In the past five years, the biggest seats have been selling better than the standard sizes, he added.

CNN: Obese children outgrowing kids' clothing and furniture

Because uniforms at the lower levels of the minors come in only a few standard sizes, both had to wear clothes that didn't fit.

WSJ: So, How's the Weather Up There?

Some smaller astronauts have had trouble fitting into those standard sizes, leading to charges that female astronauts don't have as many opportunities as men to do spacewalks.

NPR: NASA's Future Spacesuits Are Made for Walking

Most marketplace portions exceed standard serving sizes by at least a factor of 2 and sometimes 8-fold.

FORBES: Consumers Opt For Larger Food Portions To Increase Social Status

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines standard serving sizes for dietary guidance.

FORBES: Consumers Opt For Larger Food Portions To Increase Social Status

Booktype can format for a series of standard book sizes, then spit out several file types, including pdf, epub, mobi, odt and html files.

FORBES: Booktype: Book Collaboration Made Easy

No more size shortages, or settling for standard or idiosyncratic sizes.

ECONOMIST: American textiles

Though the standard version is available in 14- and 15-inch screen sizes, the touchscreen model (aka the 481PT, pictured above) will only be offered with a 14-inch (1, 366 x 768) panel.

ENGADGET: Acer Aspire V5 and M5 laptops will be available with touchscreens this month

But as more consumer technology is developed with challenging shapes and sizes, or "form factors", the need for batteries of non-standard shapes is rising.

BBC: 'Paint-on' batteries demonstrated