Golly. Anyone would think there were no agreed European and international standards before the EU!
However did the TCP/IP standard happen without the EU! Or the metric system of measurement?
Things the EU did can be divided into two categories
1/. Useful stuff that would have happened anyway because it was in everybody's interest that it did,
2/. Stuiff that favoured a minority, the EU itself, a large corporate sponsors, or a vociferous minority political movement, that no one wanted anyway and could only happen where there is an oppressive undemocratic regime to enforce it.
Catch 22. The good stuff happens irrespective, and we don't want the bad stuff.
Anyway, its all over for the EU bar the shouting. Past it's sell by date.
--
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as
foolish, and by the rulers as useful.
(Seneca the Younger, 65 AD)
You either have a short memory, or didn't travel in Europe very much. Now there's just to one mains plug standard throughout Europe (except here). I for one, remember having to carry a range of mains adapters whenever I competed in model flying competitions in Europe. That situation eased once the PC became common and semi-standardised because they all used the same chassis power input plug and you could buy PC power cables everywhere. I fitted a PC chassis socket into the end of a 4-way extension cable socket and the problem was solved. However, since around
2000 I only need to take the one PC power cable: that one cable now works throughout the EU and the standard EU plug works everywhere in India as well.
Nothing to do with the EU - its the exception.
Introduced by the American MIC in the form of DARPA (with some help from Britain's NPL - they had the first packet-switched network). A vast improvement over struggling the various incompatible standards used by computer companies such as IBM's SNA (various flavours), 3270 Bisync (and variants). Then there were other the protocols used by DEC, NCR, ICL, Burroughs, .....
Did any of you actually use X.25, the most common OSI standard? I did, and it worked really to provide reasonably secure point-to-point connections, e.g. linking ATMs to their banks. And it would interwork with kit from different manufacturers. And, unlike TCP/IP, it would notify both ends when an idle connection was severed.
Not used here, except by scientists, until forced by the EEC. A vast improvement over the geriatric FPS system, which should have died at least a century before it did. $DEITY knows why the Yanks still persist in using it.
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martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |
Hmm an answer on which work started in 1977, more like a parallel development.
Europe maybe (at a push) but not the EU - OSI came from ITU (based in Geneva Switzerland - not an EU country - with 193 member countries) and ISO (also based in Geneva with 162 member countries). Both of these organisations are rather larger (in terms of member countries) than Europe.
An OSI based global network would certainly be very different.
--
Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays
C:>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
Ireland also uses the UK plug and standards, sadly.
Yep, I also remember all too well the hassle of keeping change from three countries in three different pockets (inevitably coins wound up in the wrong pocket), whatever else may be thought of it the Euro is great for travellers in Europe - we should have a global single currency and put the currency speculator parasites out of business.
--
Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays
C:>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
for the same reason that you still measure distances in miles & prefer to by your beer in pints (& I suspect you know you're height in Feet & Inches & your weight in stone) imperial measurements are based on natural body measurements & therefore more comfortable for some purposes. The scale is also more convenient
12 inches in much nicer than 0.3m or even 300mm (30cm is not to bad if you want to use a non iso subdivision)
--
"Mr. Spock succumbs to a powerful mating urge and nearly kills Captain
Kirk."
-- TV Guide, describing the Star Trek episode _Amok_Time_
A perfect demonstration of the fact that it is not necessary to be a member of the EU to work with standards & that the EU has very little to do with developing standards except to dictate which ones member states have to follow, more often succumbing to political pressure rather than practicality.
--
So... so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell?
Blue skies from pain? Did they get you to trade
Can you tell a green field Your heroes for ghosts?
From a cold steel rail? Hot ashes for trees?
A smile from a veil? Hot air for a cool breeze?
Do you think you can tell? Cold comfort for change?
Did you exchange
A walk on part in a war
For the lead role in a cage?
-- Pink Floyd, "Wish You Were Here"
and here we finally reveal the true difference between brexit & remain
it is Idealism v Realism
In an ideal world we would have one nation, one currency & no fighting
Realistically Human nature is such that this will never happen, human being are too competitive & without that competition we would all be having this discussion by grunts & possibly making crude paintings on cave walls.
