Re: building consensus
M. Warner Losh scripsit: : The designers of Posix time thought it was more important to preserve : the property that dividing the difference between two time_t values : by 60, 3600, 86400 would give minutes, hours, days. That's the one property that Posix time_t does not have. The difference between time_t's that cross a leap second are off by one second, and therefore do not start with the right answer to do the division... I expressed myself badly. My point is that if you have a Posix time_t representing 11:22:33 UTC on a certain day, and you add 86400 to that time_t, you will get the Posix representation of 11:22:33 UTC on the following day, whether a leap second intervenes or not. This is a valuable property, many existing programs depended on it, and the authors of the Posix spec preserved it at the expense of having a distinct representation for each UTC second. You may call this position wrong (and I have done so), but it is unquestionably defensible. It would be better to say the number of SI seconds since 1972 rather than UTC seconds, I think. Indeed. -- They do not preach John Cowan that their God will rouse them[EMAIL PROTECTED] A little before the nuts work loose.http://www.ccil.org/~cowan They do not teach that His Pity allows them --Rudyard Kipling, to drop their job when they damn-well choose. The Sons of Martha
Re: building consensus
In message: [EMAIL PROTECTED] John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: : M. Warner Losh scripsit: : : : The designers of Posix time thought it was more important to preserve : : the property that dividing the difference between two time_t values : : by 60, 3600, 86400 would give minutes, hours, days. : : That's the one property that Posix time_t does not have. The : difference between time_t's that cross a leap second are off by one : second, and therefore do not start with the right answer to do the : division... : : I expressed myself badly. My point is that if you have a Posix time_t : representing 11:22:33 UTC on a certain day, and you add 86400 to that : time_t, you will get the Posix representation of 11:22:33 UTC on the : following day, whether a leap second intervenes or not. This is a valuable : property, many existing programs depended on it, and the authors of the : Posix spec preserved it at the expense of having a distinct representation : for each UTC second. Yes. To find a second absolute time that represents the same wall time a minute/hour/day later is why posix time_t has this property. This is abstime + delta, which is a little different than the difference between two time_t. : You may call this position wrong (and I have done so), but it is : unquestionably defensible. Differences in time_t are adjusted by leapseconds. This makes naive math work for the ABSTIME+delta case, but breaks the difference case when you want an actual elapased time. It is an engineering tradeoff, but an inconvenient one for the problem domains that I tend to have to solve. Warner
Re: building consensus
On Jun 4, 2006, at 9:57 PM, M. Warner Losh wrote: leap days have a rule, while leap seconds are scheduled. A schedule and a rule are the same thing, just regarded from different historical perspectives. The leap day rule will most certainly have to accommodate scheduling changes over the millennia. On the other hand, I am sure we haven't exhaustively discussed possible refinements to the leap second scheduling algorithm. (And ain't that a rule?) If we have to spend all our time fending off this silly leap hour proposal, we'll never have the opportunity to focus on rules and algorithms (not to mention technology and infrastructure). Just don't do it is not a rule. The biggest difference between leap days and leap seconds is that days are quantized. Rob NOAO
Re: building consensus
From: Rob Seaman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [LEAPSECS] building consensus Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 08:35:39 -0700 On Jun 4, 2006, at 9:57 PM, M. Warner Losh wrote: leap days have a rule, while leap seconds are scheduled. A schedule and a rule are the same thing, just regarded from different historical perspectives. Leap days have an iron-clad rule that generates the schedule on which they happen. Leap seconds have a committee that generates the schedule on which they happen. A rule implies that it is long term, I guess. Maybe there's a better word for that implication. The leap day rule will most certainly have to accommodate scheduling changes over the millennia. True. On the other hand, I am sure we haven't exhaustively discussed possible refinements to the leap second scheduling algorithm. (And ain't that a rule?) If we have to spend all our time fending off this silly leap hour proposal, we'll never have the opportunity to focus on rules and algorithms (not to mention technology and infrastructure). We have discussed having some kind of rule for when leap seconds are inserted. So far, none of these 'rules' are that long term. follow this table for the next 10 years or for the next 10 years, we'll have one every 18 months are simplified versions of the proposals I've seen. These have a very limited time horizon. The biggest difference between leap days and leap seconds is that days are quantized. I'm afraid I don't understand this statement. Care to explain? Warner
