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Showing posts with the label covid-19

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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Covid-19 has infected the roads, and exposed an inconsistency

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Anyone who has driven around any city or town in the UK over the past few months would have noticed huge changes on the roads. Some bus lanes are now operating at all times, cycle lanes have popped up, roads have been closed off, and speed limits have been reduced to 20 miles per hour in many areas. If you live in London, you wouldn't be able to miss extended operating hours of the congestion charging zone. As a driver, these things all irk me, and have been met by considerable objection from a significant proportion of people. The results are not that great either.  Additional traffic jams as a result of either side roads being closed off or lane closures to accommodate poorly thought though cycle lanes on major arterial and/or orbital roads; Drivers getting distracted because they're crawling along a long, non-residential road with few pedestrians or obstacles at 20 miles per hour (32 km/h); Having to suffer the indignity of shelling out £15 in 'congestion charge' for...
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Social distancing - easy adoption of the metre

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 Anno Domini MMXX The year 2020 has been a year like no other. Thanks to the novel coronavirus and the associated illness Covid-19, the world has been turned upside down. Actions which, only a matter of months ago, would have been seen as ludicrous are now routine. The use of masks, the frequent and almost obsessive application of hand sanitiser, and the treatment of other people like disease-carrying rats would have been unthinkable in 2019.  A tool that governments have employed in response to the spread of the virus is social distancing. Simply put, it is the act of maintaining a safe distance between people to reduce the spread of the virus through aerosols and droplets.   The government's public health campaign of hands, face, space notes (as below), that you should stay 2 metres from people or 1 metre with extra precautions. I appreciate that there's no conversion to feet and inches, creating a simple, clear message.  The NHS website   also do...
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