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World Standards Day 2005

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."

19 of 187 comments (clear)

  1. Riiiiiighht by Qubit · · Score: 5, Funny

    World standards day is today, the 14th. Posted on..

    ...the 15th.

    Maybe we need some new standards?

    --

    coding is life /* the rest is */
    1. Re:Riiiiiighht by Seumas · · Score: 2, Funny

      If you were grabbing asses on national talk like a pirate day, I think you completely missed the purpose of national talk like a pirate day.

  2. Remember... by FatRatBastard · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... all replies in this thread should be in Esperanto!

  3. HD Video release of proceedings... by SalsaDot · · Score: 3, Funny

    HD Video release of the proceedings will be made available on both HD-DVD and Blue-ray format discs.

  4. Baby Steps by Bob9113 · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  5. Re:Okay, here's a standard I'd like to see: by yagu · · Score: 1, Funny

    I'm not, I'm posting on slashdot... driving and typing is way too dangerous!

  6. Let's not be too hasty here. by elgee · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  7. Let's all hear it for the C99 standard! by QuantumG · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.

    --
    How we know is more important than what we know.
  8. This is all well and good... by John+Nowak · · Score: 2, Funny

    ... but when are they going to standardize on a standards organization?

  9. Ah, those good old ISO standards by zymurgy_cat · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

    --
    -- Fugacity: Confusing chemists since 1908
  10. For IEC, ISO, and ITU by AthenianGadfly · · Score: 2, Funny

    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.

  11. Re:Okay, here's a standard I'd like to see: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    What I don't understand is why, in all countries, drivers face each other head-on.

    I guess we could try driving from the back seat, facing to the rear, and using little video monitors to steer!

  12. That was a tad late by teslatug · · Score: 2, Funny

    Posted on Fri Oct 14, '05 11:20 PM, quickly we have 40 minutes to celebrate.

  13. Metric system sucks by Tablizer · · Score: 2, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:Metric system sucks by a.d.trick · · Score: 2, Funny

      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.

  14. --Please note-- by mcc · · Score: 3, Funny

    Oct. 14 is World Standards Day except in the United States, where it is observed on October 17

  15. Re:Okay, here's a standard I'd like to see: by alekd · · Score: 3, Funny

    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...

  16. Re:Okay, here's a standard I'd like to see: by NoMaster · · Score: 2, Funny
    "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 saying "Roadworks Ahead" - and immediately hit a huge patch of lightly-tarred loose road base where they'd dug up an entire 200m stretch of the road from the apex of the corner!

    After almost losing it and swerving to a stop, heart in my mouth, I looked over and saw 2 sets of headlights, both upside down and pointing into the sky. And this grizzled old country local walked up to my car, tapped on the window, and said "don't you city dickheads take any notice of signs!"

    --
    What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
  17. Wait. by Vegeta99 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Is that 2005-10-14... or 10-14-2005? or 14-10-2005? or 14OCT2005?