Centuries of Standardization

The last few centuries have witnessed changes that would boggle the minds of our ancestors.

Gone are the days of laboriously writing everything by hand; today, it’s possible to think and generate text without using our hands, and nearly all of us use voice-to-text regularly.

The top speed for a cutting-edge sailing vessel was a blistering 10 MPH, only catching the wind when fortune allowed. Now, Voyager I zips through space at 38,610 MPH, while we humans routinely travel at hundreds of miles per hour.

Human rights? An alien concept in ancient times, now a cornerstone of our society. And let's not forget the Internet, connecting the world in ways unimaginable in the distant past.

One surprising change that has helped to make all of this progress possible—an unsung hero of our last thousand years or so—is standardization.

Sounds sexy, right? Let that roll off your tongue: standardization.

Okay, maybe it sounds super boring, but I’m here to tell you how it’s not boring at all.

The tale of …