An open thread on standards

by liberal japonicus

Another ever so slightly focussed open thread, this time on standards, prompted by this article from Nature.The opening paragraph

In a strip published in 2011, cartoonist Randall Munroe pokes fun at people’s inability to develop a universal standard for, say, electrical outlets, printer-paper dimensions or TV remote-control signals. From 14 competing standards in the opening panel, the desire to create a ‘universal’ standard inevitably just adds one more to the stack (https://xkcd.com/927).

and the final two

This brings us back to the issue of data formatting, which — for some people — can be a bit of a bore. Swedlow says he can understand why not every biologist shares his passion for getting to grips with bioimaging file formats. “It’s not a very interesting problem,” he admits. Moore agrees. “Let’s be honest, when this whole topic disappears, that’s going to be a good thing.”

But not, perhaps, for Munroe’s page views. After a long conversation at the Francis Crick Institute, Jones has one final thing to share with Nature about the topic of bioimaging file formats. “Are you familiar with the xkcd comics?” he asks.

While my main thought is about discussing various standards and how we arrive at them, I'm also imagining making xkcd comics as a defacto standard for everything. So, your open thread-d talk about standards, getting them to match, or the lack thereof.

 

 

Comments

[JanieM]

Will just drop one item on the standards list for now and hopefully come back when I'm not hanging out at the grandkid's house. It's a nice, juicy topic:

How many ways have programmers found to hide the logoff icon on a web page? Can't we please just have it in, let's say, the top right corner? In plain sight? Always?

That is all.

*****

Well, no, that is not all. Since I'm talking about programmers (which is what we used to be called when I started out my career as one), I will express my permanent and implacable outrage at the stupidest thing ever invented by a programmer (or okay, maybe a designer), and that is the disappearing scrollbar, which seems by now to have spread from Microsoft Office products to...almost everywhere online.

Just to add irony, Microsoft puts disappearing scrollbars under the ever-so-precious (aka pretentious) heading of "Conscious Controls."

Bah.

First world problems. But I'd standardize scrollbar appearance and behavior too, if I could. We would do it my way. ;-)

[JanieM]

Sorry lj, I have a feeling that I came across as not addressing a serious topic seriously. The scrollbar thing actually costs me a lot of time, in tiny tiny increments, but a lot of them. There are apps where it's hard to even be sure where the heck the scrollbar is once it hides itself.....

But I will also throw into the standards discussion that we all do, and prefer to do, various things a little differently, and maybe that's part of the reason why it's hard to settle on standards.

I was always amazed, back when I had a job and went to the office now and then and looked over someone's shoulder, to see how differently other people used Windows and especially Excel from the way I use it. (I am old-fashioned, apparently.) Most people I know use the Start menu; I hate the Start menu and find my working documents using the jumplist from icons in the taskbar. (And now Microsoft's latest update has broken the jumplist function. Grrrr.)

I have a friend who prefers the mouse for every possible thing she can get done with it; I prefer keyboard shortcuts. (Never mind voice control.....which I haven't tried in any meaningful way, and which I can't imagine could be sensibly adapted to copy editing.)

So it's actually nice that these programs, which a lot of us use constantly, allow for different ways and styles of doing things. Which of course goes somewhat against the notion of having just one standard...

[Liberal japonicus]

No Janie not at all. Those sorts of things are exactly the sort of thing I was thinking of!!

[Hartmut]

As long as the metric system remains a culture war item, bury your dreams of universal standards. And even within the 'imperial system' they use different gallons in the US and the UK. But why are there British thermal units (BTU) but no USian ones?

Btw, the German system of standards (DIN) started with a piece for the machine gun model 08/15. The term 08/15 ("Nullachtfuffzehn") has taken the meaning of common/standard/mediocre in German with most people being completely unaware of its origin.
Plus most Germans know DIN mainly through the standardized formats of paper (e.g. DIN A4 = 210 x 297 mm) which also became the international one.

Some years ago the US unsuccessfully tried to screw the world with attempts to force their standard for screws on everyone (US screws have a different pitch).

[Pro Bono]

DIN for me is an audio connector.

Some peeves:

- Date format: anything but month-day-year.

- Clock changes: for a while they were synchronized across the Atlantic. It's a pity that changed.

- Phillips or Pozidriv. Pozidriv I suppose, but please not both.

[CaseyL]

I'm with JanieM on the disappearing scrollbars. I don't understand why they ever happened, why it became a thing to make users flail their cursors all over the screen looking for the damn things. My latest favorite: a scrollbar that vanishes when you put your cursor on it. WTH?

