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Allegedly during Colin Powell’ time at the State Department there was quite an ordeal to change paper sizes for communication between offices: https://www.govex

Allegedly during Colin Powell’ time at the State Department there was quite an ordeal to change paper sizes for communication between offices: https://www.govexec.com/magazine/2001/06/the-powell-leadership-doctrine/9193/ https://www.govexec.com/magazine/2001/06/the-powell-leadersh... “correspondence between headquarters and overseas embassies, known as Diplomatic Notes, for years had to be accompanied by a legal-size (8 1/2-inch by 14-inch) cover sheet. That wasn't really a big deal when the notes were drafted on typewriters. But Ted Strickler, head of State's Office of Foreign Missions, found that since the introduction of the desktop computer, his employees were spending a lot of extra time formatting the notes and fiddling with the paper in the printer. He checked to see whether he could use standard 8 1/2-inch by 11-inch paper for the Diplomatic Notes, instead. He was told to submit a formal action memorandum suggesting the change. Strickler submitted the suggestion to his superiors in January 1999. A year went by. He found out his action memorandum had been lost, so he resubmitted it. In early 2001-two years after he recommended the change in the first place-the department approved the use of standard paper. "If anything so innocuous as changing the size of the paper for Diplomatic Notes was so exceedingly difficult, how difficult would it be to make more important changes?" Strickler says.“

