Wednesday, December 3

The Standards Standard

Standards are a great thing. It's comforting to know that when I go to Canadian Tire to get plumbing material to fix a toilet, for instance, that the flange I buy will be the same size as the flange I'm replacing.

But today, as I was sitting there, I started to wonder whether standards, at some point, begin to hold us back, developmentally speaking. How do we break free from the current set of standards and implement new, better machines that require a new set of standards?

The toilet, as it is today, is a pretty efficient machine. But could it be better? I suspect that it could. Yet I doubt anybody is investing much effort into making the toilet a better machine, because its design would likely involve the need to fundamentally change the standards we currently used. It would likely involve a total redesign of the flange? It would require us all to invest in this new toilet for our homes, and who wants to do that? The current toilet is good enough.

But is it? Who knows what exciting, innovative toilet designs and functions are in the designer's brain? And what other facets of our lives are being standardized into complacency?



6 comments:

Tim said...

I was watching a clip on Compass the other night about the new environmentally friendly home they built on Lennox Island. The toilet has 2 buttons; one that flushes with 3 litres of water and one that flushes with 6 litres depending on your requirements. Smart.

Nils Ling said...

I just wish the hell there were standards in printer ink cartridges.

Alan said...

Standards always add and take away and seldom do either logically from a design point of view as there are natural compromises of efficiency. We are stuck with personal computing standards - from the user's perspective - which were essentially worked out in the late 60's without a real opportunity given the marketplace to revisit their wisdom. I still interact with the thing as I did with the Commodore 64. I recell seeing a show in PBS about alternative toilet design which placed sensible urinals in every home. Outta be. Never'll happen. Systems are too fixed.

Calico Cat said...

Toilets. A subject dear/near to my heart. The Island has some of the most efficient toilets in the western industrialized world. Even across Canada and the U.S. the quality of the 'good' flush varies...
When I was in California a few years ago water conservation regulations dictated a substandard flush through altered toilets, ie: two handle hits for your average 6" dirt snake... This was some engineer's brilliant idea. A double flush using 6 gallons of water vs your good ole' PEI 5 gallon single flusher. Standards, who gives a shit?

L.Nicholson said...

Three gal.six gal.standard,far ahead of the old standard,....two holes and the Eatons catalogue!

tanas said...

Ok, conserve water - I get it, why not conserve space too? Why not have corner toilets or something? Think outside the box.