Outlets for frustration

摘要

The world is awash in standards or lack thereof. There's the gold standard, Eastern Standard Time and standard operating procedures. And there are constant economic battles going on to get a product or technology to become the standard. I remember when different speed records vied to be the one standard, or the battle between eight-track tapes versus cassettes, Betamax versus VCR, IBM versus Apple, digital versus analog, the various widths of railroad tracks and of course the metric versus imperial system. Oh yes, please remember there are three standards for tons: US ton or "short" ton (2,000 pounds), metric ton (1,000 kilograms or 2,204.6 pounds) and long ton (2,240 pounds). Car manufacturers cannot agree whether to put the gas tank cap on either the right or left side of the car. In 1967, someone split the difference and put it in the back of the car behind the license plate, where my 1967 Mustang convertible has it.