If people from the US love the imperial system so much, why are their musicians using metronomes instead of footonomes?

m4@kbin.social to Showerthoughts@lemmy.world – 214 points –

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Counterpoint: If people from Europe love the metric system so much, why are their musicians using eighth notes instead of tenth notes?

You can but isn't as nice

I want you to try counting 10/4

While you are counting that switch over to 10 hour days. There is no reason there has to be 60 minutes in an hour or 60 seconds. 12/24/60 are just divisible well.

10 hours days are not standard. Music time signatures are different depending on the music and composer preference

My brother! I literally came to comment "If musicians love the metric system so much, why do they still use fractional notes?"

Obligatory Fuck Reagan for killing our conversion to metric. We were well on our way in the late 70's. We hadn't dropped Imperial but most things were dual labelled: Speed limit and distance signs, weather stats like temp and precipitation. A few gas stations were charging by the liter but that was more to mask the true cost during OPEC embargo. The only thing that stuck was 2 liter bottles of pop and drug dealers knowing the metric system. And having to by 2 sets of wrenches and sockets.

Ukraine elects a TV personality ... they get Zelensky.

We do it and get Regan and Trump ... what the heck man.

From what I've heard he wasn't such a great peacetime president either.

True, but in the same situation, Trump and Reagan would have surrendered even before the invasion.

I can't think of anything good Reagan did, but he was not in bed with Russia. His "border wall" was space lasers.

From what I have heard Zelensky wasn't too bad especially compared to the previous presidents.

JFC, walk through ANY grocery store in the US today and pick up an item and look at the label - it's dual labeled. Look at your speedometer in your vehicle, push a button and get metric. Very few people need to own both SAE and Metric tools anymore. I own 2 JD tractors and a JD skidsteer, a JD Gator ute and 2 Chrysler vehicles, all metric. The ONLY time I reach for the SAE set anymore is when I need to work on my 1941 "H" Farmall tractor or some other farm implement that was built before 2015.

And with all the digital displays on everything today, the metric system is a mere button push away. Push the damn button if you want metric OR US Customary - I do and then get the units I want for the task at hand. Ain't no one going to care about it. G20/G21, the machines don't care anymore, why should you.

The dual speed limit signs were a bad idea - they were confusing and hard to read. It was a bad design that caused issues for drivers. But, while it could be done a lot easier today, no one really cares about the miles vs kilometers. All anyone really cares about is "how long will it take to get there".

The metrication of the US is here and has been for a good while. It's become common enough you don't notice it anymore.

Because space is so much cooler in the imperial system

Because "metronome" means regular measure, not regular metre.

Is a beat a metric or Imperial unit?

Typically tempo is given in Beats-per-minute, while the SI unit would be Hz (Beats/second) but it's just a matter of dividing or multiplying by 60 to convert one to the other and minutes are anyway not more Imperial than they are Metric, so in short I have not answered you questions, you are very welcome.

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They learned from the poets about metrical feet!

If Europeans love metric so much, why do they measure their TVs in inches?

Okay wait now I'm actually wondering, aren't these things made in South Korean which uses metric, as well?

Asking the REAL questions! Probably playing the Freedom scale instead of chromatic as well, if you just walk up all the white notes it plays the national anthem.

No one actually cares about what measuring unit they use. They use whatever is in front of them.

Why are you euros so easily offended by measuring units? Seems like an odd thing to be upset about.

If the imperial system is in front of me I sure as hell am not using it.

Same with me and metric. Metric to me is only useful for abstract concepts and scientific calculations

No one cares

Apparently you do, enough to write a comment.

Of course. This is lemmy. I don’t need to care about which measuring unit you have a preference for in order to reply.

I just find it interesting that tons of people on the internet complain about measuring units on a regular basis and any time I see it it’s always a European.

Why are all you so sensitive? You have trouble with calculators or something?

It’s a fascinating subject to me because it’s so fucking bizarre. It’s purely a euro thing.

Personally I haven't seen people being sensitive, but I'm sure some are, because people are weird. But it's just a fact that the metric system is, as a system, superior. And it's annoying having to convert to or from a lousy system just because a couple of countries refuse to leave it behind.

Life is a complex beast. Nothings gonna change it. In the end the US is just a mixing pot of ideas and cultures. There’s always gonna be some shit you hate about it.

I think they're all just pissed that fahrenheit is so ridiculously superior

"oh yeah, salted ice based system is clearly superior"

statements dreamt up by the utterly deranged

Of course they are pissed. In nature, it is common to see random stuff mixing together to get a cold temperature. Of course you’d define this as 0. Then you define freezing water as 32 and define a random person’s temperature to a even more random 96. Piece of cake.

How are these morons even able to understand that water is freezing approximately at 0c and boiling at 100c. This never happened ever in nature. Why choose something so unimportant to life like water?