Every rule exists because someone, somewhere, once did the thing the rules says for them not to do. Fortunately, we as a society learned from their mistakes and said, "No, no more. We shall no longer put our fingers on hot curling irons." The law spread throughout the land and life was good and peaceful.
...But each rule needs to start with a little chaos.
Reddit user, u/suNerrx, wanted to hear the story behind the law when they asked:
What rule was implemented because of you?
A Low Hum, Warm Seats, And Nothing To Do? Nap.
Bus drivers should check the seats on the bus for sleeping children before locking them and leaving them in the parking garage.
The Underground Street Marble Game Is Rough
Marbles being banned at my elementary school.
I vaguely remember the convoluted rules we had for playing marbles in 3rd grade, but one that was written in stone was that if you lost a game, you had to throw away a marble of your own. This often drew a crowd of participants eager to get their tiny hands on a free marble.
One day, I lost a game and was forced to throw a marble away (we called it "scrambling"). I had stupidly agreed to offer up as ante for the game my prized "boulder", a heavy marble with intricately woven colours that was about the size of a golf ball.
When it was time to throw it away, a large crowd of kids had gathered, impatiently jeering me to toss it and start the melee. I took one last look at my boulder and, in a surge of 8 year old rage, launched it with all my strength.
I still remember it gleaming against the deep blue sky as it left my hand. It sailed. Flew over the group's head, their mouths agape in amazement. It flew until it struck some poor blond kid in the head, who was just walking along kicking dandelions, totally oblivious to the incoming projectile.
It hit him hard. To this day I still recall the way his head snapped back in Zapruder-like fashion. He dropped instantly, like a bag of old socks.
We all scattered to the four corners of the playground as teachers ran to his side. The following day a letter was sent home to every parent, banning all marbles.
Poor Blondie McMarblehead (I forget his name, this was 32 years ago) was off school for about a week.
Wanted To Try It All
After having my two front teeth replaced...
Band director: "Okay. I never thought I'd have to say this, but wrestling is not allowed in the band room".
Smokey the Bear Would Be So Ashamed
At Boy Scout Summer Camp, as a Scoutmaster. "No campfire flames higher than 24 inches." Turns out that if you make a five foot tower out of ONLY the 1/4" dowels from small American flags, you get a straight and narrow column of flame about 30 ft high. I was the Clark Griswold of scoutmasters.
That's...You're..You're A Tank. That's A Tank.
In my sophomore year of high school during the short World War I unit, the sophomore history teachers had an event where we went out to the football field and played one flag capture the flag using dodgeball rules. One team had the flag and had "trenches" made of football training equipment and the other team had to charge across no man's land and touch the flag to win. Occasionally the teachers would call out a gas attack and everyone would have to don paper bag "gas masks" or they were out.
I had the genius plan of charging the main "trench" directly without a dodgeball to try to neutralize it to help my team. I handed my ball to a classmate and instead wielded a cardboard trench shovel I had made that morning, and then put on my "gas mask" ahead of time.
When it was time to go over the top, I barreled towards the main trench (think that one Battlefield 1 trailer where the British soldier does the same thing with a club, but this was two years before that game came out). I miraculously was never hit on my way to it and slammed into that thing with all of my might, taking it down, knocking a couple other kids over, and knocking myself out for a few seconds in the process.
The teachers thought it was hilarious but they quickly had to implement a "no trench busting" rule after someone else tried to replicate my antics during the next round. Unfortunately as far as I'm aware that was the last year they did that event.
Congrats. You exemplified the invention of the early tank. Big and absolutely rolled over trenches, but was very prone to getting busted and breaking down
Let's Time That Out Better Next Time
Because of my wife and I,
(Local Hospital) will not perform a cesarean section without having had an ultrasound prior.
(1988)
What's the story that led to this rule?
Doctor scheduled a c-section on my wife based on her last period. She was only at 7 months. she and son are fine now.
All It Takes Is One
Not a rule, but a bunch of signs were put up in front of my school because I got hit by a car in the crosswalk
It's...A Bomb?