daniel-cussen 4y ago
[dead]
sdflhasjd 4y ago
And still not even A4
- Joker_vD 4y ago
  A/B/C paper series formats are based on metrics system and therefore, morally evil and unfit for the US consumption.
  - NeoTar 4y ago
    In case anyone is unaware, A0 is 1m^2 in size, and each adjacent number is half the size (i.e. A1 = 500 000 mm^2, A2 = 250 000 mm^2, A3 = 125 000 mm^2, A4 = 62 500 mm^2). This has the great advantage of allowing documents to be easily up and down-scaled on a photocopier - i.e. an A3 document can be printed at 50% scale on an A4 sheet. I wonder if anyone ever tried to do something similar with imperial units (AKA English units to the US Americans) - i.e. create sheets of papers with side-length of sqrt(2) : 1, and the largest being 1 square yard or similar.
    - RealStickman_ 4y ago
      You're correct, but also forgetting the best part. The ratio between width and length stays the same!! This specifically is what allows easy up-/downscaling for an A* size.
      - rozab 4y ago
        I guess the key thing actually is that the width of A(n) is the same as the height of A(n+1).
      - dahfizz 4y ago
        How often do you need to scale up or down a printed document? I don't see how that is useful.
        spiralx 4y ago
        Print shops nearly always print multiple copies/multiple pages of a job onto larger sheets and them cut and collate them afterwards, as the print step takes the longest time which includes moving sheets in and starting the print and then stopping the print and moving the result out. An A1 sheet can fit 4x A3 posters, 8x A4 pages or 16x A5 flyer/booklet pages without any wastage, so all you need is a single A1 printer.
        gfv 4y ago
        You may want to print multiple pages per sheet.
  - garbagecoder 4y ago
    * Imperial units are defined in terms of metric units. * The cost of changing over is astronomical * Domains where the metric system is actually better use the metric system * Domains where it does not don't need it. * You have a supercomputer on your wrist. Dividing by a number other than 10 is not such a challenge anymore. * A4 paper is in no way superior to letter. It's just a choice. Replacing American exceptionalism with European exceptionalism (usually because of someone's trip when they were in college) is not necessarily always an improvement.
    - smallerfish 4y ago
      > Replacing American exceptionalism with European exceptionalism (usually because of someone's trip when they were in college) is not necessarily always an improvement. ISO 216 isn't specifically European. It's used in most of the world. The same is true of the metric system. The world will indeed be incrementally better when people don't have to waste time converting measurements when operating between the US and elsewhere.
      - garbagecoder 4y ago
        You assert it will be incrementally better without offsetting for the externalities of the switch, which would take decades. Also the metric system is European in origin. Despite what chapter 0 of every science book implies god did not invent it.
        Joker_vD 4y ago
        Here's the thing about the switching and the costs of it: every other country, much poorer than the modern US of A, went through it just fine. And in any case, this cost is not going to go down the longer you wait, on the contrary—unless, of course, the US industrial prowess utterly collapses so that there is not much left to upgrade.
        garbagecoder 4y ago
        You're trying to say that because they did it and they're poorer it should be easier for us because we're richer. First of all, the cost will be in proportion to the activity of the economy and the population. Second, the proportion of people who were educated to use units of any kind was a smaller proportion of that smaller population. And in many former-non-metric countries many quantities are still often quoted in the old units. All of that and it is still the case that the primary system in the US is the metric system de jure if not de facto. De facto, the metric system is virtually universal in science domains in the US. Whether the metric system is "better" or not is not the question. There are keyboard layouts not actually designed to slow down typing, but it's just one of those things that most people don't see worth changing. Are they wrong? In that case, it's an individual valuation. I'm sure "the US economy is losing $500b because of QWERTY" would make great copy on a slow news day on reddit. But unless it costs <$500n to make the change, we aren't actually losing anything. Not everyone is a relentless optimizer. Even some of us who are also like to optimize for the entire system, including transaction costs/overhead/maintenance and not just some ab initio declaration of right like god in genesis. The US has a great solution that everyone hates because it's the US: we use metric where it's necessary and leave it alone everywhere else. We could use a lot more European know how in numerous other sectors. I would even go so far as to say it's probably correct to presume that things where the US is the outlier is a case where we are the ones doing it wrong. It's a presumption, meaning evidence can rebut it. In this case, here we can manage both. We can teach both in schools, we can use computers and calculators to divide by numbers other than 10 (which you have to do with mixed units and constants in metric calculations anyway). In fact, I wonder if there's proof that all of this extra teaching and double system overhead is worth what it costs! I bet the answer is that it is though and as long as you can experiment and find out in your domain, it sounds great to me. Different systems for the win!
  - LarryMullins 4y ago
    > metric [...] morally evil I've never heard an American complain that Coca Cola is sold by the liter. There's no moral component to Americans not wanting to switch to metric. It's simply a matter of the switch and retooling being more hassle than continuing to use American customary units. Frankly, the difference seems to bother Europeans a lot more than it bothers Americans.
    - riffraff 4y ago
      > Frankly, the difference seems to bother Europeans a lot more than it bothers Americans. Probably because European consume a lot of content from the US which makes little sense to them
    - atonse 4y ago
      Same observation here. We (Americans) just don’t care. Not like we’re sitting here huffing and puffing about metric. Nobody. Cares. At the end of the day, the one you’re used to is the one that makes more sense. There is no system that is objectively better “in all situations.” Most people that strongly argue that one is better than the other are usually just saying “it’s better cuz I’m used to it”
      - anthk 4y ago
        Metric is easier. How does the humanity count? By using powers of 10. The usability it's right there. Just keep adding zeros.
        atonse 4y ago
        But you've just stated that metric is easier mathematically. And I agree with you 100%, for that use case. But C/F makes absolutely no difference in understanding the weather. Or cooking temperatures. Apart from measuring body temperature and possibly controlled lab environments, there is no situation in life where you need to break temperatures into 1/10 units or benchmark the weather on the boiling/freezing temperatures of water at sea level (I'm talking about the population at large, not meteorologists). Miles/KM make absolutely no difference in understanding the distance you need to drive somewhere. The fact that a KM is 1000m does nothing to help you understand that the neighboring city is 40 miles (or 64km, or 64,000m) away. Inches/MM make no difference when I'm doing woodworking. Although, again, no doubt doing the math is easier in mm than adding/removing fractions for inches. My point is that, one can agree with the simplicity and standardization of the metric system (and I love its consistency) and also argue that it makes no difference in daily life.
  - Wohlf 4y ago
    The US military is no stranger to the metric system, it's the standard.
    - dhosek 4y ago
      The metric standard was defined by law as the official measurement system of the us in the nineteenth century. But Americans are stubborn.
rhplus 4y ago
8.5”x11” is a standard size for the US and Canada, but not for the rest of the world. Which leads to the eternal problems for any NGOs or contractors working for the US government overseas who have to source Letter size for US gov partners and A4 for local partners!
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  Yep. Every time I have to renew my Australian passport I have to buy a ream of A4 paper. Every time I forget where last time's ream was stored. I suspect someday I'll find thousands of sheets somewhere lost in my basement.
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    Deep within your subconscious memories is a series of you unloading A4 from your printer, thinking about where to best store it, finding 20 reams already there, stacking this one on top, and then promptly forgetting the location.
    - vorpalhex 4y ago
      "I don't put things where I think they should go, I put them where I am likely to look for them" - Adam Savage
      - PcChip 4y ago
        I've been following this since I heard him say it a few years ago, and I try to impress this upon my family as well
      - ckwalsh 4y ago
        I really like this quote, but I can't find any reference to Adam Savage saying it. Closest I can find is his concept of "First Order Retrievability" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyCrHLYiGNo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyCrHLYiGNo
        4y ago
ensignavenger 4y ago
Powell began his term in January of 2001. It isn't clear how "early" in 2001 this change was made, but it seems to have been in process well before the Powell term as SoS and only completed shortly after he took office.
sremani 4y ago
No wonder State Department is called Foggy Bottom (I know the real reason) but it lives up to its name.
wrp 4y ago
US Government Letter Paper is 8x10.5 inches, though I think it's used only for internal documents. Probably too much inertia to try to change it to 8.5x11.
thaumasiotes 4y ago
> "If anything so innocuous as changing the size of the paper for Diplomatic Notes was so exceedingly difficult, how difficult would it be to make more important changes?" Strickler says. How difficult was it to change the size? Getting the official requirement changed was difficult; what would have happened if he hadn't bothered and had just started sending everything on normal paper?

