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World Standards Day 2005 187

Posted by Zonk from the if-you-want-nerdier-i-don't-know-what-to-tell-you dept.
ewg writes "Today, 2005-10-14, is World Standards Day as celebrated by the IEC, ISO, and ITU. The press release emphasizes the benefits of safety standards, but the interoperability is the true prize for information systems. How many sets of country codes and date formats do we need?" From the release: "International Standards accommodate people's desire to live in a safer, more secure world by providing a valuable safety net. 'Standards for a safer world' is the theme of the message signed by the leaders of the three principal international standardization organizations to mark World Standards Day 2005. Standards developed at the international level through IEC, ISO and ITU are available for use at the national and regional levels to meet the needs of society at large, the market and government regulators," the three leaders point out. They see standards as vital in disseminating best practices and new technologies, while avoiding new barriers to trade that national security and safety regulations may create."
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World Standards Day 2005 More

World Standards Day 2005

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  • Okay, here's a standard I'd like to see: (Score:5, Insightful)

    by yagu ( 721525 ) * <yayagu.gmail@com> on Friday October 14, 2005 @11:21PM (#13795805) Journal

    One of my biggest beefs in non-standard behavior (since this article talks about the safety benefits of standards) is highway construction and layout. I could go on about bizarre practices for signage, etc., but I'll just take a couple:

    1. Warning signage: I currently live in Washington state and they have the MOST bizarre ways for warning of construction and other hazards on their highways. I literally have come around a blind curve where a sign says "Flagger Ahead" and I almost hit some construction worker with his "SLOW" sign. Literally not enough warning to slow down without almost slamming on one's brakes.

      Another example was in Bellevue, WA, and I'm not making this up. There was a line of cones angling out from the curb, closing off a lane around construction of a new high-rise. Nestled behind those cones in the "dead zone" of the closed off lane was one of those generator run highway signs that said, "Right Lane Closed Ahead"! Wow! I wished for my digital camera.

      On the other hand, there is the state of Illinois where I also lived for a long time. Their warning practices are amazing. I one time was way north of Peoria driving south on the interstate, and I saw signs warning of "Construction Ahead, 40 miles"! It may seem ludicrous, but I at least had it in my consciousness I would expect delays and construction, obviously with plenty of time. I wouldn't say THAT would have to be the standard, but in WA there seem to be none.

    2. Freeways: notably, the decision to put merging ramps from the left hand side. Again, I'll cite Bellevue WA. They recently redid their I405 and N.E. 4th street interchange and, yep, the northbound merge onto an HOV lane no less now comes in from the left! (It used to come in from the right, go figure.) Until then I'd sort of figured left side ramps were artifacts and had been deemed dangerous and obsolete.

    I could go on, but I wonder how many accidents and deaths could be prevented on our highway systems if there were more sane and consistently applied standards. (And don't even get me started about Europe where they've got ALL of their cars on the wrong side of the road going the wrong way! (kidding))

    • What I don't understand is why, in all countries, drivers face each other head-on. If you drive on the right side of the road and left side of the car or right side of the car and left side of the road, when driving toward each other, the drivers are always facing each other - so that in a head-on collision, the most possible damage would be done to the drivers. Why? Wouldn't it be safer to have them drive on the right side of the car and the right side of the road or left side of car and road so that you p
      • You have better visibility around a corner from near the center of the road, therefore, you sit as close to the center of the road as possible. That's the reason I always heard, anyway. I guess it was more of an issue in the days of 2-lane windy roads that went up, down, and around hills, back before they started just pulverizing the hills and paving 4+ lanes through the middle.

      • In Sweden they actually both drove on the left and sat on the left, but they switched to driving on the right.

        There used to be a joke about this. Changing the side of road to drive on was quite radical so they wanted to do it gradually. Trucks should switch first and cars half a year later...

      • The reason goes back to the days of knights on horseback. If you pass on the right, you are in a bad position to attack people. It was therefore a simple matter of 'good form'. At least that's what history lessons tell me, YMMV.

        As for why some countries now pass on the left, I don't have a clue.
        • Here's the version I heard:

          Most people are right-handed, meaning that they'd wear a sword on their left side, so that if they needed it, they could reach across and pull it out of its scabbard (there's no way you can pull a sword out on the same side).