Long story short, we were screeners at the entrance. Our x-ray machine (like the one you'd see at the airport, with a treadmill type bit pulling bins through some hanging rubber guards into the x-ray) was a hassle.
See the issue was, most delegates had very little to put through. A watch, a belt, a wallet, the odd item here and there. The "curtains" were pretty stiff. So the issue was, with only these light items in the bin, it could never get through the curtains - their weight was greater so it just spun on the treadmill stuck before them.
One of the geniuses on a team next to me came up with a solution. We shall take 6 water bottles, and tape them together in a bowling pin style triangle with black duct tape. This will weigh down the bin so it can get through!
And I must admit it worked... Like twice. Until the next delegate mistook it for a bomb - and picture it... 6 bottles with no labels and some fluid in them black-taped together...
The RCMP got involved... It was a whole scene.
No custom mcgyver weights are to be used by screeners any longer.
Taking This All The Way Up The Corporate Ladder
Years ago, I bought a computer from Dell. I paid for it with my debit card, and excitedly monitored the build status every day, checking in at work, and on my days off going to the library to check on expected shipping updates.
When I made the purchase, it was a five to seven day expectation for delivery. At day ten, when it had gone from "order accepted" to "order prepped" to "order built" it suddenly went back to "order accepted." Stage One.
I called their customer service line and was told there had been a glitch in the system, and the order got expedited, and soon was back at "order built" and I was just waiting on shipping confirmation. The next day, back to "order accepted" again. This happened every day for five days. Cue another call to customer service. Apparently, there was a problem with payment, and they referred me back to my bank because the payment was on hold. Called my credit union, and they told me it was just an authorization hold waiting on final confirmation from the merchant. Called Dell back, and they saw the same thing, but even the customer service director couldn't say why it hadn't finalized, but every time the payment didn't finalize they literally took the box with the computer off the loading dock and sent it back to stage one, again and again and again.
This led to a long hold while the customer service director looked into their billing system, and ended up transferring me too a very nice lady in their accounting department. Initially, she thought I was an in house person from the listing dock asking about a customer's order, but quickly got up to speed. She was covering for a coworker who helped with in house billing system troubleshooting who was out on vacation, and usually just handled tracking the accounting from Dell sending parts from one warehouse and factory to another, but she dug in and figured out that the issue was that I was paying with a debit card, not a credit card. Now, debit cards were still relativity new. Most banks capped the amount you could spend per day at $250 to $500, but my credit union was one of only five financial institutions that didn't cap it at all; they proudly noted on a monthly statement insert that the credit union felt that it was your money to manage they way you wanted to. However, Dell didn't accept debit cards at all, not for a dime, not for the $800 I was trying to spend. The nice lady in accounting, however, had just come back from a conference, and knew that there was a push to more banks to act like my credit union and remove their spending caps. She told me to hang tight and she was going to get it done for me. I told her I could change my payment method to a credit card, but she told me that would delay the whole process.
Two days later, I got a call from her. She had made a presentation to the CEO, CFO, and several VPs making the case that Dell needed to get ahead of the curve and start accepting debit cards, with no spending limits, because the banking rules were going to be changing very soon and more people were going to be spending money with Dell the way I tried to. They had to implement a process to start accepting debit cards, which had required a rush overnight change from their merchant bank, and my purchase was their test case. She had me check with my credit union, who showed the funds were officially a purchase and not just an authorization hold, then she called the loading dock and made sure my computer was on a truck.
Within ten minutes I had an email with a tracking number.
TL; DR I'm the reason Dell takes debit cards.
Be careful of the things you know you shouldn't be doing. There is always a chance someone will find out.
No matter how hard anyone tries, sending naughty pictures over the internet or doing the nasty with someone you're not supposed to, could be witnessed by anyone just inconveniently stumbling upon the scene.
Curious to hear about accidental sightings of stealth happenings, Redditor PMForDickGraysonPics asked:
"What did you see that you definitely weren't supposed to see?"