Re: building consensus
Rob Seaman scripsit: A schedule and a rule are the same thing, just regarded from different historical perspectives. The leap day rule will most certainly have to accommodate scheduling changes over the millennia. Fair enough, but there is a huge difference in practical terms between a rule that will work for at least the next six centuries and a rule that will only work for the next six months (i.e. no leap second before 2006-12-31T23:59:59Z). On the other hand, I am sure we haven't exhaustively discussed possible refinements to the leap second scheduling algorithm. (And ain't that a rule?) I thought the whole point was that while we had a rather good prediction of changes in the tropical year (viz. none), and therefore only have to dink with the calendar when the current error of about 8.46 seconds/year accumulates to an uncomfortably large value, there is simply no knowing, in the current state of our geophysical knowledge, how the wobbly old boulder in the sky is going to wobble next. The biggest difference between leap days and leap seconds is that days are quantized. Can you expound on this remark? -- They tried to pierce your heart John Cowan with a Morgul-knife that remains in the http://www.ccil.org/~cowan wound. If they had succeeded, you would become a wraith under the domination of the Dark Lord. --Gandalf
Re: building consensus
Warner Losh wrote: A rule implies that it is long term, I guess. Maybe there's a better word for that implication. In the realm of calendars the terminology is arithmetic versus observational. That's one of the things I included at the start of this thread. I'd also like to throw in the word deterministic. The leap day rule will most certainly have to accommodate scheduling changes over the millennia. True. But any such change would constitute the adoption of a new calendar, not an observational aspect of the present one. The Gregorian calendar itself is strictly arithmetic and thus immutable. There is the alternate point of view that the calendar in actual civil use in a particular locality, changing between different arithmetic calendars at different times, constitutes an unpredictable observational calendar. Perhaps we need a concept of calendar zone analogous to time zone, with a calendar zone database to match. -zefram
Re: building consensus
Warner Losh wrote: A rule implies that it is long term, I guess. Maybe there's a better word for that implication. In the realm of calendars the terminology is arithmetic versus observational. That's one of the things I included at the start of this thread. I'd also like to throw in the word deterministic. I missed that terminology, and I like it a lot better than the terminology I've been using. Thank you! UTC is an observationally based time scale... I like how that sounds... There is the alternate point of view that the calendar in actual civil use in a particular locality, changing between different arithmetic calendars at different times, constitutes an unpredictable observational calendar. Perhaps we need a concept of calendar zone analogous to time zone, with a calendar zone database to match. The Theory file in the current time zone files has some very interesting information about this. There's a 'Calendrical Issues' section that talks about these issues. There's a reference to a book http://emr.cs.uiuc.edu/home/reingold/calendar-book/index.shtml which is good. The problem is that many authoritative sources on these matters often disagree what happened. I'm sure that someone has taken this as the basis for starting a more comprehensive database. Here's a few of my favorite entries: In 1700, Denmark made the transition from Julian to Gregorian. Sweden decided to *start* a transition in 1700 as well, but rather than have one of those unsightly calendar gaps :-), they simply decreed that the next leap year after 1696 would be in 1744 -- putting the whole country on a calendar different from both Julian and Gregorian for a period of 40 years. However, in 1704 something went wrong and the plan was not carried through; they did, after all, have a leap year that year. And one in 1708. In 1712 they gave it up and went back to Julian, putting 30 days in February that year!... Russia From Chris Carrier [EMAIL PROTECTED] (1996-12-02): On 1929-10-01 the Soviet Union instituted an ``Eternal Calendar'' with 30-day months plus 5 holidays, with a 5-day week. On 1931-12-01 it changed to a 6-day week; in 1934 it reverted to the Gregorian calendar while retaining the 6-day week; on 1940-06-27 it reverted to the 7-day week. With the 6-day week the usual days off were the 6th, 12th, 18th, 24th and 30th of the month. If your source is correct, how come documents between 1929 -- 1940 were still dated using the conventional, Gregorian calendar? I can post a scan of a document dated December 1, 1934, signed by Yenukidze, the secretary, on behalf of Kalinin, the President of the Executive Committee of the Supreme Soviet, if you like.
