Forgive me for being a little vulgar today, but I just couldn't help myself. Today I was trying to buy a new adapter for my laptop and again came across the age-old problem of adapter pin shapes. Anyone who has been on a holiday abroad would agree with me how annoying it could be getting to your hotel room and finding out you didn't have the right pin plug or adapter for you electronic device- be it laptop, mobile phone or even a hair dryer.
Why does the UK have a 3-pin square pin plug, the EU a 2-pin round plug, the US a 2-pin flat plug, Australia a 3-pin flat but angled plug to name but a few? Why isn't there a universal pin plug specification (afterall the gadgets they operate are all the same)?
One argument that has been in place is that of economic boundaries protection. Having these different pin plug requirements ensures that you either buy the gadget you require in the economic area you are in a that time (instead of logging it halfway across the world) thereby keeping your money circulating and helping the local economy. But this also increases the problem of waste... and that is the point we forget! It is the same problem you encounter when you try to buy DVDs or softwares across the different regions or even across the different mobile phone manufacturers, who for some reason insist on having different charging pin points for their different phones. My drawer is full of defunct or duplicate charging cords ranging from Nokia to Sony Ericsson to HTC and Blackberry.
The other argument is National Identity and political pride. Countries (and manufacturers alike) just want to be different! That is why you have Right-Hand-Drive for cars in the UK and Left-Hand-Drive in France, all of the EU and the US. I'm sure that there had been more driving permutation options, other countries like China would have come up with driving options like Centre-Drive or Rear-End-Drive.
So this sets me thinking, what if God had made us all with different shapes of private parts- some square, some triangular, others round, would this have stopped the human race from interbreeding across the continents? Or would we have developed adapter gadgets to enable us cross the intercontinental sexual barrier just as we have done with electronic gadgets?
Yet no matter where in the world we happen to find our life partners, there has always been a near-perfect compatibility.
Isn't it time the electronic manufacturers learnt from God's universal design?
...Just a thought.