Nudies
These Redditors happened upon some revealing images involving scantily-clad women.
What Mom Did
"One time I was up late at night scrolling Facebook at the same time as my drunk married mother who was an entire timezone away at the time. She was messaging an old fling from high school while her husband was away at work and was sending him close up pictures of her vagina. How I know this is because she didn't send them via messenger, SHE POSTED THEM ON HER ACTUAL FACEBOOK PAGE. I had to call her in the middle of the night in her zonked out stupor to get her password to delete pictures off her own Facebook page."
Retrospective Look
"Was fixing an elderly neighbor's laptop that had nudes of his wife on the desktop with the thumbnails at maximum size. It's like he wanted me to see them. I will say though, she had a bangin' bod for a woman in her 70s. I think it's safe to say he thought the same."
The Moaning Woman
"In my high school Spanish class, our teacher had taped (VHS) a telenovela for us to watch. When she put the VHS tape in, there was about .25 seconds of a porno that played...a topless woman moaning. Out of a class of around 30 kids, only about 5 of us looked around at each other and locked eyes with a 'did anyone else just see that?! look. Our teacher must have taped over an old porno VHS of hers."
Cheaters And Sex
Spotted: People seeking intimacy with people they aren't supposed to – or in one case, where they shouldn't.
No-So Clandestine Meeting
"Was working at a hotel during college and saw my lab partner get a room with the professor."
The Secret
"My dad gave me a piece of furniture one time. When I got it home, a post-it note which had been stuck to the bottom floated down to the floor. I picked it up, and in my dad's unmistakable handwriting were various notes about gay personal ads he'd been responding to -- details about the other guys. Their names and ages and sexual interests, the status of their conversations, etc. My dad was, at least I thought, very straight. I put two and two together and realized this piece of furniture was from an apartment he kept briefly while he and my stepmom were on the outs for about a year. None of this bothered me one bit, but I got the distinct impression that my stepmom (an older, very conservative lady) would have NOT been cool with any of this... I let him go to his grave without ever telling him."
Revealing Correspondence
"When I was still married, my (then) wife had left her phone on to run to the bathroom while I was in bed, I looked at it for the time, and found it was left open to a secret Gmail account she was using for sending literally hundreds of nudes back and forth between many many dudes. For years. Up to that night while she was fully 6 months pregnant. Mostly original stuff too. I think that hurt more."
Unfaithful Girlfriend
"The night I learned my ex gf was cheating, she just got up from the couch to kill a bug and left her phone face up on the couch with Snapchat open. The chat had a picture of her boobs and some sexting replies from the guy. My heart dropped down to my butt. Man, cheaters suck"
Nature Love
"I was hiking in a forest with some friends, and as we continued on the trail, the mound of rocks on our right side opened up to more forest. Myself and one of my friends were leading the other two by a couple of yards, and we both briefly saw a couple having sex several hundred feet into the forest on that right side. My friend and I gave each other that 'did you see that sh*t too?' look. By the time my other friends caught up the couple had split and we couldn't see them anymore. It was like 2pm in broad daylight off of a main road, which was the weirdest part."
Grim Sightings
The following Redditors shared the things they saw not involving nudity.
Eternal Slumber
"Bout 5 years old woke up to the snow finally starting to melt. Notice a girl 'asleep' in the garden. Went a told my dad, he took one look and told me to go play in my room. Turns out girl had been 'asleep' in our front garden for about 2 weeks buried and frozen under the snow."
Fatal Accident
"Saw a man crash his motorcycle into the back of a parked car. He flipped over the car hitting his head on the pavement and dying on scene. Firefighters showed up and sprayed his brains and blood down the storm drain. Later found out it was a girls father who I went to middle school with. I was 12."
Watery Grave
"Human bones in the bottom of a cenote in the yucatan of Mexico. Dad told me to stfu and not swim in that area anymore."
I didn't necessarily see it with my own eyes but I heard two of my friends going at it behind the backs of their respective significant others.