Re: building consensus
On Jun 5, 2006, at 8:45 AM, Warner Losh wrote:Leap days have an iron-clad rule that generates the schedule on whichthey happen. Leap seconds have a committee that generates theschedule on which they happen.Further discussion in this thread calls into question the characterization of "iron-clad rule" :-)One might ponder what standards body is responsible for the international calendar specification. Is it the Roman Catholic church? Or has the specification passed into the public domain? Are individual nations each responsible for their own calendars? If so, mustn't they then be responsible for trade and scientific purposes for providing tables of conversions between their national calendar and the international standard? Which then returns us to the question of who is responsible for that international standard...We have discussed having some kind of rule for when leap seconds are inserted.Yes, but note that the IERS could institute a wide variety of scheduling algorithms *on top of* the current monthly (or twice yearly) leap second constraint. If the state of the art allowed predicting UT1 for a decade in advance, a table of leap seconds could be provided a decade in advance. This option requires even less of a change than the Absurd Leap Hour Proposal (ALHP).On Jun 5, 2006, at 8:57 AM, John Cowan wrote:On the other hand, I am sure we haven't exhaustively discussedpossible refinements to the leap second "scheduling algorithm". (Andain't that a rule?)I thought the whole point was that while we had a rather good predictionof changes in the tropical year (viz. none), and therefore only have todink with the calendar when the current error of about 8.46 seconds/yearaccumulates to an uncomfortably large value, there is simply no knowing,in the current state of our geophysical knowledge, how the wobbly oldboulder in the sky is going to wobble next.The biggest difference between leap days and leap seconds is thatdays are quantized.Can you expound on this remark?A calendar counts days. A day - whether from noon to noon, midnight to midnight, sunrise to sunrise, or sunset to sunset - is an atomic "quanta" of time on earth. It also happens to be growing relative to the year. Ultimately calendrical and clock issues are the same. (The historical time horizons over which various effects matter for various purposes may be very different, of course.)The ALHP is an attempt to redefine the day.On Jun 5, 2006, at 9:27 AM, Zefram wrote:In the realm of calendars the terminology is "arithmetic" versus"observational". That's one of the things I included at the start ofthis thread. I'd also like to throw in the word "deterministic".The Gregorian calendar itself is strictly arithmetic and thus immutable.There is the alternate point of view that the calendar in actual civil usein a particular locality, changing between different arithmetic calendarsat different times, constitutes an unpredictable observational calendar.Perhaps we need a concept of "calendar zone" analogous to time zone,with a calendar zone database to match.So the calendar is either immutable - or it isn't :-)I have a hard time reconciling the notion of a "calendar zone" with the definition of "deterministic" as: "an inevitable consequence of antecedent sufficient causes"For the sake of argument, however, assume that the Gregorian calendar is immutable - leap day every four years, except for even centuries not divisible by 400. What will then happen when the Gregorian calendar is inevitably deemed to fail to serve? Well, we already have historical precedent. The Gregorian calendar succeeded the Julian, just as the Julian succeeded what came before. That Caesar was more successful than Pope Gregory at convincing the world to rapidly adopt the new standard is a result of some pretty interesting historical differences between the two eras. The fundamental fact, however, is that a new calendar was completely substituted for the old. One might also note that the staged and delayed politically sensitive adoption of the Gregorian calendar was possible precisely because the Julian calendar continued in force. In fact, it continues as a standard to the present day. The Julian calendar was deprecated, but not redefined.Compare this with the ALHP. I might disagree quite strongly with the idea of a leap hour - but I wouldn't have quite the visceral hate and utter contempt for the idea if the proposal were to also substitute a new name. Instead of eviscerating UTC (a coherently defined entity that the ITU simply inherited), call it "McCarthy Time", for instance. One would think that just as the Julian and Gregorian calendars pay homage to Julius Caesar and Pope Gregory, that the eponymous "MT" would be taken as homage to its creator..and if not, ask yourself, why not?In what ways is the ALHP unworthy of its authors?RobNOAO
Re: building consensus
