[sdiy] HP 202C Low Frequency Oscillator

[Magnus Danielson]

From: Don Tillman <don at till.com>
Subject: Re: [sdiy] HP 202C Low Frequency Oscillator
Date: 02 Jul 2004 08:14:26 -0700
Message-ID: <m2r7rumofh.fsf at till.com>

>    > Date: Fri, 02 Jul 2004 12:14:37 +0200 (CEST)
>    > From: Magnus Danielson <cfmd at bredband.net>
>    > 
>    > Even US is going metric. More and more components is metric and
>    > IPC make their standards with metric unit. Time to learn about mm
>    > and the mili and nano- prefixes.
> 
> Hey Magnus,

Don,

> I'll claim that the US will never go metric for a very good reason --
> metric units just do not work in poetry or song lyrics.

This is old news. Really old. Some 20 years ago my father covered this issue
in an article. Nedless to say, metric units is here and they work, even if they
spoil the languague for poetry and song lyrics. The thing is that these are
two different types of languagues, the technical/scientifical with a high
requirement for accuracy and unambigousity where as the language used in poetry
mostly is a totally different type of language. They even addresses the
different parts of the brain.

> The rhythms of the syllables are generally useless, rhyming is
> severely limited, visualization and metaphor don't really work, and
> there are no traditional cultural references.
> 
> It's very difficult to find any good poetry or song lyrics with
> metric units.

It's only becuase people haven't tried it out. It is possible to write lyrics
and poetry if you only use your imagination. You have to work it differently
since this is not such a common path to walk, but it is possible.

Cheers,
Magnus