They probably thought I was passed out. News flash: I wasn't.
I, unfortunately, was sharing a room with them and another friend. He and I woke up to sounds moaning in the bed next to us, and I'm pretty sure our friend wasn't giving her a massage.
In this day and age it can be difficult to flirt. Let's just talk truth. Everyone is trying to navigate a new normal where we try to let someone know... "Hey! I think you're cute!" Without getting the cops called. It can be done. There is a misconception running around that women don't like to be flirted with. That is untrue. Flirting and being a creepy disaster are two different things. Here... let's discuss...
Redditor u/hungary70 wanted to hear from the ladies out there about when they've some cute come ons by asking... Girls of Reddit, what was the best flirting technique someone did to you?
All my ladies will tell you... "Just be respectful!" How hard is that? Don't be handsy, and be able to read the room. And most of all? NO. Is no! It's literally that easy. Everybody likes to flirt. Flirting is fun. Let's see how...
The Tub
He brought me a huge tub of my favorite ice cream flavor after hearing that I was having a bad day.
Kombat
When I was 10 I received a love letter from a boy. It contained a flower inside, and at the bottom of the letter he wrote some cheat codes for Mortal Kombat for me. He knew I was always playing that game on my Sega.
13 Years In
I'm British, and I came over to the States on a temporary work visa, to do "one" ski season with Vail Resorts. I was bartending at an on mountain restaurant, and a couple of snowboarders come in and start talking to me. It came up that I was only there for the season, then one of them says "I'll marry you so you can stay... but we have to go on a date first".
... we just celebrated our 13 year anniversary, and I'm still in Colorado.
Rotted Fruit
"Hey do you want to help me throw fruit at my friends?" - 16 year old boy at summer camp, holding a bunch of oranges, who wanted to meet me. I was also 16 at the time.
Years Later...
The third time we hung out I went to his house. We were both in grad school and were talking in his room but I was exhausted from school and my 2 jobs. I was sitting on his bed and fell asleep. When I woke up he had put a blanket on me and was playing beautifully on the piano. I was so embarrassed cause I had drooled all over his pillow and surprised that he was so kind about the drool and not creepy about me being passed out on his bed.
We've been married for almost 4 years now and been together 8.
Bonus fun fact, his brother didn't believe I existed and accused him of making it up till I met him a year later. I was his first real girlfriend at like 25.
Oh I am feeling butterflies. I thought love was dead. So far, I've been given hope. Love can be born with trust. Tell me more...
Thanks to the Migraine
I was in Chicago on business, got a horrible migraine, and had to cancel a meeting with a man I had met with (for work) the day before. I get really bad migraines, really, really bad. After it was over I had to get a bit of food and something to drink, but it was very late and there was no way I would survive any kind of car/cab ride.
He was the only person I knew in town, so I sent him a text to see if he knew of anything in my area that would be safe/open that late within walking distance. He drove 30 min across town in the middle of the night to walk me to a 24hr restaurant and buy me dinner. I've been with him for 11 years now.
the corny...
Was riding home with the friends group back in 2008. We stopped to drop off the one guy, and I got out to stretch. I mentioned that the stars were so much more visible up there in the mountains and he said, "Yeah, they're really pretty. Wish I had someone to watch em with."
I'm a sucker for corny guys. We got married the next year and are celebrating 12 years this June.
Happy Halloween
We met at a Halloween house party and when I was going to leave he walked me to the room with all the coats which also happened to be a kids room and he asked me "what color crayon would you like to write your phone number with?" I married him. Celebrated 20 years.
The First
My first boyfriend came into the store where I was working and just straight up told me he had seen me through the window and needed to run home to clean up/put on something nice so he could come back and ask me on a date. It was super endearing :)
Edit to add: he didn't WATCH me through the window lol, just saw me in passing and wanted to ask me out.
This was well before dating apps where you basically had to ask in person. He was within my age range, nice smile and just had a good energy.
Also his secondary flirting technique worked just as well, he brought me a book on our second date because I had mentioned in passing that I loved to read :) he was good at making me feel heard.