Rob Seaman scripsit: So the calendar is either immutable - or it isn't :-) The Gregorian calendar is immutable. Whether it is in use at a certain place is not. Local time is on the Gregorian calendar today in the U.S., but might conceivably be on the Revised Julian or even the Islamic calendar a century hence. The Gregorian calendar succeeded the Julian, just as the Julian succeeded what came before. But not everywhere at the same time, nor entirely. There are still versions of Orthodox Christianity that use the Julian calendar, the decision being one for each autocephalous church within the Orthodox communion. To say nothing of Nova Scotia, which was first Gregorian, then Julian, then Gregorian again. Historians aren't exactly consistent on the question. In European history, dates are Julian or Gregorian depending on the location; dates in East Asian history seem to be proleptic Gregorian. (ObOddity: It seems that in Israel, which is on UTC+3, the legal day begins at 1800 local time the day before. This simplifies the accommodation of Israeli and traditional Jewish law.) -- After fixing the Y2K bug in an application: John Cowan WELCOME TO censored [EMAIL PROTECTED] DATE: MONDAK, JANUARK 1, 1900 http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Re: building consensus
On Jun 5, 2006, at 1:05 PM, John Cowan wrote: (ObOddity: It seems that in Israel, which is on UTC+3, the legal day begins at 1800 local time the day before. This simplifies the accommodation of Israeli and traditional Jewish law.) I wouldn't call this an oddity, but rather an interesting and elegant, one might even say charming, local custom. The logic of this accommodation between 6:-00 pm clock time and a mean sunset demonstrates another weakness in the ALHP, since clock time would drift secularly against mean solar time. Rob NOAO
Re: building consensus
Rob Seaman scripsit: I wouldn't call this an oddity, but rather an interesting and elegant, one might even say charming, local custom. The logic of this accommodation between 6:-00 pm clock time and a mean sunset demonstrates another weakness in the ALHP, since clock time would drift secularly against mean solar time. Only if Israel never changes its time zone. I found another spectacular illustration of how massive the difference between solar and legal time can be. Before 1845, the time in Manila, the Philippines, was the same as Acapulco, Mexico, a discrepancy of 9h16m from Manila solar time. This was a consequence of the Philippines having been colonized and administered from Spanish America. Nowadays the standard time of Acapulco is UTC-6; of Manila, UTC+8. Q: What happened in the Philippines on December 31, 1844? A: Nothing. It never existed. -- John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://ccil.org/~cowan If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on my shoulders. --Hal Abelson
Re: building consensus
On Jun 5, 2006, at 1:38 PM, John Cowan wrote: I found another spectacular illustration of how massive the difference between solar and legal time can be. Before 1845, the time in Manila, the Philippines, was the same as Acapulco, Mexico, a discrepancy of 9h16m from Manila solar time. This was a consequence of the Philippines having been colonized and administered from Spanish America. Nowadays the standard time of Acapulco is UTC-6; of Manila, UTC+8. Q: What happened in the Philippines on December 31, 1844? A: Nothing. It never existed. One might suggest that the accommodation between civil time and legal time is of more interest. What does it mean to say that some nation or locality uses the Gregorian - or any other - calendar, if some date legally does not exist as you suggest? The sun certainly came up on that day and rose the following day about 24 hours later. A variety of activities occurred on that day that fell into bins like weekday, weekend or holiday - or if this was some red letter day different from all others, then the authorities must have tacked up fliers or alerted town criers or otherwise informed the populace of the special nature of the day in question. When they did that, what did they call it? The day after December 30, 1844? Next Tuesday? (Which begs the question, of course.) Suspect rather that legal time only applied to certain specific interactions with colonial authorities. Would love more details. An observing session with a ground-based nighttime astronomical telescope typically begins on one calendar date and ends on the next. For some observatories in the western hemisphere, the session starts after 0h UT such that the entire session can be trivially labeled with a single date. The problem with this is that the UT date is one day after the date on the observing calendar. For observatories elsewhere, the data from a single coherent session are split between two dates whether local or UT time is used. The solution I have adopted for the dozen telescopes in my bailiwick is to establish a local noon pivot. All data are assigned to the calendar date at the start of the night. This 12h difference is, in effect, the maximum possible discrepancy between a legal date and a solar date. As always, the question is: what is your timekeeping application? In any event, the case you are basically making is that in throwing off the yoke of their colonial masters, the Philippines specifically chose that their legal time should match their civil time and that their civil time should agree with local solar time. Rob NOAO
Re: building consensus