          Therefore, people used to ride on the left, so that if for whatever reason you needed to attack the person coming towards you, you could reach across to your left, yank out your sword, and then swipe at the assailant on your right.

          Therefore, the custom was to
          • Therefore, people used to ride on the left, so that if for whatever reason you needed to attack the person coming towards you, you could reach across to your left, yank out your sword, and then swipe at the assailant on your right.

            OTOH if you had an Ox cart (or drove a carriage or whatever) you normally held the reins in your right (because most people are right handed) and the whip in your left. So if you met someone else driving in the other direction it was much easier to move to the right to let him

      • Well, in one system for coordinating traffic I made up, the slow lanes would be in the middle to reduce the speed between cars in opposing lanes. I guess that system would only work in highways through the desert.

        Now back to the question on which side of the car to sit, for the British custom of steering on the right side, it is often said this is so that drivers of carriages could attack each other better with the sword.

        I suppose steering on the left then must be better for knightly jousting with the lance
    • "Construction Ahead, 40 miles"!

      Usually that means that at some point in the next 40 miles you could find some or all of it under construction.
    • And my favurite is all those road signs that almost always are written in english with no picture in the US. Most of the time they are OK, but sometimes it's just what the heck do they mean...

      Maybe using pictures on the warning signs [www.vv.se] is too simple? My favourite is this warning for a quay [www.vv.se]. The most notably that I have seen is the "Right lane must turn right" and similar small signs often almost too late. I would really like the use of graphical lane information signs like the following: lane information be [www.vv.se]

      • all those road signs that almost always are written in english with no picture in the US. Most of the time they are OK, but sometimes it's just what the heck do they mean...

        Maybe using pictures on the warning signs is too simple?

        Maybe some of the pictures are difficult to decipher, or are ambiguous, and plain English words aren't (or are less so)?
        For example, from the page to pointed to, what does this sign [www.vv.se] mean?
        Or this one [www.vv.se]?
        Or this one [www.vv.se]?
        And I assume that these [www.vv.se] two signs [www.vv.se] have something to do with simple str

        • We have driving school over here in Europe where you learn what these signs mean. Actually, you already learn it in elementary school, but you're only required to know this for your driving license. Once you know the street signs, the information carries really fast and unambiguous.
          As for the questions you asked:
          This [www.vv.se] means "you have priority at the next crossing"
          This [www.vv.se] is the generic "Attention!" sign.
          These [www.vv.se] are distance markers indicating a railroad crossing at 150m, 100m and 50m respectively, if I recall th
    • I almost hit some construction worker with his "SLOW" sign

      Look into getting the 'personal' variant of this [wikipedia.org]. A certain percentage of drivers slaughter a number of construction workers every year. Be sure you can survive the consequences reasonably whole.

      Wow! I wished for my digital camera.

      Your expectations of construction crews are out of phase with the reality of ex-cons and 'illegal immigrant' day workers that may not have intended to return to the site in the morning. Factor this into your driving.

      Anot

    • "Construction Ahead, 40 miles"!

      About 15 years ago, I was driving from Brisbane to Sydney one rainy night. All the way from the NSW border, I kept coming across warning signs saying "Roadworks Ahead - 5km", "Roadworks Ahead - 2km", "Roadworks Ahead - 1km", "Roadworks Ahead" - only to find the "roadworks" was a small pothole that had been filled in the day before.

      Lulled into a false sense of security by this, and driving in the rain at 110kph, I saw a little sign by the side of the road on a blind corner sa


    • > On the other hand, there is the state of Illinois where I also lived for a long time.
      > Their warning practices are amazing. I one time was way north of Peoria driving south on
      > the interstate, and I saw signs warning of "Construction Ahead, 40 miles"!

      Speaking of standards, the rest of the world has been metric for quite some time.
    • The best one I ever saw was while driving into Missouri on I-44 where the flashing highway warning sign read:

      Construction Zone
      Next 14 Miles
      Prepare to Be Annoyed

  • Riiiiiighht (Score:5, Funny)

    by Qubit ( 100461 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @11:24PM (#13795818) Homepage Journal
    World standards day is today, the 14th. Posted on..