While I do shed a tear now and then for the myriad of end-user word processing and spreadsheet programs that have died out - WordPerfect, LotusNotes, etc. (some of them better than what we all use now) - I do have to say I like the standardized keyboard/menu commands the MS juggernaut left in their place.

WordPerfect was a particularly strange thing, looking back, with (IIRC) the screen divided into a what-it-looks-like frame on top and a here-are-your-edit-commands frame on the bottom.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

I also despise disappearing scrollbars, at least in Linux you can do:

~/.config/gtk-3.0/settings.ini:
[Settings]
gtk-primary-button-warps-slider=0
gtk-overlay-scrolling = false

Doesn't always help when a web page is using javascript to do scrollbars, but still.

SUPER annoying: web pages that have THREE vertical scrollbars (browser, page, box inside page). Kill them with fire.

DIN: connectors, yes, but to me they'll always be "DIN rails" for mounting electrical stuff.

Standards are great! There are so many to choose from!

[wj]

...various standards and how we arrive at them.

Often, it's a matter of someone (or group) with clout making a standard for themselves. And then others adopting it for convenience. A couple of examples.

Time zones. Thru the mid-1800s, to the extent that people worried about what time it was, every town set its own. Then the railroads came along in the US. They needed a consistent time for their own scheduling purposes, referred to as "railroad time". Eventually, they adopted time zones across the country. If you were located along a railroad, it was just easier to use a single time, so it became "standard time".

Something similar happened in Britain. The railroads used London for their base. Hence GMT.

Machine tools. Originally, every blacksmith made the heads on nuts and bolts to his own preference. But with industrialization, having a single standard had obvious advantages. One such was developed by the Society of Automotive Engineers, for use in the auto industry. (SAE standard) That allowed an auto mechanic, anywhere in the country, to work on various makes of cars with just one set of tools.

Meanwhile, France after the Revolution, created a measurement standard with a government mandate. It had the enormous advantage of a decimal base. Which, more than anything else, led to its adoption, even though the British (and the the Americans) were the preeminent economic power.**

** I expect most people here are aware. But even the US has officially been on the metric system since the mid-1970s. Being parochial as we are, general adoption hasn't happened. But any kid who has an education in science (or engineering) has necessarily learned to use it. I used to think that this would gradually lead to conversing in practice. Ha! Although we have gotten accustomed to drinks coming in liter bottles....

[wj]

the disappearing scrollbar, which seems by now to have spread from Microsoft Office products to...almost everywhere online.

It might be an interesting exercise, since the developers are still around, to track down whoever came up with that. And ask them, "What the &%$#@! were you thinking?!?!?"

[Michael Cain]

And ask them, "What the &%$#@! were you thinking?!?!?"

Screen real estate has always been a scarce and valuable resource. Ten pixels here, ten pixels there, and you find yourself nibbled to death by widgets.

[JanieM]

Screen real estate is the first thing my best buddy at work theorized when disappearing scroll bars first ... appeared (?). He cited especially the dire need for real estate on cell phones.

But that explanationd doesn't hold water for most situations where the scrollbars disappear, because when they disappear, the real estate is not used for anything else. THis is most maddening in Word, which I use to do a LOT of volunteer editing. I use the scrollbar constantly, not only for its obvious purpose, but also to keep sort of semi-conscious tabs on where i am in the document.

I think it's just some idiot's notion of aesthetics. It looks prettier without the scrollbars, right??!?

Outlook: it looks like 3 different teams designed different panels, and never talked to each other about consistency. In Word I sometimes have the naviation panel, the main panel, and the review panel open, and all the scrollbars are coming and going uselessly.

Not to repeat myself, but grrrr.....

Shorter: disappearing scrollbars have nothing to do with real estate. Or if you can show me how they do, I would be very curious to see it.

[Michael Cain]

Phillips or Pozidriv. Pozidriv I suppose, but please not both.

Phillips needs to disappear.

When I was young I had a motorcycle. It required periodic work. Every machine screw on the whole thing was Phillips-head. Even with an impact driver, they were subject to cam-out. One year my parents asked me what I wanted for Christmas. I grabbed a motorcycle magazine off the end table, flipped through to a particular page. "This!" I told them. "A kit that replaces every Phillips-head machine screw on my motorcycle with one that uses a hex key!" I'll just note in passing that the bicycle manufacturers caught on years ago. On my 25-year-old road bike everything uses a metric hex key.

