Re: independence day
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], M. Warner Losh writes : : That could sound like the drilling of a loophole :-) As has been pointed out in the past, the Secretary of Commerce has had the ability to define mean solar time to mean UTC (or something else, if they felt the urge)... I think this is just another attempt to keep their options open, like they have now... Yes, and no, mean solar time is something you measure whereas UTC is an international standard from a UN body which USA has ratified, so it makes sense to modify and interpret mean solar time, but not UTC. But yes, likely as not, this is not a black helicopter job, but rather sloppy or uninformed text-processing. Poul-Henning -- Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 [EMAIL PROTECTED] | TCP/IP since RFC 956 FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
Re: independence day
Rob Seaman scripsit: The point is, however, that nothing - absolutely nothing - would then protect legal timekeeping in the U.S. or elsewhere from the whims of future timekeepers at the ITU. I regret to state that this remark appears to me no more than scaremongering. The laws of the United States are not the laws of the Medes and the Persians[*], subject to no repeal. If the U.S. tied its legal time to the ITU, it could untie it in future if that seems like a good idea. In any case, changing the legal definition of U.S. time from GMT to UTC merely regularizes the de facto position, since GMT no longer has a specific international definition. What in practice would stop these individuals from leaping the clock forward or backward at will, or from changing the rate of UTC, or for that matter from making the clocks run backwards? The fact of being rendered irrelevant, not to say a laughingstock. What is to prevent the IERS from issuing bogus leap second announcements? [*] I am not referring here to the Islamic Republic of Iran. -- LEAR: Dost thou call me fool, boy? John Cowan FOOL: All thy other titles http://www.ccil.org/~cowan thou hast given away: [EMAIL PROTECTED] That thou wast born with.
Re: independence day
Rob Seaman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The point is, however, that nothing - absolutely nothing - would then protect legal timekeeping in the U.S. or elsewhere from the whims of future timekeepers at the ITU. Say we go with leap hours. UTC isn't therefore less malleable than currently - but rather more so in the only sense that matters for legal timekeeping. That is, a small entrenched committee would be able to vote arbitrary changes to international time precisely because the standard would no longer be tied to any physical phenomena. One might wonder why changes might be made. I'll only point out - why not? What in practice would stop these individuals from leaping the clock forward or backward at will, or from changing the rate of UTC, or for that matter from making the clocks run backwards? We already have a historical precedent for this kind of manipulation -- corrupt Roman calendar keeper priests who adjusted the calendar to extend or shorten the term of office of various elected officials. MS
Re: independence day
John Cowan wrote: I regret to state that this remark appears to me no more than scaremongering. Merely hyperbole intended to make a point about the art of crafting fundamental standards. Obviously I failed to make that point :-) Why precisely, however, do you regret your inference? If my arguments were to be deemed specious, surely that would strengthen opposing arguments (or at least remove competing options). If the U.S. tied its legal time to the ITU, it could untie it in future if that seems like a good idea. and later in reply to Markus Kuhn: Reader, suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself. --Mark Twain (1882) You can't have it both ways. Either a prudent decision making process is being followed, or it ain't. What would be prudent? How about taking the consensus at the Torino meeting at face value? A civil timescale without leap seconds should prudently be called something other than UTC. Heck - define it right now and let the market decide. If that consensus is deemed unacceptable, what might be a prudent response? How about holding another - well advertised - conference to discuss the issues some more? Hold it in Washington so members of Congress can attend - assuming they're capable enough to locate the venue :-) What else might be prudent? How about taking our time characterizing the problem fully before proposing solutions? The current standard is good for several hundred years. What precisely is the hurry? In any case, changing the legal definition of U.S. time from GMT to UTC merely regularizes the de facto position, since GMT no longer has a specific international definition. That was my point, if only my épée hadn't rattled ineffectually aside. GMT has a physical definition that trumps any international definition (although I'm a bit perplexed at why you assert the latter to have gone completely missing). Let me pose my argument again in the hopes of snagging my point d'arret in your knickers: 1) Notionally, the first leap hour would occur 600 years hence should the Absurd Leap Hour Proposal (ALHP) be rammed through by the mumbling minions with fingers in their ears. 2) Six centuries ago, the New World was Terra Incognito - the Sistine chapel was yet to be built, let alone painted - the Ptolemaic cosmos and the Julian calendar were unchallenged - the Medici were in full flower, although Machiavelli was but a potentiality inherent in his grandparents - the Canterbury tales were written, but their publisher was equally unborn - Shakespeare lay in the distant future, of course, but his Prince Henry was still hanging about with Falstaff in taverns, not the French at Agincourt - and the great Chinese eunuch admiral Zheng He had set sail with 27000 men on 300 ships, with the protectionist retreat of the later Ming dynasty still a century in the future. 3) During all the time since, flavors of solar time have provided the fundamental standard for timekeeping in Asia and in Europe and in the Americas - and across civilizations on all the continents, and on islands scattered across the world's seas and oceans, and on vessels traversing those oceans and later the skies above them. 4) Who knows what changes the next six centuries will bring? Rather than being an argument for the timekeepers having the freedom to follow whatever policy making whims seem expedient - this question is instead a demand for prudence beyond bureaucracy and deliberation beyond misconstrued self-interest. 