    ...the 15th.

    Maybe we need some new standards?
    • " World standards day is today, the 14th. Posted on.. ...the 15th."

      Remember, the IEC, ISO, and ITU were all in on this. No doubt someone proposed this date back in January or February and it took them until today to agree on it.

  • Remember... (Score:5, Funny)

    by FatRatBastard ( 7583 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @11:26PM (#13795822) Homepage
    ... all replies in this thread should be in Esperanto!

  • How many country codes are needed? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 14, 2005 @11:26PM (#13795823)
    .. er, one for each country.

    The date formats annoy me quite often e.g. 13/4/2005 compared to 4/13/2005. Please use 2005-4-13 as it is less confusing.

    • Please use 2005-4-13 as it is less confusing.

      What's wrong with using "April 13, 2005", "13 Apr 2005", etc.? Very few uses (e.g., sorting) require numerical YYYYMMDD formats. If you're talking about, oh, the terrorist attacks on the US a couple years back, it's stupid to call them the 2001-09-11 attacks. They're the September 11 attacks. If you call them the 11 September 2001 attacks it would probably make sense (although people in the US would be more used to Month Day). But 2001-09-11 imparts a data-ness t
    • "Please use 2005-4-13 as it is less confusing."

      Good idea, but let's get it right while we're at it. It should be 2005-04-13, or it will be lexicographically ordered later than, for example, 2005-21-13.
    • - you mean like UK _and_ GB :-)
      ( .. er, one for each country.)
      Yes, and I am well aware that Great Britain and The United Kingdom have different meanings (at least to those in the Northern part of the island of Ireland). I am also not aware of England, Wales, and Scotland having widely used individual country codes.
      My address registered on eBay ends with GB (as I originally registered on the US site). The postage calculator on the UK site does not recognise this as being (essentially) the same as UK and
    • use 2005-04-13, and NOT 2005-4-13. That placeholder zero is useful so that files sort chronologically.

      thank you.

    • The date formats annoy me quite often e.g. 13/4/2005 compared to 4/13/2005. Please use 2005-4-13 as it is less confusing.

      I'd prefer the date format according to ISO 8601 instead of your own format. :-)

      • I second that! Every computer system I have used I set it to ISO8601. What makes me mad though is that I have to enter all these settings myself as Windows doesn't have a preset ISO8601 entry (what a shame!). Also, if you write software and stick strictly to ISO8601 parsing dates/times becomes a breeze! I always get mad when I run into a piece of code that utilizes not one, but SIX different date/time formats!
    • While we're on the subject of time, how about this 60 minutes per hour, 24 hours per day garbage? Lot of people love to bash the US for not switching to metric, especially after some, such as Britain, went thru the pain of switching from shillings and farthings and such to a decimal coinage system, but everyone is still using this obsolete Babylonian time system. What's with that? 100 seconds per minute, 100 minutes per hour, 10 hours per day [wikipedia.org]!

  • Bureaucracy (Score:2, Interesting)

    by redonion ( 843912 )
    This is just more bureaucracy. Why not do your best, instead of keeping to minimum standards? We need a society that tries to exceed, not just get by.

  • HD Video release of proceedings... (Score:3, Funny)

    by SalsaDot ( 772010 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @11:30PM (#13795834) Homepage
    HD Video release of the proceedings will be made available on both HD-DVD and Blue-ray format discs.

  • Baby Steps (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bob9113 ( 14996 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @11:35PM (#13795845) Homepage
    How many sets of country codes and date formats do we need?

    Speaking as someone who has worked on a few large scale, interdepartment information systems, I think a good first step would be to get it down to one per application.

  • ITU (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Bogtha ( 906264 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @11:39PM (#13795861)

    It's worth pointing out that the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is an agency of the United Nations. All the bluster about the EU "taking over" the Internet is actually a move to have the Internet administered in much the same way as the international telephone service.

    Bear that in mind before celebrating World Standards Day today and accusing the EU of being petulant children tomorrow.