Silence
Not me but my mum. My mum and dad were set up by a friend of theirs.
My mum is completely deaf, upon being told this before he met her my dad went out and learnt as much sign language as he could before he met her.... my mum doesn't know sign language... adorable and hilarious.
Women are so much better at this. And there is a lot to learn in this thread. I hope y'all gents took some notes. Willing gestures speak far more volumes than money, attitude or status. If you like then put a ring on it!
Want to "know" more? Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Image by Robin Higgins from Pixabay |
There are just too many things we witness throughout life. And there are just some things no human should have to witness. I've lost track on the amount of things I wish I could unsee. Don't you walk away thinking... "Why God? Was that really necessary?" That one moment will almost certainly be one one the moments that you never escape. It's seared into the memory. There when our eyes are open and closed. Awake, asleep, it lingers.
Redditor u/Rainbow-Pickel-Squid wanted to hear some stories to get us SHOOK by asking... [NSFW] What's the most f*cked up thing you've seen?CAUTION!! Going forward, there is some material here not suitable for young eyes. NC-17!!
I'm easy to faint. My knees go weak at the drop of blood, mine or other's. So when I have to witness horrific life moments I try my best to flinch or look away. I just don't have the stomach for it all and my dreams are already rough enough. Let's see what everyone has had to flinch for...
Dad
The bruising and swelling of my dad's eyes after being shot in the head during a robbery. He did not make it.
I'm so sorry to hear about that, truly. I hope you're doing alright.
Trauma
We were at the lake with some friends. We were waiting at the dock for some more people to show up and we're just chilling in our boat. Well another boat came flying in and rammed the boat ramp. I noticed the people inside that boat were trying to lift a person off the floor.
I realized the people were covered in blood so I ran over to help. I jumped in the boat, and there was just pools of blood everywhere. And a dude that had gone face first into then boat propeller. I was 16 and will never forget the sound he was making, like trying to breath. His face was stripped like cut up almost perfectly. His jaw and one of his eyes dangling.
I helped them get him off the boat and onto a towel. Covered in blood, waited for an ambulance to arrive. He ended up dying about 20 min later. Legit didn't sleep for like 2 days. The worst part was there were two little girls in the boat, like maybe 6-8 years old. I can't imagine what trauma it did to them.
In the Fires
I was a firefighter for years and saw a lot, but one thing that still sticks with me is trying to perform CPR on someone who had been shot five + times. With the amount of bright red blood squirting out with every compression, we knew he was going to die but had to try something.
Bodies squished beyond recognition in car wrecks was always tough too, especially since it was often a hit and run or drunk driver in the bad wrecks.
Also, CPR on an infant is something that I never want to be involved in or see again in my life.
No one had noticed him...
Day at the lake...
Alice Lake, north of Vancouver toward Whistler, is a popular place to spend a summer day. There's a beach for those who don't mind chilly water, picnic ground, and a wooden pier. Our whole family was out there for a picnic, as were many others, enjoying Saturday in the woodland park.
Suddenly a man is striding through the the various knots of people: "We're looking for a two-year old boy who's gone missing..." The chatter and laughter stops in seconds; some people head for the forest to see if he's toddled up a trail, others to the parking lot or out in their canoe or boat to scour the shore. Nobody finds him.
Attention turns to the dock, usually crowded but now empty. RCMP members have arrived, and a man who has his diving gear in his car volunteers to search offshore; the distraught parents agree. He is in for less than a minute before his head appears. The cops speak with him. Shortly after, the boy's body is lifted from the swim ladder, covered in a sheet, and carried to a waiting ambulance.
The whole beach goes back to their day, but much subdued, many people visibly upset. Word comes that the boy had wandered through the busy pier and tried to climb down the ladder. He fell backwards, his legs hooking on the lowest rung as he went upside down and drowned.
No one had noticed him.
In the Box
The corpse of a woman who was in a metal box for 50 years.
