US proposal to abolish leap seconds - Not Found
Thanks to Steve Allen for his excellent efforts to enable public discussion of the proposals to abolish leap seconds, difficult though that task has been, given the official secrecy that has surrounded it. See e.g. this quote from a Wall Street Journal article in July Why the US wants to end link between time and sun http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05210/545823.stm For now, U.S. officials still regard their proposal as secret, despite Dr. Gambis's email and the public comments. The head of America's delegation to the ITU's timing committee, D. Wayne Hanson of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, declined to take calls on the matter. Through a spokeswoman, he said that the U.S. proposal is a private matter internal to the ITU and not for public discussion. For a while, the proposal was made public: On Wed, Sep 28, 2005 at 06:33:22AM -0700, Steve Allen wrote: The draft US document which is under consideration for submission is available for review and still open for comment http://www.fcc.gov/ib/sand/irb/weritacrnc/review/nc1985wp7a/01.doc The significant difference from last year seems to be that leap seconds would stop not in 2007 but rather five years after the ITU general assembly approves the change. This URL no longer works, but yields this un-encouraging message: Not Found The requested object does not exist on this server. The link you followed is either outdated, inaccurate, or the server has been instructed not to let you have it. [They could at least offer some entertainment under the circumstances :-) e.g. Marvin the Paranoid Android moans about requests for missing pages: http://bcn.boulder.co.us/~neal/humor/marvin-the-server-404.html ] If anyone knows of a new place to find the latest proposal, please post it. And does anyone know where to find an archive of the comments made in response to the proposal? In the meantime, I highly recommend Steve's excellent web page at http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/leapsecs/nc1985wp7a.html which summarizes the cogent arguments of who disagrees with the proposal. Neal McBurnett http://bcn.boulder.co.us/~neal/
Re: US proposal to abolish leap seconds - Not Found
On Tue 2005-11-08T10:52:21 -0700, Neal McBurnett hath writ: If anyone knows of a new place to find the latest proposal, please post it. And does anyone know where to find an archive of the comments made in response to the proposal? In the meantime, I highly recommend Steve's excellent web page at http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/leapsecs/nc1985wp7a.html which summarizes the cogent arguments of who disagrees with the proposal. When the FCC pulled it after its expiration date I put it up as the first link on that page. I remain surprised that the FCC does not have the 2005 draft contribution in its archives. It makes sense that the comments really do belong to the USWP7A members and the Department of State, but I can cite a reference which says the rules are that anyone can apply to become a member of USWP7A. -- Steve Allen [EMAIL PROTECTED]WGS-84 (GPS) UCO/Lick ObservatoryNatural Sciences II, Room 165Lat +36.99858 University of CaliforniaVoice: +1 831 459 3046 Lng -122.06014 Santa Cruz, CA 95064http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/ Hgt +250 m
leapsecs list still not getting to everyone
I can post to the leapsecs list, but like some other people, I haven't gotten any mail from it for over a month. FYI, here is an update from the admin at USNO: - Forwarded message from David Johns [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Sorry about the problems with the mailing list. It's very old software and hardware and I can't figure out the current problem. Demetrios is currently talking to Tom Van Baak about taking over the list. Hope things improve in the future. I agree entirely with USNO that LISTPROC is very old software. I wish I had a sense for how many people are no longer getting the list. I hope Demetrios and Tom come up with a good solution soon. I'd recommend Mailman, myself. I think it is important that the list archives are also ported. If necessary, I can also help finding a host for the list. Neal McBurnett http://bcn.boulder.co.us/~neal/
The Truth is Out There
In 2004 the USWP7A submitted a draft proposed revised version of ITU-R TF.460, the document which defines UTC. The document was submitted to the ITAC-R and reviewed according to Department of State guidelines. The archival version is still available from the FCC website: http://www.fcc.gov/ib/sand/irb/weritacrnc/archives/nc1893wp7a/1.doc This document proposed that as of 2007-12-21 the nature of UTC should change such that there would be no further leap seconds. Indications are that the year 2007 was chosen as a result of discussion at the 2004 CCTF meeting where representatives of the EU Galileo navigation satellites requested that any change in UTC be effected before their system would become operational. The document was presented at the WP7A meeting in November 2004. There were objections, most notably to the proposed date of transition when UTC would cease to have leap seconds. December of 2007 would be only about two months after the next set of general assemblies of the ITU-R. During 2005 the USWP7A initially proposed to submit effectively the same document. This document has gone through the Department of State review process. I have a web page with most details on that: http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/leapsecs/nc1985wp7a.html The significant difference in the 2005 version of the document is that the date of transition has been changed from 2007-21-21 to December 21 of the year five years after adoption of the change by the ITU-R. Five years is undeniably a bit more reasonable than less than two months, but it is still not clear that it is enough time to bring products to market, upgrade software, change legal documents, etc. (It is a bit strange that the 2005 document from the US has not been contributed to the ITU-R WP7A meeting. I can only surmise that the public review process in the US generated enough objections to cause the Department of State to withhold it. It is also strange that all traces of the 2005 draft seem to have vanished from the FCC web site. Last year's draft is still in the FCC web archives. This year's draft is only available on my web page.) The process by which ITU-R recommendations are approved is here: http://www.itu.int/ITU-R/publications/rec/approval/index.html The rules say that recommendations can be changed by correspondence if there are no objections, but that if there are objections then the change must be approved at a Radiocommunication Assembly. Media reports on the process have indicated that Lord Salisbury of the UK has directed that the UK DTI shall oppose a proposal which causes UTC to deviate from GMT. If that holds true during the ITU-R WP7A meeting in 2005 November then it seems likely the issue of UTC will have to be presented to a Radiocommunication Assembly. The next Radiocommunication Assembly will be held in 2007. http://www.itu.int/ITU-R/conferences/ra/ra-07/index.asp If a majority of the members approve the change to UTC at that time, then the effective date of the change to UTC would be 2012-12-21. The culturally astute will recognize that as a significant date. 2012-12-21 is one great cycle, or 13 bak'tuns (5128 years) after the long count of the Mayan calendar began. The priest/astronomers who set up the calendar some 1500 years ago saw no reason to be able to count further, so for many central American cultures that is the final day that can be represented. (My mom just returned from two weeks of exploring the Mayan territories and dining with its cultural remnants. Hi Mom!) The significance of this imminent end of a calendar has been included in the apocalyptic world views of more than a few non-Mayans. For example, the date 2012-12-21 was written into the lore of the long-running TV series The X Files. The series hinted that on that date the Mother Ship might return. (If actually pressed by the production of any X-Files movie sequel I suspect that Chris Carter would find some other significance to that date. Perhaps he would offer that as the date that Mulder and Sculley's kid hits puberty and develops some new alien power.) But in this whole paragraph I digress Some of the reporters who have talked with me have asked me whether I believe there is a conspiracy to abolish leap seconds. I reply that the proponents have been dining together at international conferences for decades, but that does not mean there is anything sinister. Still, for the date in the 2005 draft by the USWP7A I have to congratulate D. Wayne Hanson, Ron Beard, and anyone else who has been contributing to the US document. They could hardly have created a better gift for the conspiracy theorists. It's especially cool that it looks sortof like they tried to hide the actual date. During the years while this process of contemplating changes to UTC has been going on I sometimes remind folks that there will be other changes in astronomical standards and civil systems which will have side effects that trigger expenditures for new hardware and
Re: The Truth is Out There
In message: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Steve Allen [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: : After all, it's not like the world is going to come to an end. If the end of the world is what it takes to abolish leap seconds, I'm all for it :-) Warner