5) A time standard rooted in solar time can be recovered at remote times and in diverse places. Patrick O'Brian's pugnacious ill- educated Napoleonic era characters perform this feat daily from the rolling quarterdeck of a Frigate with sightings taken to establish local noon. Their chronometers are synchronized to the observatory at Greenwich, not to some random clock in a basement in Paris (not coincidentally, that would have been under the control of their enemies). 6) A time standard rooted in an ensemble of clocks, on the other hand, is subject to the vagaries of happenstance and history (like, say, another Napoleon). What price to ensure 24/7/365/600 reliability? (I look forward to your riposte pointing out that the metric system emerged from the Reign of Terror :-) 7) The calendar, and its constituent subdivisions by the clock, is the mother of all international standards. It deserves the respect we show our own mothers, not the derision reserved for avoirdupois or cubits. What in practice would stop these individuals from leaping the clock forward or backward at will, or from changing the rate of UTC, or for that matter from making the clocks run backwards? The fact of being rendered irrelevant, not to say a laughingstock. What is to prevent the IERS from issuing bogus leap second announcements? Precisely the constraint that DUT1 0.9s. Precisely the fact that UTC is currently tied to an underlying physical
Re: independence day
Rob Seaman scripsit: Why precisely, however, do you regret your inference? If my arguments were to be deemed specious, surely that would strengthen opposing arguments (or at least remove competing options). Because I'm not dueling with you, but trying to communicate my point of view. I regret, therefore, that I could not find better words to do so. (The fact that I was not dueling with [King] Argaven, but attempting to communicate with him, was itself an incommunicable fact. --Genly Ai in Ursula K. Le Guin's _Left Hand of Darkness_) If the U.S. tied its legal time to the ITU, it could untie it in future if that seems like a good idea. and later in reply to Markus Kuhn: Reader, suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself. --Mark Twain (1882) You can't have it both ways. Either a prudent decision making process is being followed, or it ain't. These are not contradictory. A good process *could* be followed; my suspicion is that it won't be. Despite Torino, I currently trust ITU in such matters more than I trust the oligarchy in control of my own country. 6) A time standard rooted in an ensemble of clocks, on the other hand, is subject to the vagaries of happenstance and history (like, say, another Napoleon). What price to ensure 24/7/365/600 reliability? (I look forward to your riposte pointing out that the metric system emerged from the Reign of Terror :-) Only in the sense that a revolution is a good time to change standards of weights and measures (and money, as the U.S. did). What is to prevent the IERS from issuing bogus leap second announcements? Precisely the constraint that DUT1 0.9s. Precisely the fact that UTC is currently tied to an underlying physical phenomena common to all. A self-imposed constraint, I think. -- That you can cover for the plentifulJohn Cowan and often gaping errors, misconstruals, http://www.ccil.org/~cowan and disinformation in your posts[EMAIL PROTECTED] through sheer volume -- that is another misconception. --Mike to Peter
independence day
Mostly for the US residents, but in the first case for some beyond the national borders, I relay two links of interest. In response to a document created by its Division of Dynamical Astronomy the American Astronomical Society has formed a committee to make recommendation to the ITU-R. http://www.aas.org/policy/LeapSecondCommittee.html They solicit input before making their recommendation to the AAS council. Input is requested prior to 2006-09-15. In the middle of May some text about legal time in the US was introduced into a US Senate bill regarding funding for NSF and NIST. See section 508 of S.2802 introduced 2006-05-15, e.g. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:S.2802: (note that the final colon in the URL is relevant) This bill is currently awaiting amendments as seen in http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:s.02802: The language seeks to redefine the national time standard from GMT to UTC. Language like this was introduced in 2002, but the bill was killed. -- 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
Re: independence day
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Steve Allen writes: In the middle of May some text about legal time in the US was introduced into a US Senate bill regarding funding for NSF and NIST. See section 508 of S.2802 introduced 2006-05-15, e.g. http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:S.2802: `(b) COORDINATED UNIVERSAL TIME DEFINED- In this section, the term `Coordinated Universal Time' means the time scale maintained through the General Conference of Weights and Measures and interpreted or modified for the United States by the Secretary of Commerce.'. That could sound like the drilling of a loophole :-) -- Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 [EMAIL PROTECTED] | TCP/IP since RFC 956 FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
Re: independence day
In message: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Poul-Henning Kamp [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: : In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Steve Allen writes: : : In the middle of May some text about legal time in the US was : introduced into a US Senate bill regarding funding for NSF and NIST. : See section 508 of S.2802 introduced 2006-05-15, e.g. : http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:S.2802: : : `(b) COORDINATED UNIVERSAL TIME DEFINED- In this section, : the term `Coordinated Universal Time' means the time scale : maintained through the General Conference of Weights and : Measures and interpreted or modified for the United States : by the Secretary of Commerce.'. : : That could sound like the drilling of a loophole :-) As has been pointed out in the past, the Secretary of Commerce has had the ability to define mean solar time to mean UTC (or something else, if they felt the urge)... I think this is just another attempt to keep their options open, like they have now... Warner
