this post was submitted on 28 May 2024
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πŸ“„ rule (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by brbposting@sh.itjust.works to c/196@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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alt-textIt blows our hivemind that the United States doesn't use the ISO 216 paper size standard (A4, A5 and the gang).

Like, we consider ourselves worldly people and are aware of America's little idiosyncrasies like mass incarceration, the widespread availability of assault weapons and not being able to transfer money via your banking app, but come on - look how absolutely great it is to be European:

The American mind cannot comprehend this diagram

[Diagram of paper sizes as listed below]

ISO 216 A series papers formats

AO

A1

A3

A5

A7

A6

Et.

A4

Instead, Americans prostrate themselves to bizarrely-named paper types of seemingly random size: Letter, Legal, Tabloid (Ledger) and all other types of sordid nonsense. We're not even going to include a picture because this is a family-friendly finance blog.

Source: Financial Times

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[–] puchaczyk@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Aside from the 1 to √2 ratio, the area of A0 paper is exactly 1m². People behind ISO 216 thought of everyting.

[–] 100_kg_90_de_belin@feddit.it 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

From their website: "We're ISO, the International Organization for Standardization. We develop and publish International Standards."

[–] uis@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago

Sadly, ISO in recent decade started to do bullshit. They don't pay for standard development, they don't employ anyone for standard development, they collect membership fees from national standards organizations, require payment to download most standards and don't allow to copy published standards. Also they retroactively paywalled a lot of standards.

[–] bort@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

People behind ISO 216 thought of everyting

how to make a good standard:

step 1: copy from DIN

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_216#History

[–] elucubra@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Well, Germans are pretty anal about standards (thankfully) and they do them right, so why not copy them?

[–] bort@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 years ago

so why not copy them?

oh, I totally agree with you.

In fact standards are made to be copied. That's like the entire point of them.

[–] chumbalumber@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Wait, the US genuinely doesn't use A4 etc.?

[–] brbposting@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

We have trouble fitting all our freedom on your kooky, internationally-recognized sizes

Here’s a comparison using the most sensible units possible:

[–] kakes@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Ngl as a Canadian, I implicitly thought 8.5x11 was A4. Well that's dumb, we should switch.

[–] OkGo@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago

I’m British and you are not alone, worse still, I spent a year in the USA and never even noticed.

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

Also, I'm pretty sure A4 runs through an American printer just fine.

[–] MetaCubed@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Letter paper (8.5" x 11" | 215.9mm x 279.4mm) is kinda sorta pretty close to A4 (8.27" x 11.69" | 210mm x 297mm) so without having the two next to each other, it can seem like A4 is just a funny piece of letter, and vice versa. But to answer the actual question, USA and Canada (and apparently the phillipines???) use the "North American Standard" which is a terrifying mess in comparison to the beauty that is the ISO standard.

Edit: typos

[–] BluesF@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The annoying "letter" paper size is for some unknown reason what windows always sets as the paper size unless I change it to A4 manually. Naturally if I forget the printer won't print. US paper sizing - annoying me on the other side of the Atlantic.

[–] WaterWaiver@aussie.zone 1 points 2 years ago

File I'm printing: A4 PDF
Default printer setting in Windows: A4
Default setting on printer itself: A4
Setting that gets chosen automatically in the print dialog: Letter

[–] trolololol@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Wait a second if the bank app can't transfer money how do they do it? Just barter with guns? Are the bullets like coins?

[–] s_s@lemmy.one 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

We have a fee-free bank-to-bank transfer system that is based on pre-digital technology that takes 2-3 business days. We often call it "direct deposit" or automated clearing house (ACH). It's often used for payroll and paying bills.

Now, we could probably make this payment system instantaneous relatively effortlessly (and thus useful for regular in-store purchases), but the banks lobby against this so they can continue to charge us fees and interest to over-use credit cards. (Interestingly enough, credit and debit cards all use direct deposit on the backend to actual transfer funds between parties).

This is all fine and dandy for most people because they simply can't imagine doing things a more consumer-friendly way.

[–] SirQuackTheDuck@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago

We have a fee-free bank-to-bank transfer system that is based on pre-digital technology that takes 2-3 business days. We often call it "direct deposit" or automated clearing house (ACH).

Ah, right, kinda like SEPA Credit Transfer. You do need a persons IBAN which is a bit long, but their name is validated so you usually send it to the right person.

Now, we could probably make this payment system instantaneous relatively effortlessly

Ooh, cool, kinda like SEPA Instant Credit Transfer, which transfers money within ten seconds to bank accounts using the above mentioned number.

This is all fine and dandy for most people because they simply can't imagine doing things a more consumer-friendly way

And that's why, in the Netherlands, Tikkie took the country by storm. It is an app that allows you to use iDEAL (a web-based payment system, soon rolled out in Germany and Belgium as Vero) to send money to friends. Usually takes one pin and three taps to send it, and have it instantly appear on the account of the recipient.