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Showing posts from October, 2014

The absurdity of the use of kph

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  First and foremost I apologise (yet again) for such a long gap in between blog posts. The return of freedom over the past year has kept me away from screens. They say it takes 66 days to develop a new habit. Running is a habit I developed over lockdown, but the return to the office (and I intend to never work from home again) and frequenting the pub has reduced frequency of this.  It is, however, not completely bleak for my physical well-being. Cramming a number of social events in after work has led to me doing a lot more walking around central London. I don’t have an Apple Watch, (other brands of smart watch exist), but my iPhone records my steps and a lot of really interesting data on my walking and running. As would be no surprise, I’ve configured everything in metric units. Thankfully, gone are the days where Apple would dictate to you , based on your location, the units of measurement you use. You have a chose whether to specify distances in miles or kilometres....
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Misuse of metric symbols: an international problem

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Having spent considerable amounts of time in different countries and having visited four continents in the past few months, I've noticed that what many (including myself) consider to be a uniquely British or anglophone problem is in fact prevalent in a number of other countries - some of which have been metric for their entire existence. I've posted images of signs in the UK using 'mtrs' for metres where 'm' should be used and I've discussed the nonsensicality of the use of kph instead of km/h in the British context, whilst lauding the metrication efforts of other anglophone countries in a similar metric limbo to the United Kingdom. Whilst I do stand by my argument that in the UK, we need to fully utilise our official system of measurements, and do so properly, I've come to realise that we're not the only country screwing this up. The most common violation of the BIPM's accepted symbols for metric units is the (mis)use of 'mtr' to re...
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