I work at a cemetery and was helping with an exhumation. This person was in a metal casket. I was fairly new at that point and I had only seen bones so far so I wasn't expecting much different. I suppose the smell and the fact that the senior guys were wearing rain gear on a cloudless day should have clued me in on this being different. We had dug down to the casket, but here was difficulty with getting the casket out of the ground.
It was decided that we would get the doors off, remove the body, then remove the rest of the casket. For whatever reason I was the one told to get in the hole and open the doors to the casket once they were exposed. After ripping on the door to force it open I was met with a few seconds of pure, abject horror as I gazed upon the desiccated, lipless, eyeless face of a woman who was buried 50 years earlier, now 4 feet away from mine.
She still had teeth and hair, her eyes and nose had collapsed, and the rest of her exposed skin was some ghastly mix of yellow, green and blue. The bottom of the casket had a layer of yellow/green fluid that made me unable to swallow any of my saliva for the next hour without feeling the urge to throw up.
I was able to get somewhat over it and helped rig some spinal board thing with some ropes so we could slide it beneath her to lift her out of the hole (which was only 3.5 feet deep or so).
We had to prop up her upper body with a pitchfork to be able to slide the board beneath her, it was surprising how stiff and heavy she was. We got her into a temporary cardboard casket and she was loaded into the van of the coroner/funeral home people. I think the family had bought a mausoleum and that's why she was being transferred. So far that's the only really intact body that I've come across at work, people are usually dirt or bones by the time they can be disinterred.
Ok. I'm already grabbing for my vodka. I mean... helping someone with no face, from a blade propeller? I don't even know where to start. And I really don't want to. I'm taking a deep breath and then I'll try to continue...
On the Inside
Infected coronary bypass wound which ate through the sternum and rib cage, the patient had a hole in her chest and the whole heart, part of the lungs were visible. Disgusting and interesting at the same time.
Do Not Operate
A safety instruction video from where my cousin used to work. it was about how NOT to operate heavy machines. It was a security footage. A guy came up to the machine, he tripped and fell right into it. It started spinning him around, after a few seconds it ripped his legs and arms off, the floor was covered with his organs.
Crash
Happened last week. We were at a bar sitting on the patio. Hear a loud screech and then a thump. Someone drunk a-hole had hit a pedestrian going ~50 mph in this tiny, pedestrian friendly street. What makes it really messed up is that the victims legs came flying off. Like all the way off.
Didn't even land near the dude. Cops and ambulance were there real quick and we saw them loading the guy up quite clearly missing important body parts. I keep checking the news and there's been no word about his status.
Secrets Downloaded
I used to fix computers back in the 90s. Y'all have no idea how much messed up crap people download. Holy crap the amount of horrific violence I came across is absolutely insane, and a lot of times the stuff wasn't even hidden, they'd save to their desktop or something.
I called the cops every time I saw stuff that was actually illegal, of course, but you can't unsee that horror. It was horrible. It really messed me up.
On the Cam
That one dashcam video where a family are driving along and a pole or a plank of wood or something falls off a wagon in front of them, comes right through the windscreen impaling the mum, instantly killing her. You don't actually see anything though, it's the audio that gets you.
Edit: It was a brick.
I'm glad that's over. I can't continue on the Reddit thread and I wish you all well if you choose to. But I really hope we're all getting therapy. After reading all of that, it's proof all humans need it.
Want to "know" more? Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
We often find ourselves having to guess how to make things work and make things fit--in our lives, but also just in our possessions. Will these pants fit me? These shoes?
Will this screw fit my table? Will this charger fit my phone?
If everything was somehow standard, wouldn't it all be so much easier?
u/DigiQuip asked:
What's something that's not standardized but should be?
Here were some of those answers.
No More Vanity Sizes
Sizes for clothing.
Especially for shoes. How hard would it be to just list the sizes in centimeters (or inches if you're American)?
WHY DO WE USE STANDARD MEASUREMENTS FOR OUR CLOTHES, BUT THEY ARE DIFFERENT SIZES IN DIFFERENT BRANDS???
