On Dec 31, 2008, at 4:55 PM, Rob Seaman wrote:
For those that dig back to the depths of the archives of this list
and prior discussions, I should mention that it was Levine who
kickstarted the interest of the astronomical software community in
this issue. JL contacted an astronomer in northern Arizona, who
contacted the National Observatory in southern Arizona. It
naturally wended its way to my desk. I believe this was the first
public message:
http://listmgr.cv.nrao.edu/pipermail/fitsbits/1999-December/000949.html
I've had a pleasant time rereading a few of the messages from that
thread. Rather amusing how many of the familiar tropes were laid out
within 2 days of the first post. It sounds like there was a
contemporaneous thread over in the NTP community. It could be
interesting to compare the two.
One thing to note in addition to the stunned perception at the hubris
of the notion was the willingness among the astronomers to debate the
proposal. Another thing to note is that from that day to this the ITU
proposal has not wavered one whit in response. One really has to
think that we could have more luck considering alternate possibilities.
Rob
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