--
"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last,
"what's the first thing you say to yourself?"
"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?"
"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said
Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully. "It's the same thing," he said.
I can equally say that in an ideal world we would have many cultures all copmpeting so that by diversity, when bad shit happens one culture may survive because it accidentally had the correct approach whereas others did not.
Putting all your genetic eggs in one basket is never clever in a changing world.
However if you think this is an argument for diversity *within* nations, you would be wrong.
A culture cannot be tested if its not allowed to become the cultural norm and dominant within a particular political unit.
The historical size of nations is a tribute to the fact that these principles are sound.
Only if we turn into the cultural equivalent of mindless ants with a big fat queen ant sitting in the bundestag..
--
?It is hard to imagine a more stupid decision or more dangerous way of
making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people
who pay no price for being wrong.?
Thomas Sowell
Uk 13A plugs are arguably the safest in the world.
- square pins allow for better contact reducing risk of fire through overheating and arcing.
- the earth pin is mandatory, not optional
- unless the earth pin is inserted the live and neutral are not accessible.
No European plug standard comes close.
Yeah, why not sacrifice the economies of spain portugal and greece so that you can travel between countries without actually having to think about currency?
There is something so colonial about your attitude...
I see that Sterling is now replacing the Euro as the currency of choice for international banks..
--
Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have
guns, why should we let them have ideas?
Josef Stalin
I remember doing that, but it never bothered me: maybe my initial overland trip to get here from NZ got me used to that sort of thing. Lets see, that trip involved: Aussy dollars, Thai Bahts, Nepali, Indian and Pakistani rupees, Afghanis, Iranian Riyals, Turkish Lira, Greek Drachma, Yugoslav Dinars, Austrian and German Marks.
Yes, I think the Euro is a good thing, but disagree that is should have ever used as a domestic currency: if it had been exclusively used as an international trading currency we'd have avoided all the problems caused with various governments trying to manipulate it (think Greece and Italy compared with Germany). Who knows, it might even have supplanted the US Dollar as the global trading currency simply because it would not have had any national baggage attached to it.
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martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |
Nope - I wouldn't have a clue about my weight and height in Imperial units, but then NZ went metric before the UK did - and did it faster, cheaper and with a lot less hassle than happened here. It was quite a shock to arrive here and have go back to using outdated Imperial units.
Small side note: actually, I do use some of the old units due to the pervasive ICAO influence on aviation. As a glider pilot I measure speed and rate of climb in knots, altitude in both feet and meters and distance in km (because the Silver, Gold and Diamond badges measure distance in km and height in meters).
I disagree about FPS being nicer, but mainly because IMO the hodgepodge of conversions it makes necessary are such a PITA and heavily outweigh the effect of using some human-sized units. Besides meters and kg are both human scaled in that they give sensible values when measuring people.
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martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |
-- Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays C:>WIN | A better way to focus the sun The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see You lose and Bill collects. |
Yes, inches are so much better... Like 12 5/8 inches which is how many feet?
There is nothing good about Imperial measures.
One thing that metric has not dealt with is the ton. There is a metric ton, but there are also many, many other types of tons which may or may not be defined in metric, but vary from the defined 1000 kg.
Isn't that an American thing? Back in the day, before the metric ton replaced the Imperial ton in NZ, I only remember seeing the Imperial ton (2240 lbs and near as dammit a metric ton too) in NZ or here in the UK for that matter. I never heard anybody talking about short tons or any other qualified type of ton.
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martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |
On Mon, 3 Apr 2017 14:56:13 +0100, The Natural Philosopher declaimed the following:
They are also so large that the plug board on my UPS would have to be
3X the size -- making it closer to a two-draw filing cabinet in size than the current box (about the same size a computer chassis)... Not to mention routine power strips.
--
Wulfraed Dennis Lee Bieber AF6VN
wlfraed@ix.netcom.com HTTP://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/
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