    • All the bluster about the EU "taking over" the Internet is actually a move to have the Internet administered in much the same way as the international telephone service.

      Oh, good. I though there was something to worry abo&*$(3zz.. NO CARRIER

  • Let's not be too hasty here. (Score:5, Funny)

    by elgee ( 308600 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @11:42PM (#13795872)
    Thousands and thousands of programmers are employed trying to display the right time and date in internationally used programs. Make it too easy and those programmers will have to get real jobs.

  • Let's all hear it for the C99 standard! (Score:4, Funny)

    by QuantumG ( 50515 ) <qg@biodome.org> on Friday October 14, 2005 @11:42PM (#13795873) Homepage Journal
    Oh wait, no-one actually implements the full standard because it is completely disconnected from reality and outside the scope of the committee that drafted it.

    Let's all hear it for the C89 standard!

    That's better.
  • ... but when are they going to standardize on a standards organization?
  • Does the Day start when it's 12:00 AM GMT, or 00:00 Local Standard Time? Or Daylight Time I guess that would be right now? Does everyone celebrate it within the same 24 hour period, or do some countries get to enjoy the day before others?
    • Everyone should be on Zulu time (which is basically just GMT expressed in 24-hour format). When it's 0600 Zulu, we here in the central US should be asleep and should stay that way until about 1200 at the earliest. Personally, I wake at about 1330. When it's 1330 in the central US, it's 1330 in Britain, Russia, and even on islands on both sides of the IDL. No muss, no fuss. It just happens to be location-dependent whether it's dark or light at any given numeric time of day.

      From that point, it's a hop-skip-ju
      • " Everyone should be on Zulu time "

        Yeah, but then those darn Zuluians get to have New Years first, you just can't win.

        I think once we have colonies of people on the Moon and Mars, we'll switch to Zulu time or something derivative of that to avoid confusion when talking with people who aren't on earth.
      • Everyone should be on Zulu time (which is basically just GMT expressed in 24-hour format). [...] From that point, it's a hop-skip-jump to making everyone have the same date
        Everyone should be using UTC, which automatically puts everyone at the same date in the first place, thus eliminating the necessity of your various ambulatory mechanations.

  • Ah, those good old ISO standards (Score:5, Funny)

    by zymurgy_cat ( 627260 ) on Saturday October 15, 2005 @12:12AM (#13795935) Homepage
    True story.

    I had a customer that was very intent on becoming certified to the ISO-14000 standard, the "environmental" standard. Part of this includes writing 3 page procedures on how people should throw their aluminum cans in the recycle bin. Of course, one must track the 7 revisions to the document to comply with the standards.

    Anyway, they had a big push for this. They implemented training for everyone, wrote policies and procedures for just about every action (such as recycling cans), and so on and so forth. To motivate the troops and show off their pride, they had dozens and dozens of signs made up that they placed all around the plant, talking about ISO 140001.

    Yes, you read it correctly.

    A few weeks after they put the signs up, I pointed out the error. I wondered if ISO-140001 was an order of magnitude better than ISO-14001.

    On my next visit, they had painted over one of the zeros so that they were now promoting ISO-1400 1. I guess that's revision one of the 1400 standard.
  • In my country, International Standards Day occurs next week.

  • For IEC, ISO, and ITU (Score:3, Funny)

    by AthenianGadfly ( 798721 ) on Saturday October 15, 2005 @12:32AM (#13795980)
    While IEC, ISO, and ITU celebrate today, ANSI, IEEE, and ETSI - among others - are ramping up preparations for what they contend to be the correct day for the festivities, a yet-to-be-determined date in December.

