Naturally Occurring Standards

An anonymous reader writes "The phrase 'de facto standard' can denote anything from proprietary tyranny to a healthy, vibrant, market. What makes a standard viable without the formal blessing of a standards organization? Should you use such informal standards, or ignore them?"

I'm beginning to wonder if...

[IronChefMorimoto]

...there's a naturally occurring standard at Slashdot that demands that at least one story like this gets posted a day.

Meanwhile, my story submission about monkeys that play cards on the Internet gets rejected. F*ckers.

IronChefMorimoto

Re:True standards qualify both ways

[pilgrim23]

BSOD -Ultimate standard

think about it...

[Anonymous Coward]

The great thing about standards is there are so many of them to choose from.

Re:Remember ...

[_Sprocket_]

BRIAN:
Look. You've got it all wrong. You don't need to follow me. You don't need to follow anybody! You've got to think for yourselves. You're all individuals!

FOLLOWERS:
Yes, we're all individuals!

BRIAN:
You're all different!

FOLLOWERS:
Yes, we are all different!

DENNIS:
I'm not.

Aye fink day FACTO standadz R stoopit

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

So til dey pubLish a off,ishul standad deesyded bai cummiti 4 inglish mai ritin wil luk laik dis

Standard Gauge

[N3Bruce]

To paraphrase the old joke, the Solid Rocket Boosters on the Space Shuttle are limited to the diameter they are because of the finite diameter of the rail tunnels between the Morton-Thiokol plant in Nevada and the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The railcars which carry the SRB segments are all on carriages which have trucks with the wheels exactly 55 inches apart, which is known as Standard Gauge in railroad lingo.

Why was this figure chosen?

Early railcars derived their design from mining cars which rode on rails inside mines before the locomotive was invented. For convenience, the railroads adopted their standard gauge very close to this common pre-railroad standard.

Why were the carts made with this width between the wheels?

The early mining carts were adapted from cargo wagons which travelled on the old Roman roads in Europe, which had developed deep ruts over the centuries. The distance between the wheels was selected so the wheels rode in the center of these ruts to avoid breaking an axle frequently?

Why did the Roman roads have their ruts at this distance from each other?

The distance between the center of the ruts on the old Roman roads was a function of the distance between the wheels of the old Roman Charriots.

Why did the Romans select the wheel spacing they did?

The old Roman charriots were designed so that a pair of horses could pull them. The track had to be wide enough to accomodate the hind quarters of two horses.

So there you have it, the design of the Space Shuttle is constrained by a couple of horses' asses!

Re:I guess it depends on what you mean...

[Chemisor]

> With tabs, we can all set our editors to use the
> amount of visual space that is most pleasing to us.

Oh, the horror! Thou shalt not mess with the holy 8-space tabs! It's heresy!