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More crazy non-standard standards - power plugs

By Murray Bourne, 17 Oct 2006

I'm off to Bali this afternoon and I wanted to remind myself of the kind of power plugs they use.

Why do we have so many incompatible power plugs?

This site lists different plugs for different companies: International Power Plugs.

I see that the plug we use in Singapore is the same one that is used in the UK, UAE, Hong Kong, Iraq and Malaysia. Hmmm - the British Empire at work, wot?

British electrical plug

So why are we in this silly situation where countries insist on using their own weights and measures (even though they are officially "metric" countries), not driving on the same side of the road and not being able to share TV or mobile phone specifications?

I have to agree it makes money for lots of people, but surely it would be better to make more money because of the efficiencies gained from having common standards?

See the 1 Comment below.

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Posted in Mathematics category - 17 Oct 2006 [Permalink]

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One Comment on “More crazy non-standard standards - power plugs”

  1. Michael says:
    14 Jan 2008 at 11:27 am [Comment permalink]

    I think we're still just grappling with the implications of a truly global community (and economy). It will take quite some time for things like power points to become standardised across the globe.

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