Rob Seaman scripsit: One might suggest that the accommodation between civil time and legal time is of more interest. I'm not sure what you mean by civil time in this context. For some people, civil time is synonymous with standard time; for others, it means the time shown by accurate clocks in the locality. I try to avoid it, therefore. The sun certainly came up on that day and rose the following day about 24 hours later. Yes, but the day was labeled 1845-01-01 and the following day was labeled 1845-01-02. There was no day labeled 1845-12-31 in the Philippines. Consequently, the year 1844 had only 365 days there, and the last week of 1845 lacked a Wednesday. This was not a calendar transition, but a (drastic) time zone transition involving moving the International Date Line to the east. (The IDL at sea is a de jure line, but on land it is de facto and dependent on the local times chosen by the various nations.) When they did that, what did they call it? The day after December 30, 1844? Next Tuesday? (Which begs the question, of course.) They called it New Year's Day or January 1, 1845 (in Spanish). In any event, the case you are basically making is that in throwing off the yoke of their colonial masters, the Philippines specifically chose that their legal time should match their civil time and that their civil time should agree with local solar time. Not at all and by no means. Rather, it was Spanish America that had ceased to be part of Spain; the Philippines switched to Asian time because they were still a colony (and remained a Spanish colony until 1898 and an American one until 1946) and were no longer trading heavily with the Americas; most of their trade was with the Dutch East Indies and China, and it was commercially useful to share the same day. -- Is a chair finely made tragic or comic? Is the John Cowan portrait of Mona Lisa good if I desire to see [EMAIL PROTECTED] it? Is the bust of Sir Philip Crampton lyrical, http://ccil.org/~cowan epical or dramatic? If a man hacking in fury at a block of wood make there an image of a cow, is that image a work of art? If not, why not? --Stephen Dedalus
Re: building consensus
Rob Seaman wrote: One might ponder what standards body is responsible for the international calendar specification. Is it the Roman Catholic church? The RCC is authoritative for no calendar other than the RCC calendar. Originally this amounted to an endorsement of the Roman empire's then-current civil calendar, namely the Julian calendar, plus a formula for the date of Easter. The RCC then commissioned, and eventually endorsed, the replacement Gregorian calendar, along with a new Easter formula. Any future changes to the RCC calendar make no difference whatsoever to the use of the Gregorian calendar by any other administration. Or has the specification passed into the public domain? The algorithm is well-known and immutable. It is independent of any authority. One might equally refer to it as the ISO 8601 calendar rather than the Gregorian calendar. Are individual nations each responsible for their own calendars? Trivially yes, as a matter of law. It is precisely the same issue as time zones. mustn't they then be responsible for trade and scientific purposes for providing tables of conversions between their national calendar and the international standard? Which then returns us to the question of who is responsible for that international standard... Anyone promulgating a calendar is de facto responsible for providing the mapping between day labels and actual days. There's no de jure compulsion, but if they don't do this then it's no use as a calendar. Converting to other calendars is (conceptually) the composition of more than one of these mappings. The international standard, in this sense, is actual planetary rotations. Or you could view some form of Julian Date as the international standard. The Chronological Julian Day Number has some currency as a calendar intermediate format. This too doesn't need any responsible authority: the definition is well known. A calendar counts days. A day - whether from noon to noon, midnight to midnight, sunrise to sunrise, or sunset to sunset - is an atomic quanta of time on earth. I think this is no different from the situation with leap seconds. The precision time services, in TAI and UTC, provide a standardised 1 Hz cycle, dividing up proper time on the geoid into quanta of (as close as can be realised) 1 s. A leap second encompasses exactly one of these quanta. The difference between days of the Gregorian calendar and seconds of UTC is merely that the seconds are an artificial phenomenon. -zefram
Re: building consensus
