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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50 years on: Sri Lanka's story of metric conversion

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This year, Sri Lanka marks 50 years of using the metric system. There are still a few areas where imperial units are still common, such as acres for land registry, and there are some errors of signage (like those I spoke about when I visited Sri Lanka a few years ago. However Sri Lanka has converted to the metric system successfully. 

Asela Atukorala, a Sri Lankan blogger, and lover of the metric system has written a very informative and interesting post about Sri Lanka's metrication story. It discusses the use of metric measurements prior to the changeover (and whilst Sri Lanka was a British colony), the decisions which led to adoption of the metric system, and the actual adoption of the system, including changes to legislation and the conversion process. There are some very interesting insights into how the conversion was managed across all thee languages (English, Tamil and Sinhala), as well as how guidance was issued to the general public, including Sri Lanka's famous tea industry.

I'll say no more Read Asela's post it here. It raises the question of how and why the UK only got a third of the way there.





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