  • That was a tad late (Score:3, Funny)

    by teslatug ( 543527 ) on Saturday October 15, 2005 @12:47AM (#13796012)
    Posted on Fri Oct 14, '05 11:20 PM, quickly we have 40 minutes to celebrate.
  • Time to include a standard rant about the Metric System. 10 is an ugly base for measurements. 12 or 60 would make a better base because they are nicely divisable by more simple integers. However, we would probably need to use a base 12 or base 60 counting system to take advantage of it. The Intelligent Designer should have given us 6 fingers on each hand.
    • However, we would probably need to use a base 12 or base 60 counting system to take advantage of it. The Intelligent Designer should have given us 6 fingers on each hand

      Well actually, I read about this in the Universal History of Numbers [amazon.com]. Counting in 12 and 60 is quite easy for people if you use your thumb to count each of the 3 segments of the other 4 fingers. If you use the 5 fingers of your other hand to keep track of each group of 12 - tada, you have 60. They theorize this is why the Babylonians
    • I propose using base 8 from now on. This would have many advatages, particularly with helping people work with hexadecimal and other computer related numbers. To facilitate this move I propose we cut off every person's index finger. That way people will get used to counting to 8.
  • Please remit CHF 93,00 to ISO for each person that will be celebrating World Standards Day.
  • ....is sub-standard.
  • I understand folks in Redmond celebrate this on the 17th instead...

  • --Please note-- (Score:4, Funny)

    by mcc ( 14761 ) <amcclure@purdue.edu> on Saturday October 15, 2005 @01:38AM (#13796107) Homepage
    Oct. 14 is World Standards Day except in the United States, where it is observed on October 17
  • This rates right up there with International Sanitation Day, World Election Monitoring Day, and Legal Precedent Appreciation Week in the excitement stakes.

    Don't get me wrong, I am fully aware of the importance of standards, but by their nature they are extremely boring things.

  • As at least some people around the world has noted there are a multitude of electrical standards, plugs sockets voltages and so on floating around.

    Now I have actually figured out that in the country where there are a multitude of responsibility write-offs (read USA) the electrical plugs are still "unsafe at any handling" (compare with Unsafe at any speed [amazon.com]) I have since figured out that the Underwriters Laboratories [ul.com] isn't doing a good enough job when they are checking the safety of our household utilities.

  • % grep [Ss]tandard /sys/games/lib/fortunes
    Multilevel standards are like onions. They're smelly and make you cry a lot. -Ron Natalie
    That's the nice thing about standards -- there's so many to choose from. -trb
    This is a full standard Kernighan & Ritchie C compiler.
    We don't need a standard; Kernighan & Ritchie completely defines the language.
    Is there no room for competition in the standards industry? -R. Hardin
    X is a temporary standard, like FORTRAN. - Andries van Dam
    Happiness is just gymnastics--and

  • It's surprising that the US has not chosen to celebrate World Standards Day on the 12th or something instead.

  • Wait. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Vegeta99 ( 219501 ) <rjlynn@gmai3.14l.com minus pi> on Saturday October 15, 2005 @03:30AM (#13796334)
    Is that 2005-10-14... or 10-14-2005? or 14-10-2005? or 14OCT2005?
  • Isn't it amazing that these three organizations were able to agree on today as the day to celebrate International Standards Day?
  • ...I'm going to celebrate World Standards Day today (15 October) instead.
  • Failed validation, 40 errors So here's a standards site, that doesn't follow standards. If I were blind, I'm sure I would be unable to read the page, or color-blind, or any other disability would make it difficult to read.
  • Ha. I guess Microsoft wasn't invited. ;)
  • Was it my standard or theirs?
  • Standards for a safer world? I like standards for making life easier. Good standards promote understanding, communication, and efficiency through simplicity. Safety is merely a secondary benefit, though danger seems to be the driving force behind the creation of many standards. Can't people see the world any other way except through the prism of what is safe and what isn't? What is it, 9/11? Is it that the people promoting this standards day think that stressing safety is the best way to get attention
  • Unfortunately, "standards" can be as much of a problem as a benefit. Many companies will view an industry standard as a method to obstruct competitors. If Company A can get their document format adopted as the "standard," they've got a built-in head start on everyone else who has to rework any existing products they have in the pipe to be "standards compliant."

    My former employer designated me a their rep to the ANSI T1 standards body back in the mid-90's when SONET was the hot thing. I entered with y
  • the 19th for ms windows, world standards hour 3:27 in cleveland, etc.

    it's 5-o'clock somewhere, and they have a different standard there for happy hour than we do.

    this message is patented in the US and the Azores, copyrighted in Italy, open-source in Belgium and Norway, and pirated everywhere else.

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