[Michael Cain]

Many years ago I was responsible for building the physical layer hardware for the world's first test set for the ISDN standard. I had to start while the outline for the standard was clear but a lot of details were missing. Everyone said it would all have to be implemented in hardware. I took a chance and said -- after some back-of-the-envelope calculations -- that TI's brand new single-chip DSP would support doing all of the tricky parts in software. It turned out to be a good choice -- every switch vendor implemented a different incompatible subset of the link activation standard. For me, it was just a software change.

That's the only project I ever worked on where I had to do actual high-accuracy analog hardware. I've still got the original wirewrap board tucked away. Pictures of top and bottom here:
http://www.mcain6925.com/ordinary/isdn1.jpg
http://www.mcain6925.com/ordinary/isdn2.jpg

[JanieM]

Cool pics, Michael. Nice memories of work well done.

[Hartmut]

DIN = Deutsches Institut für Normung (German Institute for Standardisation)

[CharlesWT]

I don't have Microsoft Office on my computer and can't check the instructions for making scrollbars visible in MO applications. But the Windows-level instructions work.

There is a way to keep scrollbars visible in Microsoft Office applications like Microsoft Word.

To keep scrollbars visible in Microsoft Word:

1. Click File > Options.
2. On the Advanced tab, scroll down to the Display section.
3. Under Display options for this workbook, select the Show horizontal scroll bar and Show vertical scroll bar check boxes.
4. Click OK.

To keep scrollbars visible in all Microsoft Office applications:

1. Click Start > Settings.
2. Click Ease of Access > Display.
3. Scroll down and set Automatically hide scroll bars in Windows to Off.
4. Click Close.

Note that changing this setting will affect all Windows scrollbar applications, not just Microsoft Office applications.

Alternatively, you can use the following workaround to keep scrollbars visible in Microsoft Word:

1. Switch to Read Mode.
2. Switch back to Print Layout view.
3. The scrollbars should now be visible and will remain visible even when you switch back to Read Mode.

I hope this helps!

—Google Bard

[Snarki, child of Loki]

IIRC, phillips heads were developed to prevent over-torquing screws in manufacturing.

And yes, I also prefer allen-heads (where you use a hex key).

Fun fact: English size allen head bolts work as "security bolts" in Europe.

[nous]

I'll just note in passing that the bicycle manufacturers caught on years ago. On my 25-year-old road bike everything uses a metric hex key.

It's nice that bikes are pretty much metric and hex bolts these days, but there are still lots of competing standards on bikes. Wheel hubs are one of the big ones. I bought my hardtail at REI in 2019 and the rear axle is 142mm quick release for a 27.5" (650b) wheel. Were I to buy the same model of bike from REI now, the wheel would be 29" (700c) and have a boost spaced (148mm) through-axle. And the rims on the wheels today would come with a different rim profile to support running tubeless.

And because the front derailleur has disappeared in favor of the 1x setup (single chainwheel in front), some of the cycle companies are actually using Super Boost (157mm) axles in an attempt to decrease the angle between the chainwheel and the innermost gear of the rear cassette.

At least a lot of the bike companies have started to use a replaceable universal rear derailleur hanger so that bike owners aren't locked into using only one brand of components.

Then there's the brake pads for the disc brakes, and the standard diameter for the seat tube and the handlebars.

And the other big change from back in the day - pretty much any quality new bike these days comes with a set of torque standards printed right on the component for how much torque to use on the fasteners. Mustn't overtorque the clamping forces or you'll crack your carbon fiber. And when carbon fiber fails, it fails catastrophically, without much warning.

And if you really want a mess, dip a toe into the world of e-bikes, and all the different approaches to motors and batteries and interfaces. I'm doing my best to avoid this stuff for as long as possible, hoping to see them settle on some limited sets of standards. Don't want to spend $8k+ on the bike equivalent of Betamax and have to replace the whole thing in five years.

Lots of stuff to think about when buying a new bike these days.

[JanieM]

CharlesWT: I have done all those things. They do not solve the problem because they are not addressing the correct problem.

Telling Windows to always display scrollbars is the difference between seeing them when Windows is in the mood, vs not seeing them at all. It doesn't solve the problem of Windows not always being in the mood.

[JanieM]

"Windows not always being in the mood" -- or Office apps, either.

[JanieM]

Also, because I'm in a crabby mood (car dying, never mind the rest...)

Thirty seconds of Googling, or a question to the AI, is not going to reveal that one weird trick that I somehow missed in all my own queries to Google and the Microsoft help site since the day disappearing scrollbars were born.

Sheesh.