daniel-cussen 4y ago

[dead]

sdflhasjd 4y ago

And still not even A4

Joker_vD 4y ago
A/B/C paper series formats are based on metrics system and therefore, morally evil and unfit for the US consumption.
- NeoTar 4y ago
  In case anyone is unaware, A0 is 1m^2 in size, and each adjacent number is half the size (i.e. A1 = 500 000 mm^2, A2 = 250 000 mm^2, A3 = 125 000 mm^2, A4 = 62 500 mm^2). This has the great advantage of allowing documents to be easily up and down-scaled on a photocopier - i.e. an A3 document can be printed at 50% scale on an A4 sheet. I wonder if anyone ever tried to do something similar with imperial units (AKA English units to the US Americans) - i.e. create sheets of papers with side-length of sqrt(2) : 1, and the largest being 1 square yard or similar.
  - RealStickman_ 4y ago
    You're correct, but also forgetting the best part. The ratio between width and length stays the same!! This specifically is what allows easy up-/downscaling for an A* size.
    - rozab 4y ago
      I guess the key thing actually is that the width of A(n) is the same as the height of A(n+1).
    - dahfizz 4y ago
      How often do you need to scale up or down a printed document? I don't see how that is useful.
      - spiralx 4y ago
        Print shops nearly always print multiple copies/multiple pages of a job onto larger sheets and them cut and collate them afterwards, as the print step takes the longest time which includes moving sheets in and starting the print and then stopping the print and moving the result out. An A1 sheet can fit 4x A3 posters, 8x A4 pages or 16x A5 flyer/booklet pages without any wastage, so all you need is a single A1 printer.
      - gfv 4y ago
        You may want to print multiple pages per sheet.
- garbagecoder 4y ago
  * Imperial units are defined in terms of metric units. * The cost of changing over is astronomical * Domains where the metric system is actually better use the metric system * Domains where it does not don't need it. * You have a supercomputer on your wrist. Dividing by a number other than 10 is not such a challenge anymore. * A4 paper is in no way superior to letter. It's just a choice. Replacing American exceptionalism with European exceptionalism (usually because of someone's trip when they were in college) is not necessarily always an improvement.
  - smallerfish 4y ago
    > Replacing American exceptionalism with European exceptionalism (usually because of someone's trip when they were in college) is not necessarily always an improvement. ISO 216 isn't specifically European. It's used in most of the world. The same is true of the metric system. The world will indeed be incrementally better when people don't have to waste time converting measurements when operating between the US and elsewhere.
    - garbagecoder 4y ago
      You assert it will be incrementally better without offsetting for the externalities of the switch, which would take decades. Also the metric system is European in origin. Despite what chapter 0 of every science book implies god did not invent it.
      - Joker_vD 4y ago
        Here's the thing about the switching and the costs of it: every other country, much poorer than the modern US of A, went through it just fine. And in any case, this cost is not going to go down the longer you wait, on the contrary—unless, of course, the US industrial prowess utterly collapses so that there is not much left to upgrade.
        garbagecoder 4y ago
        You're trying to say that because they did it and they're poorer it should be easier for us because we're richer. First of all, the cost will be in proportion to the activity of the economy and the population. Second, the proportion of people who were educated to use units of any kind was a smaller proportion of that smaller population. And in many former-non-metric countries many quantities are still often quoted in the old units. All of that and it is still the case that the primary system in the US is the metric system de jure if not de facto. De facto, the metric system is virtually universal in science domains in the US. Whether the metric system is "better" or not is not the question. There are keyboard layouts not actually designed to slow down typing, but it's just one of those things that most people don't see worth changing. Are they wrong? In that case, it's an individual valuation. I'm sure "the US economy is losing $500b because of QWERTY" would make great copy on a slow news day on reddit. But unless it costs <$500n to make the change, we aren't actually losing anything. Not everyone is a relentless optimizer. Even some of us who are also like to optimize for the entire system, including transaction costs/overhead/maintenance and not just some ab initio declaration of right like god in genesis. The US has a great solution that everyone hates because it's the US: we use metric where it's necessary and leave it alone everywhere else. We could use a lot more European know how in numerous other sectors. I would even go so far as to say it's probably correct to presume that things where the US is the outlier is a case where we are the ones doing it wrong. It's a presumption, meaning evidence can rebut it. In this case, here we can manage both. We can teach both in schools, we can use computers and calculators to divide by numbers other than 10 (which you have to do with mixed units and constants in metric calculations anyway). In fact, I wonder if there's proof that all of this extra teaching and double system overhead is worth what it costs! I bet the answer is that it is though and as long as you can experiment and find out in your domain, it sounds great to me. Different systems for the win!
- LarryMullins 4y ago
  > metric [...] morally evil I've never heard an American complain that Coca Cola is sold by the liter. There's no moral component to Americans not wanting to switch to metric. It's simply a matter of the switch and retooling being more hassle than continuing to use American customary units. Frankly, the difference seems to bother Europeans a lot more than it bothers Americans.
  - riffraff 4y ago
    > Frankly, the difference seems to bother Europeans a lot more than it bothers Americans. Probably because European consume a lot of content from the US which makes little sense to them
  - atonse 4y ago
    Same observation here. We (Americans) just don’t care. Not like we’re sitting here huffing and puffing about metric. Nobody. Cares. At the end of the day, the one you’re used to is the one that makes more sense. There is no system that is objectively better “in all situations.” Most people that strongly argue that one is better than the other are usually just saying “it’s better cuz I’m used to it”
    - anthk 4y ago
      Metric is easier. How does the humanity count? By using powers of 10. The usability it's right there. Just keep adding zeros.
      - atonse 4y ago
        But you've just stated that metric is easier mathematically. And I agree with you 100%, for that use case. But C/F makes absolutely no difference in understanding the weather. Or cooking temperatures. Apart from measuring body temperature and possibly controlled lab environments, there is no situation in life where you need to break temperatures into 1/10 units or benchmark the weather on the boiling/freezing temperatures of water at sea level (I'm talking about the population at large, not meteorologists). Miles/KM make absolutely no difference in understanding the distance you need to drive somewhere. The fact that a KM is 1000m does nothing to help you understand that the neighboring city is 40 miles (or 64km, or 64,000m) away. Inches/MM make no difference when I'm doing woodworking. Although, again, no doubt doing the math is easier in mm than adding/removing fractions for inches. My point is that, one can agree with the simplicity and standardization of the metric system (and I love its consistency) and also argue that it makes no difference in daily life.
- Wohlf 4y ago
  The US military is no stranger to the metric system, it's the standard.
  - dhosek 4y ago
    The metric standard was defined by law as the official measurement system of the us in the nineteenth century. But Americans are stubborn.