On Jun 5, 2006, at 2:47 PM, John Cowan wrote: I'm not sure what you mean by civil time in this context. I meant whatever we've meant in this forum for the past five years. For some people, civil time is synonymous with standard time; for others, it means the time shown by accurate clocks in the locality. I presume you aren't asserting that standard time clocks can't be accurate, but rather distinguishing between standard (timezone) time and local mean solar time? On the other hand, all I've ever meant by the term civil time is that time that a well educated civilian sets her clock in order to agree with other civilians for civilian purposes. There was no day labeled 1845-12-31 in the Philippines. Consequently, the year 1844 had only 365 days there, and the last week of 1845 lacked a Wednesday. Interesting question: On similar historical occasions, for instance during the transition from old style to new style dates as the Julian calendar gave way to the Gregorian, has the sequence of days of the week remained unbroken? Or rather, have days of the week been skipped as well as days of the month? Surely the Gregorian calendar is not just a rule for adding a leap day every four years (except sometimes), but also includes the definitions of the twelve months, and an initialization of a specific day-of-the-week on whatever date. This was not a calendar transition, but a (drastic) time zone transition involving moving the International Date Line to the east. Not obvious that there is any difference - kind of a calendrical Mach's Principle. Rob NOAO
Re: building consensus
On Jun 5, 2006, at 4:05 PM, Rob Seaman wrote: On the other hand, all I've ever meant by the term civil time is that time that a well educated civilian sets her clock in order to agree with other civilians for civilian purposes. I should clarify this to mean the underlying internationalized standard delta'ed to local time. Time zones are a trivial refinement of a unifying theme. Rob NOAO
Re: building consensus
Rob Seaman scripsit: I presume you aren't asserting that standard time clocks can't be accurate, but rather distinguishing between standard (timezone) time and local mean solar time? No, I am reflecting the fact that some people define local civil time in such a way as to exclude daylight-saving shifts. On the other hand, all I've ever meant by the term civil time is that time that a well educated civilian sets her clock in order to agree with other civilians for civilian purposes. Good. That is what I mean also. Interesting question: On similar historical occasions, for instance during the transition from old style to new style dates as the Julian calendar gave way to the Gregorian, has the sequence of days of the week remained unbroken? Or rather, have days of the week been skipped as well as days of the month? Surely the Gregorian calendar is not just a rule for adding a leap day every four years (except sometimes), but also includes the definitions of the twelve months, and an initialization of a specific day-of-the-week on whatever date. During the British transition, at least, the days of the week continued their accustomed rotation. I believe this was true of every such transition as well. Even while part of Europe was Gregorian and part Julian, they all agreed on when Sunday was, most fortunately. This was not a calendar transition, but a (drastic) time zone transition involving moving the International Date Line to the east. Not obvious that there is any difference - kind of a calendrical Mach's Principle. It is precisely the fact that there was no Wednesday in the Philippines in that final week of 1845 that made it a time-zone rather than a calendrical transition. -- John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://ccil.org/~cowan If he has seen farther than others, it is because he is standing on a stack of dwarves. --Mike Champion, describing Tim Berners-Lee (adapted)
Re: building consensus
On Mon 2006/06/05 11:07:00 MST, Rob Seaman wrote in a message to: LEAPSECS@ROM.USNO.NAVY.MIL Julian, just as the Julian succeeded what came before. That Caesar was more successful than Pope Gregory at convincing the world to rapidly adopt the new standard is a result of some pretty interesting historical differences between the two eras. The fundamental fact, ... but Pope Gregory was trying to do something harder - effectively to make the Gregorian calendar retrospective (proleptic) so that Easter would fall at the right time of year, and this required a calendrical jump of 11 days. A simple transition from the Julian leap year rule to the Gregorian rule (i.e. without calendrical discontinuity) would probably have been more saleable, especially to people with no interest in Easter. Mark Calabretta ATNF
Re: building consensus
Mark Calabretta scripsit: You will find December 31, 1844 in both timescales. All your points are correct, but it doesn't change the fact that there was no 1845-12-31 in Manila, any more than there was a second labeled 2006-04-02T00:02:30 in New York. -- Evolutionary psychology is the theory John Cowan that men are nothing but horn-dogs, http://www.ccil.org/~cowan and that women only want them for their money. [EMAIL PROTECTED] --Susan McCarthy (adapted)
ISO 8601 and the Gregorian calendar
Rob Seaman wrote: Doubt I can lay my hands on the copy of ISO 8601 from my Y2K remediation days. Anybody want to comment on whether it actually attempts to convey the Gregorian algorithm within its pages? I purchased a copy of ISO 8601 and keep in on my laptop as a *.pdf file. Section 1, Scope, begins as follows: This International Standard is applicable whenever representation of dates in the Gregorian calendar, -- James Maynard Salem, Oregon, USA
Re: building consensus
On Mon 2006/06/05 22:04:40 -0400, John Cowan wrote in a message to: LEAPSECS@ROM.USNO.NAVY.MIL there was no 1845-12-31 in Manila, any more than there was a As magic tricks go I don't find this one very convincing - I can clearly see the rabbits behind your back. Mark Calabretta ATNF