[liberal japonicus]

wj's note about railroad time has me recommend Einstein’s Clocks, Poincaré’s Maps: Empires of Time by Peter Galison. It got good reviews in NYTimes and other places, but history of science sites suggested that he was overemphasizing the technological dimension, but it was an interesting read.

About disappearing scrollbars, it seems to me to be a piece of that whole urge towards minimalism. It's quite problematic for me cause of vision issues I have which puts me into grumpy old man mode.

[wj]

It's quite problematic for me cause of vision issues I have which puts me into grumpy old man mode.

This suggests a way to get reasonable scroll bars restored: invoke the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act). Likely to have far more impact than mere customer complaints.

[liberal japonicus]

Somehow, I don't think my Japanese university would pay much attention to that...

[Pro Bono]

...bikes are pretty much metric and hex bolts these days...

Except for the half-inch chain links.

Torx heads (also hex, but star shaped) are increasingly common on household stuff, so much so that I've bought a set of screwdrivers.

[novakant]

Don't get me started on frame rates, aspect ratios and video codecs - it's a maelstrom:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect_ratio_(image)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_rate

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_coding_format

[novakant]

Also fascinating how rather random decisions some 75 years ago still determine standards in different regions of the world in the digital age, i.e. NTSC vs. PAL.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTSC

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAL

[Michael Cain]

Except for the half-inch chain links.

Missing the point. Everything that I might need to unscrew while out on the trail can be screwed or unscrewed with (on my bike) one of three metric hex keys. For my granddaughters' bikes, which don't have quick-release hubs, add one small metric wrench. Same applies to other things mentioned like seat posts. Yes, I might need a shim because of variations in the post and frame sizes. But the machine screw I have to loosen to adjust the post height on any of those bikes uses one of the three metric hex keys. Stopped once to help someone who had a brake cable that had come loose. One of the hex keys on my bike tool fit.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

"Also fascinating how rather random decisions some 75 years ago still determine standards in different regions of the world"

for extra fun, look up the history/legends of the 4'8.5" rail gauge

[Hartmut]

The Russians have their own rail gauge, so one has to switch trains at the Russian border. And in the past some trains were used that got their upper carriages lifted off and transferred to undercarriages with the different gauge at the border (I don't know, whether the passengers had to get off or stayed inside during the transfer).
Not sure but iirc Spain too had a different gauge once but has replaced it with the European standard since.

I believe attempts were made to construct trains with variable gauge but that this was not successful.
What I believe to remember are some local train tracks that supported both narrow and wide gauge by having three rails.

[CharlesWT]

What I believe to remember are some local train tracks that supported both narrow and wide gauge by having three rails.

Not to be confused with the third rails in subways and politics.

[Michael Cain]

The Russians have their own rail gauge, so one has to switch trains at the Russian border.

The Ukrainian rail network uses the Russian gauge. This has mostly precluded shipping grain for export out of the country by rail to use ports in European countries with standard gauge. Hence Russia's efforts to block Black Sea transit from the Ukrainian ports, and the West's interest in keeping it open.

Southern US states had a different gauge from the northern states -- more by accident than by design. Someone here has in the past pointed to the two days where the Southern rail routes were converted to (approximately) standard gauge. Thousands of miles of rail were picked up and moved over three inches.

[wj]

Somehow, I don't think my Japanese university would pay much attention to that...

:-)
And even if they did, what could they do about how Office is coded?

But, since Microsoft is a US company, they are potentially subject to an ADA-based complaint. Which is what I was trying to suggest.

[wj]

Not sure but iirc Spain too had a different gauge once but has replaced it with the European standard since.

It occurs to me to wonder if, as part of their post-war reconstruction, the Ukrainians will opt to convert to the European standard as well. There would appear to be some obvious economic benefits, in addition to the politican statement. (Not to mention making life/logistics harder for the Russians, should they invade again.)

[Michael Cain]

It occurs to me to wonder if, as part of their post-war reconstruction, the Ukrainians will opt to convert to the European standard as well.

Assuming they win in some fashion, almost certainly. Shortly before the most recent hostilities began, they put in a very large effort to separate their AC electric grid from the Russian grid, then connect and synchronize to the European grid. When the Russians captured the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, one of the things they almost immediately started to do was get it attached to the Russian grid and resynced.

[nous]

But the machine screw I have to loosen to adjust the post height on any of those bikes uses one of the three metric hex keys. Stopped once to help someone who had a brake cable that had come loose. One of the hex keys on my bike tool fit.

Bike tools have become very compact and versatile. I carry a bike tool, a mini-pump, a presta adapter, a spare tube, tire levers, and a couple of zip ties on every ride.