rhplus 4y ago

8.5”x11” is a standard size for the US and Canada, but not for the rest of the world. Which leads to the eternal problems for any NGOs or contractors working for the US government overseas who have to source Letter size for US gov partners and A4 for local partners!

ceejayoz 4y ago
Yep. Every time I have to renew my Australian passport I have to buy a ream of A4 paper. Every time I forget where last time's ream was stored. I suspect someday I'll find thousands of sheets somewhere lost in my basement.
- ethbr0 4y ago
  Deep within your subconscious memories is a series of you unloading A4 from your printer, thinking about where to best store it, finding 20 reams already there, stacking this one on top, and then promptly forgetting the location.
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    "I don't put things where I think they should go, I put them where I am likely to look for them" - Adam Savage
    - PcChip 4y ago
      I've been following this since I heard him say it a few years ago, and I try to impress this upon my family as well
    - ckwalsh 4y ago
      I really like this quote, but I can't find any reference to Adam Savage saying it. Closest I can find is his concept of "First Order Retrievability" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyCrHLYiGNo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyCrHLYiGNo
      - 4y ago

ensignavenger 4y ago

Powell began his term in January of 2001. It isn't clear how "early" in 2001 this change was made, but it seems to have been in process well before the Powell term as SoS and only completed shortly after he took office.

sremani 4y ago

No wonder State Department is called Foggy Bottom (I know the real reason) but it lives up to its name.

wrp 4y ago

US Government Letter Paper is 8x10.5 inches, though I think it's used only for internal documents. Probably too much inertia to try to change it to 8.5x11.

thaumasiotes 4y ago

> "If anything so innocuous as changing the size of the paper for Diplomatic Notes was so exceedingly difficult, how difficult would it be to make more important changes?" Strickler says. How difficult was it to change the size? Getting the official requirement changed was difficult; what would have happened if he hadn't bothered and had just started sending everything on normal paper?