Magnus Danielson <[email protected]> wrote: > > The present specification outlines a low cost method for obtaining a > > "low cost method" is a potential goal, skip statement here.
IOW, you are suggesting that the line in question read "The present specification outlines a method for obtaining a synthetic timescale that ..."? Having a low implementation cost is part of the raison-d'etre for the UTR timescale and its specification, otherwise one could go straight for the even more rebellious solution of ignoring all broadcast time entirely and going back to the circa-1900 style of timekeeping. However, I suppose that the words "low cost" do not need to appear in that particular place in that sentence, especially since the title line of the spec reads "Specification for a low cost synthetic timescale approximating true Earth time". > GMT is no longer used, "GMT is no longer used" is a false predicate. Although it may no longer be used by the snobs in ITU/IAU/etc agencies, it is still very much used by the rest of the world. There exist plenty of legislation and standards which call for GMT or generic mean solar time rather than UTC, and I furthermore encourage this practice in Clause 5 of my specification, because I consider it to be the right thing to do: natural timescales are more reliable, enduring and corruption-proof than anything man-made. > but you may use it as a popular name reference > for what is now known as UT1 or UT2 time-scales. But UT1 and UT2 are too specific and may be viewed as *possible realisation options* for an even more abstract platonic ideal of GMT or generic MST. My goal here is the specify the abstract platonic ideal which my timescale seeks to approximate. > Skip "socially acceptable" The intent here was to distinguish between good-faith realisations / approximations of GMT (or MST in general) and bad-faith lip-service claims to be a suitable replacement for GMT/MST, such as the entire bait & switch scheme of the ITU. But I do see now that substituting the words "good-faith" for "socially acceptable" would be better. > This has nothing to do with real numbers, so skip that reference. > Infact, what you tries to say is that you want a monotonic counting > mechanism, which timescales such as UTC does not provide upon leap seconds. Well, not quite, there are two separate requirements in here: 1: having the timescale read as a real number 2: having that real number increase monotonously For example, the common POSIX/NTP implementations of pseudo-UTC satisfy 1 but not 2. OTOH, "true" UTC is monotonous, but is not a scalar. However, I agree that my middle bullet point in that list needs improvement. I'll work on it some more. > Shall I continue my review or have you got the criticism by now? Before we continue, let's set up the Mean Solar Time Users mailing list, one that is specifically intended to give a voice to all concerned citizens of the world who have a need or desire to use MST independent of whatever happens to UTC. The people whose criticism would be most valuable would be those who intend to actually *use* UTR or some other non-UTC realisation of MST to satisfy their personal requirements for MST, and I would like to seek the consensus of those users for any actual changes to the spec in response to that criticism. The MST Users mailing list should preferably be set up by someone other than me. (Also note the "independent of whatever happens to UTC" clarification above - to me that rules out the existing leapsecs mailing list, as their entire focus is about swaying the ITU UTC vote one way or the other.) MS _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
