Rob Seaman said: >> The problem here is Microsoft, whose software appears to believe >> that the current LCT here is "GMT Daylight Time". > > The case has been repeatedly made that since the world tolerates > large excursions in civil time such as caused by the varying local > Daylight Saving Time policies,
and by these policies changing, sometimes on short notice, yes. > that the world's institutions and > populace will be able to simply ignore leap hours on those rare > occasions when they are needed. What is offered up is evidence for > the exact opposite. False. > We're shown that Daylight Saving has been > mishandled in a trivially simple instance and that the GMT standard, > synonymous with UTC, is capable of misinterpretation (by minions of > the richest man on Earth) completely distinct from leap second > related issues. No, it appears that a few people think that "the GMT standard" is synonymous with UK local time. This is just as much a fallacy as the belief that Indiana currently observes US "Central Time". And, by the way, the "GMT standard" is *NOT* synonymous with UTC; it is (IIRC) UT1. > Nothing about the ITU proposal would mitigate the > situation being discussed. True. Nor would it mitigate the Indiana problem. Nor, incidentally, would it harm either. > It would be the constant daily persistence of a large DUT1 > that would make leap hours unpalatable Why? Apart from astronomers, of course, who actually cares what the value of DUT1 is? Consider the value DLCT (LCT-UTC). This varies between -1 and 3601 over the year, yet the only effect it has is that it varies whether or not I have to turn on the car headlights on the way to work. > And if > civilians are surprised by the requirements of civil time now, how > much more so they will be in a world in which the last leap hour > troubled their great-great-...-great-grandparents? Yet they cope with the complex proposals to move counties of Indiana between zones, or to move DST end-dates every decade or so. We coped with the introduction of British Standard Time and its abolition. I suggest that fiddling with the hourly shifts will continue every few years ad nauseam, so one more reason for doing so won't bother anyone. > Contrast > this with a well-formed consensus - several disagreeing factions are > locked in a room until they all agree on a common vision of how to > proceed. Call this the "Twelve Angry Men" effect. That one faction > or another may have to completely change their original position is a > strength, not a weakness. Ideally none of the factions even arrives > in the room with a specific position to bargain over, but rather > arrives only with general requirements and objectives. That works when it works. Not when there are irreconcilable differences in the "general requirements and objectives". > What is needed is civil time to continue to reflect solar time as it > has since literally the dawn of time. Within a couple of hours plus or minus. -- Clive D.W. Feather | Work: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 Internet Expert | Home: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | Fax: +44 870 051 9937 Demon Internet | WWW: http://www.davros.org | Mobile: +44 7973 377646 Thus plc | |