Calvin Klein's men's slacks: 32'' waist
Bar III men's slacks: 32'' waist
Perry Ellis slacks: 32'' waist
THEY ARE ALL DIFFERENT WAIST SIZES. WHYY?!?!?!?!
Ah Yes, Three Chilis
There's a standard for chili heat levels (the Scoville scale), but food manufacturers never use it. Instead, they use a varying number of chili icons which mean nothing at all.
It's always fun going to like a Thai restaurant in Canada and trying to figure out whether the chili icon means Thai spicy or Canadian spicy.
Ah Yes, This Could Kill Me
Household electrical voltages and sockets.
Interestingly enough, there was an attempt: since 1986, there is an international standard socket, IEC 60906-1. However, only South Africa has implemented it so far.
And it is unlikely it will ever be implemented in other countries, as the EU is even advising against it since 2017:
REFIT found that "the harmonisation of plug and socket outlet systems in Europe, by introducing changes in national wiring legislations (would have) important transitional periods (above 75 years)", and that the cost to "replace the old socket-outlets (and the corresponding plugs of the appliances being used)" was estimated at 100 billion Euro, "generating a huge environmental impact, producing some 700 000 tons of electrical waste".[3] REFIT does not recommend harmonising the plugs and socket-outlet systems in Europe.
Can we just get a little consistency here? Please?!
No Stacks
After working in a grocery store, can diameters should only come in a maybe 4 sizes. And they should all stack.
But they don't. They never do.
I feel your pain. I hate those narrow jars and cans that are slightly narrower than 3 wires of the shelf so they tip over if you don't place them perfectly.
A Computer Mouse, Not A Little Baby Mouse
Modern rechargable batteries.
We spent years with standard size batteries. We are now stuck with proprietary batteries which aren't designed to be user replaceable and often dictate the life of the device.
Yes absolutely. I found this fact especially annoying when looking for a mouse. Most of the more expensive mice come with rechargeable batteries, and it seems that modern tech reviewers are claiming this is better than some standard double A.
All Standard, Yet None Standard
I worked in a hardware store long enough to learn that apparently everything is standardized.
"I need window screens."
Okay, what are your dimensions?
"It's a standard size window."
─
"I'm looking for a replacement ceiling fan."
Okay, do you want small blades, large blades? A modest 30" span or a robust 56"?
"Just standard size."
─
"Do you think this large, bulky, cumbersome commodity will fit in my vehicle?"
I don't know. How big your truck?
"It's a standard one."
protip: it's a sedan. it's always a sedan.
Welp, Here's Your Problem
Based on years of helping my Dad in his shop, doing bodywork on vehicles - fastenings. Bolts, screws. rivets, clips... the sheer amount of specialized fastenings and required tools is insane. Even the variety of types in single vehicles is excessive.
Not to mention many of them are so cheaply made that there is no reusing them.
So Many Sign Languages
Not necessarily something that should be standardised because it would affect many cultures negatively, but I've always wondered what it would be like if every country just spoke one language. Sign language should probably be standardised, but re-learning sign language for people who use it may be difficult and time-consuming
Perhaps We Need To Rethink Policing
Police responses to missing persons across the nation, and the information requirements for police reports to be filled out with specific and complete information at the first point of contact by the person reporting the missing person, regardless of the age, status, or suspected reason for disappearing.
Police should NEVER be allowed to decide a case isn't valid at the first point of contact.
A Recipe For A Lint Fire
The laundry exhaust receptacle in homes should be centered exactly eighteen inches (45.7cm) from the floor with eighteen inches (or 45.7 cm) of clearance on both sides.
The exhaust duct of a clothes dryer should be in the middle of the back of the machine, and centered eighteen inches/45.7 cm from the floor. The dryer should have adjustable feet to allow for slight errors in measurement.
Once this is done, a laundry dryer can be pushed into the wall and we won't need to craft a length of ducting to connect the two.
Just a little bit of sameness and consistency could really go a long way here.