If I were more serious, and my bike was more serious, I'd have to bring my portable torque wrench along as well.

Irony: shaving grams off the bike weight with carbon components, then having to carry an extra tool that weighs as much as the weight saved in order to service the new components.

Modern mountain bikes are super capable, but they do require a lot more care (and that more regularly) than the older, simpler machines.

[CharlesWT]

When I was bike riding, I'd see people who had spent big bucks to get the lightest bike available. It would have been cheaper, more advantageous, and beneficial if they had just dieted for a few weeks.

[Michael Cain]

It would have been cheaper, more advantageous, and beneficial if they had just dieted for a few weeks.

People have occasionally asked me about a lighter bike. I point out just this -- I could stand to lose more than the entire weight of the bike.

[Michael Cain]

I once saw inside a Tour sort of repair truck. Like the big Tour, there was a minimum weight for the bikes, not a maximum. There was a large set of bins full of seat posts on the wall, sorted by weight. If a bike weighed in 30 grams too light, they swapped the seat post for one that made it heavy enough.

[Michael Cain]

Bike tools have become very compact and versatile.

One summer a friend asked for ideas for an off-to-college gift for his nephew. I suggested a toolkit: a bicycle tool, a small pair of locking pliers, a small hammer, two pair of forceps (one straight, one curved), and a cheap fit-on-your-head magnifier.

I heard back from the friend that his nephew fixed two things the day he was moving in.

[Pro Bono]

I carry a bike tool, a mini-pump, a presta adapter, a spare tube, tire levers, and a couple of zip ties on every ride.

Unless your tyres are very tight, tyre levels are unnecessary. Better to have two spare tubes.

[nous]

When I was bike riding, I'd see people who had spent big bucks to get the lightest bike available. It would have been cheaper, more advantageous, and beneficial if they had just dieted for a few weeks.

True for most of us who are carrying around more than we need. Not so true for an athlete who is close to their limit on the power/weight ratio.

Also, there's a bigger weight penalty for rotational weight than there is for non-rotational weight. There's also a bigger penalty for weight carried high on the frame than there is for weight carried lower on the frame.

I can certainly spare a little weight reduction for myself, but I also just like the feel of a lighter frame when it comes to trying to muscle the bike around on the trail. And I think more about conquering the climbs than about shredding the descent, so I'm always going to feel the effects of the weight a bit more than Bobby Bike Park, who shuttles up and pedals down.

The geometry of the frame will also play into how the bike feels while climbing or descending, and how well it carries its (and your) weight.

For components, there's also the matter of stiffness to be considered. Heavier riders will choose 35mm carbon handlebars over 31.5mm metal bars mostly because they want added stiffness to overcome the stress they put on the bars from their own weight. And they might want carbon rims on their wheels to keep the rims from deforming as much under weight. The material advantages may be greater than a simple 1:1 comparison of rider weight vs. bike weight.

Lots of stuff to consider here.

[Michael Cain]

Unless your tyres are very tight, tyre levels are unnecessary. Better to have two spare tubes.

While I can still pop the tire back onto the rim with just my hands, I can't get it off with them any more. Need to spend more time in the weight room, I guess.

[nous]

Unless your tyres are very tight, tyre levers are unnecessary. Better to have two spare tubes.

Mountain bike with heavy sidewall casings. The local trails are full of rocky patches that love to pinch flat rear tires on a hardtail.

Those tires took 20 minutes (and a lot of swearing) to get on that rim in the first place.

Would be even worse if I was running tubeless and needing to add a tube in after slashing a sidewall on something. The tubeless guys are always looking for stiffer sidewalls and tighter beads.

[nous]

Not much downside to carrying them, anyway:

https://pedros.com/products/tire-levers

They weigh next to nothing and take up very little space.

[CharlesWT]

Would be even worse if I was running tubeless and needing to add a tube in after slashing a sidewall on something.

In a pinch, you might even use a dollar bill to keep the tire from pinching the tube.

[nous]

In a pinch, you might even use a dollar bill to keep the tire from pinching the tube.

One of the possible uses of those zip ties as well.

[liberal japonicus]

And in the past some trains were used that got their upper carriages lifted off and transferred to undercarriages with the different gauge at the border (I don't know, whether the passengers had to get off or stayed inside during the transfer).
Not sure but iirc Spain too had a different gauge once but has replaced it with the European standard since.

When I first travelled from France to Spain, the train stopped at Hendaye I think and we stayed on the train while they changed the gauge of the train.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_gauge

It looks like they haven't changed the gauge and they still use this system