- and since I was the nearest engineer, I got chosen to do it.

That was the first time that I had to use a T25 Torx Screwdriver. And I have never used that screwdriver since.

Henry

[Andrew Monkhouse]

Torx screw in a hard drive:



From Wikipedia entry on Torx screws

[Henry Wong]

Forgot to mention, the screwdriver had to go through (undocumented) holes in the front grill, and pass some internal components, to get to, and release a couple of captive screws. The screwdriver had to be extra long, could not be one of those with replaceable heads (or else it would not fit through the small holes). In other words, the T25 is my only Torx screwdriver.

Henry

[Jayesh A Lalwani]

Wouldn't the screw fall off on the way out?

[Henry Wong]

Jayesh A Lalwani wrote:Wouldn't the screw fall off on the way out?

It was a captive screw -- it actually doesn't come all the way out. It just needs to come out enough to disconnect the front grill from the back portion of the unit (so the front part can be removed).... Basically, the screw is held by the grill, in some sort of slot, with a spring. It can only be unscrewed from the back unit. After that, further counterclockwise turns won't accomplish anything. It will just spin in that slot.

Henry

[Kaustubh G Sharma]

Last year I bought an HP laptop, which creating problems for me, it was in warranty so I file a complaint for same. But due to some reason I need to fly for some work in South Africa and it was left unrepairable, when I ask HP for fix it there, they told me they can't fix it, because they don't provide service of particular my laptop model. I am loosing it's warranty time, so that I ask them to extend the warranty period they gave me same answer that they won't provide warranty extension for same. When I came back to home and ask HP for repair, they hold me for reason that system in out of warranty so they can't help me out... well after a year fight now system is finally repair, but now I can't extend warranty for future So whom can you blame now for it?? HP is one of the largest firm on a global level, but they have different product countrywise. May be all companies do the same thing....