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The return of Trump means Britain must rethink its defence strategy – and role in the world
(theconversation.com)
this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2024
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I'd vote for the EU in a heartbeat.
I'd be fine with the euro, actually going full metric.
Just to be clear. The UK is full metric as far as EU rules are concerned.
Heck, as far as the SI is concerned, so is the US. We both changed in the 70s. SI just required all other units to be defined based on metric. The UK and US do this. And the EU just requires all trade to be available as a metric option.
What you actually use to communicate in nation non-sales is your own business. Heck, we can even sell in your own units as long as we also offer conversions on request. (according to EU. I think the UK required display in metric at some point. )
We and the US are just too stubborn to use the better units.
And expensive. Imagine the cost of changing the entire road network over to use metric.
I'd love to see it but the money could go on far better things.
Here's a zero-cost plan to migrate the road network over to metric: have a transition period where signs may be shown in either unit, then require all replacement signs to be shown as metric. Since all signs must eventually be replaced, over a long enough period of time the whole network will become metric without any marginal cost increase.
The only downside is that for a time, people have to understand both units and how they relate to each other.
You'd also need a separate type of sign for kph, but one that still adhers to the current standard (white cirle with a red border and a black number). Or put a separate rectangular sign under it with "kph" to denote that the number in the circle is kph rather than mph.
The problem is that you can't just replace one, you'd need to replace them all on the road due to the repeater signs. It would be confusing to see some say 60 and others 30 on the same stretch of road as some repeater signs have been replaced but others haven't.
There'd also be the issue of cars understanding the signs with their sign recognition software, and drivers having to switch their digital spedo, as you usually only see one unit rather than both like on older anaologue speedos.